Players have access to 3 classes: The Pilot, The Engineer, and The Gunner. The Pilot is in charge of flying the ship, the Engineer is in charge of keeping it in good repair, and the Gunner is in charge of gunning.
The point of the game is to keep your ship flying while dishing out pain to other ships. Six different ship bodies are in game, and come set with loadout points for light and medium guns. Each one requires a different strategy, and it takes a while to master them all.
A kickstarter has been funded for an adventure mode, and though it failed to meet some of the major goals, two expansions are planned, Co-Op, a series of PvE missions in pre-set scenarios against and AI direction, slated for 2014, and Adventure Mode, which will add a permanent overworld, and faction intelligences.
Guns of Icarus Online contains examples of:
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Yes, you can level up the three classes. No, this doesn't unlock new abilities (except VERY early on, where it unlocks the ability to pilot the more advanced ship types and have custom ship loadouts). Instead, it grants you items of clothing and dyestuffs for those items of clothing.
- After the End: It takes place in an alternate universe where most of the world was reduced to dust. Details on why or how are vague, at best.
- Airships: The game unsurprisingly does not provide a realistic portrayal of airships; regardless, they form the backbone of the game.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Lochnagar Ammo. A massive damage boost round, that has no recoil when fired, and for weapons with arming time, drastically cuts it down. The catch? You get one shot, and upon firing it, your gun will break, and reduces the AoE for weapons with them. This limits it's use to a select few, low magazine capacity guns, and even then it's questionable on their use when you could always take Charged Shots, which while only giving a +30% damage buff, doesn't require a repair everytime you shoot the gun.
- BFG: All the heavy guns.
- The Manticore Heavy Hwacha is a powerful mid-range area-denial weapon that can shoot a burst of 20 missiles in the span of about a second. It excels at disabling weapons and engines and will inflict heavy damage on any ship whose armor is down.
- The Typhon Heavy Flak Cannon is essentially a bigger version of its smaller cousin, the Echidna Light Flak Cannon. It has an incredibly long range, and while it may not be that great at destroying weapons or engines, it works great as a finisher as it deals massive damage to exposed hulls.
- The Hellhound Heavy Twin Carronade, a sized up version of the Barking Dog Carronade, is a huge oversized shotgun that fires large bursts of shrapnel. It eats through balloons in seconds and can disable other components with good aim, but it is, naturally, limited by a short range.
- The Lumberjack Heavy Mortar is a long-range weapon that excels at taking out balloons and other components, essentially a long-range version of the Hellhound. Its sharp firing arc makes it incredibly difficult to aim, however.
- Breakable Weapons: All guns are breakable. They can be repaired, though.
- Captain Crash: Pyramidion Pilots, especially skilled ones. Flying them requires a bit of Violation of Common Sense, but when you ram right into the broadside of another airship, while you have 2 crew members on the high mounted foreguns unleashing rapid fire weaponry or flamers that will make short work of anything short of a Galleon, few are going to question your tactics.
- Cool Airship: Seven of them, in fact.
- The Goldfish is a Jack of All Stats with a slight emphasis on mobility, whose main strength lies in its fore-mounted heavy weapon mount.
- The Pyramidion is a Lightning Bruiser, being a both fast and durable ship that can devastate ships with its two forward weapons before ramming for the kill.
- The Junker is another Jack of All Stats, who separates itself from the Goldfish by being more durable and less maneuverable, as well as having its weapons cover almost every angle but directly behind it.
- The Spire is a Glass Cannon, specializing in killing enemies with its large arsenal of forward-facing weaponry before they get a chance to tear apart its flimsy hull. While rather slow, its impressive turning speeds essentially makes it the airship version of a turret.
- The Galleon is a Mighty Glacier who combines great durability with FOUR heavy weapon mounts, two on each side, making it capable of very dangerous broadsides. It is, however, the only ship that completely lacks in foward-facing weapon mounts.
- The Squid is a Fragile Speedster and by far the fastest ship in the game, capable of running circles around anything else. Its downside is that its incredibly easy to kill if one manages to hit it.
- The Mobula is a Glass Cannon taken to the extreme. With no sideways weaponry, laughable maneuverability, and generally sub-par durability, its main strength lies in good vertical movement and the extreme firepower of its five front-mounted weapons.
