MechWarrior 3 Rebuild 1.0.5

A crash fix, a safer weapon limit, and walls that match the original more closely. Install it over any earlier 1.0.x: your pilots, saves and settings are kept.

Fixed

• No crash ending a mission with a laser firing. If a beam was still firing when a mission ended, the cleanup treated it as a shot and could crash, for example on REPLAY at the debriefing. A player found it; earlier releases have it too.

• A loadout past 16 weapons can't damage the game. The game took a 17th weapon unchecked and overwrote what came after the list. No normal loadout gets there, since the mech lab stops at 16, but a mod's mech could, and so could a modified player's loadout in multiplayer. The extra weapon is now refused and named in mw3.log.

• Walls and footing match the original more closely. Mech collision and the feet's ground probes now do their sums at the precision the original game really runs at. In our tests they now agree with the original exactly. In play the difference is rare and small: in walking runs at walls we measured no changed decisions at all, so you're unlikely to notice anything.

• Windows: this package passed its checks, but we didn't play a mission from it before release. If a mission won't start for you, please send mw3.log.

Everything the rebuild changes from the original is in CHANGES.md.

Still known

• macOS: window tools can delay the mouse button by about a second
  (Magnet and similar). Quit the tool while you play, or exclude
  MechWarrior 3 in it.
• Jump jets lighting up water (Op 3, Mission 5): one report, not
  reproduced. A screenshot and mw3.log help.
• Linux: stuck at "Downloading Mission Parameters": one report, not reproduced. Since 1.0.4 the log names the loading step that went quiet, so mw3.log from such a run is what we need.
• Mech speed in shallow water and on hills is the original's: speed has no
  slope term, and water only slows a mech deeper than a tenth of its height.
• Pirate's Moon is not supported yet.

Downloads

	Download
Windows	MW3-Rebuild-Setup-v1.0.5.exe	An installer (a .zip of the same files is there too).
Mac	MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.5-mac.dmg	Drag the app to Applications.
Linux	MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.5-x86_64.AppImage	Make it executable and run it. Built and checked under WSL, not playtested on a Linux machine.

You need your own MechWarrior 3 (an installed copy, the disc, or a disc
image); see the 1.0 release for getting started.

Reporting bugs

Open an issue on the project's GitHub page with mw3.log from the
settings folder (the README says where it is).

Checksums

5f00ce95701d4cc7b424110fa544bc3dc20d8e8c3d331aea3cb54177461688fc  MW3-Rebuild-Setup-v1.0.5.exe
66b566e8ce72d7522f19f4b642f274d83c7d2df6e717401d8fa029593886e2f5  mw3-v1.0.5-win64.zip
6c20996a7ddf7095726961bf2436515192b175ef80853f75964bc99e843c6bcd  MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.5-mac.dmg
e3f97033596fb1e19e5e5eb7fc5ec586583f273363e86f47dce7db17c9c585b6  MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.5-x86_64.AppImage

MechWarrior 3 Rebuild 1.0.4

Linux launcher text fixed, difficulty does what it says again, rain stays outside, and a long list of smaller fixes. Install it over any earlier 1.0.x: your pilots, saves and settings are kept.

Worth knowing first

• Low and Medium get noticeably easier. Every release so far gave your side the High damage figure on every difficulty. The game's own table now applies: you take 40% on Low, 70% on Medium and 100% on High. Low also loses a heat haze the original doesn't have there.
• The launcher has a new font on every system. It now brings its own, Saira Condensed, where it used to borrow one from your system.

Linux

• The launcher's buttons have their text. It looked for a font at fixed places and drew empty buttons when none was there. We reproduced that with every font hidden, and the package's own font fixes it. That was on Ubuntu, not Arch.
• Menus with no fonts. An install without Arial, Impact and Lucida Console now shows its text in free stand-ins the package brings, at the original's line heights. Windows and Mac still try your system's copies first.
• Stuck at "Downloading Mission Parameters": not fixed yet. That label stays up for the whole mission load, and we couldn't make it stick here, with or without fonts. The log now says which load step went quiet and for how long, so if it happens to you, mw3.log is what we need.

