BigDuke66
07/15/08 10:22 AM
84.144.52.82
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After checking the NAIS Military Atlas and finding some small errors like displaced planet entries and also some wrong written names in the listing for Operation Rat and following those errors to other books like the unit table in the Davion Housebook, I was thinking about collecting & correcting those errors to make a user made errata and putting it under the book entries.
Also the official errata for some of the new books could be brought onto the book pages instead of being a download that is dug in deep in the download area.
Just in case I missed it, FASA didn't do any errata for those old books or?
Or is there already user errata for those books somewhere?
So is there interest in an "Errata Project"?
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Cray
07/17/08 09:35 PM
97.97.243.184
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There are fairly extensive errata lists on www.classicbattletech.com . I'm not sure they're available for older FASA products, but more recent products receive a lot of errata attention.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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BigDuke66
07/17/08 10:43 PM
84.144.107.189
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Well that's the point.
A lot errata is made for the new(more or less) books.
But the old FASA stuff didn't get anything as far as I know.
I'm currently making a unit list for House Davion 3025 with excel and the deployment table in the Davion housebook could really need some corrections.
One of those errors even sparked off a new merc unit that was keep in later books.
I bet I see the same mess when I go over to the other housebooks and hell knows what I will find in the text itself.
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Cray
07/18/08 09:23 AM
147.160.136.10
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The problems are generally being addressed in the newer handbooks (which have to sort through the errors in the old books), though those understandably don't have random unit generation list for earlier eras. Out of print books just won't get the same attention, though you can find some errata for late FASA and FanPro-era books on CBT.com:
http://www.classicbattletech.com/index.php?action=text&page=Errata
Incidentally, there is a massive faction list project that has been combed through and revised extensively. It will should give Davion 3025 era data free of the old flaws.
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~lacasse/factionlist/
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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BigDuke66
07/18/08 11:35 AM
84.144.62.39
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Yes I did see some small corrections, unfortunatly we only have 3 books until now and heaven knows when(if at all) we get the rest. And when the rest really comes in I'm wondering how good they will be now that Catalyst has taken command.
I think you misunderstood me. I don't mean the random unit generation list I mean the deployment tables in the housebooks that show the organization of the forces, the marches, PDZ, regiments, homeoworld, etc..
Alltogether I would like to see the major flaws of the old books corrected IN those books.
Taking another book as an errata for an old book seems a bit unpractical especially when you have more books in between that also have some errors and you really have to track on error down over many many books.
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Cray
07/19/08 11:05 AM
97.97.243.184
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Quote:
Yes I did see some small corrections, unfortunatly we only have 3 books until now and heaven knows when(if at all) we get the rest.
Which 3 books do you have?
Quote:
And when the rest really comes in I'm wondering how good they will be now that Catalyst has taken command.
Catalyst is a legal change only. None of the writers have changed from FanPro. And for that matter, some of the late FASA-era writers remain.
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I think you misunderstood me. I don't mean the random unit generation list I mean the deployment tables in the housebooks that show the organization of the forces, the marches, PDZ, regiments, homeoworld, etc..
Ah, okay.
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Alltogether I would like to see the major flaws of the old books corrected IN those books.
That sounds like a reasonable proposal. Have you shared this idea on other BT websites?
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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BigDuke66
07/19/08 12:24 PM
84.144.78.217
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Quote:
Which 3 books do you have?
Well the Handbooks are House Steiner, House, Marik & House Davion.
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Catalyst is a legal change only. None of the writers have changed from FanPro. And for that matter, some of the late FASA-era writers remain.
Cool I didn't know the details at all, I tought a lot had changed, good to know they kept the crew.
BTW do you know some details on how they made those old Housebooks? I was wondering how they made the map at that time, big sheet, pencil and a rubber?
Quote:
That sounds like a reasonable proposal. Have you shared this idea on other BT websites?
Well no, I'm only on catalyst forum and then on the 3 community forums from my BT club. The first seems to be more interested in new stuff and the later is too small to pull something like that off, traffic on those 3 is so low that they will be merged in the near future.
I was thinking about setting something up myself but I'm a total knownothing in the way of making a webpage, so the Wiki seems to be the best place to pull it off.
