These are the ones that push the characters to their limits, that change the course of their respective story arcs in unforgettable ways, or that simply wow us with some really, really cool effects and action shots. Here are five of the very best battles the show has ever featured…

The First Battle

Some fans feel that the show was still finding its feet at this early stage, but the first battle from season one episode one blew us all away, nevertheless. Intended mainly as a setup to the series and as a way to show off the capabilities of the Galactica, the first battle did not disappoint.

Primarily a pure action extravaganza, the highlight of this sequence comes when the Galactica displaces itself in space in order to dodge a barrage of missiles. This was unlike anything else being shown on television at the time and remains a fan favorite moment in the series.

New Caprica, 3:3

New Caprica broke new ground for the series and set the stakes higher than ever before in terms of the quality and production value of the action. Many would argue that this is where the show’s action direction really took off and crystallized many of its top quirks, not least being the handheld, documentary style camera.

When BGS began doing this, it was almost unheard of in space opera action, but it proved to lend the action more life and spontaneity than the old hull-mounted-cameras everyone had been using since Episode IV. Cylons attacking in-formation, on and off-world action, the explosive clashes in New Caprica rival the most epic moments of the great Battleship Potemkin.

Starbuck vs. Apollo

Okay, this one is hand to hand, but the show really surprised viewers by showing that they could thrill us just as easily with punches and kicks as they could with explosions and starships, and that you don’t always need million dollar effects to create a stellar action sequence. While brief (the fight is really over in two hits), the fight packs more emotional explosive power than most space battles.

Daybreak

Adama orders an attack on a colony right by a black hole. Enough said. The tension and drama of Daybreak, the series finale, make up for any of the weaker episodes fans might have felt disappointed by earlier in the series, the action really peaks, and all in all, this is just a darn good send off for one of the greatest sci-fi series of all time.

The Resurrection Ship Battle

This one is generally regarded as the all time great Battlestar Galactica space battle sequence. For pushing the characters to their dramatic limits, for changing the face of the series, for sheer, pulse pounding action, for the sharp effects work, this one has it all. The two part Resurrection Ship arc is why we watch BGS in the first place. Scratch that, it’s why we watch space opera at all.

The epic battle kicks off with the Colonial forces ready to do battle with the Cylons and baiting them into a trap. From here, Galactica and the Pegasus both attack the Cylon Resurrection Ship, and the rest is Battlestar Galactica history.

But what really pushes this battle over the line from “merely epic” to “something special” is Apollo’s arc as he takes the Blackbird out and collides with a Cylon, soon discovering a pinhole in his suit that compromises his life. The tension of this sequence alone is as pulse pounding as the battle itself.

The re-imagined original series is off the air now, however one cool new game out right now is actually a BGS themed real-time strategy game. This means that not only can you get all the fun of Starcraft within the trappings of Battlestar Galactica, you can also arrange the “What if?” battles that you came up with in your head while watching the series.

The online game is competitive, so don’t expect anyone to take it easy on you just because you’re new. See if you can top your favorite battle on this list. Get a glimpse of BSG Online by reading the SpaceSector first impressions article: Battlestar Galactica Online: Hands On First Impressions

Matthew Kiddman is  a long time gaming and sci-fi enthusiast who takes every chance he can get to write about the gaming industry and in particular space games like Battlestar Galactica Online. Look for him in the online Galactica game.

Bigpoint and ArtPlant developed Battlestar Galactica Online, a Browser-Based MMORPG set on the Battlestar Galactica Universe. The game was released to the public on Feb 2011 as open beta. As I write these first impressions, the game is still on open beta, although it feels quite solid and probably is almost finished by now.

Bigpoint is one of the biggest publishers and developers of browser-based games. Their most popular titles include Dark Orbit, Seafight, Farmerama or Zoomumba. BSG online is being announced as the best launch of Bigpoint to date. Strong marketing punch indeed. So, I decided to have a look for myself to see if the product really meets the hype.

Let me start by saying that I’m a long time fan of the Battlestar Galactica Universe. I loved to watch the original TV Series (1978). BSG was one of the reasons why I fell in love with science fiction in the first place, along with other titles of course. I also watched the entire re-imagined BSG series that aired some years ago.

