More a graphical thing than anything else, but allowing the muzzle flash / firing effect on a turret to be a gif, or animated in some form.
[size=110]Hi folks[/size]. I’m new to the forum but I have played GSB a lot and am very much looking forward to the second part. Here is my wish list for GSB 2:
[size=120]1.[/size] Bring the [size=110]frigates[/size] back! As it stands, frigates are underused. They die fast, are relatively expensive and have no real purpose. Therefore nobody builds them. I came up with some ideas that might help to fix that issue:
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First off, there should be done something to increase the survivability of frigates. At least they got to be faster. They really do. I dream of fully equipped frigates with two level III engines flying at speed 1.00. Maybe have some more defensive modules and stronger shields with (slightly) more resistence (1 point under fighter rocket shield penetration).
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To address the ‘too expensive’ aspect: One approach could be to simply increase the prize gaps between hull sizes. There has to be a significant gap between frigate hull costs and cruiser hull costs like there is right now between fighter and frigate hull cost. For instance, say we have 4 hull sizes: Fighters – Frigates (small frigate) – Heavy Frigates (large frigate) – Cruisers. Fighters cost between 30 and 50 (as it is) per hull, frigates would cost 110 to 140, then heavy frigates anywhere from 150 to 180 while cruisers start at 250 per hull. Else, why even consider building a frigate when a cruiser is just 30 bucks more expensive? I know, I know, module cost and so on, but still!
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Regarding the purposelessness, how about reducing the cruisers ability to fend fighters off? This could be achieved by significantly increasing the consumables/recharge rate of the Cruiser Defense Lasers and/or weakening the effects/recharge rate of cruiser tractor beams. The task of countering fighters should fall mostly to frigates or fighters. Also frigates could be more important by offering support to the fleet through other means, like electronic (indirect) warfare or repairing.
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Of course all these have to be balanced, I’ll gladly help in the beta ;). The point is to make frigates cost effective, so we see them in fleets again.
[size=120]2.[/size] More [size=110]support modules[/size]. A few ideas:
Buffs:
- Remote armor/hull repair (should have very limited range).
- Why is there no target painter for frigates? (no offense, I am just wondering)
- A module that increases max/optimal range on an individual ship.
Debuffs: - Tracking disruption: AoE around the ship with the module equipped. Decreases tracking speed for everybody (except self, of course) within range.
- Sensor dampening: AoE around the ship with the module equipped. Decreases enemy max weapon range/optimal range.
- Large scale AoE EMP with friendly fire.
Other - Useful invisibility. The ship also gets a speed boost while invisible. Support modules still work. It would be nice to be able to execute more sneaky tactics.
- Shield drain: drains on enemies shield to replenish its own.
- Linked shields (aka my take on the protective shield idea I just read about): A (maybe race/class specific) shield module which distributes incoming damage to every ship with the same module in a certain range. Maybe a common/combined shield bubble. For instance, lets say two ships with this module are within each others range, then instead of each of them having individual round shield bubbles, they have a common oval one engulfing both of them. This can be balanced by being a weaker (power/resistance) shield individually and/or by increasing the shield radius, so that the ship(s) is/are more vulnerable to fighters.
[size=120]3.[/size] A unique module slot shape exclusively for [size=110]engines[/size]. It always feels weird to place an armor module in a slot that according to the ship outline clearly is a engine slot. Let me be clear, I’m not proposing that engines can only be placed on certain slots, but that there should be certain slots that only allow engine modules on them. And equally important, that a ship cannot be saved without all of those slots equipped with engine modules. At least one engine should be mandatory on every damn ship (and on some like the Fed Tiger, the Alliance Shark Cruiser or the Order Temple two) because it makes sense. [size=90](other than that I dont see a need or a real reason for other unique slots as having less, more universal slot types is exactly the opposite of being limiting)[/size]
[size=120]4.[/size]If the player builds a [size=110]tank only ship[/size] (mass armor tank), it should be very punishing in some way (costs/efficiency). Because that is not how ships are commonly designed (for sea battle) but players exploiting game mechanics, so it should be discouraged imho. Instead just drastically buffing cruiser hull/armor/shield strength (not resistance) over the board would keep cruisers tanky and spongy while not breaking the game (they got to be tough after all).
