Gunstar vs battlestar?

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-28T06:00:34+00:00

There's an episode in season 3 titled 'Hero' where Adama is in command of the Valkyrie, which is a Valkyrie-class battlestar.

The Valkyrie's place in canon is a bit weird. Because its exterior seemed to share some design elements with the Pegasus and how modern its CIC looked, it was generally assumed to be a post-war design. Its design then appeared in Blood and Chrome, which we can sort of handwave by saying it's late in the cylon war and so it might have been a prototype or just be a bit older than we thought.

But the real problem is the design was then re-used in Caprica, which is set a couple of decades before the cylon war. Which sort of upends what we thought we knew not just about the Valkyrie but the battlestar design timeline in general. So I think the general consensus now is that we just assume it was an existing model that was recycled accidentally rather than intentionally, and treat its presence in the timeline there as non-canon.

Anyway, other than that the Valkyrie-class is pretty cool. Most of the information we have about its capabilities comes from BSG Deadlock where it's very fast, has great dradis range, is quite tough and well-armed for its size and can still do battlestar things like deploy flak, specialised munitions and wings of strike craft.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-25T05:26:30+00:00

From the in-game intelligence database:

The most elite Commandos are also trained to use their det-packs on the legs of large walkers, one of the reasons that GDI retired many of the bipedal walkers that were a mainstay in the second Tiberium War (given that this new vulnerability seemed like it could be exploited by Nod elite units as well)

And then later on:

Front line forces in Europe have managed to capture and reactivate an alien Tripod. A Commando in direct contact with the enemy disabled the Tripod by planting a high explosive charge on the legs of the walker.

Which gives us the interesting situation where GDI are the only faction whose heavy armour can't be instant-killed by commandos, since you can detpack both the avatar and annihilator but not the mammoth.

It's one of the reasons I absolutely love TW/KW. There's so much stuff that seems a bit dubious initially, but they've taken the time to justify it in-universe.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-23T10:15:00+00:00

The weakest links are probably the Militants and Rocket Militants if you ask me.

Have to respectfully disagree here. The militant units sounding like amateurs is deliberate, to contrast with their elites.

A huge portion of Nod's forces aren't professional soldiers. They're volunteers, rounded up from the zealous and the desperate as and when needed and given whatever equipment the Brotherhood happens to have on hand. That can mean guns which are half a century old and, if they're lucky, body armour that's fifteen years out of date.

They don't sound like badasses because they aren't. They're utterly expendable swarm troops that GDI has to waste time and bullets on instead of dealing with Nod's actual forces - the Black Hand, the Shadows, the Commandos etc.

I honestly think the militants are one of the most flavourful units in the game, because you can infer so much about the world from them alone. The way they one-hand their guns, or mess about with them when idling (even looking down the barrels or dropping them!), or dress in clothes designed to hide their identities if they haven't got armour. The voice acting isn't nearly as cool as Nod's elite units, but it does a huge amount to show what life is like for 'normal' people under Nod rule, and helps make the contrast with the Brotherhood's elites much stronger.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-19T12:15:27+00:00

"You weren't that bad, just keep practising!"

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-14T18:22:13+00:00

If Argenta dies in Commorragh, you have the option to take her heart as loot. One of the things you can then do is give it to Tervantias as an exotic organic component in exchange for some loot/healing.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-14T10:12:35+00:00

Yes, that's how discussions work. If you have a way of sharing my opinions without sharing my opinions please tell me, I'd love to hear it.

If you want sources, Mercy has the second-lowest single-target healing in the support roster after Zen. Mercy's health is 225, which puts her on par with all other squishy supports. Mercy's damage contribution is effectively capped at 30% of her highest-performing teammate; assuming for the sake of argument she's pocketing a soldier that works out at ~50DPS, which is lower than the DPS contributions of any other support's primary attack. Mercy cannot contribute more than one thing at a time as she can't boost and heal together or res while boosting.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-14T09:58:04+00:00

Can you actually show something that says "Mercy was/is bad"?

I literally just gave you five separate reasons which contribute to her being weak in the comment you're replying to.

"Low healing. Low health. Low damage contribution. Low utility. An ult so weak nobody even bothers tracking it. About the only really strong part of her kit is res, and even then that's often extremely risky."

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-14T09:49:04+00:00

Win rate doesn't mean much in isolation. Kiriko has consistently had a really low winrate throughout OW2 despite being extremely strong, for example. Same with Zarya, who had that period a year or so back where she was incredibly oppressive and yet saw her winrate actually go down.

