ON release day and the future

Gratuitous Forum Gratuitous Space Battles
1

There will very very shortly be a ‘release’ version of GSB, and very soon afterwards, a demo.
This will probably provoke a lot of questions, so here is my first stab at the answers:

Does this mean the game is finished?
It means the game is in a finished state, playable and is properly for sale, yes. It means people can review the game without thinking it’s still in beta. It means that Positech (Me!) consider this to be a finished game, rather than an on-going beta test.

Is this the end of new features?
No. Definitely not. I already have stuff (like the converging lasers thing) in the pipeline to add in later updates. There is a ton of stuff I’d love to add (if the game sells!). It does mean that updates will be less frequent, but probably be more feature-related rather than focusing on bug fixing, and possibly bigger in scope.

What will the price be?
$22.99 is the planned dollar price for the final game. That means if you are on the fence, you need to buy it NOW to get it cheaper.

Will I need to re-download the whole game?
No. A patch that takes current copies to ‘release 1.22’ will be exactly the same as the final game, although the word ‘beta’ will be removed from the full installer. You can always re-download the final game if you prefer.

When will there be a mac port?
In due course. It’s not been started yet, but it is planned.

When will the game be in stores?
I do not currently have a retail deal for the game. I recommend buying the game online anyway.

Will the challenges get wiped?
I see no reason to destroy a lot of the challenges, and the date sort will allow people to know they aren’t playing against older challenges. The survival scores will get reset on release day though :smiley:

Will there be a sequel or expansion packs?
I should hope so! These decisions are sadly more commercial than creative, so obviously it remains to be seen if this game is profitable!. I’d love to add more content to the game for people who feel that four fleets just isn’t enough. That stuff takes a while to do though. What this space blah blah :smiley:

2

It seems like this game has received a lot more commentary in the forums than your previous releases. If you’ve done betas like this for other games you have released, how does the number of preorders compare for GSB than for the other games you have released?

3

This one is doing ok, but this one also took longer and cost more in art :D. There is also the fact that there is a lot to discuss in terms of strategy for GSB, especially with on-line challenges, so it gets people talking a lot more (which is great).

4

Hope one of those updates will be a random fight generator. I would love to see this so you can have a GSB time killer to play on your lunch.

5

As one of the first to pre-order this game, I want to congratulate you on this wonderful game and the support you have given with your many patches and timely updates. While the process has not been as bad as giving birth to an elephant, it has been fascinating to watch the many posts and topics from the “GSB community”.

This is how all software should be done!

I wish you the best of luck and good fortune!

Many regards
The Beserko one

6

check out this main stream plug on one of my favorite web sites!

dvice.com/archives/2009/11/gratuitous-spac.php

7

I love you.

Hopefully it comes out soon because my trial version of crossover is running out lol

8

Any chance of a linux port too? :smiley:

9

Probably not. The sad economic reality of it is that there aren’t enough people who buy games on linux (who would not also buy it on windows and have a bootable windows partition) to justify porting anything but the biggest blockbuster hit.

10

Yes, unfortunately that seems to be the case for most games. Thanks for the quick reply anyhow.

11

Idea for the future:
More complex energy scheme.

Currently, modules require X amount of energy and you must equip your ship with that much energy output in order to have a valid design.

The new system would work like this:

Ships generate energy every clock tick, which you may increase by adding power generators.
Energy goes into a ship’s battery. You may add more batteries if desired.
When a module is in use, it takes energy from the battery.
If there is no energy in the battery, then the module can’t do whatever it was trying to do.

So for a weapon, if it takes 5 energy to fire, that’s what it needs in the battery in order to fire. If there’s not that much there, it will have to try again next clock tick.

Shields might only use energy when recharging (or they might use energy all the time, until taken down, or they might use normal energy drain to charge and 1/4 drain when on but not recharging…)

Engines would use energy when moving but would use no energy (or might even generate energy) when not moving (e.g., Engine Y generates 2 energy/tick but uses 8 energy/tick when moving).

So the energy requirement on ship design technically goes away. You can have a full complement of weapons and shields with no reactors if you want, although you’re going to have serious power issues once the shooting starts.

Extra batteries would help you go slim on the reactors with the idea that the ship can run on cheaper, lighter batteries when things heat up (for example, on a “front row” design that’s meant to last about 5 seconds anyway). Batteries would also come into play when your reactors are damaged or destroyed.

In the fleet screen, there would be an addition control setting where you can set the ship’s power management priority level: weapons, defenses, engines, other. Basically you would be telling it what order to take power from the battery every tick. If you select “other -> engines -> defenses -> weapons” then the ship will first use “other” equipment, such as nano repair and if there’s any energy left it will use engines and if there’s any energy left it will go to shields and if there’s still energy left it will go to weapons. Or you might put weapons over engines because you’d rather shoot than move. Or weapons over defenses because you really only wanted to defenses to help you get into range to shoot.

I think that would be an interesting new system to think about.

12

I just purchased your expansion. I easily think this is worth money with a good little forum community and the developer is actually active in it! Can’t beat that.

13

One more voice for the GNU/Linux port! :smiley:

Hopefully this will convince you:
blog.wolfire.com/2008/12/why-you … and-linux/
elecorn.com/blog/2009/05/caster- … l-sort-of/
koonsolo.com/news/linux-user … ndie-game/

14

And the 4th link (because 3 max allowed per post):
2dboy.com/2009/02/12/world-of-go … -is-ready/