Gratuitous Space Battles - (by Red Marble Games)

[famousringo]

Originally Posted by kennfusion

I have found some interesting ways to use frigates so far, and I tend to have more of them in a battle than anything else. Frigates are best at specialized roles, and you have to give them detailed orders. So for instance I have a frigate Shield Breaker ship. Long Range shield breaker missiles set to assist other ships that are attacking, and because I have them with only long range weapons, I can order them to stay at max distance of their firing range. I also like EMP frigates who are also ordered to stay at their max range, but primary role is to attack any ships firing on my cruisers.

I'll add that the frigate's ion cannon is an utterly devastating weapon. It just needs a little help busting through tough armour, maybe exceptionally tough shields, and it will absolutely shred a cruiser to pieces.

Also, if you go rebel, you can build radically fast frigates which are very difficult to hit. They won't have as much punch or durability as other frigates, but against the right target they can dance around enemy fire and whittle them down by attrition.

Really, specialized roles are pretty much the way to go for any ship class. I typically deploy two kinds of cruiser, a linebacker to absorb lots of punishment and slug things out close range and a glass cannon that keeps well back from the fray and bombards long range. For fighters I deploy either ultra-fast nuisances which are too fast to be killed without a tractor beam but don't do much damage or interceptors optimized to neutralize enemy fighters (I've tried, but never successfully deployed torpedo bombers).

You can build a versatile ship in order to save yourself design time, but a fleet of generalists will lose to a fleet of specialists, and when design is the point of the game, why avoid it?

[chespace]

Update is out. Yay!

Interesting advise on frigates. I will have to try specialized roles and really micromanaging their orders.

[famousringo]

Don't update.

The multitasking works well and it fixes the upside-down UI glitch, but added ship tooltips are out of control. Every time I try to tap any button in the orders section, the ship gets deselected and the ship name tooltip pops up in the orders area. Pretty much makes the game unplayable unless you like default orders.

I just spent a couple hours designing a brand new fleet of rebel ships and I can't really try them out.

[Royce]

Thanks for the Frigate tips guys. I have been reading a bit over at the positech forums as well, and I'm finding more ways to use them, though cruisers and fighters are still the core of my fleets. The ion cannon is indeed OP My main two frigates now are an antifighter ship used against fighter heavy forces only and a 4 ion cannon ship that stays right behind my frontline cruisers and just tears crap apart Also one race has a shield repair module for frigates that looks interesting and I think I'll explore.

On a separate note, I've been checking out all the modding going on over on the positech forums and I'm wondering if anyone has checked to see if anything was possible with the iPad version (like it is with GTA3). Some of the mods available look amazing.

[badmanj]

The update hasn't resolved the auto-crash when toggling between blueprint and physical in ship design unfortunately. Good to see they're pushing fixes out though... Sure we will get there soon.

Jamie

[Royce]

Originally Posted by badmanj

The update hasn't resolved the auto-crash when toggling between blueprint and physical in ship design unfortunately.

That button has never caused a crash for me. It's so strange how differently this game seems to behave for different people. One of the major advantages of iOS apps has always been that they perform pretty similarly on any supported device. This reminds me more of my WM days when some people could run an app perfectly (though we didn't call them apps in those days), some would have major problems, and others wouldn't even be able to run it, depending on device.

Anyone else have reactions to the update? I don't want to download if I can't issue orders, and I don't mind playing "upside down" so I'll just wait if necessary.

[Markwend]

Yeh , updated can't issue orders now

[Markwend]

Yeh , updated can't issue orders now
Oh I put it in twice "idiot"

[RedMarbleGames]

Folks, sorry about the stupid loss of ability to type orders, which came about in this latest update. We just fixed that this morning. Aargh. Also the tooltips in the deployment screen that follow your finger around have been fixed. Sorry. We were so freaked by the orientation bug and wanted to push it out so quickly that the order bug slipped past. Update will go in today, but unfortunately it seems to take Apple a week to approve things.

As for the blueprint/tactical crash in the ship design screen, we can't replicate that problem here. We'll keep trying, but for the moment, if this crashes for you, is probably just not to press it -- it doesn't really add any functionality, anyway.

Also, to address some of the points above: First, the update was submitted within 24 hours of release, and this second update also within 24 hours; it's Apple's review process that slows the release. Second, we did not rush this out the door, just counting on players to point out bugs, as some have suggested. The game was in testing for months before release. We did have a lot of crashes during that time -- mostly trying to fit this gigantic game, written originally for platforms where there was plenty of memory, into the limited memory of the iPad -- but somehow the orientation thing slipped past us, which will forever be a source of amazement. Criticism about that is entirely fair, and no one feels worse about that than we do, believe me. We'll keep at this, and appreciate those of you who are sticking with it!


Red Marble Games
http://www.redmarblegames.com

[robiow]

Please please please add retina