[Shade]

1) The explosions are in-game.

2) It's likely to be a while yet before we can show off the battlestar you get in R1, and probably a while after that before the likes of Galactica herself. Such ships deserve better than to be shown off while still in the placeholder stage

[karajorma]

Everything you see is in-game. Nothing is rendered or photoshopped. That really is how beautiful this game is.

The planet is CannonFodder's work (as are all the backgrounds in the game that you'll have seen so far. Later on you might start to see BoneMonkey's work). I've already explained what's going on with the Viper cockpits though. That's not the final look.

As for the battlestars....still WIP and nothing we can show off just yet. With the exception of the Theseus we have other priorities at the moment anyway.

[Adalla]

Of course, the Galactica deserves special treatment I agree 100%

As for the explosions, the reason I asked is because I noticed the explosions on the basestar (with the Mark 7 in the shot) seemed of better quality (just like the TV show) than the others. Maybe the distance from the explosions makes a difference? Or I'm probably just seeing things

Cause those base star explosions are incredible.

[Shade]

Actually, those are new effects created by DaBrain very recently, so they are indeed of higher quality

[Adalla]

Well, kudos to DaBrain then! Superb job!

[IceFire]

Looks great folks!  I keep drooling away at everything you release!

[SGT_R22eR]

Got to say DaBrainès work on the Bolitho is amazing, along with the other ships.

Also, good luck on the project, I am behind you.

[eliex]

Checked out the first few pages and looks brilliant. Keep it up! 

[Flaser]

I really like the Bolitho, it is ship with a sound concept - a gunboat, that is a small ship with a big gun.
Of course it will be chewed up pretty fast in any capship engagements, but as a raider or escort it more than has the punch to ruin any bloody privateer's day.

However there's one thing I don't like about the model: The forward dorsal gun.
This ship already has two over-sized turrets, and I would find even them "unlikely", but the current placement (ventral right and dorsal left side) actually makes it believable, since half of the whole hull can be alloted to servicing a turret each.

On the forward turret there is no such space available. Remember, these big honking guns are more than the turret! You need magazine space, loading mechanisms and the motors to turn the thing....all in all those things take up just as much if not more space than the turret itself.



If you still want "more" guns on the ship (which is alredy pretty overpowered, when you realize a ship of galactica's immeasurable bulk only has a dozen of them) I suggest you go with a spinal mounted weapon...but then again you'd have a very different ship, more of a front line skirmisher than an escort ship.

Never the less the Bolitho will be hard pressed for magazine space and even with "all corners cut" it won't have the magazine endurance for fleet engagements.

[Shade]

The front gun is different, though. While it looks like a turret, it is actually a fixed forward battery, which frees up a lot of space.

[Edit] You've pretty much nailed its role though. It's not intended to have a large magazine capacity for the heavy guns. It's supposed to be able to lay down some hurt fast, to deal with a threat before much damage is done, but it is not designed to do this for very long. This actually goes very well with the escort role as BSG civilian ships are very easy to destroy, and you'll have to swat any threats out of the sky very quickly indeed. And yeah, given this, while it may on occasion be useful as support for larger vessels, you can't put it on the front line and expect it to do more than be a fighter deterrent after the first 30 minutes. It's just not intended for that.

[StarSlayer]

As Shade mentioned the bow gun is actually pretty much fixed alleviating a chunk of the turret infrastructure.  But yeah, I admit I did sorta lean more towards the rule of cool on her, then i usually tend to.  On the other hand she isn't meant to stand in the battle line though so having a small magazine isn't quite as big an issue.  The ship is more based off the old Sloop of War of the days of sail then anything else, carrying dispatches beyond wireless range, anti piracy, customs checks, SAR, force recon and escort are her bread and butter.  When the signal goes out for "Form line of battle, close action" she probably shouldn't be complying if she doesn't have to:D

[Heartofthewolf]

Also, BSG guns are rail cannon, MAC type things right? obviously they would still need a magazine of rounds, but the mechanisms would be smaller. for example, no charge for actually shooting the round, because its all magnetic. plus, if the gun fires at a muzzle velocity around 5% the speed of light or so (which, correct me if im wrong, but rail cannons are supposed to do something like that) then the size of the round itself wouldnt need to be very big; small round at 5% c = same force as much bigger round at slower velocities. therefore, you could store more in a smaller space.

[CaptJosh]

You're confusing railguns with gauss guns. A railgun uses electrical resistance to fire its projectiles. A coil gun uses electromagnets.

[Shade]

Railguns or Coilguns can fire projectiles at any speed, really, fast or slow. Just depends on how much current you feed into them. 0.05c seems far too fast compared to what we see in the series though.

[Heartofthewolf]

Ok, i stand corrected. yet, BSG guns are some kind of magnetically accellerated gun, right? no chemical propellant at all?

[Shade]

We know the vipers use regular cartriges with projectile and propellant, as they're seen on screen. Capital ship weapons though? Can't remember if it's ever specifically stated how they work. They do show muzzle blasts though, so I'd guess that they too use propellant.

[CaptJosh]

Generally speaking, it is cheaper to make propellant than to power coil guns or rail guns.

[Meleardil]

AA enemy suppression guns are rail guns on Galactica. The big canons are chemically propelled.  ...so it seems. Watch Ragnar Battle. Watch closely.

[MarkN]

Enemy suppresion guns being electromagnetic makes sense, as theoretically such a weapon can have multiple shots in the barrel seperately as only the 4 or 5 coils nearest a shot affect it, so you can have an incredible rate of fire or a longer barrel (this allows for greater muzzle velocity and greater accuraccy). As for costs, if you have a 'cheap' power source (I'm not sure if Tylium counts), a E-M gun is much cheaper then conventional explosives even though it is less efficient.

As for the railgun vs. coilgun argument, almost all depictions of 'railguns' I have seen have actually been coilguns.

[Snagger]

You'd need an awful lot of energy to use that many EM rail guns.  The Royal Navy's two new carriers, just having their keels laid now, will have provision made for retrofit of rail gun aircraft catapults and arrestor gear (it'll be needed when they finally realise the F35B will never work and switch to the F35C), but the spaces in the deck are to be left void and plated over - the ships will be conventionally powered, and as such won't have the capacity to power the catapults; they'd only be able to operate if the ships get nuclear power.  I can't see why we don't go down that route - our subs are all nuclear now, ever since we sold the Upholders and got rid of our brown water capability.