Interested in GSB2...

GSB2 GSB2 Gratuitous Discussion
1

The title. While I’m not die hard fan like some of the other members of this forum, one of my favorite KSP youtubers did a review on the GSB2 beta:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pVYIlbVXFo

I only put about 30 hours in GSB1, but if this game is a total overhaul and improvement, I’d be certainly interested in getting it. Though only if the problems pointed out in the video are rectified. Namely the meh looking ships. The customization has a lot of potential and I’m sure more elements will be added (and textures fixed) in subsequent patches, but I really wished the base hulls looked a bit nicer. Also can someone give me a list of the improvements GSB2 makes over the original?

Also if it wasn’t already added/suggested, will there be a compare tool? Ideally for both base hulls like you can in another indie game with an excellent fitting system. (And hopefully compare fitted hulls too).

The ability to compare how different loadouts of the same ship or even another model of ship in the same class would be very useful tool indeed. In both GSB1 And Ring Runner, I spent plenty of time in the hangar fidgeting with my builds to make them most effective for their role and method of combat and loved it. Also @10:08 in that video review he said that he unlocked everything? That’s it? Maybe I’m being pampered by Ring Runners 400 or so modules and 5 radically different classes + hybrids, but I feel only a pages worth of stuff isn’t a lot to work with. Maybe I’m not seeing the whole picture. Is there something in GSBII’s combat system that adds more depth to it than the fitting and fleet formation?

2

I’ll give answering this a go. I am not associated with Positech in any way other than enjoying GSB1 (die hard fan), but I can tell you a bit about GSB2 in answer to some of your questions.

What’s changed between GSB1 and 2:

New ship classes: Gunships (heavy fighters/fighter bombers), destroyers (dedicated support vessels for large ships) and dreadnoughts (super-heavy weapons and carriers). The three previous classes (fighter, frigates and cruisers) remain - but their combat roles are clearer.

New ship behaviour: Fighters and gunships now require a carrier, rather than being optional and they need to refuel mid-battle. Shields operate close to the hulls - so no flying inside the shield radius.

New modules: Support beams for destroyers help push large ships faster, recharge their shields or other effects. Holographic decoys. Limpet beacons for anti-fighter work. New ranges of weapons like radiation beams, shield disruption bombs. Now weapons have different degrees of damage to shield, armour and hull tracked separately. There’s also different types of damage - explosive (standard), radiation, shield disruption alongside the existing EMP and ways of defending against specific effects.

Ship visuals: Now all player ships can be altered using the library of visual customisations. The included library of customisations is not huge, but that helps to limit how overwhelming the options are - but each element can be rotated and scaled and coloured. Elements can be rotated on the ship model (fans and radars). Ship lights flash as huge impacts land.

Complete graphical overhaul: The battles have depth - ships slide above and beneath each other. Rips in the ship’s hull are holes exposing fires beneath, rather than pasted on. More visual splendour - space scenery (asteroids) - lighting effects that can all be switched on/off as desired.

GSB1 and 2 don’t differ much in structure. You design ships, deploy them, detail your instructions, then let them go and see the result. Review the stats, make the changes to the fleet and repeat until success. Not much has changed in the order system - but I get the feeling that there are some interesting tricks and stunts you can pull with various combinations of orders and ships that are rarely explored by players. If you want to design, then plonk them anywhere and watch - that’s OK - but I think you can alter battle outcome through careful placement of ships and careful instructions.

The number of pre-defined missions in 2 is not as large as 1 yet - and there is no campaign mode yet. The challenges system looks neat, but has some issues which need work on (crashes and some deployment issues in Beta 1.15 certainly).

The game looks easy to modify in many ways and I think there will be a good modding scene. There’s plenty of scope for modification.

Game balance is a tricky art that is being worked on in Beta. There were some ways of breaking GSB1 with certain designs, which, when you knew the tricks, rendered the game a bit… mechanical and pointless. GSB2 certainly has much more complexity and the I am personally very happy that I don’t have 400 modules to choose from. Each hull has 20 or so weapons, a dozen defensive modules, half a dozen engines and thrusters and two dozen crew compartments, power plants, tractor beams and other equipment. Perhaps 70-odd modules for larger vessels - some of which are common to multiple hull types, but others can only be mounted on certain hulls - and some are race specific.

I quite like the softer, more cinematic look of the ship hulls - but your opinion may vary. Because Beta GSB2 doesn’t have all of the range of pre-defined ships that GSB1 ended up with, it’s a bit difficult to judge. I am not a huge fan of having to customise all of the ships, but each to his own.

The unlocks are there to ease new players into the game without overwhelming them with weapons and ship modules to begin with. I daresay the rate of unlocking will be tweaked through Beta, but you get access to all the toys pretty quickly.

If you ‘only’ put 30 hours into GSB1 - that’s quite a bit for the investment *8) If you loved fidgeting with designs and balancing interlocking capabilities - and always wanted to paint your fleets a particular colour, then GSB2 does not lack for interest.

3

Woe that’s a ton of info thank you! I dunno if i’d throw down $30 but I’d certainly pick it up on a steam sale. Another thing is that seeing the sequel has revived my interest in playing GSB1. I’d like to know the tips for loadouts, but the GSB1 forums are basically dead. So if you don’t mind i’ll ask them here,

-What is a good speed for fighters to have?
-Is it worth it putting armor on fighters?
-EVE online has thoroughly ingrained me to only armor OR shield tank. Can you effectively dual/hybrid tank in GSB1?