[size=120]5.[/size] [size=110]Hero Class Hulls[/size]. A unique module on some ships that cannot be replaced by the player, such as a big ass gun or something. Hand in hand with this go unique hull buffs to shield regeneration, Weapon range, targeting speed etc. Note that they should have also weaknesses and be limited in how many are allowed to deploy. For instance just one cruiser or three frigates or a squadron per fleet. This means that if you have your Hyperion Battlecruiser, you cannot have the Star Fox fighter squadron in your fleet as well.
[size=120]6.[/size] [size=110]New weapon:[/size] Phase projectiles, basically a cruise missiles that bypass shields (but with an aweful long recharge time/ or very short range).
[size=120]7. [/size] Link the max amount of fighter you can deploy to the amount of [size=110]Fighter Bays[/size] on your deployed cruisers. It would kind of make sense because of logic and stuff. Also carriers are cool.
[size=120]8.[/size] I like the aforementioned idea of having a ship description for every ship hull.
[size=120]9.[/size] The possibility (AI order) to [size=110]kite[/size]: ship is not just getting in set range but keeping that range if it is faster then it’s current opponent. Mayhaps by circling the enemy ship.
[size=110]Thanks for your attention. The order is intentional. Please tell me what you think!
Dewit[/size]
Regarding your ideas about frigates vs cruisers, I think that having orders and/or weapons that can be directed only at one kind of target, combined with things like limited ammunition weapons (possibly with reloading for fighters on their carrier), can create more varied navies.
This would allow for really nasty missiles, balanced by limited numbers of reloads. If the frigate could be relied on not to fire this torpedo (in the sense of a proper, ww2 torpedo, really) at fighters or other frigates, they can become pretty dangerous to larger ships, like WW2 DDs rushing in to clobber capital ships with torpedoes.
When all weapons have damage scaled due to infinite ammo (smallish damage), there are no “ship killer” weapons and larger ships are always better. An effective frigate-launched torpedo makes having a number of smaller craft useful, since 1 hit crippling a ship still leaves more frigates for the cost of one CA.
if we’re going to go down that path of subs, why not lets make it cloak, and other ships cant shot at it, until it un cloaks
Limited ammo for fighters makes sense and I agree.
However, here I disagree. Very long reloading time would have the same effect as ammo. Say, for instance an average battle lasts 5 min, then a reload time of 4 min or something would effectly be the same as one hit ammo (without the need of any coding).
But you are right that such a powerfull weapon has to be restricted in some way. Maybe making it short ranged, so the sub gets in risk of getting shot down before it can deliver the package?
Yes, I like that Idea.
Well the thing is, right now ships continue attacking cloaked ships which is also an issue, cause the whole point of cloaking is to not be notice/attacked.
First we need to have an order to make sure the sub cloaks whether or not the ship is being attacked. Then that ships cannot be targeted while cloaked. Third there has to be a countermeasure to cloaking to prevent abuse.
how bout when cloaking you can only use missiles
Long reload time won’t work in GSB, since the ship will fire at the nearest target, period. So you have frigates with a weapon that is damaging, but has a long reload, and it fires it at the first fighter that comes along, even when you explicitly order the frigate not to ever attack fighters. Also, ships enter the game with their reload status randomized. So your ship could have a 10 minute reload time, and enter combat with 9:59 to go until firing. Reload time is pretty much useless as a control for anything other than rapid fire weapons with brief gaps in shooting.
Well, that’s a well known and very fundamental problem that needs to be fixed. Not specific to my suggestion but yeah, you’re right; there got to be an order that let you tell your ship(s) not to engage a certain hull class AT ALL.
That I did not know. Maybe if the random intervall would be restricted to max 20 sec prior fire/launch. Hmm, who knows maybe implementing ammo is easier afterall. Dont get me wrong, I wasn’t not opposing ammo, I just thought It would be easier and faster if you would just adjust reloading times.
