Splash the fact that you have a GSB expansion in gratuitously HUGE font on the top of the forum.
Maybe I am lame, but I stop by here every day and I had no idea there was an expansion. I’ll be buying it next week!
Something to consider.
It’s pretty cool. If you’re into this game, it’s definitely worth $6.
The ships are of a different flavor; really good damage repair and hull integrity, not so good shields or armour.
It looks great, looking forward to buying it.
DONE!
So far not so good.
- Tribal ships get eaten by anything that mounts large numbers of cruiser lasers, or any other high-damage low-penetration gun, due to having half the resists of any normal ship.
- Howitzers have insane damage, but need another weapon to soften up the armour first, and in any case trying to use them brings you into cruiser laser range, where you die.
- The excellent repair units help somewhat, but without a decent tank, tend to be overwhelmed as modules get taken offline before they can be repaired.
- The frigates especially are undefendable, and die if a pixie farts in their general direction.
On the other hand, they are pretty good at rushing slow moving missile cruisers, and the cruiser autocannon and frigate rapid-fire gun do nasty things to fast frigates and slow fighters.
Maybe I’m just using them wrongly. Anyone have any better luck?
I smoked the tutorial! That’s good, right? 
I too am having no luck, at least not in terms of the honour I could earn using other races in the same scenarios.
You need to push on the fact they have double health, and fast repairs. Where on another race’s ship you would’ve put armour or sheilds, put repair modules.
If you want a tank… Fit a ship with one gun, then the rest with a even mix of camoflage modules and tribe repair modules. You’ll end up with a ship with 9000 to 11000hp, depending on the mix, and the same again in potential repairs. I stopped using armour or shield tanks a while ago, found them pretty ineffective. This is nice though, there’s no counter to it, it’s just a big damage soak. Armour tanks get sliced up by cruiser beam lasers, shield ones by cruiser lasers. But a tank based on raw hull strength… There’s no weapon that’ll kill them cheaply.
If you think they suck vs cruiser lasers… You need to fit more howitzers… Since howitzer trumps cruiser laser, and demolishes shields in no time, so all of a sudden -50% shield in exchange for +100% health looks like a real nice trade… One or two cruiser beam lasers in the mix and enemy armour isn’t a worry - that the same solution you’d use for a cruiser laser rush, and it works here too.
EDIT: I’ve since done some testing… And the cruiser laser is way better than the howitzer. I guess you just have to fight fire with fire, mount more cruiser lasers.
Fit one really cheap shield at most (just to keep rocket fighters off.)
Don’t bother with armour at all. Repair modules will take their place.
heir fighters are brilliant. No speed bonuses to play with, but the double HP is really nice - lots more fighters make it back for repairs (but you need more repairs available, so a bigger spend in carriers is necessary…)
I’m finding The Tribe to be very strong… Massive hp, that’s for sure… But it’s hard to rush with them, since they don’t have the speed bonus other races get to make use of.
I think fast moving ships set to “Keep Moving” is a good way to go with them. Speed makes you harder to hit and that’s beneficial to ships with repair modules.
I agree with dogthinker about no armor. Although you’re repairing the armor fast with the Tribe’s superior repair devices, the armor just dies too fast to keep it up.
Incidentally I find the frigate repair module to be of dubious usefulness. Frigate modules have so few hit points that any decent attack run just blows up a couple modules and there’s no fixing them once they’re totally dead. Should repair modules be able to bring back a destroyed module? Maybe…
I usually fit one shield still – the max resist one. It’s still useful to ward off low shield penetration hits, especially beam lasers.
If you instalkled the expansion before about 3PM GMT today, please re-download an re-run it, because I patched it to fix autocannons, which were not working correctly. If you aren’t sure if you had it before then, re-download it anyway.
The tribe like fighting at close range. Steam in there and blast away.
My suggestion is get this expansion on Steam.
I wont make any digital download purchase that doesn’t have the comfort and convenience of Steam (such as being reliably downloadable and installable years from now, with a single click) even if its for only a few bucks.
One thing I’ve noted, is that the frigate repair module has a lot more hp than frigate modules usually do, so they’ll significantly boost the frigate’s overall survivability.
Still… So far I’ve done better without them, but I haven’t tried making a frigate ‘tank’ yet, with multiple modules. It may be mandatory to sprinkle some of these at the front of your formation, so you have something to soak the first waves of fighter rocket fire - since with the penalty you just can’t armour Tribe frigates enough to reflect even fighter rockets.
It is coming to steam,
Although I feel duty bound to point out that I’ve actually been selling on-line since before steam was conceived, so people who bought Asteroid Miner from me in 1997 can still download the game today :D. Beat that valve 
(although I admit a one-click install is good, I dislike the always-running client aspect).
Do you mind if I ask why? I try to avoid Steam, DRM and limited activations at all cost - I’ll happily skip a game if it has any kind of limits on it. Similarly, I look forward to more GSB expansions.
I like Steam for the same reason I like Amazon: one place to use my credit card online rather than dozens of places.
Besides, Steam is a great place to shop. They sell a lot of good, older games on there for cheap. Evil Genius for $10! I just got a THQ package they were selling for $50 that was like 15 games – Red Faction series, including the newest one, Saints Row 2, the COH and Warhammer RTS games with all expansions, etc.
Plus Steam is an instant messenger service, so get your friends on there and you can (optionally) broadcast to everyone what you’re currently playing and get chat message pop-ups that work in-game without interference.
It’s probably the best idea Valve has had since Half Life 1.
Direct2Drive.com is pretty good too but I feel like Steam has better presentation and selection.
As far as limited activations, Steam does not inherently enforce any such limits. Some developers/publishers do put limited on their steam version of games, but they do that with or without Steam’s DRM (ex: via Sony’s rootkit) Steam is completely transparent about these limits (as well as the existence of other DRM) prior to purchase, as well.
I consider DRM a fact of life at this point. If you avoid DRM at all costs, then you shouldn’t even be running Windows. Also, this game has DRM in the form of a license/activation code. You apparently agree that some forms of DRM are acceptable. I happen to think that Steam’s is acceptable, especially when coupled with its convenience.
GSB doesn’t have an activation key tied to a remote server that could one day render the game unplayable. The key is required for online aspects that I don’t care about anyway. So no, I haven’t bought in to DRM.
Anyways, thanks for the answer.
Most Steam games are like that too. In fact, GSB is a Steam game and works the same through there. The only difference is if I launch it through Steam, it tells my Steam friends that I’m playing GSB (and if it were multiplayer it would be easy for them to join me).
DRM is really an individual manufacturer issue. Steam is really just a combination distributor, multiplayer matchmaker and game oriented instant messenger with optional DRM enforcement. Even the games that do have some sort of enforcement only seem to check it when you go online for multiplayer.
I Would like to buy the tribe expansion pack but since i purchased GSB on steam I have an uncontrollable fear that trying to stick the non steam expansion pack on top will make everything explode in my face.
Don’t knock it. Its happened before!
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Lets rewind a little here. Asteroid miner… Asteroid miner. You mean the game that stole vast portions of my life… man that game was epic. First time i played GSB I thought. This feels strangely familiar… and know i know why. Small world.
I got GSB from Steam and the expansion from here. No trouble. Double check that the install points to the right place though – it should be pointing into SteamApps\Common\Gratuitous Space Battles (same for any patches that get downloaded).
I bought it!
No trouble what so ever! Brilliant! Cookies all round!