Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock/Gameplay

Battlestar Galactica Deadlock is a turn-based ship tactics game set in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica universe.

Campaign
The base campaign is the first story chronologically, and is covered in the Walkthrough page. The base campaign has two DLCs: the Reinforcement Pack, which adds new ships; and the Broken Alliance pack, which adds two ships and a new storyline.

Chronologically, the next event to occur is Operation Anabasis, which is discussed below.

After completing the campaign, save game data can be ported over to the next part of the story - Sin and Sacrifice, which adds more ships and continues the storyline. Resurrection follows Sin and Sacrifice in the same manner, as does Ghost Fleet.

Operation Anabasis
A survival mode. Control a number of both civilian and military vessels, and guide them to safety while under constant attack from the Cylons. See Operation Anabasis.

Skirmish/Multiplayer
Skirmish and Multiplayer focus on a single engagement of prebuilt fleets under a points budget - either 4000 or 8000 points. Currently this is the only way to play as the Cylons, as they currently don't have a campaign.

Ship Overview
This page discusses the tactical, combat layer of the game. For information on the strategic layer - what happens in between battles - see the Walkthrough page for the campaign you are playing.

Combat takes place between one and seven ships on each side, on a 3D playing field. After issuing orders to your fleet, clicking on End Turn will resolve those orders simultaneously with your opponent's.

While it is not possible to roll or flip the ships on their sides, certain vessels are better at being above or below their targets.

Ships have armour on six sides - left (port), right (starboard), front (bow), rear (stern), top (dorsal), and bottom (ventral). Once a ship's armour is destroyed, it begins taking damage to its hull. If its hull is destroyed, the ship is lost.

Ships also have various subsystems that take damage. Destroying these can cripple a ship and make it far easier to destroy. Both Cylon and Colonial vessels have the same subsystems, though ships that do not carry squadrons will not have a hangar subsystem.

Each subsystem has a Strength and Health attribute - Health representing how damaged the system is, and Strength indicating its effectiveness. A damaged subsystem will likewise have lowered Strength.

Subsystems are damaged by normal attacks to it (shots to the ship's engines will damage the Navigation subsystem, for example), by Cylon boarding parties (Colonial boarding parties operate differently), and by Cylon computer hacking attacks. Colonial vessels can disable subsystems using EMP mines and generators.

The subsystems are:


 * CIC: The combat information center of the ship. Affects all other subsystems.
 * Navigation: Affects maximum speed and ship manoeuvrability. Disabling this will prevent the ship from turning.
 * Fire Control: Affects the number of missiles fired per volley, accuracy of guns, and whether the ship can focus its fire on a single target. Destroying this will render a ship crippled.
 * Engineering: Affects the subsystem repair abilities for the ship, as well as squadron repair abilities.
 * Tech Bay: Affects DRADIS range (range for the ship to identify targets), Firewalls (hacking defence), and the hacking abilities of Cylon vessels.
 * Armoury: Affects the ship's ability to defend against boarding parties, and the effectiveness of flak on Colonial battlestars.
 * Hangar: Affects the squadron's evasive manoeuvring and turnaround time after landing. If destroyed, the ship cannot launch squadrons.

Subsystems can be repaired via the ship's Command Menu, or simply by using the repair icon next to the subsystem name on the ship's info panel. Subsystems under repair will be brought offline, and repairing can take several turns to complete. Repairs can be cancelled in the same manner they were started.

Improving Ship Performance - Colonials
The Cylons and the Colonials have different methods of improving the performance of their subsystems. The Colonials have defensive and offensive postures. A defensive posture increases power to the Armoury, Tech Bay, and Engineering while reducing power from Navigation and Fire Control. This allows a ship with multiple damaged subsystems or an enemy boarding party to recover faster, or if it's on scout duty to increase its DRADIS range at the expense of speed.

An offensive posture increases power to Fire Control while reducing power to all other systems, including navigation. This allows a ship to, once in combat, hit harder and more accurately. Offensive posturing also reduces speed in the same way as defensive posturing, so a neutral posture provides maximum manoeuvrability.

If speed is an issue, all Colonial ships can use the Boost Engines option to lock themselves to a neutral posture and lose manoeuvrvability in exchange for greater speed. Ensure to turn this off and switch to Offensive posturing once you've engaged the enemy.

In the campaign only, Colonial officers will also improve the bonuses received - a posture effect of 6, for example, will allow a ship to adjust its posture to +7 Defensive to +7 Offensive.

Improving Ship Performance - Cylons
The Cylons, by contrast, have a fixed amount of power they can redirect to their subsystems. They do not have a Boost Engines feature. As officers only exist in the campaign, the Cylons cannot receive any officer bonuses.

Boarding Enemy Ships
Enemy warships can be boarded by either Raptors (Colonials) or Heavy Raiders (Cylon). The effects of being boarded varies.

In all cases, the boarding ship will attach itself to the target ship and put a Marine (Colonial) or Centurion (Cylon) boarding party on board the ship. This boarding party will start to lose members based on the strength of the Marine/Centurion force on the defending ship.

If the target ship is destroyed with the Raptor/Heavy Raider still attached, the ship is destroyed. Boarding parties will leave a target ship if their transport is leaves. The strength of boarding parties is dependent on the Armoury subsystem of the Raptor/Heavy Raider's mothership.

Colonial boarding parties afflict a significant penalty for the ship being boarded. The target ship receives a -15% accuracy and -25% subsystem repair penalty. Cylon ships also receive a -25 system energy penalty, meaning they have less power to redirect to their subsystems.

These penalties are in effect as long as at least one Marine is on board the target ship. Defeating all the defenders on a target ship doesn't yield any effect, but the penalty will remain in effect until the target is destroyed (or the Raptor leaves).

Cylon boarding parties begin causing subsystem damage. After destroying all subsystems, they will remain on board and re-damage subsystems until the Heavy Raider leaves. As of the Fleet Admiral update, they no longer destroy the target ship.