Saturday, November 7, 2015

Machines vs. Raiders

This is the first battle report using my scratch-built starships and Full Thrust Lite. I just played both sides in this game. The scale was 1 m.u (measurement unit) = 1/2 inch.

Here is the scenario: Patrol ships (in suspiciously matching numbers and types) from the Empire of Machines (in blue) and Space Raiders (in red) meet in deep space and engage in combat [each side had a frigate, a destroyer and a light cruiser, all armed only with beam weapons].

Turn 2: the ships get within firing range. The machines win the initiative and their light cruiser damages the raider's cruiser and destroyer. However, the raiders' light cruiser strikes back, crippling two of the beam cannons from the machine light cruiser.

Turn 3: as the ships move closer, the frigate from the machines heavily damages the raiders' destroyer. The machine cruiser causes some more damage but loses its two fire control systems in another attack from the raiders' cruiser.

Turn 4: while the machine cruiser and raider destroyer move away from the battle, having lost all guns or control systems, the raiders' cruiser fires all of its remaining beams at the machine frigate, destroying it.

Turn 5: the raiders' light cruiser attacks the Machine Empire destroyer, which is their last ship in fighting condition. Their light cruiser flees, heavily damaged.

After the battle, the Space Raiders' frigate had one gun, one thruster and one hull box remaining. Their destroyer was in similar condition but also missing its fire control system. Their light cruiser was mostly operational, having lost a single cannon and three hull boxes.

Conclusion
The playing field for this game was even a bit smaller than the one I previously used, but the smaller measurement unit allowed some more maneuvering. Playing with stands instead of counters was also more fun.

I think it is possible to develop an "artificial intelligence" to play this game solo, similarly to the very nice one for X-Wing. I still have to finish reading Full Thrust Cross Dimensions and play more games before I try doing something like this.

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