- Co-Op Multiplayer: Even more so than its predecessor.
- Critical Existence Failure: Played straight for ship Armor and Hulls, averted for other hardpoints. Partially damaged balloons and engines give reduced speed, turning, and lift; while partially damaged guns have reduced fire rate, turning, and reload speed.
- Crippling Overspecialization: The Mobula has five front-facing guns and no others, giving it the largest blind spot out of any ship.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Lochnagar shots, a special gunnery tool, give a 150% damage boost to guns, but also renders the gun almost entirely unturnable while it is in and explodes the gun when fired.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: In every current game mode, your ship and crew respawns after every death.
- Difficult, but Awesome:
- Anything with a heavy shot arc tends to be ignored due to how cumbersome they are to aim, but when they hit, they will do their job.
- The Scylla Double Barreled Mortar is a ship-destroying machine, rapid-firing grenades that will eat through hull like candy if their armor is down.
- The Lumberjack Heavy Mortar decimates enemy balloons, potentially gaining kills by keeping the enemy pinned to the ground until they die by collision damage.
- The Hades Light Cannon comes with Fire and Piercing damage, providing a ranged alternative to both the Gatling Gun and the Flamethrower if you can get around the shooting arc.
- The Aerial Mines. They take precise timing and patience to make hit, but a successful mine deployment will do massive damage to the poor soul who flew into it. They also fire out like mortars when deployed, making them great for warding off pursuing ships that get too close.
- Enemy-Detecting Radar: Crewmen with spyglasses can "spot" enemies, which places markers around them and signifies friend from foe, as well as their position.
- Crewmen can also opt for the binoculars, which don't mark enemies but can act as a rangefinder for the gunner.
- Every Bullet is a Tracer
- Explosive Overclocking: You can run the engines past the safe limit for a speed boost, but which will within a short time continually damage and ingite the engines. If you do this for a while, you better have an engineer on them constantly or watch them explode.
- Falling Damage: A slow but effective way to kill a ship is to repeatedly destroy its balloon and watch it crash and slide along the ground.
- Averted for crew members though. Falling (or jumping) off of your ship will teleport you back onto it.
- Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon: While all ships but the Galleon have forward guns, the Goldfish and the Spire are the only ones with heavy guns in front. Overall, though, largely averted. No matter where on the ship it is placed, each type of weapon has its own traverse arc in which it can be aimed. Some, like the Field Gun, have barely any ability to be aimed, while others, like the flame thrower, can cover almost a 180 degree arc. Others are much better at being vertically than horizontally as well.
- Flare Gun: The Beacon Flare Gun can be used as a weapon and can even light ships on fire, but its main use is to highlight ships in fog or heavy cloud cover.
- Fragile Speedster: The Squid is the fastest, most maneuverable airship in the game, but it's lightly armored and can't take very many hits.
- Gatling Good: The Whirlwind Light Gatling gun has plenty of dakka.
- Glass Cannon:
- The Spire airship has its weapon mounts arranged in such a way that it can bring heavy firepower to bear on any ship it sets its sights on, but has the flimsiest armor and hull strength out of all the ships and terrible speed. Fortunately, its steering is quick enough that no enemy can mount a surprise attack without having to dodge return fire.
- The Mobula has poor speed and steering, but massive firepower; it is probably best deployed in support positions, where it can provide covering fire from a distance.
- Averted with the Pyramidion ship. It is built to ram, yes, but it is still decently durable. It's main drawback is maneuverability.
- Goggles Do Nothing: There is an equipment slot specifically for goggles, but it's purely aesthetic.
- Grenade Launcher: The Scylla light and the Lumberjack heavy.
- Guns vs. Swords: Guns win, in this case, as Muse has stated that boarding parties will never be implemented.
- Jack of All Stats: The Junker and the Goldfish both avoid extremes; the Junker is a "mini-galleon," while the Goldfish is a "Mega-Squid."
- Javelin Thrower: The Javelin Light Harpoon Gun. It actually latches other ships onto you and pulls them in.
