Thing is, you want to try to beat each level with as small and cheap a fleet as possible. If you win, you get an amount of Honor Points, based on how cheap your fleet was.

So … If you beat a certain level with 5 cruisers at 2900 points each, and the max is 15k, you’ll get gew points. if you manage to beat the same level with 5 fighter wings worth 1200 each, and maybe one cruiser used as a carrier to repair fighters, that’s a lot less points and therefore a lot more honor. The campaign has some 8 or 10 levels with 3 difficulties each, some you won’t run out of things to do.

Just unlocking the estimated 50+ extra ship components, some 20 ship/fighter hulls, and playable races, you’ll have some experience.

Once you have them all, why not strive to perfection? I spent most of yesterday evening in the second “endless battle” challenge where the waves just keep coming. I made some 30.000 points with my initial ships, decided to use different ones … got to like 43.000 points after four tries. I posted that score online but the lowest one that’s showing in the online statistics is 85.000 … so it’s back to ship design *g*

The various races are nicely different from each other, with different special weapons (e.g. the Empire gets a better beam laser, Tribe has good short-range guns …) so even if you’ve won the entire campaign, it’s fun to just try the same level with a different fleet. The balance is not always perfect though: Using fighter squads instead of cruisers seems a bit too powerful in some of the levels that allow fighters.

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GTB (or 678 if you use a hard-to-see sci-fi-ske font) is a game where you visit the main menu often. The gameplay hang from there, like no other game ever.

My first battle whas somewhat disapointing, because (on my copy) theres not battle sounds. I could be because on the void of space you can’t have sounds. Or because Cliff can’t or don’t want these sounds, or because my computer can’t handle the load. Either way, I miss these sounds.

I like the battles, feel how I suppose a homeworld-ish battle sould look.

For a game where the inteface is the first thing and most important, is not good enough. Numbers are show as …number. I would have been better to use something more apparent, like a gold rock for x1000 and a silver rock for x100 and and a copper rock for x1. 140, 60.. all these number look the same, with others numbers around, etc.

The interface for drag and drop ships may benefict from some enhancement. I really miss a option to “place and clone” to place a serie of ships fast (like 60). Having to place manually 60 ships from the table is tedious. The table where you pick the ships use only the hull icon, so is “misterious” to pick the right one ship. Only the “onrollover” title that appear wen you place there the icon show what ship is what.

Battles start unceremoniously, that is Ok, but also end unceremoniously and thats less ok. Stats are again kind of a misterious numbers soup.

Everything is Ok, high quality, what you expect from a classy Indie developper. But Is beta, and it shows, or maybe is me.

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Based on the video, I’d be happy with 15$ (and, 20$ for mount and blade). A shame, I’ll have to wait until a price drop.

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I may have missed this somewhere, but I’ll ask anyhow – are the battles randomized enough to make it worth replaying, or is it just a series of pre-determined fleets to work through?

At the moment it’s a series of pre-generated fleets to work through. I’d hazard that a fair chunk of the game’s longevity is going to come from the PBEM challenges, but a randomised battle generator would be a nice addition.

@ Ashbery76:

This game is crying out for a 4x campaign mode.

It really isn’t. The campaign certainly needs a bit more meat tying it together though, perhaps something along the lines of the meta-game Vinraith is suggesting.

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Overpriced? Hah! Try living in other parts of the world. MW2 is *still* cheap in comparison to most games sold outside US/UK (and even the EU). And again, way to miss the point that it’s not the cost that is the issue, it’s the unfinished product and the idea that you have to pay the full RRP for it in that state.

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