Fixed in play

• Rain and snow stop under roofs and in tunnels. The check was ported but never connected.
• Artemis in a side torso works. The game looked for it in the wrong place, so launchers there never got its better tracking. Stock loadouts with Artemis in a side torso now do.
• A locked Artemis missile no longer crashes the game. One flying under 10 m over the ground with a clear line did.
• A possible crash after a blown-off limb, when a mission restarted, is gone.
• The same acceleration above 83 fps. Holding a throttle key above about 83 fps skipped the mech's slow build-up of speed, so it pulled away nearly 2 seconds sooner than at 30 or 60 fps.
• Walking into a building does its full damage at any frame rate. An earlier fix scaled the 20 damage of each touch by the frame time, so a higher frame rate meant less damage (about a fifth at 144 fps). Each touch does 20 again, as in the original.
• Where a foot reads the ground. The original never filled in the setting that decides when a foot uses the ground under its middle. Our fix guessed at it; it now uses the value the original team's own Pirate's Moon sets. This changes slightly how feet sit on slopes and when a foot counts as in water. This is part of bug fixes.
• The target keys tell the HUD again. Choosing a target with E, W or their Ctrl and Shift forms now does what Z and Q already did: the target triangle pulses, the target's mech sound plays, and a missile lock starts over on the new target.
• A stick's throttle lever stays the right way round. Tapping throttle-down with the lever below stop, or pressing Toggle throttle direction (Backspace or stick button 10) with it above stop, could leave the lever backwards until the mission ended. That toggle no longer affects a lever. If yours runs backwards from the start, use the Invert box (Options, Controls, Assign Axis). We tested this with a stand-in stick, not real hardware, and we couldn't make the Invert box fail. If it does nothing for you, please tell us your stick's model and send mw3.log.
• Op 2 Mission 2's gas kills. After the Air Refinery goes down, standing in its gas now destroys you, or Dominic, as the original does.

Menus and files

• The debriefing's scores. A campaign debriefing now lists the mission's objectives, each worth 2500 when done, and counts them in the totals and the rank. Instant Action's Battle Waves and Progression now score 1000 a wave plus a bonus for how far you got, as the original does. Scores you already have stay as saved; new missions add to them.
• The debrief at 16:9. The three columns now sit together in the middle, and the extra width stays open at the sides.
• Ctrl+I in the mech lab keeps your loadout. Importing a loadout read the file, added nothing and renamed the file .done, so it seemed to vanish. If you lost one, take .done off its name in the import folder and press Ctrl+I again.
• Accented and non-English letters on Windows. A folder like D:\Café, or a Windows user name with an accent, stopped the game from starting. Windows 10 version 1903 or later now handles them, and pilots saved under a garbled name get their right name back.
• --check-mod passes a mod with a new world. It refused every good gamez.zbd, anim.zbd and texture*.zbd as "not an archive". Only the check was wrong. It also no longer stops at a long folder path.

Everything the rebuild changes from the original is in CHANGES.md.

Still known

• macOS: window tools can delay the mouse button by about a second
  (Magnet and similar). Quit the tool while you play, or exclude
  MechWarrior 3 in it.
• Jump jets lighting up water (Op 3, Mission 5): one report, not
  reproduced. A screenshot and mw3.log help.
• Mech speed in shallow water and on hills is the original's: speed has no
  slope term, and water only slows a mech deeper than a tenth of its height.
• Pirate's Moon is not supported yet.

Downloads

	Download
Windows	MW3-Rebuild-Setup-v1.0.4.exe	An installer (a .zip of the same files is there too).
Mac	MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.4-mac.dmg	Drag the app to Applications.
Linux	MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.4-x86_64.AppImage	Make it executable and run it. Built and checked under WSL, not playtested on a Linux machine.

You need your own MechWarrior 3 (an installed copy, the disc, or a disc
image); see the 1.0 release for getting started.

Reporting bugs

Open an issue on the project's GitHub page with mw3.log from the
settings folder (the README says where it is).

Checksums

6245e8b063fa4dcef7617f417d98c81e8226fc64b026e29a19c141c205100d23  MW3-Rebuild-Setup-v1.0.4.exe
32f455753196dd16d28f4663eca25e2c210840df107f9b4218c6f9efd38e66e0  mw3-v1.0.4-win64.zip
1237bf6f4b1fd49e91f477e866dba610de44f7d650055005204a7f5f9b1e1d80  MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.4-mac.dmg
d8e557b37501184da5049fabed20c2da515b2a9bc1228addbacf77c80b88fc74  MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.4-x86_64.AppImage

Weapon patch v1.0.1 (for the original MW3 1.2)

Adds weapons to the original Mech3.exe 1.2's mech lab. This is a tool for the original game, not part of the MechWarrior 3 Rebuild. The game's own downloads are under the rebuild's releases.

