Wanted to catch everyone up on a popular game by a popular developer. Positech Games has announced a single-player campaign expansion in the works for space strategy title Gratuitous Space Battles. The cool part of the added component of the ‘conquer-the-galaxy’ mode is the way battles are presented. I’ll let Positech head Cliff Harris explain:

Rather than set, pre-determined fleets to battle against, the game utilises the fleets designed by other GSB players to provide an endless variety of opponent, so you will be pitted against real carbon-based intelligence on every step of your path to galactic dominance. The GSB campaign is not a full 4X game, but a contextual ‘wrapper’ for GSB that introduces new strategic concerns such as crew and cash shortages, repairing ships between battles, the need for construction and repair facilities, and the ability to issue a retreat order mid-battle.

No release date other than “soon” mentioned for the fourth piece of add-on content, but as we’ve learned when Cliff wants to get something done it usually doesn’t take too long.

In related news Impulse informs us that GSB v1.46 has been released and is now available for download for owners of the game.

From the patch notes:

Bug Fix: Fixed crash bug where assigning fighters to escort fighters, then trying to edit the range on the invalid order caused a crash.

Bug Fix: Unlocking now works if you beat the previous mission on hard or expert, you don’t specifically have to beat it on normal.

Usability: Game now lets you toggle between old and new stats screens after each battle

Bug Fix: It’s now impossible to put an apostrophe in your username, which was breaking challenges.

Bug Fix: It’s now not an option to fight your own challenge and rate it yourself.