Archduke Astro told me how he’d like to see more diverse races. I strongly agree. Does anyone have some Ideas in that regard? I would love to hear them 
Yeah, I knew what you were getting at, and I agree. It’s the niggling things that are wrong with extant GSB that bug me the most. to be fair, I want to mod it to do all kinds of gratuitous space battles (intentionally uncapitalized 
) that are not Gratuitous Space Battles, lol.
Youhou ! GSB2 is in work !
Ha, what I would definitely love to see 3 things :
- Step by step tutorial (maybe 10 short missions, investigating only one aspect of the game everytime, such as orders, or shields, armor,…)
- The possibility to rewind the fight, and watch it multiple times.
- Co-op : There could be 2 solutions :
– fleet coop : we could choose to join someone else’s fleet to ours to fight another
– Chain of command : the game is divided in 3 phases, the engineer (design ships), the resource manager (chooses which ships and their number for the fight), the commander (places them and gives orders). So 3 players could team to do only one of these phases (or one could load someone else’s fleet, and change only the position and orders).
Dear Cliffski
I have been a very good boy this year.
Here’s what i would like for GSB2.0day.
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Cloaking breaks target locks, so cloaking in the middle of a firefight to repair is a viable option once more
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Ramming, ship collisions (i made a topic about this)
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“Broadside” guns and “broadside/circle” orders. So we have guns on the side of a ship that have a very limited firing arc and the ship can be told to circle or strafe the enemy so that these powerful weapon banks can engage the enemy.
3.5 - Ship-specific modules that are hard-welded into the hull, like torpedo tubes, carrier bays, engines, and for some ships, turret modules you can’t change to give making ships a more diverse feel. IT’s hard to make a missle spam boat when the best cruiser you have is hard-wired with three laser turrets. -
The “Hero” class ship
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Salvager modules that can repair your ship much more quickly and efficently than a nanobot repair, but you have to be in range of an enemy or friendly ship’s wreckage to extract the material.
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Much more varied mission types - along with the “duke-it-out” style GSB has right now, include missions where you have to escort, hunt and destroy, defend, infiltrate, carry cargo, etc.
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Space Station bases as a new class - These could have repair modules that can dock and repair Frigates or Cruisers, powerful long range cannons, weak points, and give fleet bonuses to health, ammo, weapon range, power, etc when your ships are close enough to it, similar to fleet bonuses in EVE ONline
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More story to the missions, maybe have missions with a description window.
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More race speciality - Say some races don’t have beam laser technology, others have access to better alloys for heavier armour, some have much smaller cruisers, and some can’t use certain modules similar to another quite gratuitous fighting game i love, Treasure Planet: Battle At Procyon. The Imperial Navy couldn’t use Lancer beams, the Procyon’s couldn’t use Carronades, and the Pirates couldn’t use Plasma missiles.
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AND MOST IMPORTANT - Quick battle, You enter quick battle in either a small, medium, large, or huge map. select what kind of battle, set whtehr it’s a survival or not, select the race the enemy will use, place your own ships, and fight. The game would then randomly select ships for the enemy to use based upon pilot, honor, and module limits. This will give replay value a phenomenal boost, because a player can have a theoretically infinite number of random and varied battles against a specific opponent, and if they want more story or a strategic approach, they have standard included/modder made scenarios that stay the same like they do now.
P.S. I left cookies and milk for you and carrots for the reindeer, and mommy turned off the fireplace.
I have many suggestions:
- A race which has as its passive forte that its hard points aren’t destroyed in battle as the ship is taking damage, so it will be able to fire until destroyed.
- A scanner module for fighters that lets your ships know crucial tactical info about the various ships. should be light but expensive.
- Better decisions by the captains regarding which ship it is worth firing on, which are made even better by #2.
- Small, lightly armed fighters (like those we have now) requiring fuel and thus a Carrier craft.
- Bigger, more heavily armed fighters (more like that one bomber) not requiring fuel. Could be a different class.
- Small, lightly armed Corvettes (much like the smaller frigates we have now) primarily intended to protect bigger, more important ships from light craft.
- Bigger, more heavily armed Frigates (more like Nomad’s and Empire’s bigger frigates in the game) primarily intended as support for bigger ships, able to pack some ample firepower.
