Who wants to reboot Galactic War ?

I only play multiplayer but I think Uber should start to rebuild Galactic War with high priority. Everyone would benefit from an interesting game mode that isnt just skirmish with less tech. New players could learn the game there and maybe some people would transition into multiplayer after they get bored. I would even play Galactic War if it was a different experience. Galactic War lacks memorable moments apart from maybe defeating the red (see I cant even recall the faction name) boss in a fight were you are really handicapped by poor techs.

THROW AWAY THE BLASTED THING.
REBUILD IT FROM THE GROUND UP! BETTER, DYNAMIC, IMMERSIVE, WITH MULTIPLAYER!
Uber pls

Judging by this forum, the entire game needs to be rebooted

That's kind of happening with the balance now, pretty radical changes.

But the whole game? Pffff... That's a lot of money. ;P

The whole game? No, succeeds in most areas.

GW? Also not really, it is groundwork and anything we need can be added onto already layed groundwork. Why not keep the half that is already done and add what you need atop of it?

If it was, that is also possible and might be good. Still, we keep the current one, all we need is tech slots on systems to store unused tech, some sort of resources system between systems, some sort of interactive back-and-forth recapturing of planets, a retreat function... all of that can be added to current one.

It would be great if we had that dynamic feeling of taking and losing ground. No retreat and attack only means the game only flows in one direction without room for error. You either take a planet this turn or you lose the war. If the current GW map was removed and it just handed me random maps and random techs it wouldn't change the gameplay at all.


However, I don't think the whole GW needs to be thrown out. It just needs to be built upon. I think the best plan would be to build on it with a modular approach. If we can get everything, great, but it would be best if ideas could be implemented individually. It makes it simpler to define requirements and gives an easier development roadmap to follow. It's a lot of ideas, but most of them could be done stand alone from the others.

• When an AI enemy attacks your world you have a countdown timer to join the battle.
  • If the countdown timer is long enough, say an hour, you could do a different battle and it would keep counting the GW timer in real time.
  • Take too long and you miss the defense opportunity it just auto-resolves the attack (ie: instant lose in the current system)
  • Results in a semi-real-time GW. Still turn based, but you have to be time aware.
  • If the Sub Commander and Planet systems described below are added then adding extra commanders, and techs to a planet could improve your chances of winning an auto resolved battle.
• Sub commanders being movable armies on the map.
  • It would allow players to send multiple commanders for stronger attacks.
  • It would allow players to lose a battle without forfeiting the whole GW.
  • Sub Commanders could be unlocked in different "types" instead of mirroring the player. ie: You find an Orbital Sub Commander or a Vehicle Sub Commander.
  • It would allow GW defense and attack on multiple fronts.
  • It would create a sense of investment in your worlds and armies. Unlocking new sub commanders would create new army pieces to upgrade on the map.
• Instead of unlocking *only* techs we could unlock cards to be played on Commanders, planets, etc.
  • Cards would be any kind of buff. Tech, upgrades, sub commanders, etc.
  • If Sub commanders are movable armies then tech cards could be played on sub commanders to buff them separately from the commander.
  • If Defense scenarios are in game then some cards could be played on worlds to have pre-built armies or pre-built bases on that world when defending.
  • Having a hand of cards means that techs aren't wasted just because it's a duplicate. Tech slots still matter because it limits the number of cards you can apply to a single commander or planet, and extra cards could just be held until you can play them somewhere else.
  • Would allow long term investment in planets and commanders without introducing complicated economy systems.**
  • Cards could have different roles when played on different targets. Your commander might already have "Bot Tech" but instead of throwing that tech away, playing "Bot Tech" on a planet could place a standing T1 bot army on the planet. Storage Tech could place a several full storage facilities on that world to jump start your economy when defending. Not every card needs a double option however.
• Some worlds should have "missions" pop up at random. These don't have to be super fancy or pre-scripted.
  • Could be different win/loss conditions
  • Could give specific buffs/nerfs to unit types
  • Could be specific map conditions, like the collision system
  • Could be extra enemies, or enemies that are buffed up 1 or 2 difficulty levels.
  • Could grant or remove certain tech types
  • Could be timed (timer or turn based) so that missions are always optional.
  • Could be used to give specific rewards on success, or additional random rewards.
• GW Travel Times should be introduced to support Attack/Defense on multiple fronts.
  • If we have multiple sub-commanders on the map, or timers to react to, or coop buddies fighting in real time (see below) it doesn't make much sense for armies to "pop" between planets. We need to introduce travel times so that front lines matter and we can't just shift our whole army across the galaxy as fast as we can click.
  • Commanders should travel much faster than sub-commanders. Creates an incentive to risk them.
  • Galactic Gate cards could be played on worlds to create fast travel points for armies on the GW map.