Made with AI assistance, by Claude, on Owen's project. Source: tools/weapon-patch.

Install

1. Unzip the whole zip to its own folder. Don't paste its files into the game folder.
2. Drag your game folder onto install.cmd. It tells you what it did, or why it stopped.
3. Start the game the way you always do, and look for the plain PPC at the bottom of the mech lab's Weapons list.
4. If it isn't there, send weapon-patch.log from your game folder.

restore.cmd undoes it the same way. Python is no longer needed to install.

What changed since v1.0.0

Only the install. The DLL is the same file, sha256 126ddb4e....

• Pasting the v1.0.0 zip into the game folder overwrote the game's IFORCE2.dll, and the game stopped with "IFORCE2o.dll was not found", or a launcher timed out with "fixup could not be loaded". In this zip the DLL has another name, so a paste can't overwrite anything.
• If you already overwrote it: put the original IFORCE2.dll back (61,440 bytes), then run install.cmd. It stops and tells you if the original is missing.
• If v1.0.0 is working for you, there's no need to change anything.

Read before using

• Antivirus may flag the DLL. It replaces a DLL and changes game code in memory, which is what some malware does. You can read the source and build it yourself.
• Multiplayer: every player needs the same rows and data. Nothing checks this, and a mismatch can make a shot fire a different weapon.
• Back up your pilots and configs. A save with a new weapon, opened without the rows, loses that weapon with no message.
• Only the plain PPC has run on a real game: fitted, saved, reloaded and fired, on the official exe, on a NOCD exe with ZipperFixup 0.1.1, and through a launcher that checks the exe's hash. This release's installer was run on a real game on the official exe, directly and through that launcher, as far as the PPC showing in the list.
• Brand-new weapons haven't run on a real game. The steps in the README are marked as not yet run.
• Large lists are unproven. The DLL allows 127 weapons. At 127, the lists worked, but the game crashed once soon after leaving the lab. It didn't come back on two later full runs at 127, or one each at 38 and 49 weapons and without the DLL, so it hasn't been reproduced, and the cause is unknown. Nothing has been fitted or saved at 127.
• New weapons reuse an existing family, model and sound, and rows are added at the end of the list.

Seen in testing, cause unknown

• Instant Action sat on "Downloading Mission Parameters" for over a minute once, then finished by itself. Seen once, with the patch installed.
• On one PC, that launcher showed a black screen with or without the patch, until DDrawCompat was set to FullscreenMode=exclusive and ForceD3D9On12=off.

Not tested

Dragging a game folder whose path has spaces, and double-clicking the scripts. A folder name with & and no space may not work when dropped: run install.cmd from a command prompt with the path in quotes instead.

Please open an issue on this repository with what you find.

Weapon patch 1.0.0 (for the original game)

Adds weapons to the original Mech3.exe 1.2's mech lab. This is a tool for the original game, not part of the MechWarrior 3 Rebuild. The game's own downloads are under the rebuild's releases.

Made with AI assistance, by Claude, on Owen's project. Source: tools/weapon-patch.

What's in it

mw3-weapon-patch-v1.0.0.zip holds no game files:

• IFORCE2.dll: the stand-in, built from this tag with mingw. It adds your rows in memory when the game starts, and Mech3.exe isn't touched. Use this unless you have a reason not to.
• proxy_install.py: installs, checks and removes it.
• patch_weapons.py: the other route, which writes a patched copy of the official 1.2 exe. A launcher that verifies the exe's hash refuses this copy.
• rows-plain-ppc.txt: an example adding the plain PPC, which the game defines but never offers.
• proxy/: the DLL's source. README.md and WRITEUP.md: how to use it and how it works.