- Kill It with Fire:
- The Dragon Tongue Light Flamethrower lights any components within reach on fire, causing them to take stacking damage over time and eventually causing any affected weapons to overheat and stop functioning.
- You can load Incendiary Rounds into weapons to give them a chance to inflict fire with every shot. Using them with weapons that either fire out everything in bursts or have a long-lasting clip is a nice way to cripple an opposing ship.
- This is a significant enough threat that the game includes three different fire extinguishers: a conventional extinguisher (to put out a fire), a chem spray (to preemptively block fires), a special ammo type (which reduces range but makes the weapon immune to fire while loaded).
- Macross Missile Massacre: The Manticore Heavy Hwacha fires 20 rockets per shot, meaning that anything close enough to ensure that all the rockets will hit will suffer catastrophic damage. This is taken to the logical extreme with the Galleon, which has four medium weapon hardpoints to put these weapons on, two on each side; needless to say a Galleon loaded with Manticores is not something you want to be flying alongside.
- Mighty Glacier: The Galleon is the largest, most heavily armed ship, but most other ships fly circles around it.
- Percussive Maintenance: Any ship component or gun can be repaired simply by hitting it with the right engineering tool. Ship's balloon is full of holes? Just hit it with a rubber mallet!
- Pre-Explosion Glow: A red glow covers the sides of your view when your ship health is low.
- Ramming Always Works: Crashing into an enemy airship at full speed will do substantial damage; the Pyramidion is made for it, in fact. Just be ready to repair the damage you take too.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: The light and heavy Carronades are shotgun-type cannons. They are very efficient weapons, especially when it comes to balloons. Unfortunately, they both have very low range.
- Shout-Out: The Barking Dog Light Carronade is a reference to Barking Dog Studios, who made Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon (which may have been a source of inspiration for the Guns of Icarus developers). Battle at Procyon also features a 'Light Carronade'.
- Simple, yet Awesome: The Whirlwind Light Gatling Gun. A very healthy 80+ round Magazine, decent range for a "short" range weapon, and can be effectively used with almost any special ammo. Combine it with Incendiary rounds, and you've got a long range flamethrower. Give it Charged Rounds, and you've got simple, but effective increased damage rounds. Give it Lesmok Rounds, and the range becomes very respectable. Give it Greased rounds, and you get even more dakka. And unlike other armor and gun busting weapons, it has no minimum arming range, no incredibly long reload, and is very accurate. Its only real drawback is that it is ineffective against an enemy's unarmored hull.
- Sky Pirate: These are the primary enemies in PvE, just like in the original game. No Boarding Party shenanigans, sadly (the game engine doesn't support them).
- Sniper Rifle: The Mercury Field Gun.
- Sniper Duel: What happens when two rivalling ships both have the aforementioned gun, though it's more of a Scope Snipe since you can only destroy the gun instead of the person using it. On a larger scale, one of the more common battle-tactics, especially on larger maps such as Dunes and Northern Fjords.
- Status Buff: The Dynabuff Industries Kit, or Buff Hammer, can be used to give temporary boosts in power to any ship component or weapon. Guns will receive a boost to damage, engines will cause the ship to move or turn faster, the hull receives a slight armor bonus, and the balloon will increase the rate at which the ship ascends or descends.
- Steampunk: If the ship and weapon designs don't spell it out for you, the garb for your character will.
- Stylish Protection Gear: Favors this over the usual standard for female costume design as well as male, with an array of fun costume choices that look awesome and could actually keep an airwoman from freezing up in the clouds.
- Subsystem Damage: Damage is taken by the balloon, the engines, the guns, the armor, and the hull. If the balloon goes, you start sinking. If your engines go, you lose speed and maneuverability. If your guns go, they stop firing. If your armor goes, damage is given directly to your hull. If your hull goes...
- Universal Ammunition: Special gunner ammunition can be used in any weapons. Your Lesmok Rounds will work just as well in a flamethrower as they do in a gatling gun.
- Unwanted Assistance: Ships include an engine on either side for steering. If an engineer applies a buff to one engine, but not the other, the imbalance causes the ship to veer off to the side.
- Wrecked Weapon: Its common to have your guns blown out from under you. Bonus points if they are lit on fire.
- Zeppelins from Another World
