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Do YOU have what it takes to rule the skies? Do you want to join Captain Poe and his relentless crew for epic steampunk blimp battles? Do you wanna build... a flying death machine?

Guns of Icarus Online is having an out of Beta sale, and in celebration I've decided to pick up a 4-pack. That means I have 3 keys to give away to people that want to man my crew. What is Guns of Icarus? Imagine FTL, but with steampunk blimps instead of spaceships. Also, in 3D, in first person, and every member of the crew is a real player.

Take a look at some gameplay footage from Angry Joe and some other Polaris people (including CaptainBiscuit)

Relevant part starts at 1:22 if it doesn't auto-start there


What do you have to do to join my crew? The rules are simple.

Rule 1: You can't be @Jay
Rule 2: Tell me why blimps are awesome.
Rule 3: Ok fine, you can be @Jay

I'll pick my crew after an arbitrary amount of time that you won't know about until I've decided it. THIS IS MY SHIP BITCHES.

I'm working 10 hour shifts every day right now, so as much as I'd love to, I wouldn't get the proper use from it.

This looks fun.

Jay said:

This looks fun.

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I need words. Words about blimps!

Don't have the high end computer-icus.

Alternative title: Those ships are very mature for their age.

Insert embarrassed Elvis here.

Yeah, my computer wouldn't be able to run it, either. Shame, because it looks like fun. Is there anything else to do in the game aside from fighting other players?

(Never mind, just read up more on it. So it's a PvP game, basically.)

ThatNickGuy said:

Yeah, my computer wouldn't be able to run it, either. Shame, because it looks like fun. Is there anything else to do in the game aside from fighting other players?

(Never mind, just read up more on it. So it's a PvP game, basically.)

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It appears to be entirely PVP, but there's a lot of customization available, from differing loadouts and skills on each individual crewmember, split between three classes (pilots, engineers and gunners) to changing the equipment on the various ships themselves.

Oh dear. This looks good.

I'd give it a shot, if you'd have me. I was a big fan of zeppelin combat in games like Crimson Skies, and this crew-based dynamic is one I've long thought should be used in space-based or sea-based games. It looks like something I could potentially really get into.

Ravenpoe said:

It appears to be entirely PVP, but there's a lot of customization available, from differing loadouts and skills on each individual crewmember, split between three classes (pilots, engineers and gunners) to changing the equipment on the various ships themselves.

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Damn, this game sounds awesome. I just don't think my PC could handle it. I'm good for everything but the processor--minimum is 2 ghz, I only have 1.4.

Ravenpoe said:

I need words. Words about blimps!

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Er... have a GOOD YEAR?

Here's some more gameplay, this time from the POV of an engineer in a 16 man (that's 2 ships vs 2 ships) king of the hill. Do note that just because your job to keep the ship afloat doesn't mean you won't be manning guns in between. This is also from the beta, but it's still pretty much the same.

edit: NSFW language

For the next 24 hours (ending 2PM Pacific time on the 22nd) Guns of Icarus Online is part of a daily bundle at Humble Bundle.

And if you want to see what it will look like when WE play...

figmentPez said:

For the next 24 hours (ending 2PM Pacific time on the 22nd) Guns of Icarus Online is part of a daily bundle at Humble Bundle.

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Thanks for the link, I snagged it.

I've still got a few copies to give away for free, so far only Gas and Jay have said they both wanted it and can run it. And now Gas already has it.

Ravenpoe said:

I've still got a few copies to give away for free, so far only Gas and Jay have said they both wanted it and can run it. And now Gas already has it.

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A few? Geez, how many did you buy?

Poe, if you wanna add me, I'm also called GasBandit on steam.

I'm game, dude.[DOUBLEPOST=1400704785,1400704453][/DOUBLEPOST]I can't play tonight because i'm going to a sneak peak of "A Million Ways to Die in the West", but tomorrow night...I'm golden, Pony-boy.

Zero Esc said:

A few? Geez, how many did you buy?

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4-packs were 7 dollars.[DOUBLEPOST=1400709271,1400709186][/DOUBLEPOST]

Dave said:

I'm game, dude.[DOUBLEPOST=1400704785,1400704453][/DOUBLEPOST]I can't play tonight because i'm going to a sneak peak of "A Million Ways to Die in the West", but tomorrow night...I'm golden, Pony-boy.

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That's what I like to hear! I've got one copy left now, who's willing to follow SkyCaptain Poe into the great beyond and almost certain death?

To the skies!



When you hit the ground, tell 'em Nathan Zachary the Gas Bandit sent ya!

I could totally see a blimp pirate named Gas Bandit. Using hoses to steal the gas right out of blimps in mid-flight.

