First Turns: The Evil Empire

Posted on March 24, 2023 by Gnerphk

Most wars are won or lost long before the fighting starts. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.

Overview:

The Evil Empire fields one of the strongest warships in the Echo Cluster. The Gorbie Class Battlestation is the most massive and powerful battlecarrier available to anyone. The PL21 is a passable hyperspace probe that, when coupled with the Empire’s ability to Dark Sense, gives them the ability to project force intelligently across any cluster. Finally, the Super Star Destroyer is capable of capturing an enemy starbase intact without a battle.

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Making the Grade: On Prowess, Vol. 2 — Deadliness

Posted on March 17, 2023 by talespin

Napoleon Bonaparte possessed the mind of a genius of war. He gained his prowess by studying the traditions and theories of the military leaders who came before him. He was inspired by them and harnessed their wisdom to become one of the most ruthless, offensive-minded generals of his time. There is no other role model as perfect for this study on deadliness in VGA Planets.

“With speed, surprise, maneuver, thorough planning, dictatorial power over military affairs, and a boldness unmatched by any soldier of his generation, Napoleon wrecked army after army that the European powers hurled against him.”
(Teters, 2004, p. 14)

This second volume on prowess evaluates each empire’s fleet on its ability to kill, as measured by combat mass, warship armaments, and the class of ships in each fleet.

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The New Tanks

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Gnerphk

With the A.I. debate in every news source these days, sometimes it’s tough to keep perspective. Planets Magazine is proud to present this short, (hopefully) fictional vignette to remind us that, at the end of the day, even an A.I. is only a machine, and it has no choice but to follow its orders. We hope you enjoy it.

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The Transition

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Gnerphk

In Planets, like chess, there’s that hectic opening period where we rush out these patchwork abomination hulls any old how and just have to cope with for the rest of the game. There’s the serious middle game, which is all about optimizing logistics and supplying manufacturing hubs. Eventually, somehow, we arrive at the endgame, where one ragtag fleet end is battling the barrel-scrapings of another through exhaustion and out the other side.

It’s that ‘somehow’ on which I’d like to focus for just a moment: that poorly-defined transition point between the middle and the beginning of the end.

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The Slow Lane to Horwasp Victory

Posted on February 24, 2023 by Koski

“Walk on road. Walk right side, safe. Walk left side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later, get squish, just like grape.”
Mr. Miyagi

There are two ways to win as the Horwasp: the fast lane and the slow lane.

The fast lane is when your opponents are inept players. An inept player is one who hasn’t read my SIR MF article and/or is not able to build 20-30 tech 10 war ships prior to the ship limit.

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Origin of the Echo Cluster By Means of Unnatural Speculation

Posted on February 17, 2023 by talespin

— OPINION? —

The Echo Cluster is a distant point in our galaxy dotted with the blood globules of a trillion life forms, and it forms the exciting backdrop of the space opera known as VGA Planets. Yet, what is the origin of this mysterious group of dots and circles? We find out today.

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Threat Assessment: The Solar Federation

Posted on February 9, 2023 by Gnerphk

This is the eleventh in a series of anonymous reports that mysteriously appeared on the Editor’s desk. These redacted versions were approved by the Senate for immediate publication, to be read by commanders of each respective race so they can review their own vulnerabilities in the face of the unknown external threat that commissioned the studies. In this dispatch we focus on that faction known as the Solar Federation: its strengths, its weaknesses, and how best to defeat it in battle.

Overview

Ease Of Command: Veteran
Difficulty To Defeat: Hard
Playstyle: Detailed

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Making the Grade: On Prowess, Vol. 1 — Agility

Posted on February 2, 2023 by talespin

You say you survived to the end of the game, but if you didn’t win, who cares?

The overarching goal of this series is to give players the knowledge, and therefore the confidence, to choose the path of action. This volume examines the agility of fleets on the battlefield as influenced by fuel consumption, attack accuracy, and warship maneuverability.

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Making the Grade: Introducing Prowess

Posted on January 25, 2023 by talespin

“The public supports war until the body bags come home” was a persistent thought meandering through my mind as I was writing these articles. I wanted to evaluate each race’s capacity for killing, and something in the back of my mind made that topic feel… uneasy. When I continued to hesitate putting it into words, I eventually recognised that my struggle existed because of the nature of what war games reflect. It also occurred to me that the trend of “winning games by making friends” surfaced, in part, because many of us were conflicted about aggression in competition.

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The Lucky Stripes Job (The Operative)

Posted on January 20, 2023 by Gnerphk

My office door was swinging open, slowly and quietly. Now, you gotta understand: I’ve got a squeak in that door that I’ve been training up for years now, and every time the super fixes it I put it right back in. It’s one of the hidden alarms of a professional paranoid, and the fact that someone had troubled to silence it had me on instant alert. With my left hand I turned a page to cover the sound of my right unclipping a slugthrower from under my chair arm. The door had stopped; it was now or never time.

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