Gratuitous Space Battles

[Garlick Brad]

Well, I finally played GSB many months after actually getting it in a Humble Indie Bundle, and... it's hard!

So, since there doesn't seem to be a thread for it already, I decided to make one. So without further ado, anybody here (besides me and Spitfire'd that I know of) got it? Any tips?

(Also, off-topic: I think this is the first discussion thread I've ever started!)

 

[labowsky]

never heard of it.
gotta google now.

 

[Spitfire'd]

Alright! Hope to get some great discussion going. This is a great little indie game! Its appearance in the Humble Bundle that it was a part of was a STEAL.

You have to figure out what role you want your ships to have. With that role in mind you design your ship.

Having studied the tactics of Admiral Nelson of the British Royal Navy, I like to design ships with one main purpose: Get in as close as possible and dish it out. To that end I put things like quantum blasters on the ship. Close the distance and get those shields down, then I use multiple beam lasers to get the job done from there. My cruisers are designed to take punishment, and I use a mix of reflective and heavy shields to that end.

I don't have good Frigate builds. They usually die quickly and there's not much you can do about it. My cousin and I have been going back and forth with experimental builds trying to find ones that we like. I like making "missile frigates" so they can sit back behind the cruisers and just fire barrage after barrage of missiles and that seems to do alright.

Fighters are pretty tough to do too. The crew restriction kills. You want to have enough to counter/outlast enemy fighters and possible get some light strafing damage on enemy frigates/cruisers.

The key in the campaign is getting honor, which you use to unlock more modules and ship designs. After you beat a mission, to get any significant honor from the battle you have to use a smaller force than before. Therein lies a very fun challenge.

I like using the main race you start with for the most part. They all have their little perks. Again it's find what you like using and use the race that gets a benefit in that area. Imperials get shield benefits so I like to use them too, but their ships just look so weird!

That's all I got for now. Anyone else who plays, what do you like to do? Hope that gives you some ground to start on Garlick, be sure to share what you're doing too. Chances are you'll give me a few good ideas or we'll help each other produce super unstoppable ships!

 

[Garlick Brad]

Hmm, thanks for the interesting tips Spitfire'd.

Currently the only cruiser I have built is terrible It has like 7 randomly placed weapons that I took no thought in adding, and then loads of power generators and stuff. Needless to say, it doesn't get the job done too well!

I have to say, I love the sound effects in the game, and how they sharpen when you focus in on an area. I can see this being a great game, once I can get the hang of the advantages and disadvantages of each module.

How does the multiplayer work on this game?

 

[Raul Tha Monk]

What i read on wikipida the game seems pretty cool and the pictures that i saw

 

[Spitfire'd]

Multi player works pretty well. Let's say you finally beat that first mission and you really like the builds and setup that you used. You can post that build and setup online. Any fan of Gratuitous Space Battles can then download your plan and setup against it. They don't get to see your modules or customization, just the setup as if they were playing against the computer.

After they make their setup against yours, they click "battle" and get to watch it unfold. If they are victorious, they get the opportunity to send you a direct counter challenge. Or additionally they can just post their setup online for all challengers.

So after posting a setup the next time you log in you will see messages telling you how many people fought against your setup and whether they succeeded or failed. The ones that succeeded and also posted a counter-challenge will then be available for download, and that's where you can see their setup.

Usually I keep my setup as is once to see how well I did in their victory, then I make changes and adjustments as necessary.

As you can probably guess, if you are successful against their counter challenge you can again post your challenge online or send a new counter-challenge directly to that opponent.

When you get a great back and forth going against the same person it builds this great level of competition, camaraderie and respect. In addition to enjoying this with my cousin I had one or two players that I probably fought 5 or 6 battles with. We all had tons of fun.

This is such a long explanation for something that is really quite simple lol.

tl;dr It plays exactly like the single player but with the freedom to play on your own time.

 

[Garlick Brad]

Interesting, that reminds me slightly of Frozen Synapse, in that kind of play-by-email manner. Sounds good!

 

[Spitfire'd]

Frozen Synapse - Great game!

My only beef with GSB is that it doesn't incorporate more of a cloud saving system. I.E. I have the game installed on both my desktop and my Mac, but the modules, ships and races that I had unlocked on my desktop didn't transfer over when I installed it on my Mac. I was a little bummed at that as it meant I had to start over. Not that I had that much unlocked anyways, but still.

Otherwise love the game. I really don't mind playing it over. It gave me an opportunity to unlock different things and try them out.