Quadrant Nine

Every enemy commits to one order before you take yours. You get to see it. Quadrant Nine is a small, sharp tactics puzzle. Eight by eight sectors, a handful of enemy ships, and a single decision to get right each turn. A quadrant takes a few minutes. THE IDEA A Vareth commander declares one order before an engagement opens and holds to it. If a ship has a clear line on you it fires down that line — and it fires down that line whether or not you are still standing there. If it has no line on you, it fires on the depot instead. If it has no line on either, it closes in. So their aim is information. Stepping out of a beam costs nothing. Standing in front of one and moving aside gets a Vareth ship shot by its own side. The whole game is reading four locked decisions and finding the one move that turns them against each other. WHAT YOU HAVE • Torpedoes — fly straight, destroy the first thing they meet, and you have very few • Phasers — hit everything within three sectors, but the damage is split between them • Stars — a torpedo into one goes supernova and kills everything around it, including you • A depot — one refit, and a hull of its own. It cannot dodge, and they will shoot it • Six power units across shields, weapons and engines — and engineering shifts only one per turn, so your posture is a commitment Energy is your own clock — warping spends it, phasers spend it, being hit spends it, and at zero you are gone. The depot is the other one. Break every line on yourself and you have not ended the turn, you have aimed it at something that cannot step aside. LEARN IT IN FOUR MINUTES: Six short tutorial lessons. FORESIGHT: Off by default. Turn it on and the sector each closing ship will reach is marked before you commit. It makes the game easier, and it is there if you want it.