Battlestar Galactica:Deadlock

[LordMortis]

Yeah. After a little more research, me too. Tossed in the DLC's for kicks too - Same sale on GoG, so I got it there.

We need to do a GoG vs Steam thread. Steam became my single source over time because OO and I'm lazy. I want a single source. Now that I have over 100 game on Steam, I find there is a lot not to like about them but I still find myself purchasing through steam or activating through steam because lazy single source. If I could back in time, achievements vanity be damned, I'd hold off until GOG got a foot hold and make them my single source, by gum.

[Grifman]

Yeah. After a little more research, me too. Tossed in the DLC's for kicks too - Same sale on GoG, so I got it there.

As far as I can tell, you can't customize the ships loadout - but you can assign and upgrade things on them like better officers - and those elements carry through fight to fight, making the ships increasingly useful and painful to lose.

You can customize load outs to a certain extent - you can choose your fighter type, or missiles vs torpedos vs mines. But you can’t sub fighters for missiles.

[$iljanus]

I'm looking forward to trying out Raptor boarding parties! Hopefully one will make it and I won't be sending them all to their doom...

[hepcat]

Played through the intro scenario and then watched the replay. My jaw dropped when I saw the camera even duplicates the erratic pan and zoom during battles that I always loved on the tv show. And the music was pure Bear McCreary inspired.

[NickAragua]

So this is basically Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, except instead of being real-time it's "plan your orders and go". Otherwise, same thing. Ships have little pee pee guns in different arcs, some can launch fighters, ship-launched torpedoes (sorry, "guided missiles") are king, you rotate your ships to face damaged arcs away from enemy fire, etc.

Even the strategic layer is basically the same, you have a mixture of fixed plot missions, secondary scripted missions and procedural missions that impact an overall campaign state.

So, in other words, it's freaking awesome.

I actually had an Adamant-class frigate survive with one hull point left. Cylons got the drop on it with a missile salvo and a bunch of fire, but I was able to turn it and run away just in time.

[Archinerd]

Please stop talking, I have hardly made a dent in the last round of OO effect games I bought!

[Grifman]

Please stop talking, I have hardly made a dent in the last round of OO effect games I bought!

No you need to buy this game! It's great.

FYI, there is a ship guide and a strategy/tactics guide on Steam by the same guy. Both are very good. I was kind of lost strategy wise (I have picked up the ship combat pretty good) and this was a big help in understanding where to station my fleets and now to prioritize systems and missions. Check it out if you are feeling lost.

[NickAragua]

Played a bunch of this over the weekend. I've got two fleets going, and man that second fleet is expensive to repair. Maybe if we could build a second mobile shipyard.

Also, I find myself unable to keep up with all the Cylon incursions. It costs tylium to jump around rapidly, but you also use it to build and repair ships. So I actually had to give up a secondary mission and its sweet sweet tylium reward. Colonies are dropping out of the quorum left and right, toasters are pouring out of every galactic orifice.

At least I've unlocked the Ranger-class cruiser. Those things back a crap-ton of missiles for sure. Their gunners could use a little work on accuracy though.

[stessier]

I tried Homeworld way back when and it never clicked for me. I don't know if it was the interface or what, but I couldn't get my guys to fight as a team and it wasn't fun. Given that, will I like this game? I've watched some of the Youtube vids, and it looks fantastic, but I thought the same about Homeworld.

[Grifman]

I tried Homeworld way back when and it never clicked for me. I don't know if it was the interface or what, but I couldn't get my guys to fight as a team and it wasn't fun. Given that, will I like this game? I've watched some of the Youtube vids, and it looks fantastic, but I thought the same about Homeworld.

This is a TB RT hybrid, give orders, then go until the clock runs down and give orders again. It’s like playing HW, but pausing it to give orders every 10secs. Indon’t think you could pause and give orders in HW but I know you could do it in HW2. So it is hard for me to tell you but I love the game.

[stessier]

Hm, thanks. I think I might wait for the next sale just to be safe.

[Grifman]

Hm, thanks. I think I might wait for the next sale just to be safe.

It’s on sale now

[NickAragua]

I think what Grifman's saying is you should buy it.

For what it's worth, unlike Homeworld, there's a 3D projection of each unit's destination when you're planning their moves and you get pretty fine-grain control over what they do. Only thing I don't like is that there's no way to tell a unit's firing arcs that I'm aware of. It'd be pretty hard to make that readable though.

[Gryndyl]

I think what Grifman's saying is you should buy it.

For what it's worth, unlike Homeworld, there's a 3D projection of each unit's destination when you're planning their moves and you get pretty fine-grain control over what they do. Only thing I don't like is that there's no way to tell a unit's firing arcs that I'm aware of. It'd be pretty hard to make that readable though.

When you have a unit selected, hit space to bring up their systems then select turrets to show the ship's firing arcs.

[NickAragua]

That's definitely helpful, although that's a lot of clicking and stuff for what should be a basic function.

[Grifman]

Also, I find myself unable to keep up with all the Cylon incursions. It costs tylium to jump around rapidly, but you also use it to build and repair ships. So I actually had to give up a secondary mission and its sweet sweet tylium reward. Colonies are dropping out of the quorum left and right, toasters are pouring out of every galactic orifice.

That's the wrong strategy. You DON'T want to go around whacking Cylon fleets, you'll wear yourself ragged as you have already noted. This is what you want to do:

So you know your ships, your fleets, your enemy.

Where are you putting it all?

Fleetgroup Daidalos is best served hovering around Helios Gamma or Helios Delta, where it can park itself over one of the Quorum members to gain the bonuses such as increased resources, longer Cylon FTL cooldowns, cheaper ships, etc. Being on those two sectors means you can also duck out to Ragnar if you feel the situation is not secure enough. Cylons will never go to Ragnar.