**It's noteworthy why I suggest cards rather than an economy system. One of the things I love about GW right now is the "work with what you have" flavor. A "buy what you want" economy system would completely remove that feeling. I like that some times I have to use bots instead of vehicles, or that only my air factory can build T2. I like that I don't always have artillery or catapults... some games I have one or the other. Sometimes RNG is a bitch, but holding techs and investing them would help a lot with that. Given the choice I would prefer to mitigate the RNG without replacing it. If an economy system is added it should be used to buy random techs rather than picking what you want. This would preserve the current unpredictable nature while still rewarding a player for controlling territory.



While multiplayer strategic map might be nice, the minimum multiplayer we need is for a friend to join us when attacking. This could be done with no other changes by just army sharing with a single commander. Sucks, but it would still be a huge improvement over what we have now.

Thinking a little bigger, but still trying to keep the goal small...

I love the extremely limited tech choices in the galactic war. If I bring complete Air and complete orbital tech, it would be great if my coop buddy could bring vehicle and advanced defense techs. At the barest minimum this would mean that the host directs all actions in the GW map, and my coop buddy should get tech card unlocks at the same time I do, but his cards won and his choices to keep/discard are not connected to my own. Then his commander just joins mine on the next attack.

Thinking very big...

I wonder if drop-in battles would be possible?? If my friend and I are cooping a GW we could both move our armies around in real time. If he starts a battle it should start the server up and he begins the battle, but I remain in the GW and his battle shows up on my map. If I join it (at any time) I join the session with a real time view of what my ally can see, and I have the option to chose a new landing spot. I and my sub commanders could drop into a game at any time and just play catch up building bases.... but I should also have the option to look at the battle and say, "nah, he's got this" and retreat without committing. I return to the GW and if I want I can go start a battle on a different planet. When he finishes his battle he unlocks a card/tech for each of us and he can see my battle going on the map. He can now join me, or go to his own battle. Any cards unlocked while I'm in battle would be waiting for me when I get back to the GW map. It would be a semi-real-time coop GW, and if paired with the AI attack system described above it could create a real sense of pressure trying to keep your armies active across the whole galaxy at once.

If this was allowed we could share a GW army and share a pool of sub commanders, or we could have separate but allied factions, just like the alliance options in skirmish.

This method for managing AI attacks would also work in the coop GW.

As a former Vanguard, I know that GW has been a bit of a failure for Uber. I say this honestly, objectively, and perspectively, not as an asshat, and anyone that cites this as ammo for their arsenal against Uber IS a total arse. The truth is, they had a guy make 2 passes on it, the first being too complicated, the second being too complicated, and that is especially true for it's code as likely it was too convoluted. That guy even lost his job from what I remember. The way it is now, is the way it was meant to be, starting with simple code that can be modularly added to later, but the time to develop that got scrapped costed them time to add the modules to the game. Their goal is speculation, using actual events to reach that conclusion.

However, a failure doesn't mean "gtfo n00b ur useless get rect". Some things don't always go smoothly, but they did release a single player that functions whether you like it or not, and it is good code and is modular. They did better, by doing what they did, scrapping complicated GW, and putting in really overly bland basic GW, and giving it a good foundation for improvement later, be it an update, expansion, or sequel.

