virtualbox.org

For test purposes, we would like to create 50 clones from a single master. In general, what would be the fastest, simplest way to do this?

Right click VM, select "Clone".

Repeat 49 times.

Or, create a batch file to do it on the command line ("VBoxManage clonevm" times 50 lines).

Can you use the batch script to also set some of the settings in each clone? Say a slightly different network adapter or other stuff?

Presumably, you can do anything in the batch file that you can do on the command line. And for the latter, see the "VBoxManage" chapter of the user manual.