[Piecy]Gratuitious Space Battles

[Syt]

http://positech.co.uk/gratuitousspacebattles/index.html

Now in beta (to which you get access if you pre-order - 20$).

You build spaceships, put them in  formations, give them marching order and then watch as they fight it out with the enemy.

GSB is the next game from UK 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!', 'ka-boom!' 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 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.

Gameplay preview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1QYMFGEv5M

[Berkut]

Looks rather promising, although the graphics are dissapointingly cartoonish.

[ulmont]

Looks rather promising, although the graphics are dissapointingly cartoonish.

Cartoonish is good.  Means possibly GSB won't rape my PC like HOI3.

[Tamas]

It is not that cartoonish.

What this game needs to be awesome is multiplayer, and a point system like in warhammer games or the total war custom battles have for creating fleets for battles.

[Alcibiades]

Looks really enjoyable, but ultimately shallow of course..

[Warspite]

Space battles fought on one plane. Great.

[Jaron]

Cool, a new game in the Lego franchise. I was already getting bored with Lego Batman.

[Neil]

Space battles fought on one plane. Great.

It's much easier to do it in 2d, and 3d doesn't really add anything to mass fleet combat games in space.

[Cerr]

Space battles fought on one plane. Great.

It's much easier to do it in 2d, and 3d doesn't really add anything to mass fleet combat games in space.

Have you ever played Homeworld?

[Neil]

Space battles fought on one plane. Great.

It's much easier to do it in 2d, and 3d doesn't really add anything to mass fleet combat games in space.

Have you ever played Homeworld?

Negative.

[Cerr]

Space battles fought on one plane. Great.

It's much easier to do it in 2d, and 3d doesn't really add anything to mass fleet combat games in space.

Have you ever played Homeworld?

Negative.

Try it. I'm sure there's a demo for the original game. It's great and you might change your mind about 3d not adding anything to mass fleet combat games in space.

[Alcibiades]

Homeworld

Such memories. 

[Neil]

Try it. I'm sure there's a demo for the original game. It's great and you might change your mind about 3d not adding anything to mass fleet combat games in space.

Before I go to the effort, would you care to explain what was so interesting about it?

[I Killed Kenny]

Try it. I'm sure there's a demo for the original game. It's great and you might change your mind about 3d not adding anything to mass fleet combat games in space.

Before I go to the effort, would you care to explain what was so interesting about it?

Space ships from Corvette to Dreadnought(sp) etc in a 3d  environment

[Iormlund]

Unless they are using 2d sprites (which would silly nowadays), 3d isn't that much harder than 2d. And yeah, Homeworld was great. Although it is just pseudo-3D (there is up and there is down).