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=BTA Developer Blog #1: BTA's Core Philosophy=
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= BTA Developer Blog #9: The Story of the Sanctuary Worlds =
  
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Welcome to the first BTA Developer Blog, a series where I will be explaining various aspects of BTA as well as having a few "for fun" columns now and then (such as a Mech of the Week feature!). Today, I'm giving my thoughts on the core fundamental philosophy that I use to guide BTA.  
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With BTA v15.0 comes a brand-new addition to the mod, and to BattleTech as a setting, the Sanctuary Worlds and the nations and peoples that live there. Because the Sanctuary Worlds are non-canon I invented them whole-cloth and I figured some folks might have a small interest in where they came from and why I went to such an effort to make this entirely new faction. Additionally, some folks might want to know more about their background and history in-setting (not much of which appears in BTA v15.0), so I'm taking some time to discuss the factions both in and out of setting. We'll start with the real life aspect to the factions, i.e. why did I make them?
  
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BTA started as a bit of a joke, something I had to be basically harassed into making. It was my personal modpack that I used while I was streaming on Twitch and an early viewer and friend basically bugged me about releasing it formally until I did it to shut him up (he knows who he is). Joke was on me though, since BTA blew up beyond my wildest dreams. Part of how it was so successful is that, on the advice of an IRL friend, I sat down and sketched out my goals for the mod. Goal #1: make the mod hard but fair and make the gameplay more interesting. Goal #2: make the community a big part of the mod. We'll tackle both goals in order.
 
  
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The first goal can be easily summed up as "make the mod hard but fair and make it more complex than vanilla ever was". BTA is not meant to be an easy experience, there's meant to be challenge and it's meant to kick you in the shins a lot. However, a core part of BTA is that it doesn't cheat. The AI uses the same tools the player does, it has the same combat math, it has the same unit variety. Any mech the AI drives, the player can take from it. Any weapon the AI fields, the player can field right back. The combat math is the same for both parties, the AI doesn't cheat on the math like it does in vanilla or other tactics games. We've also kept adding systems to BTA that make it a little more interesting: more pilot abilities, giving the player more options; XP for performing certain combat actions like Sensor Lock or using TAG; OpFor specialization and contract-type specialization so you can make focused pilots; mech affinity to reward you for sticking with mechs longer; and more besides. This keeps combat, the core gameplay of HBS BT, fresh and fun far longer than vanilla ever was.
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For many years I've had a desire to make something unique and new about BattleTech. It's the old "OC Do Not Steal" vibe from the earlier days of the internet. Everyone has their own headcanon after all and wants to make stuff that's uniquely theirs. The Sanctuary Worlds started life in like 2014 as the Dane Sacellum, a Clan-like faction that fled the Inner Sphere during the Star League era to make their own space nation with blackjack and hookers. I wrote out a rough fluff document and included some notes about rules for their weapons and that was it. I attempted to figure out how Solaris Skunk Werks (a tabletop BT mech design program) functions so I could make their gear in there and actually print and play with Sacellum mechs and gear on the tabletop, but at the time SSW was rather difficult to mod and I abandoned it in favor of having other stuff to do in my day-to-day life. When 2018 rolled around and HBS BT was released and I fell into modding it, I realized that this custom faction could be resurrected somewhat in HBS BT, which is much easier to mod. In fact, in the very early days of BTA (2019ish) I even took a stab at making the Sacellum into a real faction. However, the demands of running BTA quickly interfered and I set the project down, vowing to return one day to finish it.  
  
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The second goal is harder to explain. Essentially, I wanted BTA to be a welcoming place, run by a team that actually cares. We've all played games or mods where the developers don't seem to give a shit. Bugs go unfixed, crash reports go unread, updates are sparse or non-existent, support tickets go unanswered, we all could name experiences like this with games. I hate that. I hate that the gaming industry is rife with this behavior and I decided BTA wouldn't be like that. BTA would be a place where the devs, me, actually listen and actually give a shit about the experience and the bugs. And I'd like to think that this is true, that BTA is a place where players feel heard, that we actually fix bugs and respond to tickets and just care. And on top of that, I wanted a community that cared too, players who help each other out with advice and support. A community that welcomes new players and doesn't turn them away or treat them badly because they're new, we've all had that happen to us in gaming communities, getting told to "git gud" or insulted because we don't know all the details just yet, that kind of terrible experience is NOT what BTA has ever been about. I'm proud to say that we are a welcoming community and new players do feel like they can ask questions and get advice. BTA is run by people who give a shit about what they're making and is a community filled with people who care about each other's experience being a good one. Not many games or mods can say that, but I can, we can, BTA can.
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Which brings us to August 2022. I had been slowly burning out from constant updates to BTA and from the daily grind of making content. Don't get me wrong, I love the job and wouldn't trade it, but even a job you love can wear on you after 3+ years of doing it. I realized that something had to change, and quick, or the ultimate result was going to be me quitting BTA and walking away, which I didn't want to do. I love BTA and I love the community and didn't want to ragequit because I was sick of it. I went digging through my storage files to see if I could find something to revitalize my interest and energy and lo and behold, the Sacellum files were just hanging out waiting for me to rediscover them. I decided that I was going to set out to bring this idea to life and I'd do it right this time.  
  
