Hardcore GSB players, who have played 100+ challenges would say “no way” but to a lot of new and casual GSB players, who only played offline, the campaign can seem like a suicide mission. Here are some tips:
1) Don’t rush to expand. You need to build up. Trying to take and hold a planet with 2 or 3 ships is futile. Think bigger.
2) Don’t build slow moving tanks. You WILL need to retreat them at some point, and if they are too slow, you are toast.
3) Make sensible choices as where to attack, based on your needs. You either need cash, or you need crew for your ships. Deciding which planet to take next is pretty vital.
4) Keep an eye on loyalty. Loyalty acts as a multiplier for the income or other facilities on a planet. Taking a world is step 1, you MUST hold it for a period too, else it’s just a waste of lives and ammo.
5) Hold the chokepoints, those places where hyperspace lines converge. Especially ones which have anomalies preventing certain ship types. These are your best barriers against enemy attack.
If you are still getting crushed, feel free to edit how the campaign runs…
Gratuitous Space Battles/campaign/data/campaign_opt.ini lets you edit all this yummy stuff…
connected_fleet_multiplier = 0.5
loyalty_boost_per_turn = 0.05
loyalty_fall_per_turn = 0.15
threat_fall_per_turn = 0.05
threat_rise_per_turn = 0.11
enemy_attack_chance_multiplier = 1.0
fleet_garrison_loyalty_multiplier = 0.01
max_fleet_garrison_loyalty = 0.20
no_attack_window = 6
no_attack_fadein = 8
no_attack_homeworld = 36
homeworld_attack_fadein = 8
max_ai_attacks_per_turn = 4
ai_repair_low_rate = 0.1
ai_repair_high_rate = 0.3
ai_attack_spam_freeze = 6
ai_homeworld_spam_freeze = 9
ai_new_conquered_attack_freeze = 5
ai_new_conquered_threat = 1.0
ai_armsrace_fear_degrade = 0.05
ai_armsrace_fleet_growth = 0.17
ai_fleetsize_reduction = 0.04
ai_armsrace_fear_spread_multiplier = 0.6
newgame_credits_normal = 10000
newgame_crew_normal = 450
newgame_pilots_normal = 50
newgame_credits_easy = 16000
newgame_crew_easy = 600
newgame_pilots_easy = 70
newgame_credits_hard = 5000
newgame_crew_hard = 300
newgame_pilots_hard = 32
repair_cost_multiplier = 0.5
diff_game_length = 500
diff_min_adjuster = 0.5
diff_max_adjuster = 2.0
futile_attacks_threshold = 0.4
ai_repair_adjuster_easy = 0.5
ai_repair_adjuster_hard = 1.5
nobattle_boredom_threshold = 10
emotion_consec_victories_cocky = 5
emotion_consec_defeats_depressed = 5
emotion_cocky_adjust = 1.3
emotion_depressed_adjust = 0.7
maintenance_percentage_easy = 0.005
maintenance_percentage_medium = 0.015
maintenance_percentage_hard = 0.025
proximity_boost_multiplier = 0.9
freshy_conquered_minfleet = 2000
freshly_conquered_needs_defense = 6
freshy_conquered_undefended_penalty = 0.09
aifleet_replacement_limit = 24
ai_max_fleet_size = 200000
absolute_attack_freeze_max = 10
absolute_freeze_reduction_after_conquest = -8
lostworld_attack_freeze_easy = 8
lostworld_attack_freeze_medium = 4
lostworld_attack_freeze_hard = 1
max_fleet_growth = 4000