BattleTech - Preview and Interview @ Redbull

[HiddenX]

Redbull has previewed BattleTech and interviewed executive producer Mitch Gitelman:

BattleTech: Robots in the skies

After two Shadowrun successes, Harebrained Schemes turns its targeting computer on huge mech combat.

You know what we hate when we’re stomping around in our giant war robot? Sunday drivers. You know the sort: you’ll be plodding around some distant planet with your buddies looking for a juicy cache of old tech, when over the hill comes some have-a-go hero who can’t tell his targeting module from his sensor module, overheating his lasers and then falling over behind some crumbling building because his power-to-weight ratios aren’t properly calibrated. ‘It’s like they let just anyone pilot ‘Mechs these days,’ you think, as you pulverise the tiresome interloper with a rocket barrage.

That’s the potted promise of BattleTech, the latest successful Kickstarter project from Shadowrun creators Harebrained Schemes (and how: the funding drive pulled down $2,785,537 with just a mere $250,000 goal). Now in pre-production, it is (or rather, it will be) a tactical-squad-combat-meets-RPG set in the old BattleTech universe – the far future stomping ground of the late-'80s and '90s MechWarrior and MechCommander series.

As the head of a team of opportunistic, space-faring mercenaries, your job is to build up your squad (or ‘Lance’) of ‘Mechs, kit them out with technology bought, scavenged or stolen, train up your MechWarrior pilots and then set off in the ignoble pursuit of cash and plunder.

Succeed, and you’ll earn not just loot, but also the trust and patronage of the universe’s Great Houses. The BattleTech universe is a network of galactic fiefdoms – powerful families each vying for greater degrees of control over systems and planets, while scheming over the best way to stab one another in the back. “It’s Game of Thrones in space,” executive producer Mitch Gitelman tells us. […]

More information.

 

[HiddenX]

Thanks Eye!

 

[Aubrielle]

Hearing about this game's KS (right at the very end) got me curious about the universe, and now I'm really intrigued. I'm also excited about the game. ^.^

 

[Cronis]

If you want to get a great look into the Battletech world, read Michael Stackpole's Battletech novels. Byzantine politics, tremendous characters, lots of action, all of it very fun. It's kind of old though so maybe only able to get it through Amazon Kindle or something like that.

 

[Aubrielle]

If you want to get a great look into the Battletech world, read Michael Stackpole's Battletech novels. Byzantine politics, tremendous characters, lots of action, all of it very fun. It's kind of old though so maybe only able to get it through Amazon Kindle or something like that.

Thanks, Cronis! That was one thing stopping me - I didn't really know where to begin with the universe. I'll go looking for those novels.

 

[Bedwyr]

Also sarna.net and the intro box set.

 

[Morrandir]

Stackpole has Battletech novels? Hum... I've read his DragonCrown wars saga and quite liked it.
Perhaps indeed an nice start.

 

[zahratustra]

I didn't know about those novels either and I have been playing TT Battletech for quite a while!

 

[Bedwyr]

Yes, those novels are in part how Stackpole got his start. In fact he's so closely associated with Battletech that a misconception bears his name. To "Stackpole" a reactor means essentially to scuttle it, damaging all nearby units. What he neglected to research is that fusion reactors don't work the same as fission reactors. Losing magnetic containment merely causes the reaction to cease, not blow up.

 

[Cronis]

If you want to get a start on Stackpole's stuff in Battletech, read the Warrior's trilogy first and then Blood of Kerensky. They are classics within the Battletech universe and help build and shape the whole mythology of Battletech. Unfortunately the books are so old Amazon doesn't even offer them on Kindle.

 

[Ripper]

They appear to be available for free on ePubBud. That's supposed to be a legit platform for self-publishing free ebooks. Maybe if they're out of print, he's made them public domain.

I've removed the link for now, due to Bedwyr's concerns.

 

[Bedwyr]

They appear to be available for free on ePubBud. That's supposed to be a legit platform for self-publishing free ebooks. Maybe if they're out of print, he's made them public domain.

url removed

Er, I'm sorry but they're not. That's probably a pirate link. Source: Personal knowledge (BT forum moderator) and information from the line devs and authors. Please do a favor and not spread it around. Authors get boned way more easily than game devs. The size of the information is that much smaller and there are so many twits who insist on publishing these things to absurd things like "teach them a lesson" because they're angry (rawr) at the publishing company, the authors, or the world in general.


Edit: Yeah I checked. It's nearly the entire old BT library and none of them are out of copyright. Everything posted by the user mortedr is pirated.

 

[Ripper]

Er, I'm sorry but they're not. That's probably a pirate link. Source: Personal knowledge (BT forum moderator) and information from the line devs and authors. Please do a favor and not spread it around. Authors get boned way more easily than game devs. The size of the information is that much smaller and there are so many twits who insist on publishing these things to absurd things like "teach them a lesson" because they're angry (rawr) at the publishing company, the authors, or the world in general.


Edit: Yeah I checked. It's nearly the entire old BT library and none of them are out of copyright. Everything posted by the user mortedr is pirated.

You'd better contact EPubBud, then. They are a legitimate site, with their own section on Goodreads.com.

 

[Bedwyr]

I will. I already let the powers-that-be at Catalyst know. The actual IP holder, Topps will have to be the one to take legal action. That's my understanding.