- Medium-sized support craft called Destroyer (like the smaller cruisers in GB1), able to pack powerful engines, heavy armor, heavy shields or lots of firepower - but not all at once.
- Large-sized capital ships called Cruiser (like the larger cruisers in GB1), able to pack both heavy armor, shields and weaponry - but at great speed cost.
- Dreadnaughts, capital ships with immense power but only strategic movement capability (i.e dead in the “waters” in battles - or at least close to…)
- Each of these ship classes should have both unique and cross-over equipment within each race.
- Equipment requiring more than one slot, so that ships will have various bundle slots depending on their size and build. These would have crossover capability, so a Destroyer for instance could have one bundle-slot consisting of two hard-slots together which could either fit two Destroyer-class weapons or one Cruiser-class weapon.
- Instead of an armor class (AC) negating all damage, a different way of calculating armor would be better imo. It should be damage reduction up to zero damage, so a beam laser would always take something away from the total armor, while the puny pulse lasers of a fighter’s cannon would stay at 0 indefinitely. Let’s say a cruiser tank has AC: 80 and “damage sponge” of 500. A laser beam has 50 damage and 70 armor penetration. Instead of relying on random “lucky shots”, an algorithm reduces the damage to 2 damage to the armor (or something else that is balanced), and 70 penetration damage to the “damage sponge”. Next shot the AC is 78 and there is 430 damage left before penetrating the hull, consequently the next hit will reduce less of the damage.
- The interior being reparied as well as the armor, by a separate repair module.
- Less weapons that are so obviously much weaker than other alternatives, like Alliance’s Lightning Beams and Fusion Torpedoes. More racially unique weapons and modules.
- The challenge mode not being ordered by oldest-to-newest on default.
- A chat/message section within a posted challenge.
- Generally, less rock-paper-scissors gameplay. I think this can be organized by limiting the number of different ships being entered into a “competition”, for instance one of each ship type, then locking the fleet creation access once entering into a challenge. This will force the creation of balanced fleets instead of specialization. The ordinary gameplay modes could of course be retained. This could be present in the out-of-the-box game as a separate, arcade-like challenge against a pre-set AI and replace supplies limitations (which I find incredibly tedious).
Read through and did not see these, so I hope I am not being redundant:
Kamikaze fighters; (especially work well if scenarios begin to use limited rounds)… attack other fighers and shoot at ships but if shields go down they may take the opportunity to ram. If they fire off all of their missiles they may also ram.
Deflector Shields; reflect certain kinds of firepower away from the ship (and likely into the attacker)
Attack Field; works like a defense shield until ships are in close proximity, then becomes a damaging weapon grinding away at capital ships like a massive energy saw.
Traitor System; allows a controller ship to hack into a designated target and turn it against its own fleet. The victim craft can continually fight to regain control but until it does the ship carries out attacks of opportunity or can be right-click commanded.
Linux support !!
The guys from Humblebundle demonstrated that it is no big deal to run GSB on LInux.
It would be great to see if GSB 2 will support LInux from the start on.
Or at least if the programmers will choose tools/methods/etc. which will ensure that
it can be run under Linux. -> Even if there will be no direct official support.
I think it is not harder to code or more time consuming - (see case GSB1) it is obviously just a matter of
being informed and making the right choices (of tools/routines/etc.) while programming,
what will ensure Linux compatibility or the opposite thereof.
So I think it is no big deal if it is planned right from the start.
thank you
Additionally what I would like to see:
Different damage types
Already written. Different (animated) damages regarding to the weapon type and perhaps regarding to the module type being hit.
Ships can break apart
It would also great if ships could loose several parts (wings, engines, etc.) when hit.
The hulls could have defined “break lines” where the ship could break apart if the damage is too high. This could add strategy into module placement. Because it could make a difference if a broken apart ship is still operable or not.
Different weapon stats by race
Who says that the alliance plasma gun has the exact same stats as the rebels one.
A little bit variabiliy could make the game more interesting. Some standard modules should be the same
but most of the modules could be different at least in two or three stats - or not available at all for some races.
edit: Perhaps this effect could be achived easily with more detailed hull “boosts”. Example: -20% range for projectile weapons… ?
