S3-Sabre¶
The S3-Sabre is an unreliable weapon of mass destruction, fired from the InterPlanetary menu's Special Operations at a baron on another planet. Before you fire, you set a dial from 0 to 10, and the dial aims it:
| Dial | What it goes for |
|---|---|
| 0, 1 | the enemy's Intelligence Headquarters, killing covert agents |
| 2, 3 | residential zones, killing people |
| 4 | military bases — troops, jets, turrets and tanks together |
| 5, 6 | airbases, and nothing but jets |
| 7, 8 | regions, destroying them outright |
| 9, 10 | the food supply |
A hit kills up to 30% of the agents, or up to 40% of the people. On military bases it destroys up to 20% of each of the four forces, and on airbases 11% to 50% of the jets. It destroys 5% to 9% of the regions. The food supply suffers most: a hit destroys 71% to 100% of it.
The aim wanders by one setting either way in flight, and about one launch in ten ignores the dial altogether and hits whatever it likes. So a setting is a tendency, not a promise: 4 goes for military bases about half the time, while 5 goes for airbases more than two times in three, because 5 and 6 both point there. The dial wraps at its ends: 10 can land on 0, and 0 on 10. Aim 5 at a baron you know keeps a large air force.
The missile is still a gamble on top of that. About one launch in ten misfires, and the enemy's SDI may shoot it down. It can also break up over the target and do no damage. The larger the enemy's trooper army, the more often this happens. A breakup does not harm you, but it helps the enemy: the fallout gives them new regions, 10% to 19% of the regions they already hold. They choose the types of the new regions on their next turn.
Your sysop decides how the dial is set. Normally you choose it yourself, but the game can be set up to roll one for you each time, to fix it at a dial the sysop chooses, or to switch the weapon off entirely. On a board set any way but "user select" you are never asked for a number — that is the setting doing its job, not a fault.
You may fire each of the three missiles — nuclear, chemical and the S3-Sabre — once a day. A missile you have already used today is not listed on the Special Operations menu at all. They have their own allowance, so spending all three leaves your bombing operations untouched, and spending those leaves the missiles untouched.