From the unzipped folder, with Python:

python proxy_install.py install "<game folder>" IFORCE2.dll rows-plain-ppc.txt

To undo it: python proxy_install.py restore "<game folder>"

Read before using

• Antivirus may flag the DLL. It replaces a DLL and changes game code in memory, which is what some malware does. You can read the source and build it yourself.
• Multiplayer: every player needs the same rows and data. Nothing checks this, and a mismatch can make a shot fire a different weapon.
• Back up your pilots and configs. A save with a new weapon, opened without the rows, loses that weapon with no message.
• Only the plain PPC has run on a real game: fitted, saved, reloaded and fired, on the official exe, on a NOCD exe with ZipperFixup 0.1.1, and through a launcher that checks the exe's hash.
• Brand-new weapons haven't run on a real game. The steps in the README are marked as not yet run.
• Large lists are unproven. The DLL allows 127 weapons. At 127, the lists worked, but the game crashed once soon after leaving the lab. It didn't come back on two later full runs at 127, or one each at 38 and 49 weapons and without the DLL, so it hasn't been reproduced, and the cause is unknown. Nothing has been fitted or saved at 127.
• New weapons reuse an existing family, model and sound, and rows are added at the end of the list.

Please open an issue on this repository with what you find.

MechWarrior 3 Rebuild 1.0.3

The game no longer closes after the intro on Linux, your data can live on
another drive, and a crash now says why. Install it over any earlier 1.0.x:
your pilots, saves and settings are kept.

New

• Your data folder can live on another drive. In the launcher, GAME FILES,
  then MY DATA FOLDER. It copies your settings, pilots, saved games and converted
  movies, checks each file against the original, and only then switches over. It
  then offers to remove the old copy; if you keep it, removing it later is up to
  you. Log files stay in the old folder. If the drive isn't connected when you
  start, the game says so and waits, instead of starting afresh with no pilots.
  On Windows, the new folder's path has to use plain English letters for now.
  We tested this with ordinary folders and simulated failures, not with a
  removable drive or a disk that really filled up.

Fixed

• Linux: the game closed at the end of the intro movies. The launcher closed
  as the game appeared, which took the AppImage away from the game still running
  from it. The launcher now waits, out of sight, until the game ends.
• Linux: an install in any letter case now works. All lower case, all upper
  case or mixed. Windows ignores case, so the game's own names never had to match
  the files; on Linux they did.
• Crashes say why. A crash, or a start that can't open its window or
  graphics, now leaves a line in mw3.log and shows a message box that names the
  log. It used to just close.
• Windows: the installer asks for a folder every time, so you can install
  somewhere other than C, or to a new place when upgrading. A new folder leaves
  the old folder's files behind. We set this in the installer but haven't
  yet watched the page on a real install; tell us if it doesn't appear.
• A softer message for mods. When files match neither 1.0 nor 1.2, it now
  says data mods are read, though they may not play right, and that a mod which
  patches the old Mech3.exe won't apply. This message never stopped the game
  and still doesn't.
• Vehicles on fast machines. Small bumps throw them much less: the suspension's
  reaction to the ground is capped at what it is at 30 fps. On rough ground they
  still tip more than at 30 fps, and at full speed they still jump off steep banks
  now and then, at ordinary frame rates too. This is part of bug fixes.
• A band under the sky. Seen from high up, where nothing is drawn between the
  far ground and the sky, the game showed a dark band. That gap now takes the
  fog's colour. This is part of bug fixes.
• Smaller fixes. A memory leak in the zoom views. A light carried by something
  that moves now shines from where it is, not from the world's origin. The pitch
  of moving sounds matches the original more closely.

Still known

• macOS: window tools can delay the mouse button by about a second
  (Magnet and similar). Quit the tool while you play, or exclude
  MechWarrior 3 in it.
• Jump jets lighting up water (Op 3, Mission 5): one report, not
  reproduced. A screenshot and mw3.log help.
• Mech speed in shallow water and on hills is the original's: speed has no
  slope term, and water only slows a mech deeper than a tenth of its height.
• Pirate's Moon is not supported yet.

Downloads

	Download
Windows	MW3-Rebuild-Setup-v1.0.3.exe	An installer (a .zip of the same files is there too).
Mac	MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.3-mac.dmg	Drag the app to Applications.
Linux	MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.3-x86_64.AppImage	Make it executable and run it. Built and checked under WSL, not playtested on a Linux machine.

You need your own MechWarrior 3 (an installed copy, the disc, or a disc
image); see the 1.0 release for getting started.

Reporting bugs

Open an issue on the project's GitHub page with mw3.log from the
settings folder (the README says where it is).

