Full Thrust had as its design goals, "Able to be played in two hours while having a couple of pints and watching footie on the TV in the background."
This is a worthwhile design goal. It's not one Attack Vector: Tactical shares, but it's still worthwhile.
Comparing Full Thrust to Squadron Strike is a reasonable comparison. They're both "plot/move/shoot" games designed to be malleable and easily adaptable. Squadron Strike is more detailed, so you end up running fewer ships.
FT hits its sweet spot at a minimum of 3-7 ships in my experience. FT starts becoming clunky at 18-20 ships – fewer with salvo missile pods and plasma bolts.
SS is fun with single ship duels, hits its sweet spot at about 3-6 ships in 3D and becomes unwieldy at 8. Using 2D exports of SS ships roughly doubles the number of ships you can run, but FT is better for larger fleet actions. You'll want SS if you want to run more detailed ships in actions that are about 10-15% smaller.
Starmada Nova is so much like FT that I kind of tilt my head at it…
For the people who've looked at the AVID-driven games and gone "oooh, but I'll never get my friends to sit at the table," the app should help.
paints more hovercraft.