BSG Online is Free

BSG online is a free MMORPG that only requires a web-browser to run. As usual with this type of games, and with this type of business models, the game is offered to players for free. Bigpoint, and other companies alike, offer their games, in return they receive compensation from optional micro-payments that can be made in-game through a game currency commodity (in BSG online the currency is Cubits).

You can still play the game without paying for it, and usually you can have the full game experience without doing any micro-transactions. The trick is that normally the developers are keen on seducing the player to do these micro-payments through a number of ways. Sometimes micro-payments unlock special features, premium content and other times they offer shortcuts so that you don’t need to wait for something that takes a long time to build or to happen.

BSG Online First Impressions

I registered an account on the BSG online website and started playing immediately (I didn’t even need to confirm my account on my email). You start by choosing which faction you would like to play, Cylons or Colonials. After you’ve made your choice you jump straight into the game tutorial where you learn the basics of the game’s combat mechanics.

You learn to maneuver your ship and to destroy your enemies by targeting drones. The tutorial is nicely built, smooth and is not too much time-consuming.

The interface is very usable; all you need to do or know is at a distance of a click. You can right-click on your mouse to set the course and with the left click you select things and increase or decrease your throttle, among other things. You can even zoom in and out with your mouse scroll. So cool! It is that simple.

BSG Online sets in True 3D

BSG online has a true 3D engine behind that allows you to move freely around the game universe. BSG online uses the Unity Game Engine.

UGE is a game engine designed by Unity Technologies that allows developers to make fully fledged 3D online games that run in the web browser. BSG online with UGE really looks and feels amazing. The game runs very smoothly without hangs, bugs or crashes to report, all this in a simple web-browser. Great job!

Setup your Character and Review your Assignments

When you finish the tutorial you are transferred to a roster screen where you can set up your appearance and choose your ship. If you’re a colonial you can choose between a Viper MK II (if you prefer dogfight combat), or a Raptor (if you prefer reconnaissance or combat support). If you’re a Cylon you can choose between a Raider and a Heavy Raider, these last two share the same kind of characteristics as the Viper and the Raptor respectively.

After you set your looks and choose your ship you’re headed to the CIC, the command center of the Galactica battleship. There you can review your assignments with Admiral Adama himself. The complete list of assignments is also listed, and always available to you, in the screen at your right through a tab that you can hide if you want.

In addition to being debriefed about assignments you can also request some background info on the current war status from Adama. In time you can even request the command of the Pegasus from him. The Pegasus is Galactica’s sister ship, it is also a Battlestar class battleship like Galactica. But for that you need to acquire more experience and much more merit from duty.

Hang out at the Bar or do some Shopping

If you don’t feel like jumping right for your next assignment you can stroll around the CIC and head straight to the recreational area (the bar). Anyone familiar with the re-imagined BSG TV Series knows how important the bar scenes were to set the mood and the right atmosphere.

You can use the bar as a place to hang out and acquire information from Starbuck and Apollo (two other main characters from the re-imagined BSG TV series). You can also acquire some more background information and current war status from them.

You can also get extra assignments from Apollo for a chance to earn extra Cubits (the game’s currency) which can be exchanged for advanced items and other resources. You can also earn extra Tilium (ship fuel) from these side missions (or quests) that can be exchanged for other common items. By the way, other game resources include water, a precious supply that can be exchanged for cubits, and Titanium, that can be used to restore durability and can also be exchanged for Tilium.

I don’t know yet the full extent of the bar usage. Who knows, maybe you can get the chance to fly other ships not directly available to you from the main assignments. That part you will eventually figure out by yourself.

When you’re refreshed with a drink and ended your conversation with Apollo or Starbuck you can stop by for a visit to the Galactica’s Hangar, the fleet store.

In the Hangar you can equip your ship with better weapons, hulls, engines and computers. You can also resupply your ammunition.

You drag and drop your items to your ship in order to do this, in an exchange for Tilium, Titanium or Cubits. In addition to making ship improvements you can request a maintenance crew to restore your ship’s health (for a cost of titanium or cubits), you can also change your ship assignment and choose the ship you want to use from a vast list of ships that the game will eventually allow you to command. You can also buy a new ship. When buying ships you may be forced to transfer from Galactica to another war front on another sector.

When you’re ready for your next assignment get right back to the CIC and receive your debrief from Admiral Adama. My first assignment was a recon mission.