Cheesy1 said:

I could totally see a blimp pirate named Gas Bandit. Using hoses to steal the gas right out of blimps in mid-flight.

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My ship is named the Infernvm.

Not wanting to use up Poe's keys (this was before seeing how cheap he got them), I did the Humble Bundle just to see. I can run it okay--not great, but enough to play it, and it's fun. I suck as a pilot, but I'm fine as an engineer.

SkyCaptain Zephyr Maximillian Poe and his salty crew of @GasBandit and @Jay took to the skies for the first time tonight. After getting our air legs, we rocked pretty damn hard.

They'll claim otherwise, but I'm an amazing pilot.

Tomorrow, the HMS AfternoonDelight (sky rockets in flight!) will set sail again!

Holy shit this is fun.

Jay and I crewed Poe's ship for a couple hours tonight, the HMS Afternoon Delight. We started off getting our asses handed too us pretty thoroughly... but by the end of the night we were kinda holding our own. He apparently picked a ship with all its guns on the fore/port sides, and that made for some tactical challenges.

GasBandit said:

Jay and I crewed Poe's ship for a couple hours tonight, the HMS Afternoon Delight. We started off getting our asses handed too us pretty thoroughly... but by the end of the night we were kinda holding our own. He apparently picked a ship with all its guns on the fore/port sides, and that made for some tactical challenges.

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That was the same type of ship I crewed when I played earlier. Our enemies knew there were no guns on the starboard side and kept getting over there to murder us. Nothing I could do until everyone else abandoned the wheel, and at that point I nearly crashed us into the sea.

I still proclaim that I was an excellent captain. I only crashed us into a mountain once.

Ravenpoe said:

I still proclaim that I was an excellent captain. I only crashed us into a mountain once.

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Me puur engines, tho, captain. They squeal from all the SANDSTORMS ye flew us through!

GasBandit said:

Me puur engines, tho, captain. They squeal from all the SANDSTORMS ye flew us through!

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Hey, we made it -out- of the sandstorms, didn't we? Now stop yakking and go engineer something.

Engineer rocks.

Zero Esc said:

Engineer rocks.

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All of the classes are really useful, which I like. The pilot is pretty obvious, and I found the advanced piloting skills invaluable during our adventure. Engineers of course are always needed, to keep everything together and repair, and while anyone can (and should) jump on a gun, a skilled gunner can really turn a battle with some amazing damage.

Why Blimps rock?

So we playing tonight after I load the game?

What time? We using Vent?

Dave said:

So we playing tonight after I load the game?

What time? We using Vent?

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No need to use vent, there's ingame voip[DOUBLEPOST=1400779422,1400779151][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, but I should tell you, you will need to go into the audio options and turn down the music to be sure to hear everyone.

the voip key defaults are

Z=Party Chat (when forming a premade, continues to chat only to your group afterwards)
X=Crew Chat (Chats to all members of your ship's crew in game, chats to all players in the game lobby while readying up)
C= Allied Captain chat (chats to the other ship captains on your team, only functions if you are a ship captain)

As Poe said earlier, all three classes can perform all functions on ship (helm, gunnery, repair) but pilots will get special abilities that help you pilot better, gunners get more ammo and firing options that help them do more damage, and engineers get a wider selection of tools that help them repair better.

Every repair on a ship system invokes a cooldown during which further repairs cannot be made, so two people repairing one system is generally a waste.

I played entirely engineer last night, and what I learned about that class is -

Rubber mallet - repairs most HP per use, but creates longest cooldown and is worst at rebuilding destroyed systems. Best used while not actively under fire, or if having to run between multiple systems repairing at once.

Spanner/wrench - repairs the least HP per use, but also the shortest cooldown and is the fastest at rebuilding destroyed systems. Best used for rebuilding destroyed systems or concentrating on repairing one and only one system (usually this means repairing the armor while under attack)

Fire extinguisher - extinguishes fires on systems, duh. Seems a bit tempermental - doesn't always work, sometimes just "squeaks" when I click rather than spraying.

Spyglass - lets you zoom your view, and you can click to mark enemies so everyone else sees them easier and so they show up on the compass.

The systems of the ship are
the balloon - if it takes too much damage you sink
the armor - prevents damage to the hull. Hull damage is permanent, but armor can be repaired.
The guns - obvious
The engines - generally there are 3, a central one for moving forward/back, and one on each side for turning. If an engine is destroyed, whatever it was supposed to let the helmsman do, he can't do.

The game is a hectic race for everyone to scramble around shooting at other airships and repairing damage. There's more work than 4 people (3 really because the helmsman generally doesn't leave his post) can do. So... it gets kinda frantic in the heat of battle.