I think making GW better should be a high priority for Uber though, after the handful of things they are doing now such as savestates. It can both be a cheap inexpensive fast project for Uber, not instant no but fast enough yes given what I seen of GW code, as well as worthwhile by making people be able to reasonably proclaim it the best single player of any rts game without it being a joke. It is close now, but it takes innovation to see it, and when I tell people I am laughed at. Devs or not, one day this can already be modded to be the best single player rts mode. It is worth the time for the devs to do it, brag about it, then sell this game to all the former nonbelievers and take their place in history. If they did this, I would owe them dearly and would have to find some way to pay them something back for it because it would never be enough for what they do

The following post after this is is Pendalose's comments, with my personal opinion comments to pitch for what GW should be, most of my personal opinion stems from Star Control 1's "full" modes, the list of scenarios with the starmap and individual fights between. If you want to see where I come from, go find it and play it:

• When an AI enemy attacks your world you have a countdown timer to join the battle.
  • If the countdown timer is long enough, say an hour, you could do a different battle and it would keep counting the GW timer in real time.
  • Take too long and you miss the defense opportunity it just auto-resolves the attack (ie: instant lose in the current system)
  • Results in a semi-real-time GW. Still turn based, but you have to be time aware.
  • If the Sub Commander and Planet systems described below are added then adding extra commanders, and techs to a planet could improve your chances of winning an auto resolved battle.
• How Star control does it, is you have 3 moves per turn. They can be 3 separate entities, or 1 entity 3 moves in a row. This isn't "realistic", but gameplay wise this is entirely possible to script, making GW turn based, but you can move 3 or 5 times before "their" turn.
  • First off, the AI needs to do real moves, so the map starts off all neutral, everyone still has their "home systems" and the AI has actual real turns (as many as the player). The devs would just have to recode generation, using what code exists now, into a completely neutral map, the same faction leader home system spawn, and their randomly giving them tech algorithm into "taking turns and moves" instead.
  • Next off, you need to decide what moves one can do. In star control, you have "combat units" and "stationary establishments" such as "mines" "colonies" "precursor tech" and "fortifications". In GW, you can perhaps have some of the following: resource system, tech system, command system, and blockade system. They just need to do what they did with systems granting tech, and first off make it persistent such as if you return to the system you can recollect the tech at any time, and make multiple variants that grant something other than tech when landed upon
  • At that point, you need to decide a functioning game based on what moves does what. For instance, an enemy commander landing on your system could either allow you a single turn of 5 moves to send something there to greet it, or instantly capture it, or even lock it to that move till end of their turn and then capture it to prevent multicapture, or even capture unless fortified when then takes a turn or even two so if it was fortified the player can react and reach them to stop them.
  • Giving a result of an enemy move, and a result to your move, you can then simply have any "enemy move overlaps your move", lock that moved unit until end of turn, and end in a "battle" at the end of turn, as star control does. The battle happens and the loser loses their unit. Rarely does any turn end where 5 moves takes 5 player entities to 5 seperate enemy entities, even in star control. For that to happen, you need 5 units, and you need them 1 move away from 5 enemy units. Usually, a unit will be 2-3 moves away, meaning usually 1-2 battles per turn, with a lot of turns possibly not taking battles. This isn't bad, especially considering gw usually has a battle per turn for 3/4 of the map currently, this is most the game having no battles and each faction having 4-7 battles.
  • Retreat should be allowed in battles, in-game a retreat should require 4 minutes, which means retreating in a battle that is 1v2 against two enemy commanders is both possible but not guranteed, and it means someone can be sniped or defeated in a near even battle, but someone can also react early enough if losing or detecting a massive snipe like planetsmash. Retreat results in the escaping party being sent 1 move away to a neighboring system that also connects to the home system farther down the line (as to not be trapped), not dieing or losing anything and being full health next confrontation, but the evacuated system being given to the victor from whom they retreated. This way games don't end randomly whenever the player first loses, it can drag on for several losses.

