iOS Universal, PC/Mac/Linux •
With everyone already hip-deep into Warhammer Quest 2, I’d like to remind you there is life outside of the dungeon. For example, I dropped the kids off at school this morning and then went home and fell asleep on the couch. Can’t do that in WHQ2! While meeting my wife for lunch, I ran over a couple traffic cones in a construction area and dragged them under my minivan for about 2.5 miles. Not only did it make my minivan-driving self look cool, but you can’t do that in WHQ2! I also downloaded a new game from the App Store, Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander. That’s something we can all do, but you can’t do it in WHQ2!
Halcyon 6 is a big game, full of different mechanisms that, together, sound pretty great. There’s base building, turn-based combat, diplomacy, crew management, and more. The premise revolves around a derelict space station that you’re trying to rebuild to rebuff an incoming alien threat. You’ll build the base, explore the universe, meet aliens who can help or fight you, do away missions, and other Trek-like things.
It’s a big game, originally appearing on Steam, and the mobile version is feature filled:
- Base Building: spend resources to build station facilities (rooms) to enhance your production and technological capabilities, or build ships to help you control more territory
- Exploration: assign your fleets to nearby star clusters, where they can handle emerging enemy threats, do missions for alien factions or secure bonus resources
- Crew Management: assign crew to station facilities to greatly improve their output efficiency, or to ships where they can contribute in unique ways to combat, missions and events
- Deep Tactical Combat: fight tactical ship or ground battles to resolve hostile events, create a foothold in the sector and ultimately defeat the enemy mothership!
- Story Events: based on game criteria like rooms-built, alien diplomacy scores or officer traits/skills, the game will produce story events (often with multiple choice outcomes) that can lead to combat, time-related applied bonuses/negatives, officer attribute changes or any number of crazy in-game stories.
A bit after it launched on Steam, the game was updated to the “Lightspeed Edition”, which revamped much of the game and added a ton of new content. This is the version ported to mobile, and I’m actually really excited to play it. Will be putting in some time in order to get a review up in the next week or so. Or I’ll just keep playing WHQ2. And TtA. And RftG. Seriously, 2017 is killing me.
- Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander for iOS Universal, $7
- Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander for PC/Mac/Linux via Steam, $10
Anyone try this yet? We’re it not for WHQ2 I’d have grabbed it already, but…
Real tough week to release this with WHQ2 coming out and TtA still going strong. I’ve even got a few good plays out of underhand before it started to frustrate me. I’ll most likely pick this game up too, but not today
Been playing a bit. Only about an hour in, but I can say without hesitation that it’s better than the other game with “starbase” and “command” in the title.
There’s a lot going on…seems deep, but need to play a lot more.
Love the visuals though:
Might grab it until they iron out WHQ2… it’s pretty crashy on my iPhone still.
I’m not sure you could set the bar any lower …
I’m a couple of hours in on the main campaign, and this far, I’m loving it. Between managing officers (and who get promoted), opening up more starbase rooms, defending my colonies and manufacturing starbases from both the Ch’uul and pirates, the missions that you get (I’ve screwed up a couple), managing fleets and where to place them…I’m a bit overwhelmed, but it’s mostly because I don’t have a firm grasp on any of the mechanics other than combat.
It’s a solid title, almost a 4X lite ( I’m not far enough to qualify much more) with RPG elements.
This!
I’m not entirely sure if I’m doing things right or if I’m missing things. For example, I’m not entirely sure how I get more officers so I can build more ships.
It is fun, though, although it’s a little combat-centric, but I guess that’s probably the way you need to go as diplomacy doesn’t work all that well with an AI on the other end. That said, I was surprised by a fleet approaching the starbase…I assumed combat would ensue, but we ended up just talking on the viewscreen, so that was nice.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-trek-trexels/id683978968?mt=8
I hope no one misinterprets that for a recommendation
Oh boy…no, was just trying to show just how low the bar can go.
Touche, Mr. Neumann. Touche.
I played this for a bit at work (shhh…) and it seems pretty good. however it is extremely difficult to play on an iphone, even the big one. but that is what I am forced to as the kids have permanently taken over the ipads for minecraft…
Build the Officers Academy on the Starbase. Costs straight Crew (35 then 75) and usually 2-3 days. Both times I’ve done it, the officer who was assigned to do the work had an event.
That’s a delightful turn of phrase… we use “Balls deep” where I reside…
This is hip deep:
I can’t paste a picture of balls deep.
I can…
Made me choke on my drink. Very well done!