version 1.16 is out now. There are a few things worth pointing out:
You can click turrets directly on the battle screen and that shows their UI now.
There is a new survival map, this time with no fighters, and engines are required. bwahahahaha.
The manual has an extra section at the end that explains some of the finer details of stuff
A number of bugs, including target-acquisition bugs have been fixed. Hence, some ships will behave differently, probably much much more sensibly and correctly. So keep an eye on that
There were 23 things fixed in total, the full list is in the readme.
This is possibly the last big patch before the game gets released and has a demo. This does not mean the end of new content, or tweaks or improvements. Essentially declaring it ‘finished’ it just when I set aside time for there to be a demo, because I don’t like to have a game declared release without a playable demo for ages. Once that is all done, I’ll be thinking about major updates or expansions or whatever.
I’ll post a few days before the games release to make sure anyone who wants to get it before the price goes up can do so.
Also the game is now on Direct2Drive.
edit: I Added a bunch of new avatars for the forums to the ‘gsb’ gallery. (from user control panel, profile) Different ships like the imperial one I’ve picked
just my opinion, but i still think the UI seriously needs streamlining before release.
adding orders is quite awful (for me) in terms of mouse distance travelled/extra clicks, and i’m still caught out by the order box appearing over on the right … and locking the interface until acknowledged - especially since i have never clicked anything other than “add order” when setting escort/formation. never. ever… but each time, i have to drag the mouse over to the opposite side of the screen and click the same button every time.
As I said in http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3362 I think the whole system for giving orders could be very much improved, but I guess it’s a little late for a massive overhaul. At the very least, I’d be more than happy with click-and-drag target assignments.
It’s the Escort and Protection orders that drive me up the wall.
I use escort a lot; usually on over half my ships. There’s a huge amount of mousing back-and-forth for each order. The as-yet-undocumented Shift-E helps a lot, so it’s the boxes appearing way over to the right that are now the issue. If that appeared:
Positioned with the OK button under the mouse (over the just-selected target), and/or the “E-key” substituted for Ok ('cos that’s where my keyboard hand is),
and the escort range carried over from selection to selection (so setting multiple escort orders at other than 100),
then that’d be fine.
escort and formation. i would personally just remove the confirmation box, period. there’s no need to confirm it. and if you were to not want to make that order, it’s likely you mis-clicked or something and wanted ‘cancel’ (to leave escort as it was previously set) not ‘delete order’.
there’s a lot of the UI that’s just plain strange/unintuitive:
‘main menu’ being a synonym for ‘back up a UI level’
change-race dialog - ‘main menu’ is still there, but doesn’t do anything
inconsistencies in scroll bars (change race at least there)
the way that ‘return to deployment’ returns you to the deployment saved as “deployment” … not what you just deployed!
the hull selection screen - when accessed from deployment, you’re offered every other races ships… which is just annoying
that ‘online’ is an entire top-level menu option… but all it does is let you put in your registration details. for ages i clicked that thinking it was the challenge menu.
the way that exiting from deployment leaves you in the scenario menu … even if you were fighting challenges
the way that saving orders to a ship design is done from the deployment screen… with right-clicking a ship. i spent many minutes trying to find how to do it from the design screen when that feature first appeared.
the UI is what everyone sees/uses, immediately. if people pick up the demo, and it’s klunky (in this age of polished WoW level UI design), they may well be turned off. i know i’ve given up on games - even ones i used to love, purely because they were such a UI pain to use.
so yes. i think the game is currently great, most of the battle bugs are flattened. the UI needs serious looking at. currently it feels (sorry) like a DOS game i’m afraid (but then you click ‘fight’ and it’s gorgeous)
Should we still be giving major game-changing suggestions? I was trying to think of a more interesting way to deploy fleets than just credit/pilots. Is stuff like that still up for changing?
Fixing all the bugs is a VERY important thing to do. For example, now, when the empire is involved in battle, eventually in the battle, i get a message telling me that a certain sound cannot be found. A MISSING SOUND CRASHES THE ENTIRE GAME! That should totally be fixed. Also, I’m stuck with the feds and rebels, but i did every mission on hard, so i should get the alliance. Third, ECM shields DON’T WORK. You should at least fix the bugs i mentioned.
Hello, I have follow GSB for a while now. I bought it on Impulse today, and now I see that it has been updated to 1.16. However the Impulse version is 1.15. Any idea when the Impulse version may be updated? Much appreciated and fantastic game!
You might have to put your info in the ‘online’ tab in-game first, then restart the game, to get an update. If I remember right, I didn’t get an update until after I’d done this (although it might’ve been pure coincidence, as the 0.16 update was released the same day I bought the game
Updating should be automatic when you first open up the game. Note that on Vista and Windows 7, the Update installer triggers a Security Popup that if you answer No will block the Update.
Any downloaded Updates can be manually applied if you go to the GSB folders under My Documents/User - depending on the version of Windows being used.
Just bought the game on Impulse and have noticed an issue. Impulse downloaded and installed v1.15b and after I filled out the online info the game downloaded v1.16 but its installer is still trying to install to a default, and in this case, incorrect folder. That really needs to be fixed, had I not found an old thread discussing it before hand it would have really confused me as I expect game updates to correctly detect where they should install themselves.
Hmm I have my info entered, I exited and it tried to pull the .16 patch however if gave an error, I think about the install folder. I haven’t altered anything, I let steam handle all installations. However now, when I shut down steam and restart it will not try to pull the patch, my game is staying at1.15.