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Cray
07/20/08 01:31 AM
97.97.243.184
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Quote:
Well the Handbooks are House Steiner, House, Marik & House Davion.
A full color version of the House Davion SB, plus text versions of Davion, Liao, Kurita, Marik, and Steiner are available free and legal for download at:
http://www.classicbattletech.com/index.php?action=downloads#Miscellaneous
The only "errata" those have seen is the deletion of the "Unseen" BattleMechs from them.
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BTW do you know some details on how they made those old Housebooks? I was wondering how they made the map at that time, big sheet, pencil and a rubber?
I'll ask, though I don't know if that information is still available.
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Well no, I'm only on catalyst forum
CBT.com?
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The first seems to be more interested in new stuff
Trust me, you'll find plenty of people on CBT.com who want nothing to do with anything after 3025AD. However, you need to phrase your idea carefully.
One problem with errataing old books is that their flaws are still canonical, and sometimes figure into later books. Going back to change, say, unit locations in 3025 may trample on future toes.
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I was thinking about setting something up myself but I'm a total knownothing in the way of making a webpage, so the Wiki seems to be the best place to pull it off.
That sounds reasonable, though motivation is a key.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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BigDuke66
07/20/08 09:39 AM
84.144.126.44
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Quote:
A full color version of the House Davion SB, plus text versions of Davion, Liao, Kurita, Marik, and Steiner are available free and legal for download at:
http://www.classicbattletech.com/index.php?action=downloads#Miscellaneous
The only "errata" those have seen is the deletion of the "Unseen" BattleMechs from them.
Misunderstood again, with "Housebook" I mean the old row of books from the late '80s(Steiner, Kurita, Davion, Liao, Marik), with "Handbook" I mean those 3 new books carrying the title handbook on their frontcover(Steiner, Davion, Marik)
Quote:
CBT.com?
www.classicbattletech.com
Quote:
Trust me, you'll find plenty of people on CBT.com who want nothing to do with anything after 3025AD. However, you need to phrase your idea carefully.
One problem with errataing old books is that their flaws are still canonical, and sometimes figure into later books. Going back to change, say, unit locations in 3025 may trample on future toes.
Yes that's the point. I saw some things where making them "correct" would only leed to "errors" other sources. That's why I want to track an error down thruh all sources to finally get to that single source who steps out of line so that that specific source can be brought back into line.
Best example is Greenburg's Godzillas, as far as I see a wrong entry in the Mech deployment table in the housebook Davion but it didn't vanish it survived in later sources finally getting even some big entries in some of the mercenary books.
So "correcting" this error would mean to make all other sources look wrong, only way to handle this is to correct the old davion housebook so that this entry is OK and in line with later sources.
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Cray
07/25/08 12:13 PM
147.160.136.10
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Quote:
BTW do you know some details on how they made those old Housebooks? I was wondering how they made the map at that time, big sheet, pencil and a rubber?
As a follow up, the answer from the veteran writers is: "Some kind of CAD program or simple drawing program; they're clearly digital in origin." However, the specifics aren't known, at least from those I asked.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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BigDuke66
07/25/08 05:26 PM
84.144.52.104
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Cool, thanks for the Info.
There isn't a chance that the map data is still stored somewhere?
I'm currently working thru the deployment tables of the housebooks as they seem to mass a lot errors on a small area.
I really wonder how they managed to get those tables so... I think fubar fits here.
Davion was bad, Steiner even more worse, at least Marik was almost OK.
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Cray
07/26/08 04:03 PM
68.205.198.74
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Quote:
Cool, thanks for the Info.
There isn't a chance that the map data is still stored somewhere?
The old House books used to give hard copy x,y data for the stars, IIRC. Various fan websites have replicated the work, like:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/2493/
Quote:
I'm currently working thru the deployment tables of the housebooks as they seem to mass a lot errors on a small area.
I really wonder how they managed to get those tables so... I think fubar fits here.
Davion was bad, Steiner even more worse, at least Marik was almost OK.
In the old House SBs? No idea. FASA wasn't overly concerned with continuity or accuracy, particularly in the 1980s.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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