Battlestar Galactica Online Lines Guide

Battlestar Galactica Online Lines Guide by ChristopherXen

So, you see Lines. And you think my god. I want to be that. It is important to consider a few facts and The purpose of this post is to help people understand Lines.

These great behemoths of your wildest dreams or hellish nightmares come with some stipulations that you should consider before purchase. And I also want to give the run down on how some of these things work to help you make the best choice for you. It is intended to be a guide, but also a discussion on theory. Let’s keep this one Clean, K?

Line Types:

Interceptors: Fenrir / Aesir

These Lines are purchased with cubits and are considered to be already in an advanced state. With their speed and manuverability they are intended to jump in, charge down an objective and deliver a quick deadly punch. However their drawbacks come with a limitation of power, so they may have some trouble running some set ups like Missiles or Missiles and Cannons mixed. They are fantastic at breaking up escort groups as well, with proper skill training, popping or breaking up strikes. Their speed and agility does allow them a great deal of freedom and can prevent them from being overwhelmed. An important fact to remember as this is a wonderful Fast attack line, is they are best in Wolf packs, usually an outstanding support for other Lines or keeping up with an escort group.

Command Ships: Hel / Vanir

If power, support, and versatility is your thing, then this Line ship may be for you. It offers a great platform for guns and flak, as well as EW and Electronic support for a large area. Do not let the hull points fool you, this ship is exceedingly deadly simply for the fact it can run many systems like Flak and Guns, or spam 4-6 volleys of missiles (depending on your regen skill) and it also has the armor to hang in and out run or out turn an Assault. These ships are ideal for large capacitors as well as many options for loadouts, its sometimes called the “Everything” ship. Its drawbacks are that it may not be as fast as a Interceptor Line, but it can in the end break 50 m/s and turn smoothly. It has less armor than an assault, however with skills and plates it can easily get over 5100-5200 HP.

Heavy Assault Lines : Jormung / Jotunn

Do you like being large and incharge? Then the Assault Line is your choice. This Goliath offers just that. SIZE, and ginormous armor. These ships are often best for major fleet pushes and are the corner stone of many strong defences. Boasting end-game armor of over 8000! These are surely note worthy. However. With something so tough, there must be a draw back. These floating fortresses, are Slooooooooow. They turn Slooooooow. And they can be out manuvered easily by other lines and escorts. Solo Assaults often find themselves victims to wolf packs or skilled gank parties. Their power supply often leaves them favoring guns as it is super easy to get in your minium missile range ( thanks Big Point ) and staying there. When even the weaker lines can crawl up on you and mount on your back, there is very little to do but squirm and die, or jump out and pray all that armor can get your missile slinging butt out of there.

Weapons: Remember lines are an enormous investment. Your guns and missiles are your key elements, and upgrades are expensive. Take the time to be sure what your role and play style is before you get deep into upgrading, then decide it just sucks. CAREFULLY read stats and understand 2 things. What range you like to fight at, and how close you actually get to your target.

Long Range Missiles: Like to reach out and touch someone? These missiles will chase down even some of the fastest escorts. But becareful as strikes can easily out run them and dodge them. However they can, given skills and upgrades, allow you to bang on an OP safely our of range.

GP Missiles : More agile and have a shorter range, but they are good for dealing with escorts and nailing careless strikes.

Short Range Guns : WONDERFUL if you like to just get in there and hammer something. These rapid fire guns are ideal for smashing lines and if you can tank it, OPs and Platforms. They do have a limited range so consider how close something will get to you. With out high gun skills you will miss alot, and also spend tons of power. High Gun skills and you can make escorts and other lines shutter in fear, This gun is a good choice for Interceptors and Command ships. It does work well on the Assaults, but bear in mind your regen is not the best.

GP (mid range guns) : These cannons offer the best of both worlds, and many times if you hunt NPC lines you can find level 3 cannons, so theres already some tylium saved. These guns are not as fast as the Short Ranges but do pretty good on re-fire. The also offer a semi-decent range upgraded. You can hold your own with these against many opponents, and still send escorts (and with level 9 and 10 gun skills) strikes, running for cover. It is a wise choice for all three Line classes. Again consider range and how close you ideally want to be.

