205 replies to this topic

[PropWash]

Yes, FreezeMoon and company purchased 4 of the cockpits from Miami and shipped them with 4.x hardware. They are running the last vesion of Tesla 4 BattleTech and Red Planet.

Will you have a chance to visit them anytime soon?

EGG, on 16 November 2011 - 04:45 AM, said:

Argh! I was in Shibuya a couple of weeks ago and had no idea there was a set in Ota.

Is this pre-Firestorm..? The mechs don't seem to have the MW4 gait when moving.

[Gravitas]

Ah, such a deceptively nice sounding message. "Warning. Ammo Bay Fire." in that calm pretty computer voice.

Which I always answered with an "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHGGH!!!!" while furiously dumping ammo.

[Spice]

Hehe.
I still remember a lot of folks asking Yip to stop doing mean things to their mech and telling you about it.

That is pretty cool about Freezemoon having a 4-set.

[UncleKulikov]

I wish. I played a knock off at Chuck E Cheese 18 years ago.

[BrownKnight]

actually, our university procured a bunch a few years back, and were FTP...yeah, I didn't get much work done those semesters.

[Noir13]

So my only question is how hard would it be to actually own a pod because I can't seem to find anyone selling them.. That would probably be the happiest day of my life owning one.

[Arafinar]

Flame, on 01 November 2011 - 04:58 AM, said:

I played once a few years ago at the Dave & Buster's in Cincinnati when I was there for a friend's wedding. I think there were eight of us in the pods. They let me pilot a Highlander, which is the only reason I did as well as I did ;;

They got rid of em at D&B

[Peapod]

Spice, on 02 November 2011 - 09:08 PM, said:

Jalla folks... and if you didn't guess from my sig. Yes I've had a little pod time.
Just a smidge.

Spice -- as in the Spice Rack? Representing Doom Site 13 Costa Mesa here, with somewhere between 2,000-3,000 missions, but the majority of them Red Planet.

[Gravitas]

Noir13, on 17 November 2011 - 02:55 PM, said:

So my only question is how hard would it be to actually own a pod because I can't seem to find anyone selling them.. That would probably be the happiest day of my life owning one.

Hehe, how hard is it to own a pod set? Depends on your level of technical expertise and how much magic blue smoke you have. I know that's not exactly what you meant, but the phrase sparked my humor node.

How hard is it to aquire pods? Somewhat difficult, check the forums out at mechjock.com for some past discussions, but the short answer is yes it is hard because no one is currently selling theirs, and there are no new pods, only what was produced by VWE back in their production runs. Propwash is your source for all official answers, but as I understand things currently, there are no plans to ever reproduce any System 3 or Tesla II pods. The cost is just too prohibitive, and the amount of custom work that went into those too great, to effectively 'mass produce' them again.

[PropWash]

Gravy pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Add on to the fact that when pods become available, we generally dont just sell to whomever 'just has the cash'.

There is a bit of a vetting process to determine if a buyer is a good candidate to further the cause of the company and community.

While the classic cockpits will probably not be reproduced, there is still a chance that new cockpits will be produced taking the best parts of the old pods and integrating new technology and features that would make them appealing to the modern global market.

I'm knee deep into that kind of project right now.

I hope to 'show some stuff off' before too long.

Soon™

Gravitas, on 18 November 2011 - 08:12 AM, said:

How hard is it to aquire pods? Somewhat difficult, check the forums out at mechjock.com for some past discussions, but the short answer is yes it is hard because no one is currently selling theirs, and there are no new pods, only what was produced by VWE back in their production runs. Propwash is your source for all official answers, but as I understand things currently, there are no plans to ever reproduce any System 3 or Tesla II pods. The cost is just too prohibitive, and the amount of custom work that went into those too great, to effectively 'mass produce' them again.

Edited by PropWash, 18 November 2011 - 10:23 AM.

[PropWash]

CMU? Yeah, we got 7 of those back. Man, that ETC facility is AMAZING!

BrownKnight, on 17 November 2011 - 02:53 PM, said:

actually, our university procured a bunch a few years back, and were FTP...yeah, I didn't get much work done those semesters.

[MogCarns]

For those on the asking price back in the day, it was $8 for 15 minute sessions for the Version 3s. The Teslas you had to use the D&B card for something like 30 credits.

Sad day when they left Atlanta D&B. Back for the Version 3s, we had a pilot bar with couches and video screens so that we could watch the action while not in it ourselves, sectioned off from the rest of the arcade... it was quiet and nice.



For those bemoaning not purchasing them at the time... I do not know anyone else, but Propwash sunk a considerable fortune and a large chunk of his life into getting his up and going. It's been 16 years and I STILL have never come across an Apple ARCNet card that he needed once upon a time.

Fortunately, he could play MechCommander from work, or we would never have seen him again.

[Fiachdubh]

Living over 6 hours by plane from north America the Pods were some magical mythical machine once mentioned in a PC Games magazine many years ago.

[EGG]

PropWash, on 16 November 2011 - 09:00 AM, said:

Yes, FreezeMoon and company purchased 4 of the cockpits from Miami and shipped them with 4.x hardware. They are running the last vesion of Tesla 4 BattleTech and Red Planet.

Will you have a chance to visit them anytime soon?

Unfortunately not, I was just over there and had no idea pods were too. I might be going back around this time next year (work dependent) and will definitely have a look if I do.

[Chinook]

The Propwash and Sauron you get to shoot in bot matches in the pods? Or their namesakes anyway.

[PropWash]

MogCarns, on 18 November 2011 - 12:41 PM, said:

Fortunately, he could play MechCommander from work, or we would never have seen him again.

I knew I'd eventually run into another MC NC member on here!

Yeah, I pretty much have a bead on where all of the known ArcNet cards are. Funny, I'm actually trying to help get another 2.5/3.0 set operational again.

Wow..16 years.

I feel old.

[PropWash]

Chinook, on 20 November 2011 - 11:14 AM, said:

The Propwash and Sauron you get to shoot in bot matches in the pods? Or their namesakes anyway.

Yes and Yes.

[Noir13]

Thanks for the answers Gravitas and PropWash. And as to the university he was talking about it was CMU. we both went there and for a while there were 4 pods in one of the main buildings so that you could play for free. You just had to sign up for times. Thus my interest in the pods because the two of us were some of the few people who actually used them.. I still have no idea why they weren't that popular but my guess is they were a bit hidden and only a few of us took the time to find them and play them on a regular basis. I actually applied to be one of the people running them but they already had a full list of people working the machines so I didn't get to.

As for your new stuff, I would be super pumped to see it and coming from CMU if you need any help developing them I bet I have a list of people who would be interested.

[Spice]

Peapod, on 17 November 2011 - 08:03 PM, said:

Spice -- as in the Spice Rack? Representing Doom Site 13 Costa Mesa here, with somewhere between 2,000-3,000 missions, but the majority of them Red Planet.

Yup that is from the cartographers rally at the world cup in 95.
The section names are all pilots or employees I knew at the time.

Here is an Irony. When in Vegas they were installing the tesla pods.
So it was a few years before I got to fly on the map again. We were so
heavily testing the new software, and creating the videos for same.

Welcome Aboard!

[Cyote13]

I got to play in them in Chicago, London and Huston