Most that have read these blogs for a while are aware that we "cut TO in half" to make TO and SO. However, at the time that was not really the case. I'd probably call it 65% to 35%. As such, there was some real concern that SO might be a little 'too' small to stack up with the other core rulebooks (and by that I mean the price not fitting its size and then fan's expectations for the book coming out of TO). I wasn't that worried...I can always fill a book.
But I never imagined that it would take several additional months to finish it off and once we were done that the book would actually end up being 24 pages longer than TO.
There's a host of reasons for that, of course. As I've mentioned many times, each of these books gets more difficult for two reason. 1. The further from the standard ground game we move, the less the rules have been hammered on through the various rules iterations over the years and the more pot holes you find. This means that as you fill those potholes, you're also dealing with rules that just don't have the strength of years and years of play testing and community commentary that the ground game, at its core, has. 2. To make all of this work and to provide the ultimate reference series of rulebooks for the community, they have to plug back in at all levels. And the higher and broader the topics, the more difficult it can be to make those plug in appropriately and to find all the locations that need to be plugged into.
Needless to say, all of that took more time and more page count. However, as I say in the thanks on the credits pages, beyond the fantastic material in SO for any ground pounder (I've been told by several people that they would've bought the Maintenance, Repair, Salvage and Customization section as its own book), I believe 'this' is the aerospace rules set we've all been looking forward to, regardless of whether you're looking to simply integrate aerospace aspects into your ground game, or want to run giant space battles.
I've tapped more and more people for their skills and knowledge as we get to each new book, and SO is no exception. If you like what you see as I roll out more details and once we get to the final book, make sure to look through the credits and spread around the thanks...incredibly amounts of endless back and forth and back forth occurred on this book, perhaps more than any book to date, and the authors and play testers deserve a hearty thanks as well.
Oh...right...was gonna keep this one short. Okay, here's the first seven pages of Strategic Operations...I'm sure it'll spark a host of speculations...which of course is the point, so enjoy! I'll type at you next week.
Randall