GSB Expansion - Wishlist

Gratuitous Forum Gratuitous Space Battles
21

we need more weapons of mass destruction !!

better point defense systems.

specialized hull and engines for better zap and go tactics.

ripping a page out of Master Of Orion 2 : stasis fields gota big ship problem ? no worries just stick em in another dimension until you can deal with it.

weapons with area of effect. for example bomb launchers that unleashes a big Kaboom !!

projectile weapons with various projectiles that do various kinds of destruction.

Projectiles that on impact shatter into hundreds of pieces showering nearby targets with deadly shrapnel.

Projectiles that are designed to deeply penetrate armor and then explode causing deep internal damage.

And last but not least .

to counter all those pesky lasers.

Aerosol Bomb !! tired of all the freaking beams coming in at your ships ? then just disperse them literally, with the handy dandy aerosol bomb. Watch that deadly beam of energy be dispersed into nothing more than a pretty light show . oooh ahhhhh.

what fun is a battle field if its all just a bunch high powered torches any how :slight_smile: ???

22

Have just checked the demo and got following ideas:

More tactics could be added:

-Bording marine
-drone and kamikazer

and more battle varieties:

  • invade planets (let defender be able to deploy defending cannons on the ground/satellite)
  • hold until the reinforcement arrives (maybe give the player 120% points but must split them by 70%/50%)
  • team vs team/one against the allies

and some other ranodm ideas:

  • different mount to improve damage/consume more energy
  • missiles could be limited by ammo, need extra slots for supplies. (you may also need supplier ships in your fleet)
  • more ship classes, but the module should not be limited by cruiser/frigates/etc., maybe make a table list of effects when used by different classes, but only leave fighters(could add more fighter classes) with different modules.
  • the honor received after battles should be related to the surviving rates.
  • more upgraded modules, but need to be unlocked by tech points, which can only be used before battles (maybe combine tech points to create campaigns!).
  • should be able to modifiy individual ships without assigning different designs
  • save the default commands according to the designs
  • create and save battle groups

toh I am very satisfied with the concept of this game and plan to buy the copy, but still hope there would be more stuffs. And I would prefer wait if there will be an expansion in next year, just to save my budgets.
(and sorry for my English)

23

I have to say this is one of the more fun space games I’ve played in a long time. There are a couple of things though I’d suggest:

Better AI - I know the AI isn’t terribly complex, but the orders you can issue your ships are very simple and it seems like your Fleet Commodore got promoted from a manager position at the local spaceburger joint. Sometimes I find it maddeningly frustrating that a simple concept of “combined firepower” is completely lost, even with the co-op order. The ships don’t work together so much in this game as almost randonmly selecting what to do and hoping they randomly selected the same things.

As an extension of that, the ability to exert a little bit more pre-battle planning (such as arranging task forces that work together perhaps) would be awesome. I don’t know how possible that is within the bounds of the game, but just a thought.

New Ship Classes - Something in the size range between a FF and CA, perhaps a CL or DD. (Actually, in space games, that’s what I’d personally class as a corvette -something with a lot of firepower but smaller than the big cruisers; but that’s my FreeSpace bias coming in :wink: ). I find the Frigates far too frail to be really effective combat units. They need to last a while to cause meaningful amounts of damage, and they just can’t.

Also, the usual - DNs, BCs, etc.

Other Changes - firing arcs. I read the posts above about spinal mounted weapons, and frankly to add firing arcs the AI would have to be improved anyway. Still, I wouldn’t mind seeing it.

Tactics Orders - Orders that effect tactics rather than just target selection and general behavour, such as “flank”, “hit and fade”, etc.

Greater degree of missions - again, just echoing what a lot of others have said. Convoy escort/raid missions, things like that.

Random mission generator - Don’t know if it’s possible with the way the mission format is written but I’d love to see on of these. It would make the game extremely replayable.

24

This is the only suggestion within the last three posts i really do not like. The last thing we need is to make non-tank armor ships more useless. Find a way to make heavy armor ships more viable without being overpowering, and I’ll agree to add this.

25

Here’s a couple more for my wishlist:

Flak Cannons: Mentioned lots of times in various forum posts over the months. Low damage, area effect, no armour penetration, anti-fighter weapon.

Ships under fire have a small accuracy penalty: To prevent overuse of ‘Co-op’ order and allow for high speed harrasment ships/fighters. Will also emphasize an increase in fleet size over durability. There are reasons why this would be realistic to add: Distracted by incoming attack runs, the ship rumbling as weapons impact, necessity to increase defensive maneuveurs, people dying around you etc.

26

I’ve long considered spinal mounts, which is why I started doing the converging lasers thing, but the pre-requisite for it is to get firing arcs into the game, if only for spinal mount weapons. That involves some head-scratching and debugging and serious thought, and it is that which is holding up spinal mount weapons right now.
[/quote]
Cliff, I have got your answer right here eaw.heavengames.com/cpix/foc_units/eclipse.jpg

27

I’d like to see more weapon type variety. Right now there are some types with only cosmetic differences between them. For example, how about a super-precise slow-firing sniper beam weapon which targets the enemy ship weapons (or other systems) specifically? Or how about a gravity bomb which doesn’t do much damage but throws ships around (breaks formations)? Just some very random ideas. I get bored if I mostly have to choose between a slightly slower firing but slightly more powerful red laser and a slightly quicker firing but slightly less powerful blue laser.