Reloadable Ammunition for fighters
Also already written. But I think it would be great if fighters have a defined amount of ammunition for rockets/torpedos and projectile weapons. The fighters will have to return into a fighter box to reload ammo.
A big torpedo where each fighter can carry only one would also be a possible feature or different reloading times for different weapons/fighter boxes.
Space mines
Will work similar to rockets but will not move. Damage happens only if a ship collide with mines.
This can also bring some more ideas like mine avioding/shooting modules.
Nearby explosions could could blow the mines away, so positioning could be tricky…
Waiting order
It would be great if you could give a ship the order to wait for some time before starting its engines.
For example fighters could wait on the backside of your fleet and attack later
in the battle - for example after one minute has gone by.
By this most shields/armor will already got some damage and the fighters could make more damage
Sand sprayer
A sand/dust sprayer can spray a small floating clouds of sand into space. This cloud will dissolve over time. But for some time the cloud be a good additional protection against beam weapons.
Nearby explosions should for sure affect this clouds.
Edit 1&2: fixed some typos. I hope the meaning is understandable now - thanks
A very simple graphical suggestion that I’d like to see: having the “convergence” beam effect (e.g., the Swarm Disruptor Beam) work in all directions rather than just a narrow forward arc from the firing ship.
I hope it’s not presumptuous of a complete newbie to put lots of things on this list. But here they go:
I’d like to see more done with fighters and fighter-repair bays. I like having the bays in my ships, but they don’t seem to be particularly effective. And it’s weird to have repair bays but no fighters. How about another kind of bay that will allow the player to permanently attach fighters to the ship – they always appear with the ship, and are calculated accordingly for cost/scenario limits. They’re a squad(ron) of fighters assigned to a sort of ‘carrier.’ I could see a bay that holds 6 fighters and can be put on a dreadnaught without limits, or on a cruiser with the tradeoff of limiting the cruiser to 1 weapon that can reach out beyond the 300-400 range. I could see other bays that hold 4, or 2, fighters that could go into cruisers without limitation, or one bay assigned to a frigate. (FWIW, I like Dewit’s idea of reviving frigates as they’re pretty useless so far but shouldn’t be; frigates should be too weak to decide the course of a battle but strong enough that you can’t afford to ignore them). As much as I would like to see little fighters returning to the bays during the battle, it makes little sense since presently all fighters really just fight until blown up. Maybe the bays would make fighters assigned to the ship harder to destroy, to simulate the ability to return/rearm/repair/refuel during the battle.
“Kill ‘em all” can be repetetive as a mission goal. I like having more missions such as hunting pirates, or protecting convoys or planetary landings. Each such mission would really end up being 2 missions – for every convoy that has to be protected, there’s a convoy that has to be stopped. Interesting tactical choices here, like the Japanese at Leyte, Okinawa, or Iwo Jima – they always went for the big US ships, but many say they should have gone for the transports. How about missions with old-time wargaming goals such as “delay the enemy for X amount of time while preserving Z amount of your ships” or the venerable “exit X ships of V class off the other end of the screen.”
So far it’s two fleets charging at each other across an empty field. Smart admirals would end up fighting battles where spatial terrain was to their advantage. How about planetoids or asteroids that can’t be fired through, or nebulae that block lasers but not missiles, or which fritz missile guidance too?
And there was that battle near Reenak, where a comet with an atimatter tail was bearing down on both fleets like Thor’s hammer – I bet those admirals were sweating bullets over the time index on their screens, figuring out whether to cut and run or try for victory before the comet took out half their fleets!
Mines? There’s a way to shape a battlefield. How about a mine-laying module? The mine-laying ship would lay out its mines in a deployment pattern. I’m thinking about four basic patterns – box, triangle, rectangle (twice or three times length of the box, but same height) and hexagon. Hexagons and triangles are small, compact areas of mines, while boxes and rectangles cover more area but with less firepower. I don’t know the game math well enough to figure out how powerful the mines should be, but even the most primitive (Type I) mine should be enough to destroy a fighter or severely damage frigate, or be equivalent to a couple of simultaneous missile hits to a cruiser.