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So there you have it, the core philosophy of BTA: be hard, be fair, be interesting, be good to each other. Everything I do as a developer is in service to this philosophy, it's all about making a better experience, both in and out of game.
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To that end, I made an announcement on August 19th, 2022. I told the community that I was burning out and needed to shift focus. From then on, I was focused on the new project and normal BTA would get backburnered for awhile until I got it done. The community was immensely supportive and understanding and I felt I had the freedom to go for it so I did. I took the original single faction, the Dane Sacellum, and I spun it out into four factions: the Dane Sacellum, the Mallard Republic, the Jacobson Haven, and their mutually-assembled army the Sanctuary Alliance. I wrote an entire history for the region of space they settled and how they got there. I reworked their entire techtree from the ground up, redid all the weapons, made new ones, adjusted old ones, invented all their new equipment and gear (such as heat sinks and armors and structures and such). I sketched out how many units they'd need to be roughly viable as factions, including tanks and turrets. I figured out where their worlds would be located (trickier than you might expect). I figured out how they'd interact with the Inner Sphere, who would be in their warpath, and how their war would turn out (decently well, as it happens). I even made little characters for the faction representatives that the player gets missions from and who say things to the player at the Mission Complete screen (all factions have this in the upper left-hand corner, that portrait and name and text is all changeable). I sketched out ideas for events that would happen in their space to immerse the player in their lore and personalities, though these were left out of the initial v15.0 release for lack of time due to real-life commitments involving my family (they're coming in later patches, promise!).  
  
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Come back for the next Dev Blog! And let me know what you think about this format in [https://discord.com/invite/g5nCYAV #dev-blog-discussion].
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The project brought me back to life and rekindled my love of BTA and of working on BTA. Playing with the new gear felt *fresh* in a way that BTA hadn't felt in a long time. I know that not everyone will want to play with non-canon content, that's fair, and I made sure to keep it relatively contained to a corner of the map so that you have to go looking for the new factions to encounter them instead of them coming to find you wherever you are (sort of like the Clans). I do hope that folks approach this with an open mind and give it a fair shake. I want people to experience something new and get to see it with new eyes for the first time, there's something magical about seeing something for the first time that you've never seen or know anything about.
  
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=Past Developer Blogs=
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Anyways, that's the deal. That's how we got here and what I was thinking the whole while. Hope you give it a shot and enjoy it, it's fun stuff, I promise! :)
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[[BTA Developer Blog #1: BTA's Core Philosophy - 2021/18/5]]
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= Previous Developer Blogs =
 +
 
 +
[[BTA Developer Blog 1: BTA's Core Philosophy|BTA Developer Blog #1: BTA's Core Philosophy - 2021/5/18]]
 +
 
 +
[[BTA Developer Blog 2: BTA and the Clans|BTA Developer Blog #2: BTA and the Clans - 2021/5/24]]
 +
 
 +
[[BTA Developer Blog 3: Tanks For All The Fish|BTA Developer Blog #3: Tanks For All The Fish - 2021/5/31]]
 +
 
 +
[[BTA Developer Blog 4: Abiding Quirkiness|BTA Developer Blog #4: Abiding Quirkiness - 2021/6/11]]
 +
 
 +
[[BTA Developer Blog 5: Artillery and You, A Primer|BTA Developer Blog #5: Artillery and You, A Primer - 2021/10/8]]
 +
 
 +
[[BTA Developer Blog 6: The Salvage Question|BTA Developer Blog #6: The Salvage Question - 2022/3/13]]
 +
 
 +
[[BTA Developer Blog 7: Damage Reduction And You|BTA Developer Blog #7: Damage Reduction And You - 2022/4/14]]
 +
 
 +
[[BTA Developer Blog 8: BD's Favorites!|BTA Developer Blog #8: BD's Favorites! - 2022/4/15]]
 +
 
 +
[[BTA Developer Blog 9: The Story of the Sanctuary Worlds|BTA Developer Blog #9: The Story of the Sanctuary Worlds - 2022/12/12]]
 +
 
 +
[[BTA Developer Blog 9.5: The Actual Story of the Sanctuary Worlds|BTA Developer Blog #9.5: The Actual Story of the Sanctuary Worlds - 2022/12/12]]
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[[Category:Dev Blogs]]

Latest revision as of 20:09, 12 December 2022

BTA Developer Blog #9: The Story of the Sanctuary Worlds

With BTA v15.0 comes a brand-new addition to the mod, and to BattleTech as a setting, the Sanctuary Worlds and the nations and peoples that live there. Because the Sanctuary Worlds are non-canon I invented them whole-cloth and I figured some folks might have a small interest in where they came from and why I went to such an effort to make this entirely new faction. Additionally, some folks might want to know more about their background and history in-setting (not much of which appears in BTA v15.0), so I'm taking some time to discuss the factions both in and out of setting. We'll start with the real life aspect to the factions, i.e. why did I make them?


