Battletech MUX
Welcome to the webpage for the Battletech MUX source project. There is not a
lot here yet, but we should be presenting some background information for
the Battletech MUX project sometime, eh, soon.
What is BattleTech
BattleTech is a boardgame originally developed and sold by FASA, inc., and
currently owned by Wizkids. It
places players on opposite sides of a map built out of hexagonal terrain,
fighting each other with small groups of lumbering machines called
BattleMechs, or 'Mechs for short, piloted by MechWarriors. BattleTech is the
basis for the popular MechWarrior and MechCommander PC games, as well as for
a long range of exciting science-fiction novels set in the 31st century.
What is a MUX
A MUX (Multi User eXperience) is a form of MUD (Multi User Dungeon). Players
connect to a MUD using any telnet client, though specialized MUD and MUSH
clients are available for many platforms. Commands are issued
'text-adventure' style, though exactly what commands are available and how
they should be formed, gramatically, varies between servers.
From the players perspective a MUX is not very different from a MUSH (Multi
User Shared Hallucination) or MUSE (Multi User Simulated Environment) and in
fact the Battletech game has been run on MUSE and MUSH servers before.
What is Battletech MUX
The Battletech MUX server is a heavily modified TinyMUX server which provides the
ability to play a real-time game of Battletech from inside the MUX, as if
the player were a MechWarrior. The extentions are written in C, as
extentions to the MUX code (also known as 'hcode') rather than the internal
MUX language known as 'scode', for a large number of reasons, the most
important being speed of execution and complexity of the ruleset.
Almost all FASA published rules and technology are coded, and similarly all
BattleMech variants, Vehicles, BattleSuits, DropShips and even Aerospace
Fighters, in limited form. ASCII graphics are used to display the map
('tactical') and the status of your own 'Mech or enemy ones ('status',
'scan'), and a plethora of commands and possibilities make the end result an
exciting, fast-paced game that rivals the PC games in terms of playability
and sheer fun.
In addition to the regular telnet/MUD interface, several
Battletech-specialized clients (generally called HUDs) are available:
Current Battletech MUX sites
The main site for this MUX source project is 3030MUX. It is the site that
originally developed the MUX source, and the longest running Battletech site
to date. Connecting to it is easy: just
connect to telnet://btech.dhs.org:3030 or point
your MU* client to 'btech.dhs.org' port '3030'. A good introduction into
playing Battletech in the MUX can be found on the 3030MUX Training Page
A less biased list of Battletech MUX sites can be found at http://www.sarna.net/btech/bt-muse.shtml
Development and Mailing Lists
The Battletech MUX source development and releases of the actual C code as
well as to the 'example' site that comes with it, are
all coordinated through SourceForge, in the 'btech' project: http://sourceforge.net/projects/btech.
The Battletech MUXes generally have their own bulletin boards and news
mechanisms internally, but the Battletech MUX project has a list for
discussions and questions about the MUX source and development: the btech-discussion@lists.sourceforge.net
mailinglist.
HUDINFO
In order to improve the methods for dedicated Battletech clients to gather
information, a new command with fixed-format responses has been designed. It
is currently in an alpha state, and could change radically, but it is not
expected. If you are designing a HUD, thinking about designing a HUD or just
interested, you can get the specification from here.
Thud and btsuite (both listed above)
already use HUDINFO. Discussion about HUDINFO should be directed to the btech-discussion@lists.sourceforge.net
mailinglist.
