What took me a while to figure out was that Tech hexes repaired your hexcelle while in combat. Armor hexes allow hexes to take more hits. Bomb hexes throw bombs, plant mines, or plant turrets. Missile hexes launch missiles. Speed hexes speed up your ship. Grow hexes reduce the amount of food needed to evolve. All hexes seem to have effects on the hexes around them.
better gameplay than cargo bridge, but it needs more levels available on kongregate, not many people would want to go to the other site to play more levels if they have to replay the 30 levels they just did