Star Battle by Sam Cappleman-Lynes
(view directly for a larger image)
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; in composite Star Battle mode a left click places a star, right click in a cell marks off the cell, and a right click on an edge or corner marks in a dot as a placement note.)
Theme: TIE Fighter
Author/Opus: This is the 6th puzzle from guest contributor Sam Cappleman-Lynes.
Rules: Standard Star Battle rules. Two stars per row, column, and region. (The shading of the large central region is for thematic purposes only.)
Difficulty: 3.5 stars
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 5:15, Master = 7:45, Expert = 15:30
Solution: PDF; a solution video is also available here.
Note: Follow this link for other classic Star Battles and this link for Star Battle variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Star Battles to get started on. More Star Battle puzzles can be found in The Art of Puzzles, in the books Star Battle by JinHoo Ahn and Star Battle 2 by JinHoo Ahn and Murat Can Tonta, and in our beginner-friendly collections Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli and Starter Pack 5: Star Battle by JinHoo Ahn.
Solved with only logic. I had to learn new tech but it was worth it.
First expert time this week. I’m not the speediest at star battles…
I used to solve these in Paint on a computer. For many puzzles I welcome the online interface, but this one seems pretty awful. Why does it even try to put those green dots in? For me at least I spend half the time trying to unclick the green dots I never wanted to create in the first place. It’s a frustrating experience. Do others here use the dots in solving a star battle? I’d like it if left click did a star and right click did an X and that was it. Clicking anywhere on the grid created (or destroyed) a star or X, the end. Personally I think the puzzle soLves/reads better using colors for star and no star, so I may return to Paint. Criticism of interface aside, thanks for the fun puzzles.
The green dots for me represent a fairly helpful notation that I use in paper solving of the puzzle, but I agree that I have more misclicks with this notation style than might be preferred if instead of right click doing mark off cells and mark in notes there was another key combination that separated the two more.
If you do want to use color for solving instead, the tab menu will give you back a Surface option for painting in colors on all these puzzles.
FWIW, I’ve been using the green dots a lot since watching some of the solution videos last year and, but I also place quite a few of them unintentionally (and it makes larger puzzles basically impossible to solve on mobile).
Notation aside, I loved the puzzle. Very cool break-in!
For those having trouble with green dots in the Penpa-Edit interface, you can go to Settings (button in the top right of the page) and change “Star Battle Dots” to either “Low Range” (which helps avoid placing them unintentionally) or “Disable” altogether.
Is there any way to operate the puzzle on a one-button mouse?
I’d rather click twice than try to right click on a touchpad.
On my mac, holding control while clicking with a one-button mouse is equivalent to a right click. Something similar should be true on a PC.
I solved it logically without guessing anywhere. 11.12 mins to solve this one. Very nice puzzle.
10:01.Beautiful solve !