then if building other races’ ships is going to be included, there should be a penalty on the player’s built ships since the player’s fleet would be using “alien” technology, whereas they fully understand their own. SO then the strategy is whether you build less powerful, possibly more expensive alien ships closer to your front lines or to build more powerful, possible less expensive ships that take more time to get to the front line?
Don’t mix them. Switch them.
You can’t control your units so focus must be on;
-
story
-
possible mission design (not just a big empty space), perhaps space stations, planets (in background I suppose).
Do some missions with race A, then switch to a different race and then with one or more missions view the same story from their viewpoint.
I don’t know but I feel a story where everyone is right depending on the viewpoint would be cool idea. There isn’t always a right and wrong but it would require some good writing skills.
I like the idea of different types of shipyards being located on various planets. is the map going to generate systems in a random fashion for replayability? Will shipyards and the type of shipyard also be assigned in a random fashion? How about space stations with defenses? Planetary defense centers? Marines? Troopships? And some form of economy? Sorry cliff,guess I’m basically looking for an overview of the campaign game.
Giving access to mixed fleets will hurt the replayability of the campaign. I’d like to see any mixed fleet options to be very limited. At least have penalties on construction cost, construction time or number of crew required.
Or keep any mixed fleet access down to captured ships in regards to other race hulls in your fleet. But allow a chance to be able to produce some components that might start out as race specific.
capture yes (along with board mechanics and modules) refiting yes( at your shipyards only your factions modules) building… no
Yep, capturing is the way I feel it should be done. With the modules though I think you should be able to use any race specific modules that are equipped on the ships you’ve captured. For example if the Tribe ship you capture has the tribe repair module equipped you can reproduce it since you’re race has one to copy, but if there isn’t one equipped on any of the ships you capture then you can’t equip any.
okay I meant refitting of captured ships with your OWN faction modules but they can keep modules that were captured
boarding seems interesting to me since you can think of several ways to do it… ship to ship boarding using security modules to duke it out? gun that shoots small boarding craft? ( kinda like the limpets) perhaps teleportation? ( wold also kinda work like the boarding craft exept high power reqs and cannot be shot down?
integrating boarding modules could get very involved. The very simplest way to do this (and I havent even started on it yet) would be for enemy ships stiill surviving when victory is declared to automatically join your fleet.
Failing that, a new boarding module could be introduced and would be inert for the whole battle, only allowing you to capture the remaining enemy ships if the module (at least one per fleet) remains intact at the end of battle.
of course, there is potential for more complex interactions than that (mid-battle boarding etc), but as a first-step simple implementation, I like this idea. It means there is a module you only need one of (maybe some backups) in your fleet, but you need to worry about losing that specific ship. Suddenly, you can lose just 1 ship, win the battle, but the loss of the boarding ship blows your chances of capturing much-needed alien ships…
We shall have to see what makes it into the campaign game over time 
mid battle boarding also leaves the question about what happens to a mid battle boarded ship? how do you show boarding happening? a campaign only module that works as you described would certainly be the easiest way to give it a try to see where it leads gameplay and ballance wise.
Such a module would have people design a cruiser with just that module and make it sit at the very back of the map, far away from any combat to make sure it doesn’t get destroyed. That would just mean your fleet costs a few hundred moneys more and you get to keep all opposing ships.
but you would need to win the battle first, and you only get which enemy ships SURVIVED. that usually means you’d only get 10% of the enemy fleet or less (unless your fleet does really good). besides, from what I understand, you only need ONE boarding module.
this could be limited by a range requirement, and/or a cost req since you’d have to pay the ground pounders.
this.
if you win the battle usualy means either a handfull of fighters, a frigate, or a limping cruiser to me, setting a range requirement on top of that? might be viable if i sacrifice some firepower on one or two of my ships … maybe set a limmit on how much they can board per module instead?
Alright, small difference:
Such a module would have people design a cruiser with just that module and make it sit at the very back of the map, far away from any combat to make sure it doesn’t get destroyed. That would just mean your fleet costs a few hundred moneys more and you get to keep some of the opposing ships.
Such a ship would just cost 150+boardingmodulecost, which is about as much as a small squadron of fighters and if you win you get a bunch of extra ships.
What I mean is that the boarding module should be a choice, you either spend a lot of money and hope for an easy victory, or you don’t spend that money to make your victory easier. So just implementing it as either a very, very expensive module or a pre-fight extra you can buy would be best in my opinion.
