Your individual ship commanders have total autonomy during the chaotic battle that unfolds. This is not a tactical game, it is a strategic one. These gratuitous space battles are not won by plucky heroes with perfect teeth, but by the geeky starship builders who know exactly what ratio of plasma-cannons to engines each ship in the fleet will need. Gratuitous Space Battles 2 - Have you ever wanted to be admiral of a huge, sprawling space battle-fleet of your own design? Ever wanted to design a fleet of battle-cruisers so powerful they can rip all who oppose them into space-dust? Ever wanted to build a battleship with purple rotating radars and 64 engines? Well we have good news for you.Gratuitous Space Battles is back!

WELCOME TO GSB!GSB is the ultimate space strategy game from UK indie developer Positech Games. It's a strategy / management / simulation game that does away with all the base building and delays and gets straight to the meat and potatoes of science-fiction games: The big space battles fought by huge spaceships with tons of laser beams and things going 'zap!' And 'ka-pow!' In GSB you put your ships together from modular components, arrange them into fleets, give your ships orders of engagement and then hope they emerge victorious from battle (or at least blow to bits in aesthetically pleasing ways).

Gratuitous Space Battles aims to bring the over-the-top explodiness back into space strategy games. The game is for everyone who has watched big space armadas battle it out on TV and thought to themselves 'I could have done a much better job as admiral'. This is not a game of real-time arcade twitch reflexes. GSB is about what ships you design, and what you tell them to do. Your individual ship commanders have total autonomy during the chaotic battle that unfolds.

This is not a tactical game, it is a strategic one. These gratuitous space battles are not won by plucky heroes with perfect teeth, but by the geeky starship builders who know exactly what ratio of plasma-cannons to engines each ship in the fleet will need. How To Play GSB in 3 easy stepsFirst, you put together the spaceships you want to use in your fleet, building them from a variety of basic hulls and over a hundred different ship components, even in the basic game. (You are given some basic ships as examples).Second, you select from your list of ships, a fleet composed of fighters, frigates and cruisers, position them in formations and issue each ship with orders telling it which targets it should attack, and at what range, with special orders such as escort, protect or concentrate fire.Third, the battle is played out, with you able only to watch, not to control. You can pause the battle and play it faster or slower, and can view the effectiveness of each individual shot, both during the battle and afterwards, so you can fine tune your fleet design.

Gratuitous Space Battles (GSB) is a video game developed by the UK-based company Positech Games. It was released on November 17, 2009. On one level the title is a space warfare simulation consisting of a number of engagements between two opposing fleets of ships. While sometimes assumed to be a real-time strategy (RTS) game based on screenshots, actual gameplay focuses on the setup prior to the battle, making it play more like a tower defense game.^[1]

A custom made game engine was produced for the 2D game. Gratuitous Space Battles generally received favourable reviews upon release. Most reviews praised the detailed graphics with some finding the gameplay a little confusing, at least initially.

Plot[edit]

As the title suggests, there is no plot per se; the battles are entirely gratuitous. The player is presented with a number of skirmish scenarios in various space locations. Missions are not linked with any particular narrative, nor are there any briefings, debriefings, or scripted sequences: the battles are purely gratuitous.^[2]

Gameplay[edit]

Gratuitous Space Battles challenges players with defeating opposing space fleets through careful pre-battle planning. For each skirmish or engagement, the player has a fixed budget and a maximum number of ships (pilots), as well as various other limitations or rules which influence the outcome of the battle. For example, a given environment may reduce the effectiveness of ship shields, or may reduce weapon ranges. Players must take this information into account when selecting and positioning the ships that form their own fleet. Once players have selected their ships and issued orders to the ships concerning how to engage the enemy fleet, the battle begins.

