Last month, the official digitized version of OGRE was released on a few formats, including PC. What is OGRE, how does it relate to BattleTech, and what can it do? OGRE was a futuristic science-fiction tabletop wargame released in 1977. It was the first game made by famous game designer Steven Jackson, who would create […]
Read More →On December 3rd, over in the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, Canada, Piranha Games is hosting a day long BattleTech and Mechwarrior themed convention. A variety of events and fun stuff is planned. Many guests from various community members and companies are planning on attending, such as Jordan Weisman and Randall Bills or online media personalities […]
Read More →Well, it arrived today! I was one of many Kickstarter backers of the various levels for Harebrained Schemes’ BattleTech Video game, slated for release next year. Like many folks I backed at a high enough pledge to get both some nice BattleTech swag, as well as some strong comfort in helping to bring back a […]
Read More →Well that was fast! After Interstellar Operations was being written for years before release, the next Operations books came quickly after. Welcome, to Campaign Operations. I’ve always wondered if other players play Campaigns as much as I tend to. My playgroups, interests, games, and more are invariably part of an ongoing campaign. It’s important for […]
Read More →Sometimes you are just looking for a little ‘Mech on ‘Mech action. Whatever the Intellectual Property, and whatever the style, a quick little online PC action happening can solve that desire. Load up the game, log on, and blast some folks. That’s why a lot of us are playing games like Mechwarrior: Online. This week, […]
Read More →After a long-delayed schedule, and having been announced years ago, Interstellar Operations released January 28, 2016. The book contains almost 400 pages of rules from various angles, from generating a star system and planets to detailed information on playing in different eras of the BattleTech universe. Many of the rules systems were released some time […]
Read More →Historically, rocket munitions have always been more effective when fired in swarms. From the 15th century Korean Hwatcha rocket propelled arrow launcher to the MLRS or Grad rockets of today to the Itano Circus prevalent in ’80s Sci-Fi anime- and by extension, BattleTech. Rocket swarms can be brutally effective- if a not very efficient means […]
Read More →Ever since Jules Verne and H.G. Wells enticed citizens and warmongers alike with talk of energy-based beam weapons, mankind has been struggling to catch up to its own imagination. And naturally, BattleTech is chock full of it – mainly in the form of lasers, and mainly seen from the view of a 1980s-era war game […]
Read More →I follow world geopolitics pretty intensely. I credit epic, political space opera settings like Dune and, of course, BattleTech for my many years of interest. I was browsing some of the latest Russian shenanigans in Ukraine and Syria when I saw a Russian armored vehicle that made me wonder if they’ve been buying from Quickscell. […]
Read More →As mentioned in a previous post, the online server for playing people online via MegaMek called MegaMekNet had instituted a new set of changes to shake things up. The longest running server online, MMNet has decided to place the decisions for the latest cycle into the hands of the players. Each faction elects a person […]
Read More →A chance interception on Reddit alerted me to this new work-in-progress game mod for TableTop Simulator on the Steam Network. TTS is kind of a virtual reality environment for playing tabletop games. You manually move the pieces, dice and sheets interactively – just using a mouse instead of your hand. I was told by one […]
Read More →About two years ago I reviewed a bunch of sci-fi themed mobile games that I thought might appeal to the discerning BattleTech fan. Among them was a neat little turn-based sandbox-style strategy game called Templar Assault that reminded me of a grid-based MegaMek if it were dropped into the Warhammer 40K universe. The pay version […]
Read More →BattleTech has a lot of amputee characters. Morgan Kell, Justin Allard, Kael Pershaw, Anastasius Focht/ Frederick Steiner, and Grayson Carlyle for instance; driving ‘Mechs is a dangerous business. But in the novels, most of the prosthetics were fairly advanced from a modern viewpoint. The characters could typically receive biofeedback and simulated nerve induction similar to […]
Read More →Did you know that powered active camouflage has been around since World War 2? Perhaps inspiring such things as the Star trek cloaking device, shift suit from Predator, and of course the Chameleon Light Polarization field from BattleTech, clever military planners used what was later called Diffused Lighting Camouflage to reduce the visual signature of […]
Read More →Earlier on Saturday, August 29, the long-standing MekWars server, MegaMekNet began to initiate plans to reset their server, rebooting to a new player-empowered set of rules moving forward.
Read More →Remember Drake and Vasquez’ smart guns from Aliens, or the surgically invasive exoskeletal hardware from Elysium? As opposed to ghost rings, reflex sights or lasers, they provided a passive targeting system to increase the accuracy of their operators, and decreased their battle weariness. In case of the Smart Gun, the fluff said that it had a […]
Read More →With both the challenge and acceptance videos from the MegaBots crew and team Suidobashi numbering nearly ten million views in little more than a month, it looks like this good-natured rivalry is turning more heads than just those belonging to us big stompy bot fans. Especially with BattleBots back on the air… which, of course, brings […]
Read More →“Military Artificial Intelligence Arms Race Could Soon Develop if Preventative Measures are not Taken.” Many people don’t realize that (as far as we know) the current generation of Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs) are in fact, flown by rated pilots; only by a (hopefully) secure data link from several hundred miles away. Flesh and blood […]
Read More →After their unsuccessful Kickstarter in October of last year, the Oakland California-based MegaBots Inc. seems to have done the best thing they could do to stay active in the public arena. They picked a fight. In late June via video, Andrew Stroup and Gui Cavalcanti challenged Suidobiashi Heavy Industries to a duel- A batchall, if […]
Read More →“TACTICAL ‘MECH COMBAT RETURNS TO THE PC.” I was a backer of MechWarrior Tactics before it fell apart amidst development. MechWarrior Online is alright from the first-person view- vehicle simulation side, but I was hankering for something a little closer to the original source material, and with a much richer immersion in the interstellar politics […]
Read More →I am lucky to count myself part of an active and ongoing BattleTech gaming group. While we have a great time stomping about in our ‘Mechs, trying to complete campaign objectives, by necessity we are stuck playing only a single battle per meeting. Each battle, ranging from lance on lance all the way up to […]
Read More →On October 15th, Aviation Week received exclusive access to Lockheed Martin’s Revolutionary Technology Programs unit; specifically regarding a new Compact Fusion Reactor (CFR) program lead by Aeronautical Engineer Thomas McGuire. McGuire and his team make a claim that uses a lot of phrases like “holy grail” and paradigm-shifting. How compact? The containment vessel in test […]
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