Hellraiser Ok, so BSG doesn't have as much customization in load-out of ships as BT. What about the actual tactical gameplay, is it better than HBS's BT? Is there a strategic layer, and if so, what do you think of it?
Hard to compare the two on the tactical layer. One is a simultanous turn-based system with a planning and execution phase, not that far off from a real-time with pause only without you having control over the pausing. The other is a rather typical turn-based tactical system.
The strategic layer in BSG-D is very simplistic. There are two resources. Tylium which you use as a currency to buy ships and armaments/refits, fuel for moving (fleets can jump for free but it takes more time). Requisition points which you use to upgrade officers, buy officers and unlock tech (note that the tech available to unlock depends on what story missions you did so far - this is linear). You get Tylium from making sure the Colonies are garrisoned and no Cylons blockade a Colony, if the Cylons park in orbit of a Colony or maybe if they fly around the un-inhabited worlds around the same star as Colonies, morale drops. Colony morale is tied to income from the colony. A very demoralized colony will leave the Quorum of 12 (depriving you of income) and you will lose the campaign if too many leave. However unlike X-Com they can join back if you garrison the colony again and some time passes.
RP is granted by story missions and random secondary missions. The latter are usually skirmish with an extra objective or supposedly extra difficulty (often it is just "remove toaster from premises" only there's a basestar or two that usually appear later in regular Cylon fleets), I think they might also raise morale. They are only available for a couple of turns and not taking them I think is a morale hit.
Officer mechanics are rather flat. Practically the only meaningful skill is raising the fleet point cap which every officer has luckily (this is actually very crucial or maybe was because Cylons quickly gaining fleet cap was addressed in one of the patches). The others are more or less useless (better marines? faster sub-system repair? Flag-ship only bonuses? honestly?) except for maybe the income increase from garrisoned Colony.
There are regular skirmish fights (no rewards, but they stop the Cylons from blocking the Colonies), optional random missions (not a whole lot of variety there but they give RP and Tylium rewards) and story missions. You cannot build defensive stations, resource outposts, sensor outposts or anything else that could be useful for the war effort on the strategic map. It is just fleet placement and picking what to garrison/liberate with what fleet. Cylons just spawn from off-map and have no outposts which you could raid to reduce the spawn-rate or anything.
There is no diplomacy or political in-fighting. There should be given the setting, no reason Virgon and Leonis shouldn't bitch at each other accusing the fleet of favouritism for the other.
Battletech has better "officer" (mechwarrior) development, by which I mean that the skills are not utterly useless despite being also simple, although I think they are less simple than in BSG:D.
The tactical layer is hard to compare. Battletech could have been better, just look at the post from yesterday from I forgot who in the battletech topic about melee in the tabletop versus HBS' game. But it has better customization for your units, actual terrain (affecting LOS/LOF which is IMO great) and maybe not the best mechanics in the world (nu-xcom style 2 move turns instead of action points, only one melee attack type, no reaction-shots/overwatch, useless light mechs) but despite some balancing issues (and simplifications compared to the tabletop from what I understand) the evasions, stability damage, heat, pilot damage and being able to blow off chunks of mechs make for a decent although not spectacular tactical gameplay.
BSG might seem simpler but it's simultaneous turn system with 3D space movement and 3D firing arcs is fun and seemed fresh. I had a blast in multiplayer. Also fighter squadrons deployment was nice. You could use them as scouts, you could use them to shoot down missiles (and nukes, which are pretty much useless). In fact I think what BSG:D did best was that despite the not so big unit variety it made you think not so much how to construct your fleet but how to use it's resources and of the timing.
Do you fire your missiles now or wait? Maybe you want to send your fighters to the flank of the battlestar and force it to turn on flaks on that side rendering the other without a flak field and thus open to your missile salvo (my favourite tactic). You wait to much and his fighters or his guns blow up your missile ships. Or you get simply outdamaged by his fleet in a slugfest. You fire at the wrong moment and his fighters turn to intercept your missiles or he turns on flaks and the missile fly straight into shrapnel. Maybe you use the fact you have missiles to intimidate your opponent, make him paranoid with flaks up all the time so you can outgun him.
Then you have fighters. Do you intercept his fighters/missiles? Do you try to flank his weak ships avoiding flak zones? Do you scout his fleet to know which blip is what ship? Maybe you park them directly above his battlestar and have them shoot the top armor safe from flaks (another tactic I like) or fly near to force him to use flaks?
Movement, despite the lack of terrain features (besides asteroids you can crash into, fun) seems also to matter more. In Battletech it is fairly easy to turn and flank at close range (no attack of opportunity, so only a movement range issue). Terrain matters, although the game needs forest fires as forests are a no brainer. In BSG-D you have to consider the slow turning rates, firing arcs during the manoeuvre (in HBS Battletech it is almost a non-issue as your target is static, if the game had reaction shots dependent on facing it would be better), any torpedo flying your way (torps are unguided and can be dodged or rather should be as they hurt like hell), any enemy fighters on approach vector (do you turn and fire flaks to face them? Do you hide ships behind that flak zone?), possible ramming attempts or collision courses (or ramming opportunities) and of course enemy enemy firing arcs and the damage to your armor side(s).
Overall I think Battletech has more/deeper mechanics but BSG-D utilizes its mechanics better for meaningful tactical choices during combat. Maybe it could be because I played Battletech maybe for a week and I played BSG longer and also online so I had more opportunities to use (or be forced to use) brainpower to make choices in BSG and Battletech is easier, even after I modded some additional difficulty.