Threat Assessment: The Solar Federation

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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

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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

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“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)

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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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NuNiverse Review, Part 2

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So this is Christmas
And what have we done?
Ingenii’s over
Nectaris just begun…

There’s been a lot of vehement opinion and even, I daresay, some very real anger expressed at a few of the recent changes to the game. While this always serves to keep the conversation active in the Feed, it also has an impact on player retention — a topic close to all our hearts, I’m sure. After all, if new players stop coming and old players keep going away, our beloved game won’t last long.

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Planets Mag 2022: A Year In Review

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I blinked and missed 2022. If you shared that experience, I wrote this article for you.

Amidst mental and physical fatigue, Planets Mag continued to produce thoughtful and helpful material, and I felt it was worth travelling back in time to see what exciting things happened. Unfortunately, my Lorean Class Temporal Lance was broken and ex-Emperor Darth Balls was missing in action, so I settled for opening the cabinet of published posts and re-read our content. As I flipped through the files, several pieces caught my attention. Our Articles of War project grew, our science fiction collection added some new adventures, the magazine’s invitational games grew more popular, and our strategy guides continued to support Nu‘s growing population. In all, it was a successful year.

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2022 State of the NuNiverse

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(Thanks to Renathras for his note-taking. I’m only here to fix typos. -Editor)

I apologize for any spelling errors, was typing all this live, and formatting errors, since pasting into here from a Word document creates weird formatting paragraph breaks and stuff. Tried to catch them all, but you have my apologies for any I missed.

Without further preamble:

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How To Lose

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Introduction

(Part of this was presented in Planets Con 2022.)

It’s long surprised me that nobody has yet written the authoritative Guide on how to lose a Planets game. Considering all the writing devoted to sure-fire paths to victory, this should be a shoo-in, an automatic next-best-thing for the ne’er-do-well writer just itching for something new to write about. And yet, nobody seems to have done so — until now.

Let’s remedy that lapse, shall we?

Sit back until you’re resting comfortably, have your flight attendant bring you a relaxing beverage, and brace for impact, people. You’re about to learn How To Lose.

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The Results Are In!

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NOTE: This was a poll, and the results are non-binding.

The balloting for the preferred new name for the Faction Formerly Known As The Fascists has finished, and the count is proceeding even as we speak. (Once we’re done, I’ll replace this paragraph and insert the final results below. It will take a while.) has finally been completed!

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