Checksums

bfe3508edf022930edfc84a01a9f56ac12b679eafac21f4ee6456d761b7598e0  MW3-Rebuild-Setup-v1.0.3.exe
7b84b07d1fde94ebf49fdc696a1d985c5b28df2b62f185f1a692c1918220aa08  mw3-v1.0.3-win64.zip
c02d5174c7e848fa3790da26454b5dc77d92ccb686987646b7918e88eb9668b9  MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.3-mac.dmg
905677dc92fa1f12feef5aa3a11d78f20a45adc06092a9e35712737bd3a76693  MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.3-x86_64.AppImage

MechWarrior 3 Rebuild 1.0.2

Lancemates now find their way to you, and lights made during play work
again. Install it over 1.0 or 1.0.1: your pilots, saves and settings are
kept.

Lancemates that walk round things

In the original, a lancemate walks in a straight line at whatever you told
it to reach. If a wall, a river or a cliff is in the way, it stands there or
bumps along it for good. Now, when that straight walk fails, it looks for a
way and takes it.

• Follow, attack and repair orders. Lancemates go round walls, buildings
  and parked vehicles, up ramps and along narrow walkways, and across a river
  at its bridge or ford. Told to attack something behind a wall, they find a
  spot to shoot it from.
• The mission where you meet Epona Rhi (Op 2, Mission 4). Lancemates could
  be thrown back by their own feet when you were in another part of the map,
  and stood at the tunnel's mouth for ever. In our test runs they now reach
  the works from the start of the mission in about a minute, and cross the
  river in about half a minute.
• They can now come to you where the original wouldn't let them. The
  original marked areas of each map for the AI to keep out of. A lancemate
  will now enter one to reach you, if there is a way.
• Doors and falling buildings. The map they walk by updates when a door
  opens or a building comes down, so they can use the new way. We tested this
  on a made-up door, not on every real one.
• On open ground nothing changes. They walk exactly as in the original.

The honest limits:

• Sometimes it's slower. The new way is careful around parked vehicles,
  so in places with mobile HQs parked in the way a lancemate can take the long
  way round: in one of our test routes it took about 70% longer than 1.0.1.
  It does get there.
• A narrow moving walkway is unproven. We haven't seen a lancemate follow
  you up onto the conveyor in Op 2, Mission 4, because our test runs don't
  move its pieces. Tell us how it goes.
• Enemies don't get this. They keep the original's walk, so the game is no
  harder.
• Multiplayer doesn't get this. It stays off there until it has been
  checked in network games.

This is part of bug fixes: turn bug fixes off and lancemates walk as they
did in the original.

Fixed

• Lights made during play. A rebuild bug had one lighting test backwards:
  a light the game creates during a mission was switched off for the parts
  of the world it reaches and on for the parts it doesn't. That covers lights
  such as jump jet flames and weapon fire. A mech now glows when its jets
  fire or its guns flash, and gunfire can brighten nearby water for a moment.
  This follows the original's code, but we haven't compared how strong it
  looks with the original running. If you were used to 1.0.1, fights and
  jumps will look brighter; if something looks too strong, a screenshot helps.
• A mech that walked by itself with no joystick attached. If you had saved
  controls with the throttle on the stick (a slider from 1.0.1's Controls screen,
  or a changed dead zone) and then played without the stick, the throttle opened
  on its own, and a slider on the torso's axes turned the torso. Now a missing
  stick does nothing, and your binding is kept for when it is back. This is part of bug fixes.
  Checked by automated tests only: we have no joystick to try it on, so reports
  with mw3.log are welcome.
• Undefined colour in a new picture. A rebuild bug: when the picture
  changed size during a mission, the parts of the screen nothing draws on
  could show random memory until something covered them. They now start
  black. Nobody has reported seeing this; it turned up while working on
  another part of the game.

Still known

• macOS: window tools can delay the mouse button by about a second
  (Magnet and similar). Quit the tool while you play, or exclude
  MechWarrior 3 in it.
• Jump jets lighting up water (Op 3, Mission 5): one report, not
  reproduced. In our tests jump jets don't light the water, with this
  release's light fix or without it, so we can't say the fix changes that
  report; a screenshot and mw3.log help.
• APCs leaving the ground (Op 1, Mission 2 and elsewhere): an APC at top
  speed can hit a steep bank and jump. It happens at ordinary frame rates too,
  and we are still finding out whether the original does the same. Not fixed yet.
• Mech speed in shallow water and on hills is the original's: speed has no
  slope term, and water only slows a mech deeper than a tenth of its height.
• Pirate's Moon is not supported yet.

