Hi Everyone,

The development cycle for 49.20 has been incredibly busy! It’s one of the largest we’ve ever done, with 277 specific pushes to the various repositories. As you’ll see, there’s some amazing stuff coming your way. It’s so massive that we’ve had to change the format of the release notes to avoid it being a release novel!

Before I get into specifics I want to give a shout out to the entire Dev team and all our contributors, new and old for the sheer amount of work in this release. If you’re a fan of the programs make sure to drop a thanks for them on our Discord or here.

But before we get into all the stuff in this release, make sure to give this very important post a read if you haven’t.. The TLDR is that this will be the last release using Java 11. Later this summer, We are starting the 0.50.0 release cycle and it will REQUIRE Java 17.

A word of caution: this release has so many code changes in so many areas that we don’t anticipate this being a MILESTONE and truthfully will likely have bugs. But we need players to use it to find those bugs.

But let’s get into all the new stuff.

Release Highlights for MegaMek

New Features

Improvements

Release Highlights for MegaMekLab

New Features

Improvements

Release Highlights for MekHQ

New Features

Improvements

Java 11 and 17 is Required for all 0.49.x releases

We’ve updated to Java 11. To use the 0.49.x Development branches, an update is needed. As Java is now open source, we recommend Adoptium Temurin 11. Help pages for Windows and Mac users are available. Linux users should use their package manager to install Adoptium Temurin.

This release also supports Java 17, which has undergone some testing. More player usage is needed, but Java 11 remains our recommended version.

A Few Reminders:

State of the Universe (January 19, 2024):

If you haven’t given the State of the Universe (read here if you missed it) a read, please do. There’s lots of information in there that is still recent and relevant.

The Milestone System Summary

Please see this link for details on the replacement for the old Stable and Development cycle.

User Data Directory for MegaMek, MegaMekLab, and MekHQ:

We’ve added a customizable User Data Directory feature. This allows you to set a single external directory for storing game resources like units, camos, and fonts, which is accessible across different installations and versions of MegaMek, MegaMekLab, and MekHQ.

Key Points:

Removal of Unofficial Units Zip:

Based on feedback from our Discord and a poll where 75% of players favored this decision, we’ve removed the unofficial units zip from this release. This change allows us to focus on canon units.

To reintegrate the units:

  1. Download the zip file from MegaMek Extras HERE.
  2. Right-click and use the “save link as” option.
  3. Save it as a zip to the data\mechfiles folder of the program.
  4. They will be added upon restart.

MekHQ Campaign Files:

Remember, MekHQ campaign files are NOT backwards compatible. Moving your campaign to a newer version prevents reverting to an older one, but keeping backups allows play in both versions for comparison.

Social Media

Join our official MegaMek Discord, our primary community hub for the suite. We offer superior voice support, individual channels, and assistance for the official public servers. We’re also part of community Discords Everything BattleTech and Classic BattleTech. Find us on Facebook at MegaMek BattleTech and MegaMek.

Contributing

Interested in contributing? Find out how here.

Updating Your Campaign:

MegaMek Change Log

Download

MegaMekLab Change Log

Download

MekHQ Change Log

Download