About the chaff

The Cylons have rebelled. The alliance of the Twelve Colonies falters. Take control of the Colonial Fleet and save humanity from an endless war.
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MVP7
Lieutenant Colonel - Elite Panther D
Lieutenant Colonel - Elite Panther D
Posts: 1368
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2015 3:40 pm

About the chaff

Post by MVP7 »

First of all I'd like to thank the devs for making this great game. I had been wishing for a proper we-go turn-based tactical space game ever since I played Flotilla years ago, and BSG Deadlock not only does that but also combines it with the Battlestar Galactica which is one of my favorite scifis. The game really does a lot of things just right (especially after the Broken Alliance): the campaign structure is great, the music is beautiful, the ships are well designed and the combat is fun and tactical (although I wish the ships could roll).

The only thing that really bothers me is the visual effect of the chaff. I don't know if it's the low resolution I'm using but the "chaff" flares are extremely obstructive. It makes it very hard to see what's happening and who is being shot at at glance. It also kind of ruins the otherwise beautiful aesthetics of the game in almost every battle since deploying a chaff field in front of the battle line is a no-brainer.

It would be great if there was at least an option to reduce the size of the flares to about 1/4 of what they currently are. The current color of the flares also really blends in with a lot of other munitions and explosions. Maybe the color could be more white or red?
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MVP7
Lieutenant Colonel - Elite Panther D
Lieutenant Colonel - Elite Panther D
Posts: 1368
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: About the chaff

Post by MVP7 »

I just finished the campaign after about 50 hours and really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to the future updates to the game!

I have some additional feedback that also happens to regard the chaff. I think there's some significant balance issues when it comes to missile countermeasures with the chaff being far more effective than anything else.

Using fighters for shooting down missiles ties up the fighters and only works against a limited amount of missiles. I think this is well balanced counter missile option.

Wardrivers work only against a portion of the guided missiles. This also feels like well balanced counter that really makes you think twice about firing missiles at the Cylons when Wardrivers are around (aka. I ended up nuking myself twice).

PCM is by far the worst countermeasure in the game. Deploying it effectively requires extremely good timing and prediction and even then it will most likely only shoot down a single salvo. It takes up a missile slot and also uses the regular missile reload time. These would be far more viable if they were actively destroying or diverting missiles for several turns (a bit like the chaff currently does).

I don't remember ever seeing a Scorpion shoot down a missile or do much else for that matter. I think these things could really use some kind of buff in general.

Flak shoots down missiles indiscriminately and is also a risk for friendly fighters. It's nice and tactical ability which would be far more useful if it wasn't for the chaff.

Chaff is the absolute Mary Sue of the countermeasures in the game. Chaff is a flawless shield against enemy missiles with no downsides other than the obstructive visuals. It's like deploying 20 flak zones in couple turns with none of the downsides of any other countermeasure system in the game. There is no reason not to deploy chaff all over your fleet in every battle and when you do, you are in perfect cover from the bulk of the Cylon firepower. It's simply orders of magnitude more effective than any other option in the game.

I think chaff would be far more balanced and in line with the rest of the options if it worked more like real chaff/flares. Rather than making a (visually garish) zone, the chaff could work a bit like the Wardrivers, pulling away a percentage of guided missiles that come in range and either destroy them or let them fly away or even lock on random targets.
SiegeRollout
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Aug 31, 2017 2:40 pm

Re: About the chaff

Post by SiegeRollout »

Agreed Chaff offers a totally lopsided advantage to the Colonials. You devote a single Sweeper squadron to your fleet, and you're nearly invulnerable against every long range Cylon offensive capability. I almost feel like I'm cheating when a single sweeper squadron can counteract 3 Arachne & 2 Phobos cruisers' long range strikes, where I can sit there and fire barrage after barrage of torpedoes and decimate my opponent before they get into gun range.

It would be more realistic if it were only effective against *guided* munitions, aka torpedoes would still pass right through it unaffected. It would also be nice if instead of using Chaff & using Vipers for intercept duties, if there was an option of "missile defend" instead of just "Defend". If I assign a squadron(s) to defend a vulnerable ship from missiles, and an enemy capital ship gets too close, that squadron will cease missile intercept duties and attack the capital ship, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. So if there are two Arachnes and a Nemesis bearing down on me, the squadron will break off to attack the Nemesis and the Arachnes blow my ship to pieces with a missile barrage because the fighters broke off intercept duties.

Another nice option would be a larger "Fleet Defend" button. Rather than assign a squadron to a specific ship, instead have it defend against any incoming missiles threatening the fleet. Also, in the Reinforcement Pack the developers made an AI update to Raiders so they wouldnt blindly fly into flak zones and get wiped out. It would be nice if the Vipers AI was also updated so that you can assign a squadron to a ship and not having it kill itself by flying through Flak.
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