navy vessels as seen in space opera film and television, and the "vector" system which is a rather more realistic representation of movement in space but is somewhat more complex. All movement of ships is planned ahead of time, before the miniatures are physically moved. These movements are written down on a Movement Orders sheet and kept secret from other players until the turn begins. Players must move their ships as they have written them down on their orders sheet. Movement orders must also include the launching of any missiles and fighters. FTL Most ships also have FTL (faster-than-light) drives; the only ones that don't are in-system defence ships, orbital stations, or "battle riders" brought into combat via an FTL tug. The FTL is normally used not for tactical but for strategic purposes, allowing a damaged ship or an outnumbered fleet to flee from battle and preserve its remaining strength. Due to the physical nature of the FTL system, it can (in desperation), be used as a weapon itself although it has as much a chance of destroying the ship that deploys it as it does an enemy vessel. Variant settings, such as the one based in the Star Trek universe (Full Trek), may have different technology rules. In Full Trek, the nature of the Warp drive allows ship-to-ship combat while in warp. Weapons There are several weapon systems available in the Full Thrust game: Beam weapons The most common ship weapons are Beam Batteries which have a power level such as 1, 2, 3 (or higher). The larger the number, the farther the battery can fire, and the more damage dice the weapon inflicts. For every power level of the battery, the beams can fire out 12 Movement Units (MUs) from the ship on the table. A Level 1 battery can fire at a maximum range of 12MU. A Level 2 can fire a maximum of 24MU, and so on. For every 12MU the beam fires, it loses 1 die of damaging power. For instance: A Level 2 battery inflicts 2 dice of damage within 12MU, and only 1 die of damage after that. Under the Second Edition (Ver. 2.0) of the FT rules, batteries had a letter designation, with Class C batteries being equivalent to Level 1 batteries. Class A was the most powerful until Mega AA batteries were added. Mega AAs could fire the farthest, but had