We Love It's Guide to…
Design ships, assemble a space fleet, and set its tactics before automated battles put your strategy to the test.
Released 16 Nov 2009
Design Warships
Assemble Space Fleets
Set Battle Formations
The first ever auto-battler game, from way back in 2009Who needs backstory? Who needs resource-gathering? Diplomacy is so last year. Gratuitous Space Battles cuts right to the chase of sci-fi strategy games, and deals with large, completely unjustified space battles between huge opposing space fleets.
Developed by Positech Games · Published by Positech Games
You take the role of a space admiral directing large fleet engagements. Rather than gather resources or control ships during combat, you prepare your forces and watch them carry out their orders.
Build individual ships by fitting hulls with weapons, armor, shields, and support modules, then choose how your fleet is composed. Set formations and engagement orders to shape how ships behave once battle begins.
Test fleet designs in skirmishes against AI opponents or in an endless survival mode. Unlockable races, a range of ship hulls and modules, and spatial anomalies that vary between battles provide different constraints to plan around.
Supplied reviews repeatedly report that the campaign is inaccessible because of server or key-validation problems. Among players who praise the game, recurring draws include customizing ships, planning fleets before combat, and watching large space battles unfold. Some reviews also criticize the interface and ship balance.
Who needs backstory? Who needs resource-gathering? Diplomacy is so last year. Gratuitous Space Battles cuts right to the chase of sci-fi strategy games, and deals with large, completely unjustified space battles between huge opposing space fleets.
Gratuitous Space Battles combines the visual appeal of an RTS, with the addictive unit-placement and design gameplay from tower defense games. In GSB, the player does not control individual ships at all during battle. The ships fight to a pre-determined set of orders and formations given to them by you before the battles.
GSB casts you as supreme space admiral, tasked with the design of individual spaceships, and the composition of your fleet, as well as general orders of engagement. This is not a twitch-based real time arcade game like many an RTS, but a game of careful thought, planning and big-picture strategy. Huge space battles can be won or lost depending on just how cleverly you balanced the needs of defensive shielding and armor against the expensive punch of laser cannons and plasma torpedoes.
4 different unlockable player races
Over 40 different ship hulls
Over 120 spaceship modules
Choice of skirmish vs AI, or never-ending survival mode
Play with different rules as each battle has different spatial anomalies to deal with.
Note that this game is 16 years old and that screen resolutions larger than 1920x1080 may result in some visual issues on certain screens.
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux |
|---|---|
| Age ratings |
|
| Controller required | No |
| Demo | View demo on Steam |
| DLC / extras | 6 listed on Steam |
| Metacritic | 72/100 View on Metacritic |
| Website | Official website |
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