FIGURE B

The battlefield is set.

The two fleets are poised on a field of hexagonal blocks. The highlighted blocks represent the range of movement of each ship. The distance and direction each ship can move varies depending on the model. The various ships and descriptions of each are shown in Figure C.

FIGURE C

Each ship has different skills.

On the main battlefield view, you select a ship by tapping on it. The range of movement will be highlighted, and details on each ship's power levels will be displayed in the right-hand corner of the screen. "L" stands for Laser Power, "S" stands for Shield Charge, and "H" stands for Hull strength. You can also check out the status of the enemy ships. Tap on a ship, and the target details will be displayed in the upper right-hand corner.

On each turn, every ship has three action points. Moving, firing lasers, and charging shields each use one action point. That's enough to move your ship into position, fire once, and get the heck out of the way of return fire. In my first game, I forgot about this very important fact. I brazenly flew my ships in close to the enemy, opened fire wildly, and was left without any power to get back to a safe distance. When the computer took its turn, it was able to use all its action points to fire on my poor sitting ducks. My fleet was decimated pretty quickly.

If you have more than one target in range, you can select the one you're after by tapping on it. To move, you tap once in the shaded block to which you want to move and tap again to confirm. Your ship then zips into position. Enemy ships are in range when they fall within the shaded area and are not blocked by another ship. When a ship is in range, the Fire Button appears. Before tapping on it, I highly recommend sitting forward in your chair, slowly curling your hand into a fist, and uttering, "Fire!" in a stern but satisfied voice, just like Captain Kirk at the end of Star Trek VI. Don't forget to get that unmistakable Shatner gleam in your eye.

If your ships get damaged, you can use action points to charge them by tapping the Charge Shield button. If your Mother Ship is destroyed, you'll no longer be able to charge shields.

Once all your action points are used up, the End Turn button will appear. Tap on it, and the computer will take its turn until all its points are expended.

Strategy
I was expecting to move one ship and fire, and then let the computer would take its turn. However, you get to launch several attacks before all your points are expended. That means you have to think of your fleet as a whole, letting the ships work together by moving them into careful configurations. You've really got to think ahead and pay attention to the various power levels.

As you can probably tell, this game is far more involved than a lot of games designed for the relatively small screen of the Palm handheld. That's not to say it's too complicated to pick up and put down whenever you've got a free moment to play. It's easy to re-orient yourself, and you can quickly review all the power levels of the ships. Just tap on the power read-out display, and it'll cycle through each ship.