Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers is based upon the popular novel of the same name written by the dean of science fiction writers, Robert A. Heinlein. In the novel, Heinlein describes a futuristic war involving homo sapiens from our Earth (Terrans) against a Humanoid race (nicknamed the 'Skinnies' for obvious physical attributes) and their cobelligerents, the totally alien Arachnids. Since this is a story of future wars and future advances in technology, much is changed in the fields of weaponry and tactics and strategy. One thing remains the same, however; the fighting still rests on the shoulders of the individual infantryman. Although great starships has shuttle men between the distant solar systems and the power of individual weapons has risen to awesome heights, wars still cannot be won unless men venture onto the face of alien planets and fightthe enemy on their home ground.

As the Arachnid Player, uses an Alien Control Pad sheet to record the placement of his underground central Hive cell complex and the attached tunnels radiating outward. Tunnels are used to move the Warrior units, along with Worker units mixed in as expendable decoys, to locations where they can pop up to the surface through a breach hole and attack the Terran units. Completely unseen, and only paper recorded, Engineer units are used to create the breaches and, later, to extend the tunnels.

The game is set up in a "Programmed Instruction" system of scenarios to slowly introduce the game concepts. Scenarios range from Scenario I, which starts players off with a basic MI raid on a Skinny city (just like the book. "Flores died on the way up") to Scenario VII, The Battle of Klendathu: the final Terran assault on the Arachnid Homeworld.

Warfare in the Twenty-second Century is the ultimate test of survivability of the human race.