As for your fleets, you'll want at least one fleet in Helios Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta so Cylon fleets can be responded to in short order.

Furthermore, you'll want a second fleet placed in Helios Alpha, as this is where Cylon reinforcements will primarily jump in. This means that the fleets in Helios Alpha are liable to get the bulk of your exp as the campaign goes on. To deal with the issue of Officer experience, you can rotate your Officers between fleets to get experience.

As the campaign goes on, ship production goes on, you'll want a third fleet placed in Alpha and then a second for Beta, Gamma and Delta with Fleetgroup Daidalos itself eventually heading over to Alpha once you feel it's strong enough. Of course, if you feel like playing the long game you can build fleets for every Quorum member. It's useful to send ships that fall out of favour, such as Manticores and Adamants, to protect backline colonies in Helios Beta, Gamma, and Delta.

The best way to increase income is to get your colonies to a "stable" condition. The fastest and best way to "fortify" a colony, which means have a fleet over it. Once you have it "stable", them move to the next colony and get it stable. Only leave if a Cylon fleet is over another colony in the same quadrant. A vicitory will raise the condition of all colonies a bit but you want to focus on stablizing a quadrant, then as you create more fleets, send them to other quadrants as noted above. You'll never stabilize any colony if you are constantly chasing Cylon fleets. As noted above, focus on those colonies that give +1 Tylium to unfortified colonies (which will be most of them at first) and those that increase Cylon jump time (slows their movements down) which makes your job easier.

Hope this info from a strat guide on Steam helps.

[NickAragua]

Yep. I've started having a fleet hang out in each sector. Up to three so far. Sucks that the supply chain has an ungodly length, though. My shipyard is slowly making its way across the galaxy, hitting various missions. Every time I lose a ship in one of the two distant fleets, that's like nine turns for the replacements to get there (two or three hops, with two or three turns to recharge for each hop) And the Cylons keep bushwhacking my reinforcements. So maybe the solution is to send them out in larger groups, but at that point I might as well be creating a whole new fleet.

Ship losses come from a variety of sources, including one time when I ran into a Cylon fleet of about six Nemesis ships. Each of them was loaded up with dumb-fire torpedoes, so one unlucky Adamant ate about, I don't know, 80 or so. Then the Nemesi scattered, so I was able to just chase them down individually (no aft guns), but ouch.

On the plus side, I've unlocked the Artemis just now, so I can ditch the lighter carriers (the Berzerks and Adamants) over the long term and bring in some serious firepower. I'll probably keep those light corvette things around so they can spot for my Rangers, though. Then anything that survives the initial missile salvo gets to eat Viper swarm and direct fire from the big guns.

[AWS260]

Public service announcement: chain-smoking Doc Cottle appears in this game.

[NickAragua]

So I abandoned the previous run, but have since come back and been steadily plowing through it. The first main change I made to my playstyle was to resist my urge to jump my fleets every turn for 200 tylium and wait patiently until the cost goes down to below 100 at least. Turns out it takes the Cylons a while to get a colony to leave the alliance, and even then I can just move right back.

That got me through about what I estimate is 3/4 of the game, and then I started losing ships to Revenants (big, fat Cylon ships with lots of guns) and Arachnes (Cylon missile/carrier ships). That's when I finally discovered how to use the offensive/defensive posture to completely obliterate Cylon fleets. Start by moving up to one or two turns short of detection range. Then, have one of the corvettes go into full defensive posture to boost their sensor range and detect all the toasters early. Meanwhile, everybody else goes to maximum offensive posture. This increases their weapons range, damage and accuracy. Focus fire on one ship at a time, prioritizing Revenants and Arachnes. This allows me to take out one or two ships before they can even start shooting at us, then focus down everything else.

Some other pro tips I discovered:

- Once I make contact with the Cylons, I like to change altitude rapidly. This helps avoid the mass torpedo salvos that the toasters like to throw at my ships.
- To counter guided missiles, it's best to leave a squadron of fighters defending a ship. They'll automatically intercept and destroy incoming missiles with pretty decent effectiveness.
- Watch out for Wardriver squadrons. I'm pretty sure they can get your guided missiles to turn around and home in on your ships. Take them out before launching those mass missile salvos.
- Make it snappy. Some missions will require me to take control of satellites or destroy them or something. I like to send a squadron or two of Vipers to do the job while my fleet engages the main enemy fleet. If we hang around too long, the toasters like to jump extra ships in, which can range from annoying to deadly.
- Nebula clouds are obnoxious, as they prevent guided missiles from firing. And they'll lose tracking if the target moves into a nebula.
- I like to combine armor piercing missiles with guided missiles. Fire the AP missiles first, then the regular ones, maximizing armor damage.
- Nukes are nice, but expensive (50 tylium per shot)
- Celestras will reload the missile banks on a ship with whatever it has on board, even if the target vessel started with different ordnance.
- Keep Battlestars below the enemy. Those top cannons are incredibly nasty.

Right now, I'm on mission 11. So far, I'm pretty sure that we've lost more human warships to "friendly fire" than we have to the toasters. Although some of those three-way fights are pretty fun, but I'm glad they didn't put me up against any Battlestars.

[DOS=HIGH]

FYI: the base game is available on Steam for free until tomorrow. All DLC is also on sale.

[Daehawk]

I should really play this....even though its tactical its been on my wishlist a long time. Id like a BSG game in the style of the old Freespace series. Missions strung out. Interesting areas like nebulas and asteroids.. I played one..think it was called Beyond the Red Line.