Battlestar Galactica Online
was a browser-based spaceflight action MMO based on Battlestar Galactica (2003). It was free to play with purchasables.
Sometime pre-New Caprica, a Cylon attack on the Rag Tag Fleet goes awry when inexplicable phenomena throws both Colonials and Cylons into an uncharted sector far beyond the Red Line. With Galactica and the primary Basestar's FTL drives damaged, neither Colonial nor Cylon can just pack up and get a move on. Both sides quickly dispatch forces to claim the systems in the sector, resulting in a back-and-forth struggle, while studying the remains of technology left behind by mysterious Precursors and trying to find a way back on track.
Playing as either a nugget or a new Centurion, you dive headlong into these events. Starting out in humble Strikes like the Viper or Raider, you can progress to larger Escorts, and then to Lines and Carriers that are dwarfed only by the Basestars and Battlestars. World of Warcraft-style raids with storied instances and bosses do not exist; instead, there is a focus on system control, which involves defeating the other sides' Outposts while establishing and defending your own, and PVP.
The game's servers were shut down on February 1, 2019 after eight years of operation.
This game provides examples of:
- Absurdly High Level Cap: 250, when it already takes weeks for all but the most dedicated or money-throwing players to reach 20!
- Alliterative Name: The players who sink money into the game are referred to as "Wallet Warriors".
- Anti Poop-Socking: Several things are done for this:
- A gift of several items for logging in daily.
- Sidequests, called "Assignments", only refresh once a day, so you cannot build a backlog first and then go back to clear it when you have a long stretch of free time.
- Merits, a currency type available only through PVP or specific PVE encounters, have a cap on how many you can earn a day.
- Asteroid Miners: One option for players. It can be a Boring, but Practical way of gaining exp, since you gain the same amount of exp regardless of your level, unlike with defeating mooks. You can also call in mining ships to handle large planetoids, which give better payoff but force a Protection Mission on you.
- Attack Drone: One type of mook.
- The Battlestar: Averted for players. Escorts and Lines are pure combatants, while the Carriers don't have much to contribute to a straight fight.
- Bottomless Magazines: Mining cannons, which are less powerful than proper guns in return.
- Break Out the Museum Piece: The Cylon War Raider is just a First Cylon War-era Raider refitted to modern specs.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: Many high-level items, including literal experience-buying, require Cubits. You can grind for the things, doing assignments, hoping for them in drops and looking for Water which can be traded in... or you can just fork out real cash.
- Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": Hull Points for HP (look ma, same short form!), power for mana and different types of currency. Tylium is used for basic purchases and doubles as fuel for Nitro Boost or FTL jumps, Titanium for repairs, Cubits for high-end purchases (which you can also convert real-world cash into) and Merits are used for the highest-end purchases like nukes.
- Charles Atlas Superpower: Skills training somehow improves the capabilities of your starships.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: Averted; swarms of "rocks" can beat a "paper", and a bunch of low-level players defending their own can force a Griefer who would Curb Stomp any one of them if caught alone to retreat or die.
- Corralled Cosmos: The mysterious nature of the sector, far from known space, leaves both sides trying to figure out what's really going on and has turned their attention from escape.
- Crew of One: There's no mention of any other crew serving with your craft regardless of how many should be realistically needed.
- Damage-Sponge Boss: Outposts have 30,000 HP, whereas even Lines almost never hit 10,000.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: There is no real penalty for death. You merely get sent back to the nearest friendly Outpost, although it could be quite far from where you were if you've been going far behind enemy lines.
- Destructible Projectiles: You can target missiles. Normal bullets are no-go though. Strikes usually are relegated to this role in big battles, where the presence of Escorts makes it hard for them to get any useful licks in.
- Escort Mission: Some plotline missions. You can also invert this by attacking enemy Freighters that have a complement of defenders.
- Every Bullet is a Tracer
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: Of course! You get a handwave about having jump drives installed on Vipers, allowing you to not miss out even if you pick them over the Raptor.
- Fragile Speedster: Strikes in general have miniscule health, but can usually run circles around other classes that try to fight them. Interceptors within their class have the highest speed and acceleration but inferior health.
- Gang Up on the Human: The AI mooks sent by your enemy's faction and the unaligned drones have no love for each other, but that doesn't stop them from calling an informal truce to go after you if you blunder into the way.
- Griefer: It's all too common to see players blowing away those tens of levels their inferior For the Evulz.
- Heal Thyself: Damage Control Packs enable this.
- Heavily Armored Mook: Assault types. To illustrate, the weakest of the bog-standard mook Cylon Raiders has 250 hp. The equivalent Assault Strike, the Marauder? 515.
- High-Speed Missile Dodge: Possible, usually with Strikes, but not reliable. Don't forget your decoys.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: Even a tiny strikecraft can carry thousands of rounds of ammo and various assorted equipment.
