How to Play

Pick a battle size — Small, Medium or Large Budget — and a theater map (more theaters are on the way). You and the enemy each deploy a force on your half of a satellite war theater, separated by a neutral demilitarized strip. The irregular dividing line changes each campaign while keeping both territories nearly equal — easier battles give you a wider buffer between the two forces.

Once both sides engage, you take turns firing at cells on the enemy grid. Destroy every hostile unit before they destroy yours. On Small and Medium theaters your misses are marked on the map; on Large you get no such record — keep your own notes.

Choose the green or red half of the map, then build your force. Each battle size gives you a budget in points (65, 150 or 300) and every unit has a price — spend it however you like, provided every force includes at least one Command Base. When you place several of the same type they are lettered automatically: Command Base A, Command Base B, and so on. Units may be placed horizontally, vertically, or diagonally — press R to cycle orientation while deploying. Units cannot touch each other or cross the neutral strip.

Small battles reduce every unit dimension by one cell, making forces more compact on the 30×30 theater. Medium and Large battles use the standard footprints below.

Pick your theater before the battle size. Strategic Coastline is a contested coastline of harbors, ridgelines and inland plains. The Island Chain is a naval theater: open north Pacific water broken by volcanic islands, where island gun lines, command posts on the port towns and ridge-top radar decide the fight.

Terrain matters, and every cell is classified against the satellite image you see — deep water, tidal shelf, tundra or plains, scrub or forest, port town, and volcanic ridge. Forests and ridges grant cover that absorbs damage; open water and plains leave units exposed to extra damage. Naval units need water or shelf cells; ground units need land. Toggle the topographical overlay at any time to read the landscape. The underlying terrain is identical at every grid resolution, so a strong position on Small stays strong on Large.

Each unit can fire once per turn, only at targets within its weapon range. Select a unit and its range fills with a light orange tint bounded by a solid orange wall, so the edge of its reach is unmistakable. Every weapon carries a limited ammunition supply for the whole battle, so choose shots carefully. When no unit on either side has firepower left, the theater is scored on surviving forces.

Use the zoom controls (or your mouse wheel) to zoom in for precise shots and drag to pan across the theater; the scale bar and coordinates track whatever view you choose.

Carriers and command bases also launch jets. An airbase can only act once per turn: it either fires its guns or launches a jet, never both. Jets travel three cells per turn toward their target along a dashed flight path, and can be shot down by SAM batteries mid-flight. Each airbase has a limited number of jets — more on larger theaters.

Carriers are armed in the armory. Every carrier deck has eight bays: a jet takes two bays, a missile takes one. Slide the deck loadout toward jets for reach and reconnaissance, or toward missiles for sustained long-range fire — a jets-only deck carries no missiles at all. Set the slider before you place the carrier; each carrier keeps the loadout it was placed with, so a fleet can mix strike carriers and missile carriers.

Jets double as reconnaissance: while airborne, a jet reveals everything within one cell of its position as it crosses the theater, and its sightings are reported in the comms log. A well-plotted flight path gathers intelligence all the way to the target, making a jet far more valuable than its warhead alone.

An airborne jet can also make one opportunity strike on anything it spots: select the jet in the air wing panel and pick any cell within one cell of its current position. The strike ends that sortie — the jet breaks off and returns to base as a used unit, so it never reaches its original target.

Every confirmed hit leaves a burning cell: a red marker with a plume of smoke rising from it, on your grid and the enemy's alike.

A SAM battery intercepts the first strike whose flight path passes through its cells, or that hits it directly — one interception per battery, so place them between your valuable assets and the likely threat axis.

Radar stations grant recon sweeps: pick any cell within the station's radar range and every cell in that sweep is revealed — but ridge terrain blocks radar, casting a shadow behind high ground. Enemy jets are only visible while inside one of your radar stations' range.