Allocate energy to begin.
Two hulls, one volume of empty space, and a power plant that cannot do everything you want at once. Every turn you decide what your reactor pays for — speed, shields, or a loaded gun — and then live inside that decision for eight impulses. Pick your hull.
1 · Energy allocation. Your reactor produces a fixed number of power points, reduced as the plant takes damage. Spend them on speed, weapon charging, shield reinforcement, shield repair, ECM, or the batteries. Whatever you don't spend evaporates.
2 · Eight impulses. Speed is how many of the eight impulses you move on — speed 8 moves every impulse, speed 4 moves on every second one. Each impulse you may turn once (if you've flown straight far enough), fire anything that's charged, and launch seekers. Then press Execute impulse.
3 · End of turn. Reinforcement drains, damage control patches one damaged system, and you allocate again.
Big hulls turn badly. A turn mode of 3 means you must move three hexes in a straight line before you may change facing. The counter sits under your speed readout. Plan your approach two impulses ahead or you will fly past the fight.
Six facings. Damage always strikes the facing pointed at the shooter — keep a fresh shield toward the threat and roll damaged ones away. Once a facing is down it stays down: excess damage goes straight into the hull. Reinforcement is temporary and expires each turn and no facing can carry more than 6 points of it; repair is permanent but costs 2 power per point and only ever goes to the worst facing.
Arc emitter — always connects, but damage falls off a cliff with range. Devastating inside 3 hexes, a rounding error past 12. Light emitters cover every facing, hit a little softer against hulls, and are the only mounts that can track a seeker.
Disruptor lance — flat damage at long reach, but the chance to connect drops as range grows. Overloading doubles the damage and cuts the reach to 4.
Rift torpedo — 4 power buys a heavy round in a single turn, good out to 12 hexes. Overloading costs 4 power in each of two turns and hits for 30, but it will not fire past 6. Once a torpedo is on the rails, switching between standard and overload dumps everything you have put into it.
Hunter missile / plasma bloom — seekers. They fly themselves at 2 hexes per impulse and don't care where your nose points. Missiles can be shot down by tracking mounts within 4 hexes. Plasma cannot be stopped, but bleeds 2 damage for every hex it travels past the second, so it must be launched close to matter.
Each point of ECM makes you harder to hit with lances and torpedoes, as if you were a range band further away. ECCM cancels the enemy's ECM point for point. Sensor damage lowers the ECCM you can run.
Stored power you can spend mid-impulse: 1 to charge an arc emitter that has already fired, or 2 to slam a point of reinforcement onto a facing right before it takes a hit.
Asteroids block line of fire — a blocked bearing line turns red on the plot, and nothing but a seeker can shoot through it. A hull that runs at a rock sheers around it, losing its heading and its straight-run count. Fight with rock at your back.
If you would rather fly than manage nine mounts, turn weapons free on and gunnery will fire anything with a solution worth taking. It is competent, not clever — it will not hold an overloaded torpedo for the pass you were setting up.
A hull at zero is destroyed. A hull under a quarter with no working guns strikes its colours. Speed 0 is not a defensive posture — a ship with no way on cannot turn, and a ship that cannot turn cannot bring a forward arc onto anything.
A port · D starboard · Space execute impulse · 1–9 fire weapon · T cycle target · B brace with batteries · F weapons free · R run rest of turn