- Hyperspeed Escape: Possible, but there's a severe penalty for the chargeup time needed if you try to jump out in combat, making it hard to do so.
- ISO Standard Human Spaceship: Played with. Colonials have some blocky designs like the Jotunn or Gungnir, and the former is even greyish. However, there are also Colonial designs that don't conform; the Rhino is more or less a rotorless helicopter gunship, the Scythe has a giant ventral fin/leg, the Glaive and Halberd have diamond-shaped bodies with the latter being brownish and having fins, even the Gungnir subverts the trope by being magenta. Cylons, on the other hand, tend to use more sleek lines and curves. However, they also have some blocky dull designs like the Wraith and Jormung. It is lampshaded with the Wraith, which is a Mighty Glacier described In-Universe as resembling human design principles.
- Instant Expert: Both played straight and averted. On the one hand, once you pass a certain level you can immediately upgrade to a new starship type without having to go for special training. You also don't need special training to switch between ship models. On the other, the skills that you can train ingame to improve your performance take a clear amount of time to complete, which gets increasingly long as you go up.
- Jack of All Stats: While Multirole ships are Lightning Bruisers in their own classes in terms of stats, where customisability through slots is concerned they are only this. As an example, an Interceptor may have 5 Engine slots. The other two types have only 2. The Multirole has 3.
- Lightning Bruiser: Multirole ships, at least in their own classes. Speed and agility of an Interceptor, tank and weapon mounts of an Assault, computer capabilities of a Command. Really expensive bastards, though, and for slots they are only Jack of All Stats. But they are versatile enough to overcome many situations.
- Mighty Glacier: Lines in general. Lots of health, powerful weapons, can't accelerate or turn for shit. Assault types within their classes are the tank-types that can take proportionally more damage and carry the most weapon mounts at the expense of speed, except for Lines which lean more to Stone Wall.
- Money Spider: Most mooks only drop salvage that can be exchanged for currency, but sometimes you'll get actual stuff like Cubits.
- Money for Nothing: Tylium. Very little good stuff is actually bought with it, instead bought with cubits. And with the exception of water, everything is sold for Tylium. It's not unheard of that someone has bought all Tylium ships in game, bulk (As in 100,000 or more) ammo, and mines with ammo regularly, and still has a massive stockpile of Tylium. This multiplies heavily when you are high level and are with a squad.
- Mooks, but no Bosses: There are no instanced bosses whatsoever; the closest thing that exists is the Outpost, which is more of an armed HQ building.
- Musical Spoiler: The music picks up when you engage in behaviour that triggers the Threat indicator. Unfortunately, it's easy to trigger the indicator by accident.
- My Rules Are Not Your Rules: AI units can instantly jump out after being engaged in a fight, whereas players experience a large penalty to their Hyperspeed Escape time if they try to do the same.
- Necessary Drawback:
- Weapons are divided into three types. One gives More Dakka but is short-ranged, one has long range but poor rate of fire and the third offers a balance.
- Hull plating offers bonuses to hull points, defence against normal attacks, defence against critical hits or a mix of two or more of those. The mixes give less of each individual attribute.
- Nitro Boost: Boosting is a default option for all ships, though you naturally get smaller boosts off the bigger ships.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: The Battlestars and Basestars, which in the main series proper are the standard spacecraft, are superior to all the other ships that players have regular access to.
- Point Defenseless: Lines are generally bad at killing Strikes. Escorts are better at flyswatting, but a good or much higher-level Strike pilot can still give them a run for their money.
- Protection Mission: After you call in mining ships, mooks will spawn to attack them and you need to fend the attackers off in order to make your profit.
- Regenerating Health: All craft have self-repair capabilities that only work outside battle.
- Stationary Boss: Outposts.
- Surprisingly Sudden Death: As in the series it's based on, there is no No Warping Zone. Therefore, it is all too possible for some arsehole Griefer with tens of levels on you to jump in right on top of your ship and rip it to shreds before you can effectively resist.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Strikes, with their mobility, can nibble Lines to death. Escorts are intended to defend against them, but their size makes them prey for Lines. Carriers don't really fit.
- A Taste of Power: One plotline mission gives you a chance to take an Escort-type starship for a spin. If you accept that mission as soon as it's available, it'll probably be the first time you're going to get to use an Escort if you haven't been Bribing Your Way to Victory.
- Theme Naming: Cylon Escorts are named after ghosts.
- Arms and Armor Theme Naming: Colonial Escorts are named after weapons.
- Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Both Colonial and Cylon Lines and Carriers are named after Norse Mythology. (Although, considering the setting, maybe Norse Mythology was named after them.)
- That's No Moon: Defence Platforms are always disguised as asteroids.
- You Nuke 'Em: Nukes are available, but at high cost.
