Currently, GSB is a puzzle game. Challenges present you with a static puzzle (the enemy fleet) that you try to solve (destroy) in as few attempts as possible. This is fine, and it’s certainly omnomnoming my gaming time, but it’s also lacking a certain something that I associate with a wargame: opposition. There’s no push back from another player contesting my efforts and adaptations. Once a player figures out the mechanical interactions between equipment types, no challenge should take more than two attempts to beat (once to understand what you’re up against, the second to exploit every weakness of the opposing fleet). Most challenges should only take one try, since you can observe the basic deployment information of your opponent and attempt to counter the more obvious tactics being employed. Everyone (pretty much) is still in the process of figuring out those mechanical interactions, but there’s a finite amount of equipment types in the game. When they run out, so will the entertainment value of GSB.
What I suggest is another game mode (which I’m dubbing “Versus” for now) that allows each player to deploy half of their fleet, see the opponent’s partial deployment, then deploy the rest of their fleet. Perhaps going in thirds or quarters for more chances to adapt - this would seem to be an easy option that the players could agree upon when setting up the Versus challenge. Once setup is complete for both players, the server simulates the fight and sends the same replay file to each Versus contender. This would allow GSB to become an interactive game about deception and adaptation, rather than being about setting up dummies for other people to knock down, thus greatly extending the game’s lifespan.
