Basically, it can be 2-player or 1-player, and your objective is to conquer the galaxy. You’ll fight a bunch of battles to win planets, and when you’ve conquered them all… You win. It would be kind of like the galaxy mode in Star Wars Battlefront 2, except every battle would be a space battle. 
Judging from what I’ve seen in Cliff’s blog, before GSB came out, it used to be a game called dictator. perhaps, if cliff has saved those files, it would be easier to make this mode? Just a suggestion, but a damn good one.
A two player mode where you started with X amount of money, and conquered npc planets to gain more money per turn would be cool, then when you come up across the other player you have double blind games where you bid for points to use for the battle or maybe each planet is random for how many points can fight around it etc. Would be excellent but also ALOT more work for cliffski.
A simple tourney or mini-campaign system along these lines would be very enjoyable. It would also give more meaning to the withdraw order (which could mean “leave the battlefield” to fight another day.)
We understand the puzzle-like nature of the current challenge and single-player systems. Figure out how to “crack” a scenario. But trying to design a single fleet to take on multiple opponents within the same limitations has been more enjoyable. It’s a real challenge to develop deployments both balanced and with a key game-winning twist.
No, I meant like, a view of galaxy or something, where you have this giant fleet deployment ship (and you can build more later on) and you can move it to an adjacent planet, and, if it is neutral, you gain control of it. if you already own it, nothing happens. if it’s an enemy planet, but the enemy fleet is not stationed there, you gain control of it, unless the enemy has a “defensive fleet” (an immobile fleet that split off from the main fleet) orbiting the planet. that results in a battle. if you win, the enemy fleet flees with the amount of ships remaining from the battle. they can choose one planet to go to, but it must be one of theirs. and it must be adjacent. if there is no qualifying planet, the rest of the defensive fleet gets destroyed. and you capture the planet that the enemy fled. if you lose, you follow the same rules as the defensive fleet, except you don’t lose a planet. If both main fleets meet, it results in a huge space battle, probably one the size of defend Caspian IV, or Gravity Well. you get a certain income to buy ships or something for each planet you control. oh, and each player starts with a homeworld. It has a HUGE defensive fleet, and it doesn’t subtract from the main fleet. You could capture every other planet to win, or the homeworld. it would be the final touch on GSB. IT IS REQUIRED BECAUSE THEN IT WILL BE UBER MEGA ULTRA SUPER AWESOME!!!
I wouldn’t want the game to become too complex. I would really hate to see it become a 4X space strategy game. Maybe a simplistic conquest mode, like the one in Wing Commander: Armada.
Such additions are certainly for a sequel. A quality sequel that builds upon what Gratuitous Space Battles has brought us; is something that I would definitely buy.
A major single player campaign addition, conquest mode and improved multiplayer could comprise an excellent sequel. With a minimum of outsourcing required for artwork and no additional music required = lower costs, more profit. Hint Hint ;).
I too would rather not see scope-creep inflicted on what’s an other wise elegant design. Instead I’d like to see additions that enhance the core concept. Call it a built-in tourney system or “linear campaign”, doesn’t matter. Just something to link one battle to the next.
We also play table-top miniatures games and GSB reminds me of them. Opposing players devise an army and meet in battle. But you must devise your army BEFORE seeing your opponents. In table top gaming all you know are things like total points value, period, and standard army restrictions.
Agreed. I wouldn’t want GSB to become a crap 4X, I’d rather it remained an excellent stand alone game.
That said… It’d be awesome if it got to the point where there was an API to call up GSB and run a battle, and feed back output. Then I think you’ll see people hooking up GSB as the battle engine for some simple 4X games. I would have a go at it.
i.e. at it’s simplest:
2-player hotseat game writes a file describing the scenario restrictions for player A, then launches up GSB’s deployment screen for player A to make and save his deployment. Then it does the same for player B. Then it launches up GSB and pits the two deployments against each other. The only things really required for GSB to make this work, are:
- The ability to launch GSB directly to the deployment screen (i.e. “gsb.exe -deploy %scenarioname%”)
- The ability to launch up directly into a battle between two saved deployments. (i.e. “gsb.exe -fight %scenarioname% %deploymentA% %deploymentB%”
- The ability to record the outcome of a particular battle (i.e. write a file stating the fleet % surviving on each side. Obviously more detailed results would be ideal.)
Righto, my friend. For crap 4x, we already have the late unlamented ‘Master of Orion 3’… 
Let GSB remain GSB!
MOO3… A game that is so, so, so close to genius… So close to being the ultimate 4X - huge depth, low micromanagement, exciting. But brought down by it’s scope and development style - game destroying bugs lurking everywhere… And a learning curve like trying to climb the wrong side of Everest, which pretty much negates the low micro, since you find yourself fighting your ‘plans’, rather than them enacting your intentions for you.
I still pick it up about every 12 months and try to play it… I almost have fun. By the end, I think I mostly just liked the (buggy) battle engine, which takes a very different approach to GSB, with the weapons awesomely lethal and long range, much of the battle coming down to detection and countermeasures.
Dogthinker wrote: “That said… It’d be awesome if it got to the point where there was an API to call up GSB and run a battle, and feed back output.”
I thought about mentioning that myself. It would be excellent to have the game support this. But I just don’t feel that Mr Positech will implement it. The game Freespace 2 had this potential, since missions could be dynamically generated and run from command line. The only problem was that the game did not generate feedback after the battle.
Actually, I have a feeling that if the game sells well, this is something he might consider… The added value of a ‘campaign mod’ is pretty big, and the work needed to give enough functionality for others else to make one is relatively small.
- Opening the deploy screen from the command line should be pretty straightforward, no fuss there.
- Triggering a battle between two deployments… He’s said before this is problematic, but I bet this is something he’s poking at, since lots of people have asked for an option to mirror your deployment to the opposing side (to streamline hotseat play and testing, and make them possible when playing offline.) This doesn’t strike me as much more than making the game able to read deployments as challenges. Once that’s done, one would expect the following step of launching from the command line to be trivial.
- Writing basic battle feedback to a file… Trivial if all we need is a ‘win/lose/draw’, or the % survival. A bit more work if you wanted data on exactly which ships survived.
The only big reasons I can think of NOT to do it, is if he’s thinking of making a campaign expansion, or make a campaign mode a major feature of a sequel.