Full Thrust - A Solo Test Run

Since I have a LOT of little spaceships, I decided to try a solo run of Full Thrust. I used the lite rules which is all of 2 pages. After pocking a few alien ships, I set up a big station and had a few cruisers and military craft. I kept it to 4 or 5 ships per side to not get too complicated.

The cool thing about this game is that you write down your orders before each turn, and movement is basically simultaneous. And as I recalled from playing Triplanetary all of 1 time, vectors can quickly add up! It is necessary to really think ahead and where you want to go.

Combat did not even happen for the 1st 2 rounds as the alien flotilla was moving in at a velocity of 4 for the asteroid base. Two of the human ships were facing in the general direction but still had to pivot a bit and start accelerating from a dead stop. One of the ships just started to change heading: you can only change a maximum of half your movement points, which is represented by your sub light engines. 

The aliens started accelerating, and in the first round managed to actually do enough damage to one ship that it knocked out most of the systems. That little frigate was out of the game, at a pace of 8 mu (movement units, which I was using a 1inch hex map for so 8") in its current heading. There was hull left, so they will eventually get rescued! Firing and damage are straight forward: each battery has a value, 1, 2, and a firing arc on the ship status display. If you are within 12 mu, you use the number of dice per value, 12-24 subtract one from the number of dice, and so forth. It is simple to get ranges and effects. Rolling the dice, 1-3 are a miss, 4-5 are a hit, and 6 is a double hit. There are damage boxes, and if you clear off a row, you start checking for system damage. If 1 row is crossed off, the roll for each system and a 1 takes it out of service. 2 rows or more at a time and you add another point. That frigate only had 2 boxes per row, so taking 5 hits meant 2 rows, so that meant a 1-3 on a d6 takes out a system. It lost most of its systems.

It started getting more complicated as I was running 2 sides and tracking which ships had fired. But at one point the human heavy cruiser had taken some damage but was going right past the alien fleet. Unfortunately, with its headings and damage it took, it could not even fire at the ships right next to it! Plus, while I was decelerating, it was still going too fast from the built-up vector.

In the end, the aliens got some strafing shots at the station and moved on with no losses though a lot of damage to their heavy cruiser.

For a test play, I think I managed to understand the lite rules. With a good ship card, and a bearing card under the ship to help with firing arcs, I think it would be fun to play with multiple people. While 2 of the Saturday group would probably enjoy it, the other two probably would not, so I am not sure how I'll get to play it with anyone. But I am sure something will come up. Interestingly I can see this as a play-by-post, sort of like how some people play chess. If we have a coordinate system: frigate +2, P2 at coordinate 1234 tells you where the next location is (accelerating 2 and turning 2 points to port). 

And hey, like CT, if you change bearing you move half your vector, then shift, then move the remaining half. There are no rules for gravity and planets in the lite rules. I'll have to read the full rules, but I imagine that they are in there. If not, I'll just use the CT rules as this game seems really compatible with that. For all I know the designers were big Traveller fans.

I've never run a High Guard game. It is a lot more abstracted, using range bands. No mini movement really. I've tried classic Traveller ship combat, which is vector driven as well, but you can rapidly run out of space depending on what you are doing. Though I did have fun making planet templates and scooting my tokens around planets. And I do have Triplanetary as well which also uses vector movement. I've opened the box at least!

aliens are approaching!

from the alien's view

the frigate is out of action! Ship cards are simple but give you all the info you need.

passing right by them but can't shoot as no batteries left for port, starboard or aft quadrants.