Long Range Guns: These long guns offer you a slower rate of fire, but in the case of many lines, give you the ability to reach out and nail your victim who is trying desperately to get out of dodge. They are also ideal for Assaults as they are not as taxing on power, that and your not chasing anything down tubby! They allow you to snipe and reach out to 1500+ (with skills and moderate upgrades).

FLAK : :-D Do you hate Starbuck and Scar wanna bes? I do too. Well let me introduce to you the Flak cannons. These puppies are designed to make a strikes life a living hell. While your top and bottom may remain vulnerable, you can offer your fleet a nice place to draw enemy strikes in and give them something fun to swim in. Warning! Very laggy…or…PROTIP…very laggy… :-p The thicker you make your Flak field by upgrading or adding multiple flak cannons, the more effective they are. Remember this is a SUPPORT WEAPON. They will not insta-pwn Vipers/Raiders. They will however tick, tap, ping, bang, thump them and give your strikes and escorts a nice blanket and boost to fight in. Very costly to run long periods.

Point Defence Cannons: Anti-Missile cannons, one per side is great, 2-3 per side, is a strike killer. SUPER costly to run long periods but great to turn your side to incoming missiles and cover allies and OPs from missiles.

CRUCIAL SKILLS:

Armor Skills. All armor skills are critical with lines. Reason being is that you are not very fast no matter what you use. Escorts and Strikes can swarm you. Also lowering the critical hit chance helps you hang in longer, as most likely your the primary target. ALSO, heres another gag, your repair bill. Line ships cost VAST amounts of titanium to repair, or cubits. The longer you can hold out the better.

Guns. Line guns are not the most accurate things in the world, infact you can even miss outposts and Platforms. You need to be able to beat down your target. It is a good rule of thumb to have Level 5 MINUMUM in all gun skills before stepping into a line. Level 5 you start hitting escorts reliably. Level 9-10 you start becoming a fleeing strikes worst nightmare.

Missiles. Nothing is more annoying than that damn beep beep beep when a missiles is fired at you. Imagine if you will hearing that ongoing 6-8 times. Its important to have rapid lock to a decent level like 5 to be able to spam alot of missiles at charging escorts and strikes before they get into range. But also since the missile changes in 1.6, your critical chance is crucial. With the 1.6 minimum range, your best bet to counter is to have the main missile skill up, to increase that range, and increase the opportunity you have to fire.

Piloting. Turn rate is VERY important. These beasts turn very slow with low skills. Piloting 5 is HIGHLY recommended. Avoidance….your not dodging anything brotha. ^^

Capacitor : YES YOU HAVE A HUGE CAPACITOR IN A LINE, but also have weapons that cost alot of power to use. Your Power is just as crucial as your life, and regeneration is important.

Engineering : Especially Boost tuning is very important. It may cost you 6 tylium a second to burn, but you may as well milk as much speed out of it as possible.

COST OF LINES:

Ok heres where game balance challenges your potential god hood Adama Jr.

Cost of a base Assault or Command Ship : 2,000,000 Tylium
Cost to Advance the base : 60,000 Cubits
Cost of an Interceptor : 135,000 Cubits

Cost to Jump : 700-2000+ Tylium PER Jump
Cost to Boost : 6 tylium PER second
Cost for 1000 rounds of Gun Ammo : 25,000 Tylium
Cost for 1000 Missiles : 100,000 Tylium
Cost for 1000 Flak Rounds : 25,000 Tylium ( KEEP IN MIND THESE GUNS FIRE FAST! )
Cost for 1000 PD rounds : 10,000 Tylium ( KEEP IN MIND THESE FIRE FASTER! )

Average cost of running a Line in heavy combat for an hour : 100,000 Tylium Gun, 150,000 – 200,000 Missile, 100,000 Heavy support.

Rule of Thumb, DO NOT USE YOUR LINE IF YOU HAVE LESS THAN 500k Tylium!!!

The most embarassing thing to happen is to run out of gas in a system and have to mine your way out or find something that can kill you quickly. Since most fighting is done in the south…this can be tough, I recommend freighter spawns.

Note: I am sure each line pilot has different Ideas, and different statistics. This is my take as a professional Cylon Liner. This thread is to educate and discuss Lines before people spend vast amounts of money, and/or Tylium. I just want to give people a perspective of what they are getting themselves into. Feel free to discuss, and any data that is reasonable I will edit in this main post.