Do any of us have Twitch? I'd love to broadcast these.

I can't play tonight since my wife has a flight in the morning, but I can tomorrow. Won't be chatting unless my built-in mic works better than I think.

@LordRendar were you wanting the last key?

This gunner is ready TO KICK SOME BLIMP ASS!

I'll probably be getting home around 7:30 central incidentally.

So what job will Dave be tonight? What does the crew need?

Ravenpoe - What are the 4 guns on the Pyrmidon? I remember the Flamer and the Whirlwind Gatling Gun. What are the other 2 again? Is this default 1 stock?

Jay said:

Ravenpoe - What are the 4 guns on the Pyrmidon? I remember the Flamer and the Whirlwind Gatling Gun. What are the other 2 again? Is this default 1 stock?

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It's main guns are on the front, we were running a whirldwind gatling gun and a double barreled mortar. The gun tears through armor, the mortar does explosive damage to severely damage the hull.

It's two side guns are more meant for secondary weapons, we had the flamethrower and the light rocket carousel.

But we can change these up for pretty much whatever we want, though all four hardpoints are fitted only for light guns. The ship is really meant for headon attacks, with a gunner and an engineer manning both front guns, the engineer to repair the guns as well as the balloon which is located right behind the front guns.

Dave said:

So what job will Dave be tonight? What does the crew need?

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Poe's usually a pilot, I'm usually an engineer, and Jay's usually a gunner. A second engineer'd probably be good to have. I can't run all over the ship and up and down ladders fast enough to cover everything.

Jay said:

Ravenpoe - What are the 4 guns on the Pyrmidon? I remember the Flamer and the Whirlwind Gatling Gun. What are the other 2 again? Is this default 1 stock?

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The HMS Afternoon Delight sports forward Gatling gun and grenade launcher make that a mortar, a fore-port flamethrower and an aft-port missile launcher.[DOUBLEPOST=1400787264,1400786961][/DOUBLEPOST]

Ravenpoe said:

But we can change these up for pretty much whatever we want, though all four hardpoints are fitted only for light guns. The ship is really meant for headon attacks, with a gunner and an engineer manning both front guns, the engineer to repair the guns as well as the balloon which is located right behind the front guns.

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I've found that the rear rocket launcher is very difficult to use because of travel time, as firing broadsides at a distance makes for lots of missed shots due to target bearing changes. Another gatling gun there might serve better. The flamethrower's probably best where it is, though.

So what job am I doing, Captain Poe?

Ravenpoe said:

light rocket carousel.

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If we can switch this for the Hades, I'd be happy as a clam.

It'll served exactly the same with my loadout. Lesmok rounds can make me aim 1500+ away and at close range charged/greased rounds will be find even at 200 m.

I would love to join,but i think the ping from USA to Germany would be horrible.
I just love blimps >.<

This game sounds like a lot of fun and I wish I had time for it or there was a possibility to play solo as a fighter pilot. Warhammer dwarf 'copters ftw...

Crimson Skies actually was my great love! I don't know how many planes I painted, how many games we played and how many pilots I lost. Guess from which phase of my life my avatar stems?

I can't see how this game could at all work in a "fighter pilot" capacity--there's just too much to do for any one person. Even if you go solo, you need bots.

Dave said:

So what job am I doing, Captain Poe?

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You're going to be our gungineer (this is an engineer that mans a gun). I'll put you on a forward chaingun, easy to use, and you can repair the balloon behind you whenever the gun is reloading. You will occasionally have to leave the upper deck to help gas with repairs to the rest of the ship.

Hey @Jay, how good are you at manning the mortar? Would you prefer a flak cannon? The mortar does more dps, but you have to compensate for the travel arc.

I've swapped out the flamethrower and light carosel for a hades launcher and Artemis light rocket launcher, to give us some long range options while closing in. Might swap out the light rockets for the flamethrower again, just because it's so sweet.

I could get rid of the hades in the rear for a flare beacon for some utility. That gun is in an awkward place and is hard to use.

This looks pretty sweet, but I think I missed both the sale and the last of the keys. I'll have to check this out during the Summer Sale in a few months.

As for why blimps are awesome... I just think they are a WAY better way to enjoy your trip than a plane. Much looser requirements meant they could build the interior to have more room to move around, with actual dining tables on the high class ones. It was less like being stuck in an airplane and more like being on a luxury train.

Tonight was pretty awesome. My first try at captaining after Poe went to bed didn't go so well... but after a refit of the ship, and some teamwork with the other captain, our crews shined and we got a 5-0 shutout victory! Wooo!

Damn, this game is so much fun.

