OBT Forum

Quote from: Centurion13 on September 12, 2012, 03:09:57 PM

Seems like you are getting pretty good at this.  Have you thought about sitting down and doing a TRO of your own?

Heck, maybe you can take the TRO:3063 and redo it, sort of an 'Improved 3063' the way you think it should have been.

Of course, getting new art will be kind of expensive, but no one expects these things in a *hurry*, especially after what I went through.

Cent13

I am no stranger to sarcasm. and there is no need to take critiques personally.

Actually, I'm *not* being sarcastic.  My sarcasm is not very subtle.  I'm working on that, but don't get many chances for practice, so I usually just play it straight.  Besides, it would be silly of a guy who just punched out a fan-product to get on other people's cases for wanting to modify it to make their own fan-products...

I can show you the templates we used and even provide a list of artists.  The prices are quite reasonable.   Or if you like, you can just re-do the individual stats on the current version - say, bump it a year or two ahead and call it '3065'.  If you have InDesign CS3, I can bundle the file we used and you can have at it.

Be sure to tweak the text to match the changes in the design itself.  You'll probably want a new cover.  Or, conversely, you can strip out the text and put your own in... although, with new art, the whole should prove to be quite a bit of work.  And expense, though if you are modest about your aims, you might get away with... hmm, do a redesign on 35 pieces, times about $40 per art piece and another $150 for a new cover.  Should come to about $1400, give or take. 

Of course, you will want to make sure the art is what you want when you sign off on it and pay for it.  Best to either learn about stuff like styling cues and read up on tank books, or find someone with a good eye for 'Mechs and Vees.  I must have gone through probably $300 in wasted money on art that was later determined to be substandard or else not needed (the TRO itself went through format changes that invalidated some of the art).

Beware of 'feature creep'.  It's a monster.  Nail what you want to accomplish down first, and don't stray or you will never be done with the project.  Take a look at my blog if you want to see what feature creep looks like. 

If you have fast fingers and know a few good editor/fellow writers, the writing on 35 pieces should take, lemee think, about two or three months.  If you don't have to contend with a learning curve, you should have no trouble putting the result into ID, though I caution you against directly inserting new text - ID has no spell checker!  I have a Dummies book you can borrow, if you think you might need it.

You'll probably want Record Sheets for this effort - but I cannot really help with that.  I DID produce new-style record sheets, but while the results were acceptable and the resolution useful, the file size was horrible.   Plus, it was really hard to make changes in the record sheets when I discovered issues with the designs (such as: the art had hands, the RS showed it did not).

I had to correct the RS in MML, print it out as a PDF, turn it into an image file (PNG worked best) so I could remove the CGL logos and alter the copyright and insert our own logo.  Then I had to turn it back into a PDF at high resolution and drop it into InDesign.

This made for a very large final file.  550Mb, to be exact.  The Record Sheet file we have now has 15% more records than the old version, carries about 40% more information - and at 14Mb, is about 2% of the original's size.  Don't ask, because I have no idea how Bad Syntax did that. 

Expect bugs!  We are still stamping them out!  We just fixed the "BattleMechs have no minimum range for their weapons" bug, although I personally would not mind an LRM with no minimum range.

How about just working on a fifty-page 'update' to the TRO: 3063?  Include the designs you think should be changed and leave the rest be.  That would significantly reduce your workload - and be a lot easier on the budget.  Still be around $1500, but you can do like I did and spread the investment out over time.  A year should be sufficient - maybe even take donations, if your designs are popular and the new art garners positive attention.

I have a 'Lessons Learned" file I am updating to include the current publishing debacle - including a web 'bot attack that sucked the life out of my OpenDrive account!  You can have a copy if you like.

Cent13

Alright guys, sorry to have to step in, but now that KM has me as a mod I should probably get you guys to cool off a little.

One of these threads has been locked already, no need to lock another one.

As TR 3063 seems to be a topic of some strong debate, both here and elsewhere, try to keep things civil and if you don't agree with another poster, just go and realax, then come back and post without the emotion.