YES it does have skirmish mode. Why people can't just read the description on the App Store beats me. Maybe it's because pricks like me answer their stupid questions. JUST BUY IT!
If you hold the question mark top right it tells you what the buttons do. If you select a ship the info box in the middle has each weapon (TA app won't let me add images). Touch a weapon and a drop down lets you select nearest, weakest etc for each weapon when the ship is on auto fire. Each weapon is set to nearest by default. There's a better pdf linked to in the online manual that has pics and is better but still misses a few things.
I took the plunge and here are my impressions after a few missions. This game is game is awesome with a lot of depth. It is turn based where you issue orders, change energy levels (divert all available power to shields! and all other other things that happen on star trek and similar shows), etc. and then hit play and watch a few seconds of battle unfold and then you react to what happened in the next turn. This forces you to think about what your enemy will likely do next so that you positioned well for where they are going to be not where they are now. There are firing arcs, 3D space to consider, and more - I don't think you could fit any more into mobile game which brings me to my next point... There are many, many small controls in this game. Zoom levels often have small ships as tiny dots on the map on an iPad Air. And the camera is fiddly. I can't imagine wanting to play this on anything smaller than an Air (sorry mini). Playing this on an iPhone would be a NIGHTMARE. Look I realize that some of you don't have iPads and are willing to put up workarounds all kinds of terrible gameplay experiences just to be able to play things on your phone. But just because you are OK with that trade off doesn't mean it is actually a good experience for most people. Most people would hate this on an iPhone. The camera is fiddly - even on an Air sized screen. This is most an issue in keeping up with the 3D location of your ships as that camera angle option is by far the worst. But if you don't stay on top of the "altitude" of all the ships in the battle you will crash into enemy ships (essentially accidentally ramming them - which can be a strategy when you actually intend to do it). There are also a few inconsistencies between how to swipe to do X across the different map views that add to the camera angle frustration. Now the 3D aspect of the space battles is actually a great addition to the game and the overall game is well worth putting up with the fiddly nature of the camera controls, but I do hope it improves in future updates.
Gameplay Video! Here is a You Tube link to an overview/opening playthrough video I made. I go through a little bit on how to play the first mission, the controls, and some thoughts. It will give you a good sense of gameplay for sure. BLUF: Totally worth $14.99 to have this game portable with me to play. I hope this encourages more people to mash the buy button so we can hope for a sequel or future similar type games. For perspective, I'm an older gamer who enjoys mostly turnbased and strategy type games. Xcom Longwar and Wasteland are my PC games right now, and this replaces my previous ios gaming go tos: trouble with robots or legend of grimrock. Btw, minor issue with sound in the last 3 minutes. No idea what happened. Not really a professional you tuber, I just wanted to try and give people a sense of the game to increase sales. Not affiliated with Slitherine, developers, TA, etc., just a gamer. Hopefully this video isn't buried so deep in the forums that people don't see it, but here it is... GAMEPLAY VIDEO LINK: Hope you enjoy it! --kshriner
If it's this, do it. It's incredible. Absolutely blown away by the tutorial mission alone. As in, what the hell? Looks (and sounds - have my new top-end Sennheisers on whilst the baby sleeps upstairs ) astounding. As in, omfg astounding. Would rate this - at first impressions - three miles over FS. Which, tbf, in all its incarnations has left me a bit cold. (And you can add frozen endzone to that n all).
frozen endzone was a little underwhelming, but FROZEN CORTEX (what FRendzone eventually became) is good. The added team management features are really cool.. anyway regarding Star Hammer, it is quite good. Been playing it on iPad Pro and while I don't believe it officially has support for that screen size it still looks great blown up on that display. Two comments from my end: 1. The camera is definitely "finicky"... I think it has something to do with the touch delta->camera delta translation. It's too sensitive or something. The main annoyance for me though, is selecting ships that are overlapping. You can select a ship by either tapping its real position, or its planned position (for the future - shown as a "ghost"). However if a ship is already selected by its ghost is overlapping with the current position of a ship, you can't move it. It always wants to select the ship in position. You have to change the height position of the ship to first move it, and then move the height back (if you want it to remain the same). 2. Overall the game is really fun (and is absolutely worth the price - anyone on the fence should get it), but when there's a single ship left and you are just flying circles around each other it gets tedious... not sure how to fix this, though
Wat I only have macs. I'm *pretty darned sure* I not only own Frozen endzone, I bitched about its abysmal OS X functionality in the days after its first release. Unless something has changed, it should be OS X available too.
Yeah, sorry, meant FC. Which I found tedious as hell in both its original and prime incarnations, on Mac and iOS I'm kinda hoping frendzone doesn't transfer to iOS, as I know I'll find it irresistible (as in principle I "like" strategy games) only to never play it bc I find it, well. Tedious as hell. I probably should've learnt my lesson by now, ay.
The Pocket Tactics review brought me here and the fact I was a big 'Nexus: The Jupiter Incident' fan. Read all the good stuff on here about this promising looking game and I think I'm ready to take the plunge. Checked out PC reviews of Star Hammer and saw there were quite a few bugs in the early version, have these been resolved for the IOS release or is it still a bit glitchy?
I'm not having any bugs or issues. There's a lot going on, on the screen and camera movement takes a minute to get used to but the game is fun. Lots of battle control and looks pretty. I'm only about 1-2 hours playing but enjoying.
Thanks for the reply, I'm big fan of deep slow burning tactical games so think this is right up my alley. I'll buy it now
