Why are PPC's two columns wide?
This is one that goes all the way back to the inception of this system. Lasers were always meant to be thin but penetrating weapons, and autocannon were meant to be not quite so penetrating but gauging weapons, blowing chunks of armour away to give the target huge rents in their structure. This was all to be balanced as far as possible with what the actual weapons in BattleTech would achieve, although obviously some discrepancies were bound to slip into the game.
So then that left PPC's. The same damage as AC/10's, but supposed to be deeper weapons. The deepness was required so that head shots would always penetrate the armour there (as in the original game), and to make the weapon effective the template had to be greater than one column wide. Unfortunately, in playtesting it was found that a three column template was completely unbalancing and made any PPC armed vehicle a formidable foe - far more than it should be. The only alternative therefore, was to make the template two columns wide. Which then posed the problem of how to generate centre points for them!
Why do you repeat some of the rules from Maximum Tech (e.g. the Infantry rules)?
Well, actually I don't. My rules for everything here (such as the damage to infantry) were developed long before Maximum Tech came out and was available. The fact that a bit of it is very similar is purely coincidental. Where something isn't my idea, I think it's pretty obvious (such as the Maximum Tech supplement I've done), or else I have given credit where credit is due (such as using the physical combat modifiers in Renegade Tech) and if I've missed something, then I'm more than willing to correct that.
Where do the ammunition options come from?
The original inspiration for the ammunition options was from Renegade Legion - their gauss cannons had several rounds available to them, although whereas their cannon fired single shots, BattleTech autocannon fire multiple rounds, so I had to modify the basic layout a bit.
The next biggest source is the BattleTech game itself. Going back to the original versions and supplements, a lot of new stuff was developed but never sent into the basic rules, mainly missiles. A lot of new variants were developed in the scenarios (mainly Unbound) and the Technical Manual. Well, I kept them on. Modern versions of the game either have refined versions or new ammunitions options, and where possible all were kept.
The other major initial source (although most of these options have now been superseded) came from the very early fan supplement - Slaughter Tech, available from Sarna.net. An inspiration to all, these rules pushed back the boundaries of BattleTech, at least for a little while.
Where are all the record sheets for completed 'Mechs?
You tell me! No, seriously, one of the biggest gripes people have with this system is that there just aren't enough record sheets available, and I have to agree with them, there aren't. Trouble is, I have no idea what the most common 'Mechs are to compile a list of them, and also I don't have hideous amounts of time. It takes me about an hour to knock up a single 'Mech on the computer (going through PhotoShop, PageMaker and Distiller to get the finished product, which is why they are all in pdf formats) which isn't that long if I get in the mood, but recently we haven't been playing much Renegade Tech (or much of anything really) so I've had no pressing need to mass produce the sheets. Also my job takes up a lot of my time!
However, with the advent of the Excel Record Sheets, life has gotten a lot easier, although just not as pretty!
In addition, I am more than happy to post record sheets that others have done. If you've used the Excel sheets, or created your own electronic record sheets, then I would love to hear from you, and these can be posted to allow a greater range of 'Mechs to be available.
...So why not create a program to generate the 'Mech sheets, like Mech Builder (or whatever)?
Because I'm not a programmer, that's why! Unfortunately it's true, I'm not a programmer and would have no idea how to go about doing this. (Say, if anyone wants to offer though?). This would be a lovely idea, and certainly would take a lot of hassle out of the process, but I'm not the guy to do it. Even if I did, I'm a Macintosh guy, so I could create a version for that platform, and then would have to rely on someone else to port it over to the PC (if it's like that, see, I have no idea... can you port stuff like that even?).
Why use PDF files?
I use PDF files for a number of reasons. One is that they are a industry standard format for displaying information in the way the author intended it to be seen, complete with diagrams and the like. You use Acrobat Reader to read these files, and it's free and available for a wide range of formats, for Macintosh's, Windows, NT, Unix and the like. And it's free. I did mention that did I?
The other reason is because of what I use to generate the files here. I use a combination of Photoshop and PageMaker to create the record sheets and the rules, with PageMaker being the glue that binds everything together, including all the text on the diagrams. PM is also an end product, so unfortunately the only way to show people what I've done is to use it to create the PDF files. I can't go from PM to graphic for example and make everything GIF or JPEG format. Well, I can if I use another couple of programs, but the end result is not as accurate or as nice as I would like, so I only use it if I have to - thus for the rules section for example. I'm not expecting you to download those pictures and use them for your games, they are just there for examples. If I could find a real way to generate graphics with the text from the PM or PDF file, I would, but I'm not about to go back and import or redo everything into another program. Sorry!
Update: 25th August, 2004:
Record Sheets are coming! The decision has been made to use the Excel Record Sheets as the standard for this website. They're easier to create and hold all the relevant details (more actually, as they contain additional 'Mech stats and the weapon templates) and as such this is hopefully going to usher in a new golden era of record sheets from this site...
If you happen to create any of these record sheets for use in your games, then please, feel free to email them to me and I'll put them up on the site for all to share.
For those who don't own Microsoft Office, rest assured that Microsoft do have Free Excel Viewers available for download on their website, so you don't need to buy additional software to be able to view these sheets.
What templates do Inner Sphere ER Lasers use?
This isn't actually very clear, but you use the standard Inner Sphere laser damage template, just like Pulse lasers.
Where are fighters?
Fighters have undergone several revisions since their introduction in AeroTech all those years ago. And unfortunately, some of those revisions are quite major and mean that you can't combine the different systems without conversion. When I initially started fighters, I wanted to make Renegade Tech as compatable as possible with all previous fighter rules, which, obviously poses some problems. The short of it was that fighters didn't work properly. They had way too much armour and even with the modifers on the hit location table, were still incredibly tough.
So I'm now attempting to redevelop them solely for Aerotech 2 (revised). This, of couse, has it's own problems which is why they're taking a long time to develop, but they are on the way.