Great crew!

Grumble grumble grumble

Yeah... this game has a lot of depth, but is surprisingly easy to get into.

Dave said:

Grumble grumble grumble

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GasBandit said:

Tonight was pretty awesome. My first try at captaining after Poe went to bed didn't go so well... but after a refit of the ship, and some teamwork with the other captain, our crews shined and we got a 5-0 shutout victory! Wooo!

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Ah, so it's a mutiny, eh? Think you can fly this boat better than me?

Ravenpoe said:

Ah, so it's a mutiny, eh? Think you can fly this boat better than me?

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It can't really be called a "mutiny" if the captain abandons ship, now can it?

Arghhh... tis 10 PM. Shivers me timbers, this ol' mate needs to sleep with the fishes now.

Holy shit, pubbing this game is frustrating. 2 games, 2 navigators that don't know ships shouldn't be on the right side of your ship EVER when on a Pyrmidon.

Pubbing? You mean pugging?

Yeah

It hurts a little how much Pauline would have loved this game.

Jay said:

Arghhh... tis 10 PM. Shivers me timbers, this ol' mate needs to sleep with the fishes now.

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It was 11pm, thankyouverymuch. At least in my timezone.

Is there some kind of bug? I've done three matches with 1 left to rank up and I'm still at 2.

AshburnerX said:

Is there some kind of bug? I've done three matches with 1 left to rank up and I'm still at 2.

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The progression system works through achievements, I think. I honestly have no idea how it works.

The HMS AfternoonDelight has been docked for the time being, until we gain enough skill levels to be able to custom outfit it. In the meantime, Poe's Angels have taken to flying a goldfish class ship, designated the HMS Eaten By A Grue. We flew several missions tonight, and 90% of them were spectacular successes.

For anyone that still wants to get in on this awesome game (@Dave and @Frank have gotten into the action now in addition to the crew of Poe, @Jay, @GasBandit and @AshburnerX) the game is -still- on sale for under $4 on steam. Two more, and we can crew an entire seperate ship for 2v2's.

I'll probably need to grind with pubs... I need 3 more achievements to hit 4 and we can't do a custom ship until we leave the Novice games... which means we ALL need to hit 4. Unfortunately, this means using the chemical gun to put out fires on guns in the meantime. They seriously need to buff that... it needs to be doing at least 6-9 fire levels instead of 6 or have a much faster reuse timer.

And just to add a little mood music to this thread:

Shit, LVL 4 you start playing with the big boys.

It ain't pretty.

There should be tiers. 1-4 5-9 10+

I've seen ships blow up within 3 seconds.

I pugged my engineering up to level 4.

How bad are PUGs in this game. I hate them so very, very much.

Dave said:

How bad are PUGs in this game. I hate them so very, very much.

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Depends. I'm captaining, which really just means all I require of pugs is for them to fire when I yell fire, and for the engineer to keep us afloat. For the most part, the community for this game has been pretty nice, outside of a few trolls.

Really, the only way a pug can fuck you over is if they are a pug CAPTAIN. It takes an ounce of intelligence to fly the ship and most players can't do it.

AshburnerX said:

Really, the only way a pug can fuck you over is if they are a pug CAPTAIN. It takes an ounce of intelligence to fly the ship and most players can't do it.

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Pfft, if I can do it anyone can.

Also, to those grinding levels to get out of novicehood, I just discovered you don't actually have to. When you're searching for matches, just uncheck the novice box, and you can play in regular matches with full ship customization. The limits to ships and layout are based on the match type, not your player level.

The folks I pugged with weren't a crack crew, sure, but they learned fast and we did reasonably well. I pity one of the other ships in the match, they got a bastard in their crew who wanted to be pilot and refused to change classes even though that ship already had a pilot/captain.

Also, I dunno why everybody thinks the captain has to be a pilot and the pilot has to be the captain. I captained a ship as an engineer once by accident and it went fine. I guess maybe it's because the pilots are the ones who need the captian chat channel most I suppose.

GasBandit said:

Also, I dunno why everybody thinks the captain has to be a pilot and the pilot has to be the captain. I captained a ship as an engineer once by accident and it went fine. I guess maybe it's because the pilots are the ones who need the captian chat channel most I suppose.

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Mostly because the ships are sluggish, so relaying maneuvers is faster if the captain is also the one doing them.

Heh, after Raven and Ash had to leave today, after a string of defeats, the very next match me and that Tabul pug we picked up won a 500-nothing shutout on labyrinth KOTH. I had switched back to a goldfish, and I'd say easily 50+% of the damage dealt that game was via ramming. Boy am I glad I took the "brace for impact" special on my pilot.