Downloads

	Download
Windows	MW3-Rebuild-Setup-v1.0.2.exe	An installer (a .zip of the same files is there too).
Mac	MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.2-mac.dmg	Drag the app to Applications.
Linux	MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.2-x86_64.AppImage	Make it executable and run it. Untested: built and checked under WSL, not playtested.

You need your own MechWarrior 3 (an installed copy, the disc, or a disc
image); see the 1.0 release for getting started.

Reporting bugs

Open an issue on the project's GitHub page with mw3.log from the
settings folder (the README says where it is).

Checksums

365351600d2893b4a75f038f65539086bab230c3f870fe3360d4176073c8a67e  MW3-Rebuild-Setup-v1.0.2.exe
f02b7e9dabf52d8d1ea326f3bda14e972c77c38dfb3d7b565b9ae3452f598c9d  mw3-v1.0.2-win64.zip
42bb4792912e153daf22745218840935a1eb13a90f025123edad2e20235c9406  MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.2-mac.dmg
a4e38392f5fc9871b61961a3f54103388239b7a138b564f71d12ccb3dab34675  MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.2-x86_64.AppImage

MechWarrior 3 Rebuild 1.0.1

A fix release for 1.0, from the first day's reports. Thank you to
everyone who posted. Install it over 1.0: your pilots, saves and
settings are kept.

Fixed

• Op 1, Mission 2's missile platforms (unwinnable mission). The
  second platform could vanish, leaving only its frame and a target
  marker, so "Destroy Missile Platforms" never finished. This is the
  original game's "mission 2 glitch": on frames shorter than about
  6.5 ms (above about 150 fps) the game's easing table said "don't move",
  so a turret whose first aim came on a fast frame stayed pointing
  straight up, and the maths that turns it then collapsed its model to
  zero width while it stayed alive. Turrets now aim at any frame rate,
  and one pointing straight up keeps its shape. The same easing drives
  arm aiming and recoil, vehicle damping and smoke, which now behave the
  same at any frame rate too.
• Custom key bindings. Options → Controls could not set KEY A or
  KEY B: the screen never saw the key you pressed (on modern systems the
  key arrives before the screen asks for it). Click a command's KEY A or
  KEY B box and press the new key; Shift, Ctrl and Alt combinations work,
  and "Reassign Key" moves a key another command has. Mouse and joystick
  binding already worked.
• Flight sticks. On a stick that is not a gamepad (for example the
  Thrustmaster T.16000M) the twist and throttle reached the game in the
  wrong places: twisting drove the throttle, and the torso could not
  twist, so the reticle would not aim. Each axis now goes where the
  original expected it, read from the stick's own description of itself.
  The game also picks a real stick or pad over other devices that call
  themselves joysticks (some keyboards, headsets and virtual drivers),
  and unplugging one mid-mission no longer leaves it stuck.
  mw3.log lists every joystick found, which one was used and its axis
  map; joystick= and joystick_axes= in mw3.cfg choose a device and
  remap its axes by hand (README, Controls).
• The stick's throttle lever reaches reverse. The lever now runs from
  full reverse at the bottom to full ahead at the top, with stop at 37.5%
  of its travel (reverse is 0.6x forward speed, so each bit of travel
  changes speed by the same amount both ways) and a small zone held at
  stop. Backspace still flips direction as in the original, and
  throttle_reverse=0 in mw3.cfg keeps the original's stop-to-full.
  The Controls screen's axis box now offers the stick's sliders too, so a
  slider throttle can be bound from the menu.
• A crash late in a fight (seen in an Op 4 snow mission, two Daishis
  left). A rebuild bug: looking up where a moving mech's part is (for the
  AI's aim, the target box and the radar) borrowed the 3D drawing's
  matrix stack outside a draw, and could write through its empty base.
  It now uses its own matrix, as the original does. The matrix stack is
  also bounded and reset every frame, and names in mw3.log whatever
  unbalances it, so a stray one can no longer crash the game.
• The end credits (and the main menu's CREDITS) sit in their box on a
  wide screen; the names stayed at their 4:3 place.
• The mech lab's "Overwrite?" box (saving a variant under a name that
  exists) no longer shows over a solid purple screen.

