Had a health issue today and spent about 4 hours in the ER, so I'm delaying this week's article until tomorrow.
14.03.2026 09:14
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Had a health issue today and spent about 4 hours in the ER, so I'm delaying this week's article until tomorrow.
A huge pile of shiny foil, a model kit nobody wanted, bits of an egg carton, lots of empty toilet paper rolls, and stacks of cardboard.
Me: "You don't need to hoard all this crap. Why don't you throw things out?"
Also me: "Ohhh I can make so much terrain for BattleTech and Steel Rift with these."
The #BattleTech article is a little late this week, and it is a smaller one after some of these big projects I've written.
This one focuses on how to get the most bang for your buck out of tons of ammo!
avernus-labs-rnd.beehiiv.com/p/set-for-su...
A downed Kuritan Phoenix Hawk with an explosion coming from its right side torso against a backdrop of blueprint paper. Along the bottom of the blue and white paper are the words "MISSION KILL" in white.
Okay, I know the Engines article got skipped a few weeks ago because scope creep killed it. So... you'll never guess what happened to my article on Mission Kill.
This was going to be a deep dive into mitigating critical hit risks, but I'm running up against the same problems with Engine stats.
It's late, and it wasn't what I planned on this week, so there are some rough spots. But it turns out XL Gyros are pretty good at saving weight and Compact Gyros are one of my new favorite pieces of equipment in #BattleTech!
avernus-labs-rnd.beehiiv.com/p/on-balance
I've spent 7 hrs on an article comparing how much armor you save in #BattleTech by going faster.
What I've learned is this: speed and engine mechanics in BT are miserable to analyze.
I'm shelving it, and delaying this week's article. Tomorrow, I'll post one on Compact Gyros & Compact Engines.
I had the day off for dental work, so that means I've got this week's #BattleTech article done a day early!
This week I explain why Narrow/Low Profile is shit and how you can fix so people stop saying "Actually, let's not play with Quirks this time."
avernus-labs-rnd.beehiiv.com/p/how-i-fixe...
Finished this last night, and it was definitely twice as long as something I should have written.
Oh yeah. Sure. I'll just write a #BattleTech article on the Defense Onion.
4,000 words later...
This is double the length I'm supposed to be aiming for with these articles, so I hope people enjoy it!
avernus-labs-rnd.beehiiv.com/p/the-defens...
A BattleTech Defense Onion with a Shadow Hawk painted in Crucis Lancers colors at the heart of the onion. Text across the top says "Don't Be..." The layers are, from outer to innermost: There (blue circle) Detected (teal circle) Acquired (green circle) Hit (yellow circle) Breached (orange circle) Killed (red circle)
The #BattleTech Defense Onion and 'Mech equipment article is coming along nicely for this week, but I did waste 3 hours making this graphic for it first. So it might release a little late today!
New #BattleTech design article! This one is on Artemis IV and Apollo FCS systems plus a surprise bonus tech...
...which won't be a surprise to anyone who's seen me build 'Mechs.
avernus-labs-rnd.beehiiv.com/p/problems-o...
I think it's still Friday for most of you, but since I'm in Australia this is my Saturday. I think I'd like to move my releases to about now-ish going forward since I do work Fridays.
ANYWAY! Have a #BattleTech essay on Internal Structure
avernus-labs-rnd.beehiiv.com/p/the-bones-...
No post this Friday because I've had some medical issues come up, which have disrupted my whole week. Hoping to get it together by next Friday, and I'll be able to post a full ttRPG rulebook FOR FREE that has years of play-testing behind it.
I've got the second one up on itch now! This one is about the infamous Black Marauder from #BattleTech!
avernus-labs.itch.io/dmi-intellig...
Imagine how many artists and creatives would never work with or trust me if I endorsed genAI.
Hrm. Choose between talentless losers who type prompts for a box to make shit up, or people with lives and experiences who create art...
Holy fuck. Well one thing is sure, no women will buy anything from @warlordgames.com. Asshole.
And before Bexit I did buy some models from them. Never again.
Did I mention 4P Press offers some lovely STL files of model ships and WWI planes, while providing a nice array of rules to cover such?😊
So much this. If I wanted real life, I would go outside.
The expectation of "realism" is a damned curse in game design, too.
Okay, so I'm going to try to start publishing things where people can find them more reliably. I'm setting up both an itch and a Patreon for those purposes. Ideally, I'll be posting new content regularly.