You can be a Cylon

You get all the above if you choose to side by the Colonials. You will be able to interact with Adama, Apollo, Starbuck and Chief Tyrol among others. Now imagine if you choose the Cylons! I’ll let you venture and discover that for yourself. Here is, however, a quick preview of what to expect. I leave you with Number Six (Caprica) and Number 2 (Ledben) for a nice conversation at the Cylon Basestar (the Cylon flagship) bar.

Music, Sound and Graphics

The sound is more than adequate for this sort of game. Your gun fire sounds nice; the menu sounds serve their purpose without distracting you. The music is great! This is a not so common feature among browser-based games (some don’t even feature music at all!). The music score is taken from the BSG re-imagined series soundtrack. Overall the music is of very high quality and really helps you feel more immersed in the game.

Graphics are great (and consider that you’re playing in a web-browser). It may have a few anti-aliasing problems here and there, but nothing special. The Unity Game Engine is really something. My experience with the game has been smooth, enjoyable, with no glitches, bugs or crashes whatsoever.

Bottom Line

BSG Online succeeds completely in capturing and recreating the re-imagined BSG TV series atmosphere. Can you believe that this game is played in a web-browser? Amazing! And it’s free. If you like games like EVE online and you love the Battlestar Galactica Universe then this game is for you. If you’re new to these types of games BSG Online is a good start.

I highly recommend anyone to try this game. It’s easy and free to play, so, if you don’t enjoy it in the end, you’ll only have lost a couple of hours. That is all that is required to register, play around with the engine in the tutorials, stroll around in the Galactica battleship, or on the Cylon Baseship, and make a quick assignment.

I had a blast playing and doing these first impressions! I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

You can enter the BSG online universe here.

Spaceships are expensive

If we think realistically spaceships are an enormous expense of resources, in terms of manpower: scientists, engineers; time and materials. When produced, spaceships are also a huge expense during its lifetime: fuel, staff, energy, coordination and constant maintenance and retrofit.

If we take the Earth case study, after 50 years since the space age has begun on Earth the world has seen only a small bunch of different spacecrafts with little or no significant evolution in terms of life support, propulsion systems, range or … reliability, not to mention warfare need which is nil. For god sake in 50 years of space monitoring we have not yet made contact with a single bacteria in another planet inside our solar system, not to mention outside! The bottom line is that the space traveling business is a slow, cumbersome, incident fill, hugely expensive and very thoughtful enterprise.

The number of Spaceships matter

Being playing space strategy games for more than 15 years now (see Space Strategy Games: What’s next? Article ) I’ve constantly got the same boring feeling after some time playing a game. Constructing, maintaining and retrofitting spaceships becomes so ridiculous easy and cheap that the game simply looses its interest. So Alien race “X” happens to have 24 fleets of 40 medium size war ships each in a specific sector in space. Ohh and watch out!, they have another 24 equally sized fleets in another sector, and another…  I don’t think this is realistic at all, nor fun.

If you take as reference the top Sci Fi novels: StarWars, StarTrek and BattleStar Galactica, just to name the few most representative, you have to ask yourself how many space ships you usually see in the biggest of the fleets. 4 ships? 10? Maybe 30 big vessels and around 50 to 60 smaller units tops in the more striking epic battles, already taking both sides into account.

In space strategy games usually after you research warp drive, “space ships tech 1” or some other easy to come by technology you’re set to construct large colony ships, transports and even fighters and bombers. Not just you can build one, you’re invited to build tens of them fast since usually these ships are not considered expensive. As soon as you know you’re not only building larger ships but you are also building hosts of them. Now after building so much ships the only thing you can think of (since nothing more exciting to do is offered) is which alien civilization will you try on your new 200 corvettes with your new Plasma Cannon IX generation rifle. For me this does not feel realistic nor satisfying enough. More is needed.

Spaceship Epic Battles, StarWars, StarTrek, BattleStar Galactica: Some numbers

I think it’s no accident that the big sci-fi films always portray a reduced number of ships in their battles, exploration missions or transport convoys. A few facts and numbers on this:

In the Star Trek Universe

In StarTrek we never see more than a handful of starships in combat – maybe half a dozen Cruisers class vessels and a couple Galaxy class vessels tops. In the Voyager series you never see more than a couple of alien ships, but ok that’s primarily due to the series plot, since Voyager is the typical scout explorer that gets lost in space.