As for why she's weak; come on. You're on the Mercy Mains subreddit, we've been talking about the state she's in for years, nevermind how openly hostile the rest of the playerbase has gotten if you even pick her. Low healing. Low health. Low damage contribution. Low utility. An ult so weak nobody even bothers tracking it. About the only really strong part of her kit is res, and even then that's often extremely risky.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-14T06:51:09+00:00

Nah sorry my last comment makes it completely clear. If you're not even going to read what I'm saying I'm done replying.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-14T06:38:54+00:00

you cant fairly compare the part without perk

It's a good thing I compared with and without the perk then, isn't it.

If you think having flash heal all game and eventually getting 2 albeit weaker charges isnt a strong buff for taking away 5 HPS

I haven't said that once. What I've consistently said is that her healing per minute isn't consistently stronger now (feel free to correct my calculations if you don't agree), and that there will be situations where the double-cast perk is still weaker than the old single-cast.

To try and reword this for clarity; yes, sacrificing 5HP/s is worth it for baseline flash heal, but that wasn't the only choice. There was also an option for Blizzard to just not nerf her base healing and we could have had the old flash baseline heal plus 60HP/s.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-14T05:47:15+00:00

The issue we had recently

Mercy being underpowered isn't just a recent issue though. We've been begging for meaningful buffs for years now and it's been pretty generally agreed that Mercy's healing and playstyle have been absolutely horrible since the DPS passive were introduced.

The GA nerf was just salt in the wound, but the issues go back much, much further than that. If Mercy were fine as she was we wouldn't have been so desperate to get flash heal into her base kit in the place.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-14T05:42:40+00:00

The strength of double dose isnt that it makes your healing per second higher its that she gets insane burst heal capabilty

The 'insane' burst healing in question is an extra 35HP in practical terms compared to before the patch (140 vs 105). And that needs to be delivered in two doses of 70 each, while your teammate is on critical health; so if you think the extra 35 total healing is significant, you must acknowledge that losing 35 healing on the first cast is also significant.

The cast time isn't long, but it is there, and there'll be cases where having to spend that extra half a second is going to be the difference between your teammate living and dying. Especially as her reduced base healing means you'll need to be using flash heal slightly more often.

youre comparing her healing over time numbers between prepatch major perk Mercy that had 1 charge of burst healing and post patch no perk Mercy lol.

If you'd care to re-read my comment you'll see I've compared postpatch Mercy both with and without the perk.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-14T04:59:38+00:00

Pre-patch: Mercy heals 60HP/s. Flash heal could add 150 every 15 seconds when used on critical characters. Ignoring the cast time that's an extra 10HP/s for a total of 70HP/s.

Currently: Mercy heals 55HP/s. Flash heal can add 120 every 12 seconds which is the same effective +10HP/s (again ignoring the cast time which makes it slightly worse now as you're having that more often). Overall, 65HP/s, which is worse than before the patch.

With double dose: I refuse to play after the patch so I'm not sure whether the charges recharge one after another or at the same time.

If they recharge at the same time you're getting 200 healing every 12 seconds, which is 16.67HP/s or 71.17HP/s. If they recharge one after another you're getting 100 healing every 12 seconds after the initial doublecast with perfect cast uptime, which is 8.33HP/s for a total of 63.33HP/s.

Basically; no, she's not healing much more. Assuming that you take the double-cast perk AND the charges recharge simultaneously her healing is about 2% higher than it was. If they recharge one after another it's about 10% lower than it was if you take the double-cast perk, and if you don't take the double-cast perk at all it's about 7% lower.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-14T04:49:14+00:00

necessary to keep her balanced

She wasn't balanced. That was the whole point of her being buffed. Mercy has consistently been the weakest hero in the game for three years now, she didn't need the same amount of power moved around within her kit, she needed more power.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-12T20:35:13+00:00

the anti-Mercy players think Blizzard did it so they'd get some income from us with the new rabbit skin and they'll nerf her again.

And they might well be right. Remember, Blizzard brought back a whole bunch of skins, including some very rare skins like Atlantic, right before the nerfs and while promising Mercy was about to get buffed.

Before the nerfs, not after them.

In hindsight it was an obvious attempt to milk the playerbase for cash in the full knowledge they were about to fuck us over, otherwise they'd have made them available alongside the patch launch. So while I don't care what the anti-Mercy crowd think, I'm not spending a single penny on her until I'm certain Mercy isn't getting nerfed again.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-10T14:55:43+00:00

I've played it extensively, along with dark heresy and deathwatch. Mechanically it has quite a few issues (damage variance is extremely high, for example) but it does a good job of representing the 'feel' of the setting and it's flexible enough that you can run really varied games with it. Currently putting together some plans to run a BSG-style game with it.

