Battlestar Galactica **Spoilers** discussion

[Loser]

Minor note, Starhawk. Cruisers and Battle Cruisers in stock SE IV use the Large Mount. Battleships and Dreadnaughts use the Heavy Mount. And among ships only Baseships use the Massive Mount

[Starhawk]

Wooops thanks Loser I guess I got a Mod of some type confused with the stock game.

"About the only two fighter squadrons per ship issue, I'd like to point out that this was during peacetime. I think it quite likely that if the colonies were on a full war footing then each ship would carry more fighters. Given the fact that it was peacetime with no enemy in sight, the colonies were maintaining a huge fleet considering that there were only 12 worlds to protect."

That does make sense, afterall why station over a hundred fighters per ship when you have 120 ships of that size.
And the funny thing to me is that the colonies had something like 20 billion people on em yet their military manpower would only be in the few hundred thousand not even the millions. Well at least their fleet.

"As to how to classify what kind of ship the Galactica is, that's easy, it's a Battlestar. You can't really classify it by our military standards. Support ships? The show seems to imply that it doesn't need any and I'm willing to go with that. The ship is huge and we've only seen a few locations on board."

Actually it would be a battleship by United States standards because of it's ship killing firepower. The fact that it has launch bays would only make sense in a space based theatre of combat because in space a fighter could go above you beneath you beside you that sort of thing and unless you want to add too many guns and use up all your ammo in only a few volleys you'd much rather have fighters available to cover your "weak" points.

"Finally, tactics. Why aren't they using more smaller ships? I think this probably comes down to one thing, money. FTL engines must be quite expensive or else most ships would have them. Look at how many ships were left behind by Colonial One. A warship would almost have to have them in order to be effective in that kind of theater of operations. This would lead back to building giant ships and using a different tactical doctrine than what we're used to."

Another good point, the battlestar appears to have enough provisions and supply to Last for a great deal of time on it's own and this makes sense considering it is a starship of enormious size and you really don't want to have to bring it into port on a regular basis.

And you have a really good point about the FTL drive, they seem to be a rare thing among ships and considering the Galactica hadn't made a jump in over twenty years prior to the new Cylon attack it leads me to beleive that there are some kinds of regulations or cost prohibiting effects of using the FTL drive on a regular basis, especially for warships.

[Patroklos]

AND you will have world ships, AND you will have etc. ect.

If you have concentrated your fleet for an attack, then you won't be there to defend your warp points. And if you have a huge fleet of Dreadnaughts you won't have starbases to go everywhere (assuming you do not own half the map, which is not normally the case and thus maintenance will get you). In a normal game you can't have everything. And who said I wouldn't have Dreadnaughts, I just said I would complement them with a range of vessels. The dabate is about Battlestars, with a SEIV comparision. If that is the case then as in the show, you would only have ONE clase of ship that you use for everything a la Batlestar Galactica. That means no starbases, carriers, PDC ships, minesweepers, etc. and half your dereadnaughts would be filled with fighter bays.

Your fleet would be powerful in one field, but lack capabilities to accomplish other missions. Example, who pillage collonies better, one dreadnaught of three BCs? Which force would be easier to track down and destroy? And of cource you DNs will be slow as compared to my cruisers. It all comes down to playing style really, and I bet both srategies will work.

-Pat

[Starhawk]

Originally posted by Patroklos:
AND you will have world ships, AND you will have etc. ect.

If you have concentrated your fleet for an attack, then you won't be there to defend your warp points. And if you have a huge fleet of Dreadnaughts you won't have starbases to go everywhere (assuming you do not own half the map, which is not normally the case and thus maintenance will get you). In a normal game you can't have everything. And who said I wouldn't have Dreadnaughts, I just said I would complement them with a range of vessels. The dabate is about Battlestars, with a SEIV comparision. If that is the case then as in the show, you would only have ONE clase of ship that you use for everything a la Batlestar Galactica. That means no starbases, carriers, PDC ships, minesweepers, etc. and half your dereadnaughts would be filled with fighter bays.

