I posted my UI issues here: viewtopic.php?f=25&t=4275&p=56768#p56768
Despite those issues, I love it. It works very well on my iPad2, and I hope you make enough money off us to justify tweaking the user interface!
The relaunched version is reasonably bug-free on my iPad 3. GSB is awesome on the iPad - I can sink hours into carefully designing entire fleets worth of new ships, or I can just load a predesigned fleet and watch some, well, gratuitous space battles! I’m very impressed at how quickly the app was polished and patched after the initial bug complaints, and the graphics quality for such a small app (as a 16GB iPad 3 owner, that’s always something I appreciate - internal storage is a scarce resource, like honor ; ). I’ll gladly purchase IAPs if and when the expansions are ported. I know iOS isn’t particularly mod-friendly, but if you could figure out a way to enable modding, that would be a huge step forward both for this game and the iOS platform.
$9.99 is pricey compared to the throwaway $0.99 “games” that flood the App Store, but GSB has way more content and depth than almost anything else on my iPad and well worth every penny. I’d gladly fork out a few bucks a pop for the expansions from here. I hope this game gets the attention and credit it deserves among the iOS gaming community.
If GSB for iPad is a big success, maybe Red Marble and Cliff can work together on a new Kudos or Democracy game designed for the iPad. I’d settle for a port of Kudos 2 or Democracy 2 (and by settle I mean squeal with glee and throw money at my monitor, before remembering that’s not how iTunes works and clicking ‘Buy App’ ; ).
TL;DR: 5/5, buy it now! Also, I want moar Positech games and content on my iPad. I’ll buy all the things!
Have you tried and found it is not currently possible? I was kind of hoping there might be a way. There are examples, like GTA3, where PC mods can be used in iOS ports. Anyway, it would be awesome.
Great Job on upadate! I am happily blowing stuff up. Now for campaign and challenge mode:)
Good update, the crashes are no more!
Audio music still needs re-sampling due to the static hiss.
Hopefully after the stumble at the start we will see more GSB on the iPad, would really like to see the expansion packs released.
Anyone here who did grab GSB on the ipad (and dieally is happy with it… :D)… it would be VERY much appreciated if you could review the app in the appstore. The reviews are often really helpful in getting people to take a look at the game, and every review counts. Thanks!
it is possible to make GSB free or at least for 2 days, I want to try this sci-fi game.
It’s pretty cheap, just grab it. I certainly enjoy my copy 
Maybe there will be a ‘lite’ version at some point? that’s pretty common for games on the ipad.
First off, just to be clear: I love GSB. It’s a wonderful game.
However…the iPad version is buggy as all hell (even after the re-release). It crashes regularly (usually during ship design rather than mid-battle, thankfully) and there are assorted features that just don’t work. For example, it appears that there is no way to delete ship designs or sort ships by anything but name order. There are buttons to click that claim to do these things, but hitting them doesn’t actually do anything.
Beyond the bugs, there’s also the issue of the blatantly inadequate porting to the iPad. A touch-screen interface is different to a mouse-driven one; just porting a game across unmodified and pretending that fingers are mouse-pointers doesn’t work. The sliders and buttons are ridiculously small and badly arranged; the interface is just generally unpleasant and annoying to work with. None of the “double-tap to do X” features work at all.
There are also the broader game design issues. I expected that some features would be stripped for the iPad version, but this is excessive. No online content at all? Only 14 maps? No way to fight a survival mode battle against anyone but the Empire if you want it to include fighters? No way to fight against the Federation at all? No way to track high scores of any sort? Once you’ve beaten “all” 14 maps on all three difficulty settings, the replay value of the game drops drastically. And why can’t I set up a battle between two player-designed fleets so that I can make it a two player game with a friend?
I could go on for pages, but you get the idea. And let me say again: I am a huge fan of the game. I’m not writing this just to bitch or because I want my money back: I’m writing because I would really, really like to see a properly-done iPad version of GSB, and because I hate to see a wonderful independent game company like Positech destroying its reputation like this. Please, for your sake and mine, fix this as quickly as you can.
–
Craig
Addendum: I’ve managed to find one double-tap that works (“select all deployed units of the same type”). I still haven’t managed to access any of the “two finger tap” functions, though. How am I supposed to do that when all of the ships and buttons on the deployment screen are smaller than one fingertip, let alone two?
–
Craig
The game is only $10 and running on a tablet. What do you expect? My lunch today cost me more than $10, yet you seem to expect a game that cost the same amount to include hundreds of horus of entertainment. That just is not feasible.
GSB ipad is what it is, a stripped down fun version of the game for ipad. You can’t expect ipad ports to have all the features of a large PC release. That is just not technically possible.
Again… the game is $10.
Which is why I don’t expect the iPad version to have all of the features of the PC version (and said so). But the bulk of the issues I raise (buttons that don’t work, interface options like the two-finger taps that are literally impossible to access, no high scores, sliders sized for Barbie-sized fingers, etc) have nothing to do with either the price of the game or the technical capabilities of the iPad. They’re entirely down to negligence and/or incompetence on the part of the folks who did the porting to the iPad.
Would it really overstress the capabilities of the iPad to fix these issues? Or to make it so that you can put two player-designed fleets on the map so that you can set up whatever scenario you want? I don’t think so.
As I said: I’m here because I love the game, not because I hate it. But the current state of the iPad version is a long way short of acceptable, at any price.
–
Craig
So, let me start with that i have all the expansions on pc, and i would by it on ipad again (though it would be nice to get a discount for current owners) if it got all the stuff i have on pc.
And let me give a few examples that imho contradict your statement.
Majesty : €2.39
Worms 2 : at the moment 0.79
World of goo : 3.99
Gta 3, gta chinatown wars : 3.99, 7.99
Max payne : 2.39
Plants vs zombies : 2.39
Anomaly warzone earth : 2.99
Sid meier’s pirates : $4.99
Imperium galactica 2: €2.99
Etc. I consider most of these larger releases than GSB and still they are fully working and cheaper with in most cases all the functionality of the pc version. Not to mention releases like final fantasy iii, which is the same as the nds Remake of the original.
Im just saying this because its sad if awesome games like GSB dont do well on ipad, they would fit it perfectly, even better than the pc if done correctly. However if the developer rushes the port without thinking it through and it wont do well, they wont try again, no matter what we say.
I forgot to mention the bard’s tale, going for $2.99, including the original trilogy. That’s pretty huge. And i got most the games i mentioned for €0.79 on sale. The ipad is not only for small flash-like games anymore.
That there was time spent to make an iPad friendly interface. Read his post. Or if you did then address the issues he raises instead of making some utterly tangential argument.
I’d like to post my agreement with Craig’s comments. The interface is really quite bad on the iPad and its bad enough that I am really not playing it on my iPad.
In addition there is no way to filter ships in the deployment view. The controls from the Mac/PC version were just removed with no apparent iPad controls added.
If you want to make an iPad version then there needs to be some effort made to make the game playable and make a UI appropriate to the iPad.
And previous comments about the price to the contrary, GSB is one of the most expensive apps I have purchased on the iPad. If you want to charge a premium price for the product then it needs to be polished and currently this is not a polished product and it really is edging towards not being usable.
[quote=“cliffski”]
Check it out, tell your friends, tell them to tell their friends, and even their enemies, and their enemies friends…
GFY. Now port it to Android 
Right!
When port for Android! Galaxy Tab2 10.1 is a dream machine for it! I have all DLC on my PC, but in tablet GSB is just must-have!!!
I’M WAINTING!!! 