Type I mines are nice old generic mines that will blow up when anything gets within 100, friend or foe or inanimate object (like wreckage, or an asteroid). These mines detonate together, so if 1 goes off they all go off. A module can carry 6 of them, but Type I mines can’t hold mines inside a deployment pattern – if you lay a square using 4 Type I mines, you lose the remaining 2 mines.
Type II mines are IFF capable and won’t blow up friendly ships, and they won’t sympathetically detonate. They can be set for 200 or 400 range. A module of Type II mines is 8 mines. They automatically ignore anything that isn’t power-generating (like wreckage or asteroids) and can also be set to ignore fighters, ignore frigates, or ignore cruisers. They can also hold mines within the deployment area, so a hexagon of Type II mines will consist of 6 on the pattern and 2 inside, and those 2 mines automatically replace any detonated mines.
Type III mines have all the benefits of Type II mines, but Type III mines can be set to detonate at a sliding range up to 600. They also have ‘ghosting’ capability that makes them invulnerable to mine-clearing modules on enemy ships. A module of Type III mines is 8 mines. They can also hold mines within the deployment area, so a hexagon of Type III mines will consist of 6 on the pattern and 2 inside. Type III mines will swarm, so that if 1 mine on the perimeter goes off, 1 more will rush over to and detonate as well. A double-tap detonation will destroy anything up to and including a lightly-armored cruiser.
Seems to me that if there’s a mine-laying module, there’s a mine-clearing module for frigates and cruisers. (Maybe just frigates – there ought to be a use for them, and their vulnerabilty makes for interesting assignments and choices of escorts). Of course all ships can detect unghosted mines with sensor arrays. But a cheap mine-clearing module detonates Type I mines from a safe distance and ‘suppresses’ type II mines so that they don’t detonate when the ship moves over/near them. A more expensive module will detonate Type I and Type II mines at a safe distance and suppress Type III mines. (Scientists are feverishly working to improve the module to detonate Type III mines, but are having no luck). Mine-clearing modules take a good amount of power to operate, so a ship equipped with one won’t have the firepower or speed of a comparable frigate or cruiser.
When a popup box appears allowing me to vary a number (like the number of fighters in a detachment, or the move to attack range), it would be nice to be able to just type the number and have indicator register it, rather than fiddle with the slidy bar that ends up with ham-fingered me having either 7 fighters or 9 fighters, but not 8 fighters, or the move to attack range of 397 rather than 400.
I think the ship lists should be in folders for fighters, frigates, cruisers, dreadnaughts, etc. I made a lot of stupid cruiser configuratoins, but I don’t want to delete them in case they come in handy, and I don’t like scrolling through them all just to get to the one I want.
Fog of war should be an option. Maybe its poor communication links between scouting ships and the fleet, or interference with sensors, or bad maintenance or obsolete equipment due to bean-counter fixation on government budgets, but for whatever reason there should be situations where enemy ships appear ‘out of nowhere’ and/or the ships which appear are not the ones listed on the deployment screen (“You really didn’t believe all that stuff they told us, about old men on bicycles, did you?”) Sometimes, of course, the fog of war means that the ‘true’ situation is better (“Gee, skipper, where the hell were the cruisers we heard so much about in the briefing?”).
Maybe ‘friction’ should be an option too. Maybe an entire cruiser blows up, Hood-style, with one lucky shot, which shorted out the whoozis and caused a cascade thingumbob into the geegaw with disastrous results. Maybe 6 of your fighters slow to half speed and wander aimlessly due to contaminated fuel. “Then there was that lieutenant who forgot to requisition recharge relays for the cruiser lasers . . HQ didn’t have to space her, son, the enemy did it for ‘em!”
So seeing on the locked thread of what is available in GSB 2 already - two things popped out:
A few Rear Arcs, and rotatable ships in the deployment screen.
I was wondering if the game field will be fixed during the battle as it is in GSB 1? I always found it funny that ships hit an invisible wall at the top and bottom edges. I would love to see a longer running battle, or ships that are able to flee actually removing themselves from battle.
Berny
Berny_74 I believe is now just Berny in challenges.
I guess that could be interesting, but I’m more annoyed by the fact that ships willingly go offscreen and it takes longer than it should for them the return. I think they should turn around much sooner.