Your fleet would be powerful in one field, but lack capabilities to accomplish other missions. Example, who pillage collonies better, one dreadnaught of three BCs? Which force would be easier to track down and destroy? And of cource you DNs will be slow as compared to my cruisers. It all comes down to playing style really, and I bet both srategies will work.

-Pat

Hmmm yes I suppose you are right, it does all depend on play styles....and I said his wormhole defense stations were ranging in sizes I guess he must have meant ranging from space station to starbase in some areas. Space stations being relatively cheap.

Now I beleive that a dreadnought with fighterbays can be a good idea, and I usually equip all my light and full cruisers with PDCs so I would definately equip battleships, dreadnoughts and baseships with PDCs and would probobly create a dreadnought class with launch bays to work In Conjunction with my gun only dreadnoughts, and of course I'd have PDC destroyers and repair ships travel with my fleet so that I have the jack of all trades ships as well as the dedicated gunplatforms that are necessary to winning a capital on capital battle.

And thus far my playstyle has been more to just throw up minefields and satelites around my warp points and use the majority of my resources to create a large mobile navy that I can use to assault enemies while at the same time protecting my own empire.
So I do beleive I'd have a few battleships and would probobly keep my battlecruisers in service, but I'd probobly not replace my lost battlecruisers and instead just build battleships or dreadnoughts to replace them as time went on.
I would of course upgrade my battlecruisers to keep them in fighting condition afterall just because a ship is 50 years old doesn't mean it has to look it right?

Oh and if you were wondering I wasn't disagreeing with your tactics as I'd probobly use them to an extent as well but to me it sounded like you were relying totally on battlecruisers which would be as bad as me relying totally on dreadnoughts if not worse as a battlecruiser is a smaller platform to work with.

[ December 12, 2003, 17:11: Message edited by: Starhawk ]

[gregebowman]

Before the topic gets too far off track from the original thread, I was talking to a friend who works at Suncoast Motion Pictures where I get most of my dvds. He was telling me, first of all, that both Olmos and Katee Sachoff had never seen Battlestar Galactic before and were surprised at all of the vehemence that was being thrown their way. Once they saw some of the original BSG, they were disturbed by all of the differences. He informed me that if a new series were to develop, they would probably not be in it. Also, he doubts there will be a new series, due to the outrage that has come out over the new BSG and what happened to Farscape. And once he mentioned to me what Richard Hatch's storyline would have been like, I wish that would have been made instead. But apparently Glen Larson threw a monkey wrench into those plans, and then Universal stood up and claimed they owned the rights, but wasn't willing to pay the budget for the script. That's when Sci-Fi channel claimed they would make a mini-series instead.

[Patroklos]

I agree, relying on a singe platform would be disasterous.

Lately I have been experimenting with alternate ship designs. Clocked raiders with anti-planet weapons to kill attack behind enemy lines. Same sort of ships with troops to capture a base in the rear, then by the time my fleet gets there they have a base to repair and resupply at. One with all pychic/conVersion weaons to "recruit a lone warship. And just simple cloaked raiders to kill single transports and mine layer/sweeper ships wandering around. My favorite (which I haven't actually used yet) is a cloaked raider with mines. They shadow an enemy fleet and when I figure out where it is moveing I seed the route with mines. There are so many possibilites to harass enemies.

I don't expect to see any of this in BSG as the war is "over", but these ships must have existed before the defeat, and SOMETHING other than a Battlestar should have made it to the anchorage.

-Pat

[Cyrien]

If you look at it it really isn't surprising no other military vessel made it.

The Cylons had complete knowledge of the location, distribution, supplies, capabilities of every ship in the military via access to the computer system. They also were able to shut down the new program that was apparantly installed on everything from fighters to battlestars. They show up where they know the enemy is or where the standard plan says they should go turn them off and destroy them neat as you please.

So why does Galactica survive? It was old, obsolete, the program wasn't networked to all the sytems but limited to a few because of a cantankerous old commander who wouldn't allow networked systems onboard. When hostilities break out they aren't going to follow the standard plan because they have no munitions, large fighter group is destroyed right off, no supplies, no support and no orders to them from other higher ups because of all this.

The others try to engage the enemy and get destroyed. The Galactica doesn't and when engaged runs away and can't be disabled like the others were.