Tactical Solitaire?

[Thorsz]

I've seen others mentioun solo campaigns. Is there any material that can be used to automate an enemy fleet based on scenario objectives?

I've done a bit of searching for this and didn't see anything unless I totally missed it.

[krenshala]

Automate, not that I'm aware of. Most of us, I believe, just go through the races one at a time as if we are the controlling player (at least, I know I do). The key is to do the turn for each race in an order to minimize unconscious influence on their decisions. E.g., if Race C knows about Race B, but is not aware they plan an attack, I would do Race C's turn first, then Race B's, and then resolve the interaction between then after both have a set of "orders" in place. Basically, you have to pay attention to whether or not the decisions is based on "character knowledge" or "player knowledge".

[coldsteel]

One might adapt the 'Robot Opponent' process from the SFB Cadet rules?

[Cralis]

One might adapt the 'Robot Opponent' process from the SFB Cadet rules?

I don't think that I've seen those before. How does it work?

[aramis]

One might adapt the 'Robot Opponent' process from the SFB Cadet rules?

I don't think that I've seen those before. How does it work?

As a sort of checklist of priorities.

For example:
Target selection priorities:
1 smallest still armed ship in optimum range (highest to hit number)
2 break ties by most weapons
3 break those ties of most weapons by highest speed
4 break those ties by most damage potential
5 randomize

Movement priorities
1 move to optimal range of target selected
2 pick the hex furthest from larger units.
3 if in doubt, randomize.

I don't know how good that set is. It helps to have a damage per mount factor...
for 3rd ed and later, the d10 roll low to hit makes this dead simple: multiply the to hit by the damage, then the number of weapons.

One could, if so motivated, go further and make a combined factor for each range for the ship at full strength, so one has a target priority...

So
(2) SSA(I)(I)FW(I)(I)LhX (4)
has
F : 10×5, 10×4, 9×3, 9×3, 9×2, 9×2, 8×2, 8×2, 8×1...
W: 9×1, 9×1, 8×1, 8×1, 8×1, 8×1, 7×1 6×1 6×1 6×1
Summing 59, 49 35, 35, 26, 26, 23, 22, 14, ...
It's a lot of work manually, but can be automated with a spreadsheet or regex routine...

Note that the factor is 10× the average damage. The W uses sprint mode while it's better, and long range mode the rest of its range.

[Cralis]

That seems really similar to how the Corbynova site did tactical combat, using that kind of system to determine how combat would be handled.