• Sub commanders being movable armies on the map.
  • It would allow players to send multiple commanders for stronger attacks.
  • It would allow players to lose a battle without forfeiting the whole GW.
  • Sub Commanders could be unlocked in different "types" instead of mirroring the player. ie: You find an Orbital Sub Commander or a Vehicle Sub Commander.
  • It would allow GW defense and attack on multiple fronts.
  • It would create a sense of investment in your worlds and armies. Unlocking new sub commanders would create new army pieces to upgrade on the map.
• This can go like Star Control, or as something you find on a system you capture.
  • In Star Control, you can actually choose how many each player starts with, as well as use some sort of meta map-currency to spawn more at your home-system. You could do this here, making resource systems generate 1 credit per turn, and subcommanders costing 8 credits or something.
  • Or, you can make some systems "command systems" that give you another commander when discovered. From there, you move him just like your main one, but seperate of your main one, and each move costs a move of course. You can have multiple, but as in a galaxy of 18 total systems, you might only find 1-2 per player. Perhaps allowing a mechanic to spawn a new one in that system every 5 turns would add more to the player's disposal and to replace destroyed ones.
  • As far as the subcommander's tech, you could make it need to collect it's own tech, and/or start out with it's own starting tech or copy the player's. Either way makes for more versatility, getting an air commander to complement your vehicle one, and giving it superweapon tech while getting orbital tech for your vehicle one.

• Some worlds should have "missions" pop up at random. These don't have to be super fancy or pre-scripted.
  • Could be different win/loss conditions
  • Could give specific buffs/nerfs to unit types
  • Could be specific map conditions, like the collision system
  • Could be extra enemies, or enemies that are buffed up 1 or 2 difficulty levels.
  • Could grant or remove certain tech types
  • Could be timed (timer or turn based) so that missions are always optional.
  • Could be used to give specific rewards on success, or additional random rewards.
• Star Control had this in the form of buffs. They didn't have individual unit buffs like commander tech outside of random precursor discoveries that boosted speed or weapon charge. FTL has this every turn basically though, where you can randomly have an asteroid or supernova interfere with a battle.
  • An asteroid shower or supernova actually sounds like cool events. An asteroid system if a battle occurs can randomly cause impacts that are really really small and do special half-commander-life damage that happens in random locations and can sometimes really damn a player (which is why a retreat should be added to games btw). A supernova system can just constantly do damage to every living unit in-game anywhere, either a number or percent to all units or larger numbers to unittype_advanced/commander/blablabla, and require fabbers to be sent out in pairs of 2 and possibly with combat fabbers as well to negate damage which is lethal in less than a minute to fabbers and bots and detremental to tanks and air and even structures.
  • Random findings can also occur, on a turn-based and not system based. Every turn even on an explored system can yield a random finding of a commander or a one-time-find tech card even on a non tech system or a crazy event such as causing that or another system somewhere to go asteroid or supernova perhaps randomly or perhaps by choice to intentionally impede an enemy that you are meeting. Every single turn each player takes can have a 10 percent chance of interrupting them immediately upon moving to present them with that random scenario.
• GW Travel Times should be introduced to support Attack/Defense on multiple fronts.
  • If we have multiple sub-commanders on the map, or timers to react to, or coop buddies fighting in real time (see below) it doesn't make much sense for armies to "pop" between planets. We need to introduce travel times so that front lines matter and we can't just shift our whole army across the galaxy as fast as we can click.
  • Commanders should travel much faster than sub-commanders. Creates an incentive to risk them.
  • Galactic Gate cards could be played on worlds to create fast travel points for armies on the GW map.
• GW Travel Times would be the "moves per turn" which is the most simple thing to implement and balance evenly without random difficult to play alongside factors from interfering. Turns are still a measurable unit of travel, as 5 moves gets you from home-system to 5 systems out, and systems across from each other may be distant to travel, but their literal length of the line doesn't take trivial variations of time (because currently point blank ones don't even link by a line ffs, btw lines should be visible from game start and not upon exploration)
  • If commanders should be incentivized, they could be made as the unit you lose the game if you lose. That way, subcommanders are more viable to risk. Otherwise, honestly, they could be made no more or less important than any of the commanders you control, and the home-system basically be a command system for them to spawn at every 5 moves, in which case the game-end becomes "invading the opponent's homesystem" instead of "killing their lead commander". Either one is viable, even settings in gw start that lets you choose loss conditions where homesystem or lead commander or either or neither is loss conditions. Neither being "total domination" defaulting to the loss condition, where a player literally loses every single system and his color on the map remains no longer.
  • Gate systems, that could be a type of system to discover, or create with meta currency generated from eco worlds that is either placed in special systems or prohibitively expensive. Just having 2 on opposite sides of the galaxy lets you defend 2 large areas with the same commander, so that is a very powerful yet cool utility. It would be nice after all to have different kinds of systems you can land on, like tech systems that you can collect tech or pay meta currency to unlock, eco systems that generate meta currency per turn or can be invested to generate currency, perhaps the homesystem generates currency and startup tech of your choice and a commander every 5 turns or with credits, perhaps there are other command systems that just generate a commander so many turns or credits, perhaps some blockade systems that take 2 turns to pass or can be invested in to lock a players movement for a turn, perhaps some gate systems that are rarer and allow single turn travel to another gate world (easy to implement, just give it a long *** line to another/all other "gate world" on discovery) or invested in to create a gate to another world.