Still known

• macOS: window tools can delay the mouse button by about a second
  (Magnet and similar). Quit the tool while you play, or exclude
  MechWarrior 3 in it.
• Jump jets lighting up water (Op 3, Mission 5): one report, not
  reproduced; a screenshot and mw3.log help.
• APCs leaving the ground near the town in Op 1, Mission 2, on very
  fast machines: being worked on.
• Mech speed in shallow water and on hills is the original's: speed has no
  slope term, and water only slows a mech deeper than a tenth of its height.
• Pirate's Moon is not supported yet.

Downloads

	Download
Windows	MW3-Rebuild-Setup-v1.0.1.exe	An installer (a .zip of the same files is there too).
Mac	MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.1-mac.dmg	Drag the app to Applications.
Linux	MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.1-x86_64.AppImage	Make it executable and run it. Untested: built and checked under WSL, not playtested.

You need your own MechWarrior 3 (an installed copy, the disc, or a disc
image); see the 1.0 release for getting started.

Reporting bugs

Open an issue on the project's GitHub page with mw3.log from the
settings folder (the README says where it is).

Checksums

71cc59238c48a85f671b6ca34a8728fc62d06eecb2ba77aa13935324c76d7624  MW3-Rebuild-Setup-v1.0.1.exe
db272bb4aad3a41f34f25a8ca6c84f9db4172d8080192a5f8013a0c876f3b8da  mw3-v1.0.1-win64.zip
b6dd7c89a53f6b415c039d7ea9d378351342954e9b7645ce07783d7fb8042b32  MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.1-mac.dmg
e942f30de575fb3de0e05e2c3f976cfbe4c7020d395450b9037ad61a4c7607d5  MW3-Rebuild-v1.0.1-x86_64.AppImage

MechWarrior 3 Rebuild 1.0

Superseded by 1.0.1, which fixes the unwinnable Op 1 Mission 2, key rebinding, flight sticks and a crash. Please use that one.

An unofficial fan rebuild of MechWarrior 3 for today's computers:
Windows 10 and 11, macOS and Linux. The original game's program
(patch 1.2) was taken apart and rewritten function by function in C++,
most of it checked against the original running in an emulator. It plays
the way MechWarrior 3 always did, minus the bugs and the problems it has
on modern machines, with no Wine, DirectX wrappers, DDrawCompat or
dgVoodoo. It is a personal learning project: free, not sold, and not
affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft or MicroProse. MechWarrior is a
trademark of Microsoft.

No game files are included. You need your own MechWarrior 3: an
installed copy (1.0 or 1.2), the disc, or a disc image (.iso or .cue/.bin, or a zip
of one). If you no longer have yours, you can find a copy on the internet.

What 1.0 is

1.0 is MechWarrior 3 complete: the whole single-player game (the
campaign, Instant Action, training, the mech lab, the briefings, the HUD
and the movies) and multiplayer, by the original's own logic. Pirate's
Moon, the expansion, is next, as a game of its own beside this one.

Getting started

	Download
Windows	MW3-Rebuild-Setup-v1.0.exe	An installer (a .zip of the same files is there too).
Mac	MW3-Rebuild-v1.0-mac.dmg	Drag the app to Applications.
Linux	MW3-Rebuild-v1.0-x86_64.AppImage	Make it executable and run it. Untested: built and checked under WSL, not playtested.

Start MechWarrior 3. It finds your install by itself; if it cannot,
it asks for your game: point it at the disc image or zip and it takes it
from there.
The Mac app is not signed by Apple. The first time macOS says
"MechWarrior 3 Not Opened": click Done, then on macOS 15 and later open
System Settings > Privacy & Security, click Open Anyway and then
Open; on macOS 12 to 14, right-click the app and choose Open. Windows SmartScreen may warn about an unknown publisher:
More info, then Run anyway. The README has the rest.