For some hard numbers, the Galaxy Class space ship (the biggest of the Star Trek Human universe if I’m not mistaken) has allegedly a crew complement of roughly 1,014 people! Among officers, enlisted crew and civilians. Imagine the amount of resources that big snake takes to build and maintain, not to mention the years and years of research needed to put it all together in the first place. Imagine the day where the first prototype was assembled in Space Dock. That would be a day to remember.

StarWars Starships

In StarWars the maximum number of ships you can count is probably on “Return of the Jedi” final sequence where maybe a couple dozen Star Destroyers (including a single Super Star Destroyer Mothership) storms the not so many Rebel Alliance starship perpetrators. The Rebel Alliance counts maybe a dozen corvette

class ships and probably around half a dozen Heavy Cruisers. Even the number of fighters is not so great. Maybe 5 to 6 rebel squadrons of 4 to 6 fighters each and some equal number of Galactic Empire fighters.  In another one of the biggest epic starwars battles: the attack on the Death Star in the “New Hope”, you only count 3 squadrons of rebel fighters if I recall correctly: The Gold squadron with a handful of slow, but

punchy, Y-Wings (a total of 6 maybe), a Red squadron of a good handful of X-Wings (3-6 units), and another squadron of X-Wings (3-6 units) that I cannot recall right now. Approximately 18 fighter class vessels attacked the Death Star … ok plus the help of the Millenium Falcon, what a ship, what a personality, both ship and its captain.

Take the Victory I Class Star Destroyer for example in the Wookieepedia. For god sake, around 5.200 crew members of different specialties not to count with around 2000 troops. And what to say about the dimensions of this huge beast. Imagine the technology, the contracts needed to pull that off altogether. It would have taken the Sith Emperor a good decade or two just to come up with the plans for that not to talk about the amount of effort to put these boys into production.

Battlestar Galactica Toys

In BattleStar Galactica (the remake series, I don’t quite remember how it was in the original) in the Humans faction you see a convoy of a dozen corvette class vessels and … Galactica, a single Heavy Cruiser class vessel. Ok, the situation in Galactica is special since the Human fleet is just a collection of refugees that escaped an extinction event perpetrated by the Cylon Empire, however if you take the Cylon fleets for example you never see more than 3 to 4 Baseships in a single battle, and these are the biggest ships you can see in their arsenal (let me know if I’m wrong, I didn’t saw yet the final episodes).

The Battlestar Galactica Starship is the star of the series. It is said in the BattleStar Galactic wiki that eight other Battlestar class vessels were produced specifically: (Acropolis, Atlantia, Columbia, Pacifica, Pegasus, Rycon, Solaria, and Triton). Not 100!

Less Spaceships with more personality is more fun

In the future I think space strategy games should pay more attention to their spaceships design concept to take into account that players will enjoy more the games if they can experience the excitement of researching and planning their spaceships more carefully in order that building the first prototypes can be a much more rewarding experience. Spaceships need to have more personality, need to be much harder to create and maintain and should be thinked more carefully because due to amount of resources used in these construction campaigns the decisions made will affect the entire gameplay experience from that point forward.

As you can imagine when I talk about the need for a much slower and harder process to create the starships I do not mean just doubling or tripling the amount of “turns” required to create them, I mean a much more creative process in the making. Everything in the spaceship creation process should be much rich featured, for example:

• The amount of specialists required, or need to recruit elsewhere (engineers, scientists)
• The amount of raw-materials required
• The special materials (that could be rare to assemble or find)
• Key technologies that must be unlocked or bought (life support, engines, hull integrity, weapons, energy)
• Contracts that need to be established with specialized alien sub-contractors
• Approval from the Senate for a new construct project (basically approval from the people)
• The needed infrastructure (space dock, lab, technical expertise)

Another aspect of the spaceships making process is the choice of the right crew. The right crews with the right skills are not to be found easily. The spaceship crews also deserve special attention, examples of this are the recruitment of legendary leaders and experts in certain fields like pilots, navigators, engineers. Take the good example of Star Trek for instance, what makes the series great and engaging is the bond that the viewers establish with the crew and with the spaceship itself, I think something of this should be found in the next generation of space strategy games somehow, but the crew aspect of spaceships could be a subject for another time, now we need more fun creating our fleets.