First up? One of my #BattleTech fan fic projects:
avernus-labs.itch.io/dmi-minnesot...
CivRPG game Fucked if I know, but you can play it in a Discord server!
Table of Contents Introduction 1 Civs and their statistics 2 Traits 2 Tech Ratings 3 Status Debuffs 3 Derived Statistics 3 Cities 4 Resource Structures 4 Special Projects 5 Infrastructure 6 Heroes 6 Classes 7 Hero Capacity 7 Recruitment 8 Advancement 8 Wounding and Defeat 9 Actions 10 Research 10 Civil Research 10 Defense Research 10 Urgent Research 11 Fanaticism 11 Production 11 Industry 11 War Bonds 12 Government Loans 12 Conflict 12 Combat 12 Special Operations 13 Forced March 13 Guerilla Warfare / Terrorism 13 Manipulation 14 Bribery 14 Code-Breaking 14 Espionage 15 Propaganda 15 Political Actions 16 Exchange Program 16 Trade Deal 16 Alliance 16 Intel Sharing 16 Hero Actions 17 Intercept 17 Recovery 18 Team-Ups 18 Gameplay Phases and Turn Order 19 CivTracker Sheet 20
Feels pretty good. I haven't had an actual original game written out properly like this since I wrote my first ttRPG 20 years ago.
Everything since then has been fan games or campaign systems for other games. Looking forward to the play-test!
A pentagram showing my five main traits and how they inter-relate. Red lines indicate traits that are diametrically opposed. As you can see, this image makes no sense. It's shit.
A hexagon. Now it makes sense. Military is opposed by Diplomacy Academia is opposed by Zeal Economy is opposed by Spycraft Academia, Economy, & Military are circled as the Research-linked traits. Economy, Military, & Zeal are circled as the Production-linked traits. Military, Zeal, & Spycraft are circled as the Destruction-linked traits.
Working on a small project, a casual play-by-post "CivRPG" game for Discord servers and I ran into a fun design problem: I had to invent zero.
The trick was counting player agency as a trait with no stats and no dice rolls.
I will no longer be working on projects for use with Savage Worlds.
To be fair, I'm mostly dealing with the issues of moving & medical issues, so it isn't like I was working on much of anything at the moment.
But damn. I can't be party to this. Charlie Kirk was a fascist. There is no defense.
A cat laying in my lap at my desk. No hope of getting work done now, is there?
Alright! Up early, got breakfast. It's time to write some cosmic horror adventures for Savage Worlds. Until suddenly... Oh.
A movie poster for Virus starring Jamie Lee Curtis. A lightning bolt from space divides the poster, striking Earth. On the left side are the optical sensors on the head of a murderous robot thing. On the right are the faces of two of the protagonists. The earth is in the bottom right. "Life on earth is in for a shock VIRUS"
A really low quality photo of the paperback novelization by S.D. Perry. Look, nobody loves this movie and even fewer people remember it had a book. I tried.
Yes, THAT Virus. Look, the novelization was pretty good. S.D. Perry kept teenage me engaged from page to page.
Excellent! I have performed... uh... step one of game design.
Did you know, step two is really hard?
Seriously, Will's advice is helpful across more than just the visuals. My boss fight design is DIRECTLY inspired by LoK: Soul Reaver; I've written an entire campaign based on Dino Crisis & Virus.
... Shit. I gotta add these now.
Okay so good news: the rabbit hole of Orion Imperial naval doctrine did actually make designing the Republic Navy better and more interesting, as well as giving me strong lore reasons to provide the Bwa Hir multi-role fighter as the preferred platform for player characters.
Well this backfired horribly. I forgot that if the IRN is all Imperial hand-me-downs, I have to design the Orion Empire's tactics first.
Scope creep, GO! Savage Starfighter will now include a bonus section about the military and tactics of a faction that isn't even in the campaign.
Today in #ttRPG #gamedev I am going to be writing military doctrine & designing starfighter stats for the Isocene Republic Navy!
The Republic Navy consists of salvaged vessels of the Orion Empire pressed rapidly into service to address piracy that arose in the wake of the Imperial Withdrawal.
growingwithai | use AI followed you
How about growing with GIT THE FUCK OUTTA HERE?
Blocked.
Australian job hunt is hard work. But in between real responsibilities, I've started writing a mini-campaign to serve as a tech demo for my Savage Starfighter combat rules.
The campaign is a combination of Le Morte d'Arthur and Enterprise vs. Japan for its main inspirations. That's a sentence!