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THANCS ("Tactical Hex And Newtonian Combat Simulator") is a play-by-web tactical starship combat game written by Nick Dumas. I'm helping him out with the GUI and graphics, like I did for his Event Horizon and Vector Tactics games.

THANCS is similar to Vector Tactics, but it uses a hex grid and Newtonian physics instead of a Cartesian plane and "railroad" ship movement (in which ships always face in the direction they travel). Also, THANCS is more detailed when it comes to the ships. Instead of each ship having a simple list of components and attributes, every ship is built from a hex grid of components using connectivity rules, sort of like Lego bricks. Unlike in Vector Tactics, players can design and build their own ships; the "mod" files merely specify the list of valid components that players have to choose from.

This game is written in Perl using OpenGL. We have a user manual which will help get you up and running. You can find more THANCS stuff at Nick's THANCS website.