Slizer Battle Management System

Slizer Battle Management System is a single-player sci-fi real-time tactics game with a minimalist approach. You choose and equip units before battle, then use movement, positioning and tactical decisions to defeat enemy forces. Reinforcements are very limited, and the slow pace gives you time to respond without relying on intense micromanagement or economy management.

Tactical combat

Battles play out across large areas. Units move slowly, weapons take time to aim, and bullet drop reduces damage. A target’s size, speed and distance affect how difficult it is to hit; your units’ speed and accuracy also determine their aim time and whether their turrets can turn quickly enough to acquire a target. Fighters are harder to hit, close-range units can be devastating, and snipers are highly accurate.

Units have large health pools, and bullet drop means they can take a long time to destroy. You have time to reposition units, move them into cover or change their abilities, state or orders when a fight turns against you. Health does not regenerate, healing is very rare and slow, and destroyed units usually cannot be replaced. Each loss limits your options, while each enemy destroyed reduces theirs.

Movement and positioning

Units use four movement types. Most accelerate gradually, with larger units taking longer to accelerate; both translation and rotation are affected. Heavier units also take longer to stop. These traits make positioning important: you can attack a battleship from its blind spot before it turns to fire, while a fast unit caught stationary may not dodge an area attack or change direction in time. A slower but more agile unit may be better able to evade.

Prepare your forces

Before most missions, you select the types and number of units to deploy, then set their starting formation and direction. You can choose weapons and armour for roles such as anti-aircraft, anti-building or anti-ship, or select a weapon type such as laser, firearm, plasma or shell. Weapons are usually multipurpose, combining flexibility with particular advantages.

Special equipment adds further options, and is limited, so you need to choose carefully:

• Ambush equipment: keeps a unit hidden until it moves or attacks enough to be detected by an enemy.
• PAV: propels a unit quickly to a designated location while it has fuel.
• SL shield: gives a unit a non-rechargeable shield to help it survive longer.
• Beam rifle: provides a long-range, high-damage attack with a slow reload.

Units and modes

The game includes 10 aircraft, 10 destroyers, 10 player buildings, 11 battlecruisers, 2 enemy factions and 40 enemy units. Its modes and scenarios include:

• 12 story missions
• 10 aircraft-only scenarios
• 4 ship-only battle modes
• Permadeath mode
• Simulation mode, where you create custom scenarios with any units
• Tutorials covering RTS basics and the game’s more complex mechanics

ABMS: Rogue Mode

In ABMS: Rogue Mode, you play as a different faction with a separate menu and renamed units, choosing battles on a world map. Each lost unit is permanently gone. If your capital ship is destroyed, the captain dies as well.

Customise the menus

The menus use a futuristic military operating-system theme and offer customisation options, including background colours and images, image and unit art styles, and the number of alerts displayed at once. You can adjust the volume of sound types or individual sound files, and rebind most ability, unit-order, menu-navigation and options keys. A visual guide shows which keys perform which actions.