Suggestions for a sequel

I have some suggestions that I think would be difficult to implement in the current game. The idea of not having direct control of a battle is good, but often you end up speeding up to full speed and simply waiting at the result of the battle. I think this is the biggest problem of the game. The whole building/ management part is well done, but I’d love to have a bit more control over the battle. Maybe give some waypoints before the battle which the ships fly to, or draw a route for the ships so that encirclement tactics are possible. The most boring situations in battles are when the ships simply face each other and keep firing, and when the AI has an error and my ships only fire missiles and dont keep advancing to use their beam weapons.
It would be cool to have some kind of a flagship that is a bit mightier than the other ships and that you can give orders to in the battle, maybe control every turret or so. And you should be able to give indirect orders to your fleet in battle, like advance, go to my position and so on. Check out the freeware game Liberation Army by Kou to see, what I mean. In Gratuitious Space battles the control should’nt be like an arcade game like in Liberation Army, but this game could give you a rough idea.
Another thing other people already suggested is a campaign.

Another cool feature would be randomized enemy deployments based on a few parameters so that you get a bit more variability in the single player battles.

The GSB game engine would lend itself well to land/sea battles.

In particular, with a little bit more refinement relative to to hit chances (i.e. fire control systems), armor penetration and damage effects, it would be a PHENOMINAL battleship vs. battleship (think WW1) game.

I would definitely love a naval simulator. Submarines would even add an extra layer of depth (no pun intended) to combat.

I think all scifi, space-battle-loving, geeks have a warm spot in their hearts for naval battles.

Well, any game associated with World War 2 automatically gains a large potential audience. World War 2 is effectively a franchise like Star Trek and has lots of fans. Thus a naval combat game based on GSB could get a lot of sales. But I do feel that the naval aspect of WW2 does have a lesser audience compared with the infantry combat side.

having a Infantry mod Should be easy, just having a infantry man with 1 weapon and 2 Standard Slots And have it so the Turret slot is the torso and the armor is the helmet (which is round so only the Color will be effected.)

but the only problem is the legs, unless you want men flying around. maybe a animation Replacement for the contrials?

you could remove any contrails from the infantry .txt files, like so:

[config]
classname = fighter
name = Imperial Javelin Fighter
guiname = Imperial Javelin Fighter Hull
sprite = Imperial Javelin Fighter.dds
damagetexture = Imperial Javelin Fighter_damaged.dds
hulktexture = imperial_hulks.dds
hulkUVstart = 4
hulkUVend = 7
width = 10
height = 10
powerproduced = 2.6
cost = 39
racename = empire
unlockcost = 4200
lockable = 1

[bonuses]
0 = ARMOURBOOST,0.13

[runninglights]
0 = 128,177,200,3,2

[contrails]

[targets]
0 = 43.00,153.50,1,1,4.00,99.00,82.00,208.00,SHIP_EMMITER_SMALL,
1 = 116.00,89.00,0,0,
2 = 181.50,104.00,1,1,150.00,39.00,213.00,169.00,SHIP_EMMITER_SMALL,

[slots]
0 = 128.00,177.00,STANDARD,
1 = 128.00,119.00,TURRET,(47.00-53.00),(209.00-53.00),
2 = 128.00,40.00,STANDARD,

[explosions]
0 = 0,128,128,EXP_STARTBREAKUP
1 = 0,128,128,EXP_FIGHTER_DESTROYED_LOD
2 = 0,128,128,EXP_FIGHTER_DESTROYED
3 = 0,128,128,EXP_BLASTGLARE

so that way the missiles would still have contrails. same with the tanks, remove their engineglows, although large bombers and fighters could work with engineglows. They could soar over the tanks, just their engine modules need to be super-powered to actually look like fighters amidst tanks.

How about something like OGRE/GEV from Steve Jackson Games? It could feature giant, tracked land robots (OGRES), battling amidst smaller vehicular units; GEVs, missile tanks, light tanks, medium tanks, heavy tanks. There is some infantry in OGRE as well. Plus, they have cruise missiles with nukes.

It hadn’t occurred to me; having single, individual infantry soldiers, with 2 slots apiece.

There are a lot of potential directions this could go.

the only problem is with infantry that you would have to place them indiviualy because that fighters Never stop.

I’d like to see a Gratuitous Armoured Assult game. A scrolling level where you can setup a massive bot like the SupComm Spidermonkey and customise it for specific missions (take out installations, assault infantry brigade, vanguard supply convoy). in addition to the fixed map but different deployment areas (airborne drop, underground infiltration, seaborne beach head assault).

The bots can be designed like the ships with modules, smaller support bots could be done with air cover etc. it could even be taken to the sky (floating airbase) or under water. Terrain and mode of transport should add a big effect (sand, jungle etc crawlers, multi-track, biped, wheels)

Maybe you could use the same races as GSB.

Of course all explosions should be gratuitous!

Yeah, a land based game in this style with sci fi setting would be awesome. This could even take place in the same universe as GSB. Maybe those two games could even be combined, so that we have a game with space and land battles. And this combined with a campaign would make the ultimate 2d sci fi strategy game!

G.L.B
Gratuitous Land Battles

just the same engine but it needs turret coaxing (so you have your tank chassis and have the main turret and then a Coax MG etc…, or a Mech with the body and coax Arms etc…)

would love to see this, also allowing a More Veiwed in version of both, i wanna see some fighters Banging up a Crusier (like in the old armor command intro (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLDXWeSDLGw))

also the same if cliff ever makes a GLB

Gratuitous Steampunk Battles, mentioned in passing in another thread, would be MADE OF WIN.

POST WIN!