For many years I've had a desire to make something unique and new about BattleTech. It's the old "OC Do Not Steal" vibe from the earlier days of the internet. Everyone has their own headcanon after all and wants to make stuff that's uniquely theirs. The Sanctuary Worlds started life in like 2014 as the Dane Sacellum, a Clan-like faction that fled the Inner Sphere during the Star League era to make their own space nation with blackjack and hookers. I wrote out a rough fluff document and included some notes about rules for their weapons and that was it. I attempted to figure out how Solaris Skunk Werks (a tabletop BT mech design program) functions so I could make their gear in there and actually print and play with Sacellum mechs and gear on the tabletop, but at the time SSW was rather difficult to mod and I abandoned it in favor of having other stuff to do in my day-to-day life. When 2018 rolled around and HBS BT was released and I fell into modding it, I realized that this custom faction could be resurrected somewhat in HBS BT, which is much easier to mod. In fact, in the very early days of BTA (2019ish) I even took a stab at making the Sacellum into a real faction. However, the demands of running BTA quickly interfered and I set the project down, vowing to return one day to finish it.

Which brings us to August 2022. I had been slowly burning out from constant updates to BTA and from the daily grind of making content. Don't get me wrong, I love the job and wouldn't trade it, but even a job you love can wear on you after 3+ years of doing it. I realized that something had to change, and quick, or the ultimate result was going to be me quitting BTA and walking away, which I didn't want to do. I love BTA and I love the community and didn't want to ragequit because I was sick of it. I went digging through my storage files to see if I could find something to revitalize my interest and energy and lo and behold, the Sacellum files were just hanging out waiting for me to rediscover them. I decided that I was going to set out to bring this idea to life and I'd do it right this time.

To that end, I made an announcement on August 19th, 2022. I told the community that I was burning out and needed to shift focus. From then on, I was focused on the new project and normal BTA would get backburnered for awhile until I got it done. The community was immensely supportive and understanding and I felt I had the freedom to go for it so I did. I took the original single faction, the Dane Sacellum, and I spun it out into four factions: the Dane Sacellum, the Mallard Republic, the Jacobson Haven, and their mutually-assembled army the Sanctuary Alliance. I wrote an entire history for the region of space they settled and how they got there. I reworked their entire techtree from the ground up, redid all the weapons, made new ones, adjusted old ones, invented all their new equipment and gear (such as heat sinks and armors and structures and such). I sketched out how many units they'd need to be roughly viable as factions, including tanks and turrets. I figured out where their worlds would be located (trickier than you might expect). I figured out how they'd interact with the Inner Sphere, who would be in their warpath, and how their war would turn out (decently well, as it happens). I even made little characters for the faction representatives that the player gets missions from and who say things to the player at the Mission Complete screen (all factions have this in the upper left-hand corner, that portrait and name and text is all changeable). I sketched out ideas for events that would happen in their space to immerse the player in their lore and personalities, though these were left out of the initial v15.0 release for lack of time due to real-life commitments involving my family (they're coming in later patches, promise!).

The project brought me back to life and rekindled my love of BTA and of working on BTA. Playing with the new gear felt *fresh* in a way that BTA hadn't felt in a long time. I know that not everyone will want to play with non-canon content, that's fair, and I made sure to keep it relatively contained to a corner of the map so that you have to go looking for the new factions to encounter them instead of them coming to find you wherever you are (sort of like the Clans). I do hope that folks approach this with an open mind and give it a fair shake. I want people to experience something new and get to see it with new eyes for the first time, there's something magical about seeing something for the first time that you've never seen or know anything about.

Anyways, that's the deal. That's how we got here and what I was thinking the whole while. Hope you give it a shot and enjoy it, it's fun stuff, I promise! :)

Previous Developer Blogs

BTA Developer Blog #1: BTA's Core Philosophy - 2021/5/18

BTA Developer Blog #2: BTA and the Clans - 2021/5/24

BTA Developer Blog #3: Tanks For All The Fish - 2021/5/31

BTA Developer Blog #4: Abiding Quirkiness - 2021/6/11

BTA Developer Blog #5: Artillery and You, A Primer - 2021/10/8

BTA Developer Blog #6: The Salvage Question - 2022/3/13

BTA Developer Blog #7: Damage Reduction And You - 2022/4/14

BTA Developer Blog #8: BD's Favorites! - 2022/4/15

BTA Developer Blog #9: The Story of the Sanctuary Worlds - 2022/12/12

BTA Developer Blog #9.5: The Actual Story of the Sanctuary Worlds - 2022/12/12

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