No matter how you look at it, Interstellar Operations is one intimidating book. And yet for a huge swath of the community it is one of the most anticipated of books.

Because of those two aspects, there’s a chance that IO might not be all that players want. Now obviously it’s going to be impossible to please every player. At the same time, however, my long work on Leviathans has shown me how a lot of close discussion of rules and direction of content with the community can significantly improve that content.

Another angle on IO is that we’re delving into one of the most un-charted areas, rules wise, for BattleTech. The least number of rules have been dedicated to the areas IO will be cover and there are some aspects I hope to tackle that’ve never felt the brush of a rule before. With that in mind I feel it’s all the more important to be as transparent as possible about the development of this book and to ask the fans for input as much as we can.

Now I’ve already done that. In the past I posted a request on the cbt.com forums for what people would like to see and that’s all been folded into a “can we make this work?” outline. I also blogged here about the fact that once Mike Miller reaches a certain level with his Force Creation/Running rules that he’ll also be asking for additional input.

Now I simply can’t remember if at that time I posted the current outline, but I’m doing that again here. Note that under the General Rules you’ll find a series of bullet-pointed sub-headers. These were used to organize the massive amount of community requests. Whether rules covering a specific header are found in this section (i.e. it’s better to fold them into another section), or not found in the book at all (just couldn’t be done within the confines we’re placing on the book) is still very much up in the air. But simply wanted to provide a look at the general directions we’re looking at based upon your feedback.

(Anything followed by an asterisk is a “fiction/sourcebook section”, as per the standard organization of all the other books.)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

OUTLINE


TOC/Credits

Book Introduction

Universe Introduction*

Creating A Force

Faction Ranks sourcebook*

Running A Force

Age of War fiction*

Alterante Eras

Colonization fiction*

Solar System Construction Rules

Ares Conventions sourcebook*

General Rules

  • Campaign Play
  • Economy/Infrastructure
  • Chains of Command
  • Logistics/Supplies
  • Electronic Warfare
  • Factions
  • Maintenance, Salvage, Repair, and Customization
  • Communications/Intelligence
  • Personalities/Nobility
  • Space Travel
  • Colonization
  • Random Encounters
  • Misc.
  • Supporting PDF-only Material

Interstellar Communications sourcebook*

Strategic BattleForce

Faction Nobility sourcebook*

Planetary Assault

Star League fiction*

Inner Sphere At War

Mutli-system campaign fiction*

Scaling Rules

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There ya go. As IO fully spins back up I expect to be posting blogs a lot more frequently about its development and asking for the community to give their input more on this rulebook than perhaps any BattleTech rulebook to date.

Thanks.

Randall

 

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