MegaMek - Online Battletech Boardgame

[VR7]

Does anyone/Has anyone ever played this?

It's a Java-based adaptation of the entire Battletech boardgame, including different rulesets like Aerotech combat, space combat, as well as more advanced rules. (i.e. inhibiting Clan pilots' ability to use melee, incorporating TacOps skills, etc.) It can be played online via direct IP connection, or you can play offline hotseat play or versus AI. Though, the AI is actually not particularly bright; especially when you start integrating more complex rules into the game.

I guess it's also something to do for anyone who is still waiting on MechWarrior Online.

[Toxicity]

I've heard quite a bit about it from various other forums and message boards. I've always been rather reluctant to try it given the amount of cheese I've been led to believe many players will bring to the battlefield. Fighting an entire team of customized clan omnimechs all equipped with Jumpjet, targetting computers, and large pulse lasers doesn't sound like much fun to me.

[VR7]

Do people really play games involving only teams of customized Clan OmniMechs and nothing else? That sounds really boring.

Customized Mechs can be disabled by enforcing a stock Mechs only rule, (I use this rule too) and you can limit the types of units players can bring based on the era, total tonnage or Battle Value points. Fog of war rules can also be toggled to encourage stealth and recon play.

Then again I haven't played particularly huge games because they take very long, mostly small matches with friends in which we bring 1 or 2 mechs with a strict BV limitation, around 3000 or so. While these types of games tend to end fairly quickly, it also results in some nasty and unpredictably hilarious situations, like a 45 ton Phoenix Hawk sniping a 100 ton Annihilator's cockpit with an ER PPC in the first turn; or an Aerotech fighter stalling and crashing for no reason other than pilot stupidity.

[Compass]

Reminds me of this from way back when o_O

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MissionForce:_CyberStorm

[ThunderGodStravag]

Do people really play games involving only teams of customized Clan OmniMechs and nothing else? That sounds really boring.

Most Battletech / Megamek players don't play in that fashion. I'd say around a third of BT players don't do Clans at all, and a third more use Clans only sparingly or only with 'stock' omnimech variants. Granted, there are some stock variants that are laser or PPC heavy, but they have major downsides (like being unable to fire all their weapons twice in a row or twice in three turns. Dire Wolf Prime and Warhawk Prime are classic examples of unable to repeat fire).

That said, you will find a lamer here and there that runs tricked out pulse-spammers. There's a killjoy in every battalion... (On the other hand, a tricked out pulse-spammer is a high-BV mech by design. You could, in theory, swamp his forces with lower-value machines and grind him into the ground Soviet-style if you are matching BV.)

Then again I haven't played particularly huge games because they take very long, mostly small matches with friends in which we bring 1 or 2 mechs with a strict BV limitation, around 3000 or so.

MegaMek takes a lot of the process lag out of the boardgame. I've run pretty robust company on company matches (12v12) in roughly an hour in a LAN setting. If you have wireless and 2+ computers, you can smoke out a campaign in the same time it takes you to do one dice-and-paper game. Or you can do it over the internet if you friend doesn't come around a lot.

While these types of games tend to end fairly quickly, it also results in some nasty and unpredictably hilarious situations, like a 45 ton Phoenix Hawk sniping a 100 ton Annihilator's cockpit with an ER PPC in the first turn; or an Aerotech fighter stalling and crashing for no reason other than pilot stupidity.

I think every BT player has seen that at least once, sometimes far more often. I had a Stone Rhink (100 tons) headchopped by a Hunchback (50 tons) by its AC/20 in the first battle turn of a game. Talk about nuking your battle plan when half your tonnage goes to the scrap heap before it fires one volley

if you have some decent guys to play against, MegaMek is a solid BT port to try. And if you do feel like customs, you cane make your own machines using the Solaris Skunkwerks and import them into MegaMek. Best of all, the whole thing is free. (So totally not a sales pitch, I swear it!)