BTM Relaunch Discussion

[MrPig]

So I got at least one person asking if the forum is working enough for them to return to playing their unit.

[Mcraven]

As long as their unit is active, they can return to their unit. If it isn't, they will need to PM me or Vampire, so we can look into what was going on that led to their unit being inactive. We can provide limited staff functions as needed, until the director makes a decision based on the website.

[MrPig]

As long as their unit is active, they can return to their unit. If it isn't, they will need to PM me or Vampire, so we can look into what was going on that led to their unit being inactive. We can provide limited staff functions as needed, until the director makes a decision based on the website.

Well that kind of brings me to a question for my own unit.

Last time I left, I was going through a lot of...Well, stuff, you understand, and I had to abandon a contract. Technically that contract hasn't been processed as fully failed. Would it be cool if I finished that contract, and we just...Pick up?

[Vampire]

Well that kind of brings me to a question for my own unit.

Last time I left, I was going through a lot of...Well, stuff, you understand, and I had to abandon a contract. Technically that contract hasn't been processed as fully failed. Would it be cool if I finished that contract, and we just...Pick up?

Frankly, I was sort of in the same situation where I picked up a contract after the Black Stars were put on ice. I actually finished the main contract and even did a sup-contract, but than the whole world went up in chaos and I'm left salivating at potentially 60-70 million worth of C-bill payment and nearly 200 tons of salvage rights...

Oh well. I've sort of transferred the bulk of those characters from that unit over to the current Talitha storyline, with the necessary changes.
Ever onwards!

[MrPig]

By the way I'm recreating the BTM 3098 map so we'll have a means of updating our map without struggling with the existing one, since, to my knowledge, we don't have the original files.

I was thinking of a new feature we might want to consider when we start getting things operational again: Commissioned pieces. They're not contracts; instead they're in-character bits of writing that go over important events which aren't necessarily part of a contract. Basically we set a word count expectation and an overview of what events occur during the piece, and whoever turns it in gets a bonus.

I figured it would help people get into the groove of things and invested in the setting, and we don't have to rely on storyline staff to do everything.

I still think converting to a Wiki format is the way to go, but honestly, it seems like we could do with someone with web design experience, which...Let's just say me and web design don't get along. I know the website rehaul was being worked on before everything came crashing down, but if we want new players to join instead of cringing and running away, it's an important change.

An alternative is to record everything in spreadsheets, and record everything on the forum. It'd be a lot easier to update, methinks, but not exactly user-friendly.

I dunno. I really like the hybrid of writing and game this site has, and I'm eager to see it work at least on some level again.

[MrPig]

Took me a while, and there are some worlds in the Sarna map that the original doesn't have, I only have so many internal boundaries done (mostly for the FWL), and we have worlds that seem to be our own invention. Nonetheless, I have recreated our 3098 map in Adobe Illustrator using the Sarna.net map.

[director]

* knocks on glass*


I think I blinked and a whole season disappeared. My mind has been in a blurr but I'm still alive and kicking. I can't promise to be the hands on kind of director I once was but I'm willing to take a more back of the bench advisory role and helping bring new staffers up to speed.


I will support whatever the community wants to do.

(Is anyone able to email the director@battletech-mercenaries.com email alias I haven't seen anything from BTM in a long time, I had been lulled to sleep thinking it had all died on my watch )

also other ways to get ahold of me


other ways to get ahold of me include:

@Veretax on twitter and Telegram
veretax@gmail.com via google hangouts
veretax on Steam

If someone can ping me live and help me understand what I can do to help turn the key to get make things rollable for you that would be a help. I'll go back through the back log here as I have time.

[director]

Also MUCOs and MUXOS if you submitted transcripts and have not been paid HIT THIS PM on forum so I can get that released.

This was never supposed to happen when Pandemoneum broke out.

[MrPig]

Also MUCOs and MUXOS if you submitted transcripts and have not been paid HIT THIS PM on forum so I can get that released.

This was never supposed to happen when Pandemoneum broke out.

I have an old contract (couple years old at this point) that I was thinking of picking back up. I was wondering if it was OK to finish the contract; that was when I was still recovering from a hospitalization and started a new job.

[MrPig]

I have finished remaking the 3098 map for now. I still need to make the legend and add internal borders, but I consider this ready to go.

This is the last map that the site had before Quentin disappeared. I think the current date is 3105, so we'll need to figure out what's changed. I'm inclined to make it easier on ourselves and say "nothing" and just pick up with this map.

We all have our preferences and our affiliations; I know the BTP is firmly Lyran, for example. Given that everything kind of left in the midst of the Fifth Succession War and the FWL took Terra and made a general pain in the ass of themselves for everyone, what's something you'd like to see each faction do?

I've been wearing my love of a Neo-Terran state on my sleeve basically since I rejoined, so that's definitely I'd like to see happen. I was thinking of a union between Liberty Holds and Tikonov called the Terran & Tikonov Allied Precincts (or TTAP). Together, instead of creating an idealistic nation of the best the Inner Sphere has to offer like the canonical Republic of the Sphere, they create a paranoid military state which despises everyone, and ends up offering lucrative business deals to keep each Successor State at arm's length, while manipulating small & recently destroyed Clans to act as another layer of defense. The intention is that they make sure the Successor States are too busy with each other, and by playing the Clan game, they can keep them at bay.

On the map, I added the Aurigan Coalition because they're canon now, and the more I learn about the Periphery, the more I love them. I figured "our" version of the AC is a buffer state propped up by the Taurian Concordat and the Federated Suns to keep the ConMag from getting too much of a foothold in the Periphery border. They're unstable and pretty much everyone within it is a bit salty about losing their independence because of a nation-state that's been dead for fifty years, so House Arano is looking to find a way to legitimize themselves.

There was talk of replacing Agatha Marik with Carlos Marik, but that would surely throw the FWL into a good old fashioned civil war, which is typical for them, of course, but they've firmly established themselves as badasses. It seems that between the Lyrans, ConMag, and the Marian Hegemony, there's plenty for the FWL to fight after losing Terra.

What do you think? I'm pretty good at coming up with storylines, I've got a list of ideas for each, but I've already gotten waaaaaay ahead of myself.