• Another suggestion altogether, is to make Starting Tech 1 or more "Existing Tech" cards, that either grants access to that tech or in case all tech becomes allowed with prohibitive costs on "not your tech" then grants entry level costs to that tech. That way, any subcommander can collect tech from home-system like it were a tech system, and "starting tech" becomes a slot you can optionally just dump the tech for other tech possibly right at game start if you like. This idea just simply changes commanders having tech on gw start, into all commanders just having slots at start, and starting with a certain card at start depending on the choice of commande.r. It is just more modular and flexible to be honest that way
• Also, after making the previous 20000 character post of mine the singleplayer, you can then proceed to make it coop/versus because it becomes viable to do so. Just grant control of other armies to other player. Allow alliances between those armies perhaps. Allow 2 players to play on the same army perhaps. In case of same army, it makes no sense to give each "their own commander", just make it like a shared armies game where they both literally play using the same commander per fight because everyone knows there is plenty of micro to go around in a single match of PA.

This is fair, and I agree, anyone trying to rub it in would be an asshat. Even as flawed as GW is I still prefer it over skirmish or multiplayer right now.

I appreciate the detailed feedback. Most of my post was brain storming, and from reading all of your reply most of it is pretty darned similar. The biggest difference being turn based vs real time.

I love turn based single player games. Total War, Civilization, Star Control, Rebellion, Ascendency (an old sci-fi 4X) and several others are very dear to me. Some of these turn based 4X games even had real time battles... but in every case real time battles only worked in multiplayer if the game was a 1vs1. Rebellion and Empire at War both come to mind here. It worked because both players were engaged in the combat every time. There were no 3rd factions involved to separate the players.

My hesitation with turn based GW multiplayer is resolving battles when not all players are involved. If I'm fighting an AI boss with limited tech it could take me hours to siege his planet without superweapons or orbital... My Coop buddy tackled a moon in 15 minutes, so he's going to be waiting for a very long time.



A slow paced, but real time, 4X game with drop in battles can work really well here. The old 4X Imperium Galactica handled the real time 4X very well and also had real time battles on planets and in space. The most important factor here would be that committing to combat doesn't tie-up the other player any more than necessary. My friend doesn't need to wait for me to kill that commander. He can spend the extra time managing his assets in the GW map, start an attack of his own, or (if the simulation can support it) join me in my attack mid-game.

Coop and Multiplayer real-time, may be needlessly complex as a whole nother game of itself, and can be avoided, by just doing 1 battle at a time, and all participants of the game play on their side of the match.