The battle itself proceeds completely without human interaction, with the outcome being determined entirely based on the initial configuration, rather than on player reflexes or mid-battle decisions.^[3] Players are only able to move the camera and speed up the gameplay to four times the normal speed.^[4] Customized fleets can be shared online for others to play with.^[2][5]

Honor[edit]

Gratuitous Space Battles encourages players to win battles using as few resources as possible by awarding honor for any unspent funds. That is, for each point of budgetary allocation which a player could have spent but did not, a point of honor is awarded upon victory. The game tracks the maximum honor previously awarded per battle at each difficulty level, so players can continue to earn more only by beating their previous best. After amassing a sufficient quantity of honor, it can then be traded (spent) to unlock new ship modules, new ship hull configurations, and new playable alien races.^[4]

Ship design[edit]

As Gratuitous Space Battles consists solely of combat in space (foregoing any of the other elements of a traditional 4X game), it gives players a great deal of flexibility in how ships are designed. For a given playable race, players have a number of hull configurations from which to choose, made up of three different sizes of ships (fighters, frigates, and cruisers). Different ship hulls have different numbers of mounting points for modules and weapons, as well as having various inherent characteristics (in the form of overall bonuses in specific areas). Shield generators, crew quarters,and reactors to power the ship are also able to be placed.^[5] Players must balance ship cost, weight, speed, power, crew, and offense/defense capabilities in deciding what combat role a given spacecraft will fulfill.

Development[edit]

Gratuitous Space Battles began as a 'dictator simulation' in late 2008 when Cliff 'Cliffski' Harris was starting on his next game after Kudos 2. After only several weeks of work on the initial concept of a 'Virtual Saddam' game, the title went in an entirely different direction and instead became a space strategy game.^[6]

As with many indie video game projects, development cost was a significant issue. After an initial experiment spending several hundred dollars to purchase stock spaceship models, Harris eventually solicited quotes from 3 different artists and selected the most expensive one. The user interface was constructed by Chris Hildenbrand, a UI expert, leaving Harris to do his own special effect and user module graphics.^[6]

To maximize performance and minimize texture swapping, the graphics engine used for GSB was an entirely new DirectX 9 engine that was custom-developed for the game. It includes a variety of special case code to deal with the requirements of rendering ship and weapon graphics during battles.^[6]

Reception[edit]

Ny times crossword puzzles free printable. The Eurogamer review noted that initially the choices faced by a player can be bewildering.^[7] Although there are tutorials, gameplay was far from intuitive. Eurogamer also thought the graphics were beautiful and that after a while the element of surprise tactics was missing. A GamesRadar review described it as a fleet-management game and felt it was suited for players that liked to tinker.^[8] The reviewer felt that the shipbuilding part of the game needed more clarification and that the battles can leave a player confused as to what worked and what didn't.

GamesTunnel described the graphics as spectacular and enjoyed the ability to zoom in on the action as well as the music.^[10] A DIYGamer reviewer thought the fight sounds could become annoying and that while the battle graphics were very good, the menus were unpolished.^[4] A Destructoid review appreciated the 'precisely detailed ships' as well as the humour. The reviewer also drew attention to a lack of balance in single-player missions when only deploying masses of the large cruiser ships.^[2] A review at Jay Is Games described the game as 'an excellent, deep, seriously fun space battle game' which was an 'extremely tactical experience'.^[5]

References[edit]

1. ^'Gratuitous Space Battles - The Game - FAQ'. Positech Games. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
2. ^ ^abcdJosh Tolentino (December 15, 2009). 'Review: Gratuitous Space Battles'. Destructoid. ModernMethod. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
3. ^'Gratuitous Space Battles - The Game'. Positech Games. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
4. ^ ^abcPeter Eykemans (6 January 2010). 'Did I Just Hear a Scream in Space?…Gratuitous Space Battles Review'. DIYGamer. Archived from the original on 25 January 2012. Retrieved 15 April 2012.
5. ^ ^abcdMarcus (November 22, 2009). 'Gratuitous Space Battles'. Jay is Games. Casual Gameplay. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
6. ^ ^abc'The Making Of Gratuitous Space Battles'. Positech Games. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
7. ^ ^abQuintin Smith (9 December 2010). 'Gratuitous Space Battles Review'. Eurogamer. Retrieved 15 April 2012.
8. ^ ^abJim Rossignol (19 December 2009). 'Gratuitous Space Battles'. GamesRadar. Future US. Retrieved 15 April 2012.
9. ^Harry Butler (15 November 2009). 'Gratuitous Space Battles Review'. bit-tech.net. Dennis Publishing. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
10. ^'Gratuitous Space Battles'. GamesTunnel. Indie Media LLC. Retrieved 15 April 2012.^{[permanent dead link]}

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