What is Megamek / Mekwars?
MegaMek and MekWars go hand in hand. The standalone game engine, MegaMek spurred the creation of MekWars which allowed players to play a long-term campaign spanning many battles using the same units, Mechwarriors and more.
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What is Megamek?
MegaMek is an open-source Java program that simulates the BattleTech board game as close as possible. While not officially supported or licensed, the game nonetheless faithfully recreates Classic Battletech with many options for players to choose from, from optional rules to hundreds of different mechs (called Meks in MegaMek to skirt around licensing issues), tanks, infantry and more. MegaMek features a variety of ways that two or more players can battle. Server hosting is the most common, where one player will connect directly to the other.
The Megamek interface allows for a game to be set up with player(s) choosing from a variety units to make up their army. The admin can also change various settings and optional rule sets in this menu. After this step, the game is launched and players can use the main window and secondary windows to play as normal. For a detailed walkthrough of the UI, see the Interface page.
The game uses Classic BattleTech rules at it's core and there's no need for dice, models or map boards. The game's engine does all the calculating when it comes to rolling dice, LoS (Line of Sight) calculations and more. MegaMek comes preloaded with a range of maps already, with built-in random map-generation tools as well. A map editor and skin editor, for customizing the look of all of your unit's is also included.
Playing against a computer opponent is also possible within MegaMek. While obviously no where near as challenging as playing a human opponent, the AI is a great place for new players to start in order to learn the BattleTech or to learn their way in and out of the MegaMek game engine.
To learn more about MegaMek, visit MegaMek's website: http://megamek.org/.