Actually the more I think about this the more long term possibilities it iopens up.
For example, orders to disable, but not detroy enemy ships
And code for making the battle end if all the enemy ships are disabled.
Imagine orders where weapons could be ordered to target enemy weapons only, but would do 50% less damage. Or orders where you stop firing at enemy ships that have no weapons remaining…
suddenly equipping a fleet deliberately as a ‘capture’ fleet makes sense…
That would be great! 50% is a bit low though, letting 75% of damage be effective would make it a more commonly used order.
Well it would certainly add a new very interesting feature to the game. I will try to bring in some thoughts of mine. There are several games which had a really good and motivating capture system. The best example would be “The Patrician”. You would have to fulfill certain requirements to seize an enemy ship. First you need more crew than the other ship. Also your crew would have to be better armed. So you needed many sailors and many swords to seize an enemy ship. Naturally you must be near enough to give your sailors the possibilty to board the enemy ship. If your enemy had a faster ship he would just escape and shoot you down while you were following him.
Transfered to GSB that would mean that virtually any ship could seize another. You could add another requirement like a module called “Boarding Shuttles”. If this module is not installed you couldn’t board the enemy. If you sucessfully board the fight begins. Your crew and the enemy crew fight each other. This would mean that the total number of crew members will be decreased due to their death. If in the end your crew prevails you will board the enemy ship and take control.
Due to the crew loss both ships will become more or less useless for the further fight because there isn’t enough crew anymore to operate the engines and weapons. This depends on how many of your crew members died in the fight.
Also you could introduce certain modules which prevent boarding or boost the strength of your crew. Like “Laser Rifles” or “Polarized Hull”.
Also there could be a restriction to seizing. Like a “Boarding Shuttle” module supplies you with 3 command officiers and for every boarded ship you loose one. Or 1 for a frigate and 2 for a cruiser.
Another game would be X3. It supplied you with special weapons designed to immobilize enemy ships. They did nearly no hull damage. They just destroyd all systems and the engine of the enemy ship. In X3 you had to load your ship with a special trained strike force which boarded the enemy ship and had a certain sucessrate which dependet on how well trained they were. In X3 you could either try to board your team if you stayed very close to the enemy ship and they tried to cut up the hull in spacesuits, or shoot them directly into the hull with special “boarding” torpedos.
Yeah well maybe some points will help you Cliff to create a system which is well tuned for GSB 
I like this idea, especially combined with a “boarding module” as mentioned elsewhere in the thread. I think there should be a limit on how many ships a single boarding module can allow you to board though - treat it as a crew module that contains specially-trained marines to capture disabled enemy ships and operate them with a skeleton crew back to base where they can be fully crewed. So if you disabled 6 enemy cruisers but only have enough boarders to claim 2 of them, you have to select 2 and leave the others behind.
I think balancing the “Disable” command with damage done might be a delicate business though. You don’t want everyone choosing Disable for everything because it makes the combat end faster, even if they have no intention or ability to capture those disabled ships.
And disabling enemy ships brings to mind the idea that’s floated through the forums a few times of being able to set your ships to self-destruct (hopefully taking nearby enemy ships with it) triggered by some condition or other (usually a % of hull damage). This could make for interesting bits - if a ship is set to self-destruct at 25% of hull hitpoints remaining, but is considered disabled at 30%, well, obviously you just bought the enemy a new ship. But if the enemy isn’t looking to capture anyway, you may have just sacrificed your ability to deal a crucial few points of damage by kabooming your ship early. Just a thought.
I’m really excited for a campaign similar to Star wars Empire at war. But I’ve noticed one severely lacking aspect of those types risk style campaigns is that they are restricted to 1v1 as far as races are concerned.
I would love to see the possibility of a multi faction fight.
Example: If you own a territory can be accessed by three other adjacent enemy territories. That could be a 4 race free for all battle.
It would obviously do away with the risk style of one player attacks at a time. So I’m not sure how a game would negotiate the problem of every player announcing where they would attack. And still give the human player a chance to change his mind if he realized the enemy was attacking elsewhere.
It would also open up a cool possibility of
Example: If you own a territory can be accessed by 4 adjacent territories. The enemy owns three of those territories and you own the other. The enemy decides to hit that territory from all three sides. But in response you could also reinforce the territory from your adjacent territory.
It’s a different Idea that could add a lot of replay value.