Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander is an amazing game and, if you’re reading this, congratulations! You’ve purchased one of my favorite games this year. And you’re probably noticing it’s difficult and, at times, confusing. How do you prioritize what to do in this Star Trek -meets- Final Fantasy -meets- XCOM gem? I had the misfortune of replaying the first 10 hours twice after I bungled my first playthrough so badly I couldn’t survive the Chruul Invasion. But i learned my lessons, and have a bunch of Halcyon 6 tips to share with beginners so you don’t make the same mistakes I did.
Resource Management
This is a simple but important tip - don’t lose colonies! Don’t evacuate them to get crew and don’t try to soldier on if you’ve lost more than one or two because the game does not give you more colonies as time goes on. So the ones you start with are the only ones you have. And while it is possible to gain resources from winning space battles that alone is not enough. You’re going to need a steady stream of crew, dark matter and materials and the only way to do that is to keep your colonies alive.
Tier 2 Ships
Getting to Tier 2 ships is your number one priority in the early part of the game. You’ll have no hope of surviving the improved Chruul ships if you don’t get to Tier 2 before the first invasion fleet arrives. Of course, getting to Tier 2 ships requires a LOT of resources. You have to research Tier 2 ships in the tech tree, then construct the facility to build them and THEN you can spend loads of dark matter and materials on building the bigger, stronger ships. You also need level 4 captains to fly them, too.
So, what’s the easiest way to do this? One word: shuttles.
In Act I of Halcyon 6 you have to manually gather your resources by sending ships to the colonies in your star system to pick up the resources and ferry them back to the base. Your starships are usually too busy to do these runs, although it is helpful to have them lilypad their way back from space battles and pick up things along the way. But the fastest, and cheapest, way to get resources quickly is to build a few shuttles instead. Each shuttle has to be helmed by a captain, so there is some liability if a shuttle gets attacked by space pirates, but by and large you’ll be able to run multiple shuttles through your system without much trouble.
And you’re going to want multiple shuttles. I ran with three shuttles on my second playthrough and it was the primary reason I was able to get to Tier 2 ships quickly and survive the Chruul onslaught. Of course, you’re going to need captains too.
O Captain! No Captain?
Training captains gets exponentially harder as the game goes on since the costs increase with each new recruit. You’re going to want at least five captains for the early game, but seven is the ideal number. It allows you to have three dedicated to a fleet, three for shuttles/back up fleet/base exploration muscle, and one to stay on the base and clear out chambers for construction or do research projects.
Also, and I can’t stress this enough, pick one captain to be your hero captain who goes on every mission. The officer training school you can build has a research option that will promote all of your captains, but it requires a high level captain to unlock. So level 7, level 10 and level 13 captains can do the project along its various stages and upgrade your entire crew. This is especially important as you build ships in tiers 3-5 as they require high ranking captains to pilot them.
So having a balanced crew isn’t as useful as having one captain running several levels ahead of the rest. This was a huge struggle for me in the late game of my second playthrough because, while I had the resources to build tier 4 ships, I didn’t have enough captains. If I had one level 13 captain then a few days working on the research project in the officer training school would’ve automatically upgraded all my existing captains to the necessary level.
Combat Effects Explained
One of the biggest flaws in Halcyon 6 is the lack of information concerning combat effects. For some reason, you can’t read what an effect does until it is applied to an enemy during combat, which makes game planning difficult. So here’s a quick rundown of some of the effects I found most effective.
Ship Disable - This is a true lifesaver. It will shut down an enemy ship for an entire round, a very useful strategy against formation where one strong ship is accompanied by two weaker ships. Put the big ship to sleep and focus on taking out the smaller two. Conversely, you can disable multiple ships at a time so you are sometimes able to disable two ships to make it even easier to focus fire on one enemy.
Engines Down - Like ship disable, this will affect turn order. It reduces enemy speed which means you’ll get more attacks in than they will, and the Engines Down effect is easily exploited by the Engineering class of captains and ships.
Sensors Down - This effect reduces enemy aim, but it's most useful as part of a pairing between the tactical and science class. The science class ships/captains can inflict this effect and the tactical classes have one, sometimes two, attacks that exploit it. And if your tactical captain has the super charge ability, which allow him/her to do bonus damage on an attack, then the pairing can do astounding amounts of damage
Hull Breach - This effect applies bonus damage to attacks for several rounds. Be careful not to use a follow up attack that exploits Hull Breach after you apply it. Exploiting an effect removes it from the enemy, and this effect is at its best when applied for several turns. So, once you get it on an enemy, let it work for a few turns before exploiting it and taking it off.
Repair Drones - This is an ability available to the Engineering class that can be a real life saver. It repairs damage over several turns to a ship of your choice. The science ships tend to be the healing class, but having repair drones on an engineering ship can be a game changer in longer battles when the science vessel runs out of its limited number of heals.
Battle Stims - The only ground combat tactic worth mentioning. Buffing this up on your science captains is incredibly useful for the handful of ground combat scenarios you encounter. It essentially gives your squad extra turns, making it much easier to wipe out alien invaders.
Have any of your own tips to share? Let us know in the comments!