4

-As high as possible. This shouldn’t be an issue anyway, because GSB 1’s weird balancing means that, with a few exceptions, a fighter’s speed is inversely proportional to its cost. (If you really want a straight answer, I would say 1.5 minimum)
-NEVER. A fighter’s survivability is defined by it’s speed, nothing else.
-If you want to armour tank in GSB 1 (I assume to the point of being resistant to everything) it’s going to require pretty much all of the available module space, so no. If you’re making a relatively balanced all-round cruiser, you want an armour value that is at least higher than the armour penetration of fighter laser and pulse cannons (I forget the specific values, my GSB 1 hasn’t worked in a LONG time).

5

There are a few specific ‘good’ roles for fighters in GSB1 and one marginal one. The good roles are based on the notion that fighter defence is all about speed and not being hit. You want to have a fighter speed as far in excess of enemy tracking speed as possible.

This makes the ideal design one rocket and one engine and that’s it. This results in a potent anti-frigate weapon - so orders should match. The ricket is light, but cannot track fast fighters and cannot penetrate cruiser shields. So target frigates first and cruisers second (to help finish them off). They are countered, to a degree, by cruisers mounting tractor beams.

The second good design is one laser, one engine, and probably as small a generator as you can get away with. This is not as fast as the rocket variant and so doesn’t survive as long - but is effective against other fighters and, if given the order to engage cruisers at minimum range, can fly under the cruiser’s shield radius. This will result in a lot of “no effect” shots against the cruiser - but a few “lucky hits”. When you have enough lucky hits, the average armour is reduced to the point where all of the lasers do damage - at which point the cruiser is doomed.

You can also have specialist fighters like targeting lasers instead of a weapon - or no weapons at all to distract enemy fighters/firepower.

The marginal design is a firepower enhancer for escorting larger ships. Mount as many weapons as you can (torpedoes, for example), heaviest armour and equipment that boosts hull points. Instruct it to escort a larger vessel into combat and hope the enemy fighters don’t get you (or deploy fast laser fighters to engage the enemy fighters first). The larger vessel can be replaced by a deliberately slow and fragile frigate to delay a ‘bombing run’ by dual-torpedo mounted fighters - giving your laser fighters a chance to clear enemy fighter screen. The frigate will eventually be destroyed and the bombers will then be free to follow their targeting priority.

Putting armour on fighters that then close the enemy down isn’t very useful. They simply do not last long enough to do significant damage against the enemy.

You can use shield/armour combinations in GSB1 at the risk of diluting the effectiveness of each.

Cruisers are susceptible to fighter lasers (pen 8) inside their shields and so average armour needs to be above this if possible (or you need to make sure you can kill all enemy laser fighters as quickly as you can). A combination of reflective shield (to give maximum resistance) and multiphasic shields (to give strength) are a potent combination. Many folk have decided to make armour dominant (and armour repair), which is effective - but is ultimately defeated by enemy rate of fire and lucky hits mechanic after a bit of a grind.

The fighter rocket has shield and armour pen 12 - and so frigates need to have shield resistance and/or armour of at least this figure. Unfortunately maximum frigate shield resistance (basic) is 10 - and so a shield-based strategy for a frigate will be weak to the single rocket fighters I mentioned unless its average armour is above 12. So effective frigate design was either for speed as a defence (fighter rocket has tracking 2 and it is difficult to get a frigate that fast) or armour (probably better for escorting cruisers).

6

Wow, lotta good stuff here. Thanks for the information guys. My fastest fighter is a rebel Icarus with an engine II and a single rocket topping out at 4,33 speed. My second fighter design is another icarus with a Engine I & II with a small power gen and a laser, topping out 2.66 speed. Hopefully those work out in battle. Maybe I’m a use it or lose it kinda guy, but if armor was so useless why bother adding it? Hopefully GSB2 will fix some of the complacent gaming syndrome GSB1 had.

What I always wanted was a style of fighter that can get in there and really brawl and had great survivability. Like an elite fighter where you only get 4 in a full squad and were uber expensive but kicked arse. Does the new Gunship class fill this role in GSBII?

I’m still tinkering with frigate design, their modules seem more plain in options as opposed to a cruiser. Also is it me or are shields II almost in every way better than the turbo shields for frigates?

7

I am a long way from working out the best use for a gunship. However I have found a good-looking design which concentrates on a balance of hull points and speed. It’s a 2.6 speed hull with two armoured fuel tanks, two thrustmax engines, armoured powerplant and a Zyrtani pulse laser. It does get hit - but most of the weapons that can hit it don’t do much damage to it (it has over 100 hull points). It has a great linger time, and can usually get back to the carrier for repair mid-battle. It’s still there at the end, finishing off cruisers and dreadnoughts where the shield have been taken down and the armour compromised. It’s not a bad start and I think there’s probably more to the gunship than immediately meets the eye.

You do get fewer in a squad (10 max instead of 16 max) and the cost does ramp up significantly if you go for the full 10 in a fully-loaded gunship.

If armour is useless why add it? Well - it’s only useless in my eyes - other people may have more success than I did with it. If, as a games designer, you pre-judge what design will eventually work out on top - then you are taking design control away from the player. Players can surprise you. Sometimes you can make a player feel good about a choice - or a discovery - because you add something that isn’t optimal. In the same way a sales consultant sometimes offers you two products to compare - one of which he knows you won’t buy. Does that mean it’s a bad idea to stock it? Nope. Sometimes having that sub-optimal option makes things better.

Also you may find some spatial anomalies or supply restrictions that would make armoured fighters a better prospect. 50% reduction in engine speed - for example.

Shield II for a frigate in GSB1 is the better shield, from a stat perspective, in everything except absolute strength. But as the description says. Turboshields are for the captain that has everything.