I agree with the sentiments of this thread 100%. Unit design in GTB feels very limited to me. One of the best things about GSB was balancing the crew capacity, power, shields/armor, and weapons with the number of available slots. With GTB you don’t really get any of these options. You have to pick one of each unit type, and the only real combo choices come with the augmentation or deciding to go armor/armor shield/armor or shield/shield on the heavy vehicles. One thing I’d love to be able to see, for instance, is the opportunity to make a unit that’s all armor and an engine to absorb damage.
The other thing that I think would add a ton of strategy to the game would be allowing attack units to not have to travel in single file. Currently my light mech 3 which travels at a speed of ~10, moves just as my heavy tank 1 that travels at 2.5 when those two are in a convoy together. Perhaps (and I know this might be asking a lot) you could make it so that troops (and/or light vehicles) could travel around the medium and heavy vehicles. Then you’d essentially have two convoys overlaid on each other, and you could balance your faster traveling troops/light vehicles with your medium/heavy vehicles to create some killer combos. And then just add more splash damage options to the turret defense to help offset this effect.
I know these are some fairly fundamental changes that would probably require a lot of work, and that the reason many of these things are the way they are is a deliberate attempt to simplify some of the complexity of GSB, but for those of us who loved flexibility that came with GSB’s complexity, GTB might seem a little unyielding right now.
Regardless of what you decide to do, I applaud some of the innovations you’ve implemented into GTB. I think it’s going to do a lot to further the tower defense / reverse tower defense genres. Even if right now things may seem a little lacking to me, it’s only because you were so ambitious in your endeavoring. Which, coupled with the fact that the game still is in beta, leads me to remain hopeful and patient for what the future of this game me bring.
That’s a good point. I guess everything being single file on maps with only one path then becomes a creative restriction unique to those types of maps.
Been pondering, and this is probably a key factor for me. GSB was fantastic because the online play forced some complex designs and trade-offs due to the sheer variety of combinations possible, and made the tradition rock-paper-scissors approach to strategy games a 90 dimensional matrix.
GTB feels as though it’s back down to 3-4 trade-offs and suffers in comparison.
As evidence… in GSB I’d be going back to unit design every other challenge, trying out new configurations. In GTB I haven’t created a new unit for a week and instead spend my time designing maps instead. Map design is a great addition to the game, but it should be a supplement to the unit design rather than a replacement: I shouldn’t feel I’ve already designed every unit I might ever need.
This is my sentiment exactly. I love the game, but after I made a couple of different missile tanks and some infantry, I dont feel like there is any better possible tanks or infantry than what I already have.
Something to help with this feeling of being limited would help, though I cant suggest what that would be.
Just bought GSB myself, actually, and I’ve already clocked more hours in it than GTB. I have to echo some of the sentiments regarding unit design. GSB offers far more replayability in this regard. All in all GSB seems like a much more substantial “game” than GTB.
The only thing missing from GSB is the ability for the user to designate targets once the battle has commenced.
I expect that modders will go crazy once they really get their teeth stuck into GTB, because how many slots there are in a unit and the variety of module types is all entirely open to modding. There is nothing to stop people designing a tank with 4 or 6 aug slots right now, as a mod, although proper split-out and organsied mod supprot is still in development.
One change I am considering in the medium term is to add some armor & shield bonus augmentations, as two new classes of defensive buff, which I think is a bit of a no-brainer.
Letting units walk past each other is technically a bit hard, but I also think the current restruction involves some interesting design trade-offs. In many a battle, as attacker, I am thinking about which units to send when, based on the fact that I want to maximise the travel speed of my lighter scout units.
To take Cliff seriously despite evidence to the contrary, just for a moment, I feel strongly that the element of no mid-fight unit control is a critical part of what makes GSB into GSB. From another perspective, the world does not need yet another RTS nearly as much as it needs more more script-and-execute games (which are really terribly rare).
However, I must pressure the point: Is there anything stopping people from creating a tank with multiple turrets / weapons, firing seperately?
Because if there is… well you already heard my opinion on that. Please just don’t forget about those turrets
They don’t have to be independently targeting weapons, if the multiple weapons were fired out of a single turret maybe that would work?
Also I had a thought, instead of going back and adding multiple weapons, why not create a new weight class. Call it “juggernaut” or something. Have the chassis be incredibly expensive and very heavy, two weapons slots, three defense slots or something, and all the bells and whistles.
That way everyone gets the Gratuitous Tanks/Mechs/Turrets they want, and you don’t have to change the code for any existing chassis’.
There would be very little point in having multiple weapons firing at the same target. The advantages - in terms of gameplay - would be so small as to make any development effort disproportionately expensive.
The point of multiple weapon systems (esp on a tank) is to allow each weapon type to attack an appropriate target. For example, a tank with a main cannon and secondary machine gun would allow a tank to engage heavy fortifications and infantry positions simultaneously.