For instance:
->>if a team has 2 players coop against an entire game of AI, 1 battle at a time would occur and both would play using the 1 army that battle. Meaning both would have command over the 1 commander and would have to learn to play nicely and share because it is entirely possible for 2 people to branch off commands at the very first factory tbh.
->>If there are multiple battles after a turn, IE 2 or 3 commanders land on a space same turn, which is unlikely as most turns will be moves in neutral or undefended and the players will only have few commanders and usually multiple spaces away from each other, then 1 will occur and then another and then the next turn will start. Basically, since the battles happen right after one another in the same turn before the next starts, they elude to having happened "coincidingly"
->>If multiple allied commanders land on the same space against an enemy, you can indeed tag team. This can be balanced by requiring the player using 2 commanders together as an offense to take 2 turns to move them together moving twice as slow while a defending one can sit back and just let 1 commander defend and retreat just to burn a turn, and by the fact that 2 commanders leaves more space undefended with the few commanders a player will have. However, 2v1 commander battles will be landslides and 2v2 commander battles will be epic.
->>If players are playing against another team of players, both teams would participate in the match. if even more players on even more teams are in the game and uninvolved with the match, well they get to spectate and chat while players can not hear spectator chat, and you can even make a "ready up" button after each turn with a 10-30 minute timer on it, in case the match took 15 minutes and the uninvolved team went afk. This problem is less severe anyway since with access to all tech despite at a cost increase, you can end a game faster if you already won the economy war by a large margain. If they are moon camping, you have access to enough eco for superweapons or orbital. Tech just makes it possible to use with regular income equal to the enemy's.
->>AI vs AI games can even be decided by giving the game a probability calculator, and just deciding the outcome by calculated odds of one AI's number of tech and eco bonuses, against another. Wouldn't be perfect, but would be fast, simple, and who the fark cares about the AI outcomes anyway lol?
->>As far as times of games go, it honestly wouldn't be that bad, a game of monopoly can last 2 hours to 2 days, yet this game I described, limits the commanders a team gets ahold of to 3-6, means on average 20 battles a game. 30 minutes a turn on average between 1 minute turns without battles and 30 minute ones with battles, puts a full 4 team player game at 10 hours. With just 1 team occupied by players, that would be an 1.5hrs. With 2 human teams, 2.5hrs. All reasonable tbh. If too long, GW already has savestates for the map not including the battles, and in emergency you can simply stop the game mid-battle and restart it and just restart the battle that got cut short from beginning, any other day you want. And you don't "need" to lock participants when loading a GW game, if you had human players, you can have the same join, or new ones join and put them into the slots, or fill the slots with AI, you just need to put players into the slots that did exist on each team when that game was saved.

Just to clarify, that's not my idea, its just people are complaining so much, it seems like people are really undershooting the positives of the game. Everyone seems that they want to restart the game.


I think its fine.

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

uhhh

errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

.....

you do know there are equivalents to this and better versions in other games right? I think if you did you'd prefer THOSE even more over PA GW AND skirmish AND multiplayer.

(I gave up on trying to comment on liking GW better than skirmish)

GW is skirmish, but with a little meta game to tie it together.

@tHeTrOpHySyStEm And now you win!!

Sorry @igncom1

But I would like to see those random gamemode types of igncom1's suggestion too. Having different gamemodes would be a great addition to the normal multiplayer games as well.

GW is skirmish without the cool custom maps and fuel-pumped gameplay.

Except that I really don't play custom maps and I prefer the mini-meta over the "fuel-pumped" gameplay. I'd rather have the variety of GW over skirmish. The meta-game of limited tech and upgrades is more valuable to me than the options offered by skirmish.


I play a lot of games... There are RTS games I think are much better than PA... but I really like the spherical maps in PA. Everything else is pretty much everything else about the game is secondary in my opinion. There are so many generic RTS games out there that don't stand apart from each other in any way but art. It makes me appreciate that PA is genuinely unique.

Rounds of GW are more distinct from each other than rounds of skirmish and tend to be far more memorable in my opinion.

Interesting, I don't know what a vanguard means. Sounds like Uber wastes a lot of devolopment time with a few bad discisons. I sort of suspected as much with other things I've picked up on Uber doing. Does anyone know if the producer or ceo has had any previous expirence making games or running a company? I'd be interested to find out.

To be fair the game does need a lot of work. Very few areas feel finished or complete. It's only fair that people are providing feedback in all areas that need work so Uber can adress said areas.

The vanguard was some kind of community newspaper initiative Uber set up. A few community members then talked with Uber about community concerns and posted this as some kind of newsletter on the forums. I loved those reads and discussions with the devs
It was discontinued for some reason though, don't remember why.

Haha! Of course he does- he was one of the two heads of cavedog working on TA, and I think Supcom as well.

He actually wrote PA's engine from scratch a year or so before the PA kickstarter was shown.