At the very least please, I can haz railgunz? kthx Kinetic arty is really really a must-have :slight_smile:

28

I see your… something and raise you a Sajuuk:

800×302 30.7 KB

29

I’d really like to see “primary weapons” added. What I mean by this is a more powerful variation of a weapon that takes up 2, 3, or maybe even 4 slots. Generally speaking this would be a slow firing(and I mean REALLY slow) but massive damage weapon… Knock out any of the weapon slots and the whole gun is useless. Oh, and can we have a race who’s fighters are Gundam style robots? =)

30

I support the whole “more orders/better AI” thing. I’ve only had the game a day or two, but already I feel severely limited in what I can actually order my ships to do. A few examples:

Fire Control Link: Slaves one ship to another like Escort or Formation, but causes the slave ship to automatically fire on the same target as the master ship. Slave several ships to one master for massed fire. I think this is what Cooperative is supposed to do, only, well… it doesn’t really do it.

Attack Shielded Ships: Causes a ship (say, a missile ship) to prioritize shielded targets over unshielded targets.

Attack Unshielded Ships: Causes a ship (say, a laser ship) to prioritize unshielded targets over shielded targets. Combine with another ship ordered to Attack Shielded Ships for a one-two punch - the missile ship drops the enemy’s shields, while the laser ship burns the enemy to slag.

Attack Ships w/ : Causes a ship to prioritize targets equipped with a particular type of weapon, like missiles or EMP weapons. Handy for killing the bastards that keep freezing your ships.

Keep at Range: If there’s a way to do this with the current orders, I can’t figure it out. I don’t want my frigates in the thick of the fight, slugging it out with enemy cruisers. They die when they do that. I want certain classes of ship to stay away from the enemy, say, just close enough to lob EMP missiles.

I’m sure there are more useful orders that could be added. Feel free to add your own.

31

I meet your raise with an ArchAngel class Battleship:
image

32

I’m sorry but Sajuuk is a god.

33

Things I would love to have:

-An improved post-battle wrap up. With charts!
-The ability to follow a single unit around the screen (unit camera tracking).
-Hotkey units of interest.
-Replays! (and the ability to save them)
-New options for unit tactics: kamikazee at %X, erratic (engage anything, and at random)
-Moo2 style Assault shuttles for capturing enemy units (crew vs. crew showdown).
-Additional interface to show unit status by ship class. (How many fighters do I have left?)

Haven’t stopped playing this game since I picked it up off steam. It has since trumped Wow, TF2 and L4D2. Please keep up the good work!

34

already in.

35

I would have to agree. Battleships would be nice.

That said, adding to many ship types, such as gunboats and destroyers and such, would only add a mess. Frigates and Cruiser cover Light and Heavy Warships. Battleships are so large, so they can certainly fit in. The balance issue here is making them beatable and balanced. Make shields to powerful, and you will need another battleship to beat one. Make them to frail and they will be a waste of points. The same for their firepower. If they can destroy cruisers just as fast as cruisers can demolish frigates that would be game breaking. A battleship might only have four or five weapon mounts, with very powerful, but slow tracking weapons, and as such be superior to cruisers, but vulnerable to frigates and fighters.

A new race, ancient and powerful, perhaps even to the Empire, that would be nice. With expensive, but powerful ships.
Or the opposite, a trash race, with so many cheap and sorry ships that they form a heap of junk coming at you like a tidal wave.

36

Cool, how’s this done? Clicking on the unit picture only jumps to the unit, which generally goes on to fly off screen.

37

on the right side of the minimap there are some buttons, hit the first one and then hit a ship and done.

38

A very basic TB-strategy mode would be fantastic, in my opinion. Planets/Production, routes between them, and no easy re-deployments. =D

I suppose this would all require a dynamic AI deployment system, so I’ll vote for that. :wink:

39

Obviously there are still major balance issues to work out: shields vs armor, weapon balance, and we NEED at least one AOE antifighter weapon (flak) and one AOE anticruiser weapon (nukes).

A “planetary defense/assault” mission would actually be really easy to do - just apply a uniform gravitational field left/right or right/left, which adds say .1 to your speed in that direction (and subtracts in the other). Defenders would need reasonably good cruiser engines to maneuver at all, while attackers could take a lot of advantage from the speed to design VERY fast-closing assault ships (with cruiser lasers etc.).

40

We dont need either of those things. Balance first, then more options next. More strategy, more counters. Better AI.
While i agree with flak as an aoe weapon (One that should hurt your own ships) I think you need to come up with a better aoe weapon. Especially given the scale of the battles. Remember that those big ships are only about 200m long.