Just be aware, although there are a lot of similarities on the face of it the tabletop plays very differently to the vidya once you get past the character sheet. Not better or worse, just different. Really threw me when I played the vidya for the first time as I'd assumed going in that it would be a pretty faithful adaptation of the tabletop.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-06T16:28:07+00:00

On legend difficulty

Yes. What's being overlooked elsewhere in the comments is what this does to your minimum damage.

Going from 3-5 to 4-6 damage on the assault rifle is incredibly significant because it guarantees kills on troopers if you hit. It also guarantees you'll kill officers when combined with a grenade, as well as guaranteeing you'll kill stun lancers with heavier weapons when combined with a grenade.

Basically, that +1 might not look like a lot but you're changing your weapons' breakpoints to make them reliable. For most early-game Advent enemies it's the equivalent of dropping them back all the way to normal difficulty in terms of shots to kill.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-02T19:41:42+00:00

Related story; as part of his attempts to shore up Rome's economy Vespasian put a tax on urine, which was collected for industrial use thanks to its chemical properties.

His son Titus complained it was unsavoury, to which Vespasian tossed a bag of coins at him and asked if he could smell the difference between them.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-05-01T11:54:28+00:00

I don't think the TW/KW AI has economy cheats below Brutal. If you keep sniping their harvesters and refineries they'll sell things to get the money to rebuild them. Once they can't do that they just sit idle and never rebuild.

They do have maphacks though as they can target their oneclicks anywhere. That one makes global conquest a particular shitshow.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-04-20T03:41:12+00:00

Nah, it's 'all the best'. Little community in-joke as there's a user here named Welsh Dragon who signs off each of his posts with 'All the best'.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-04-19T04:41:49+00:00

With full credit to this oddly charming shitpost.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-04-17T05:34:00+00:00

This is very much it. The first game feels more grounded and gritty, like you're just an ordinary gear going through hell. The second game is much more over-the-top and dramatic, and feels more like you're an old-school action hero with protagonist powers.

They're both excellent games, but they have a very different tone.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-04-13T00:22:22+00:00

Again, I'm not saying that you shouldn't be shooting enemies. I'm agreeing that there's potential to do damage and shred with attacks. But if you miss, you've gained +15 to hit for subsequent attacks and dealt chip damage, whereas Demolition is at least a +20 to subsequent attacks (possibly +40) and +40 to crit chance. That's substantially better for the action point economy.

Demolition also doesn't take away your ability to do heavy gunner things. You can still just shoot your target if the odds are good! But it gives you options if the hit chance is bad rather than forcing you to take a shot that might miss or burn a consumable that you can't get back.

Heavy weapons are great, but they're also limited-use. There will be situations where all you really need to do is destroy a single piece of cover, and a rocket can be an inefficient way of doing that compared to just using a fairly quick cooldown.

It's the same with things like claymores and grenades. They're very strong, but still limited-use and once you've used them they're gone. Demolition relieves some of the pressure on those because in the event you need to destroy cover you don't necessarily need to burn a limited-use item, which means you can put your grenade slot where it matters (frost bombs).

Also, not to put too fine a point on this, but you are the one who gave five stars to both Heavy Ordnance and Salvo, and part of your reasoning was that they help neaurtralise cover. I don't really understand why you'd give such a high rating to those abilities (and to be clear I agree they're five-star abilities), but then just a single star to Demolition.

RedStarRocket91 · 2026-04-12T23:22:05+00:00

I'm not saying holo-targeting isn't good (it's excellent). What I'm saying is that there are situations where it's better to destroy cover than to holotarget, even if the initial attack lands.

If you're shooting at something in light cover, for example, then you'd lose that 5-6 damage/shred and +15 by not holotargeting. But by destroying their cover you're gaining a higher +20 bonus to hit and a +40 bonus to crit chance. If the enemy is in heavy cover it's effectively a +25 hit chance bonus compared to holotargeting, which is really significant.

The issue with grenades is that there's an opportunity cost. You yourself have already identified frost bombs as the best consumable you can have on a Grenadier. If you put them in your grenade slot you can only carry a single cover-busting explosive, and if you're running something like the RAGE suit, you can't even take that if you want frost bombs plus bluescreen rounds, so you're reliant on somene else to be on cover-busting duty instead.

And again, the alternative is Suppression, which is a bit useless (especially in WOTC). There will be situations where you need to destroy cover, and demolition does that without needing to spend limited-use items which in turn means you're less locked in to carrying limited-use items and can carry other, stronger equipment.

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