New since the playtest builds

• Multiplayer. The original's network games, up to 8 players, over
  the internet or a local network, Windows, Mac and Linux together. Games
  on your local network show up by themselves; join any other by its
  address. Hosting opens the game's port (UDP 27930) on your router by
  itself when the router allows it, shows the address to give your
  friends with a click to copy, and says in plain words what to do when
  the internet cannot reach you (a port to forward, a second router, or a
  provider that blocks hosting). The in-game chat, the briefing, the way
  back to the lobby, teams and the scores all work as they did.
  Escape in a match shows the quit box the original never drew, without
  stopping play; a player who leaves disappears for the others at once;
  a match keeps running in the background.
• Mac and Linux downloads, beside Windows: a disc image for the Mac,
  an AppImage for Linux.
• The launcher, installed as "MechWarrior 3": the rebuild's front
  screen. It starts the game and closes as soon as the game is on screen.
• Your game from anything you have (the launcher's GAME FILES): an installed copy, the disc, an
  .iso, a .cue with its .bin files (the music comes too), or the
  file you downloaded (.zip, .7z, .rar, even a zip inside a zip).
  Nothing needs unpacking by hand, and no Windows or original installer
  is needed.
• 1.0 plays as 1.2: the 1.2 patch's changes are made as 1.0's data
  loads, so a 1.0 copy needs no patch. Your files are not changed.
• 16:9 everywhere: the missions, menus, mech lab, briefings and
  multiplayer screens use the whole width of a wide screen, and the
  movies keep their shape (the intro and the ending fill the width, the
  4:3 movies are centred). The movies also play smoothly with their
  sound.
• Mods: folders of your own game data (textures, sounds, text,
  missions, new worlds and multiplayer maps) in a mods folder, turned
  on in mw3.cfg. A broken mod file is refused and named in the log
  instead of crashing the game, and mw3 --check-mod FOLDER checks a mod
  before you play it. In multiplayer every player needs the same gameplay
  mods, and the game says whose differ. How to make one: docs/modding.md.
• Mouse sensitivity, a slider on the Graphics & Audio screen.
• Cheat codes in single player (ours, not the original's): Shift+Enter
  in a mission opens a box for six of them. The README lists them.
• More bug fixes, all listed in plain words in CHANGES.md. To play
  exactly as the original did: --original, or bugfixes=0 in
  mw3.cfg.
• For the curious: --debug-camera and Shift+F12 in a mission open
  the game editor the original carries but never lets you reach, with
  its free-flying camera.

Known open items

• macOS: window tools can delay the mouse button by about a second.
  Tools that filter mouse clicks to snap or move windows (Magnet and
  similar) hold each press back, so in a mission the mouse fires only when
  you let go; the keyboard is not affected. Quit the tool while you play,
  or add MechWarrior 3 to its excluded apps. (The other half of that Mac
  report, a mouse that never fired, was saved controls losing the mouse's
  fire button; fixed, and controls already saved that way are mended.)
• Jump jets lighting up water (Op 3, Mission 5). One report says all
  the water and some other surfaces light up while the jump jets fire. Not
  reproduced on Windows or the Mac. If you see it, a screenshot and
  mw3.log help, with whether you were in the cockpit or the outside view.
• Pirate's Moon is not supported yet.

Reporting bugs

Open an issue on the project's GitHub page. Please attach mw3.log from
the settings folder (the README says where it is on each system), or
mw3.old.log if you started the game again after the problem; say what
you did, what happened, and whether --original does the same.

Checksums

SHA-256 of each download (also in SHA256SUMS):

753d58063f71ef244b94b9ebb4f1902d388cd896d9045d2687d2371707e2072c  MW3-Rebuild-Setup-v1.0.exe
160041e14f61ace21deff63b4ef67987817525da41e8a7f80b93c4a6a9f7ef86  mw3-v1.0-win64.zip
f2f7bc6e9944815d3facfff90081436e9ad9512fef111f6185e04e6aff10a823  MW3-Rebuild-v1.0-mac.dmg
855485a2ea54dbb103d281a4fa861d0afdac591a4c5fa05234d5fd3629b9ee10  MW3-Rebuild-v1.0-x86_64.AppImage

Licenses

The rebuild is under the MIT licence. Its libraries (SDL3, SDL3_ttf,
FreeType, SDL3_sound, ENet, miniupnpc, libarchive, zlib, liblzma, miniz,
pl_mpeg, and a
minimal LGPL build of FFmpeg for the movie converter) and their licences
are listed in THIRD-PARTY.txt in each download, with their licence
files.