Galactica 2003

In short, I liked it plotwise, characterwise (I hated Baltar, but was 
intrigued with his twist), and space combat-wise. Only the last is 
really relevant to this list, though.

I think the space combat was a cross between cinematic and vector. We 
saw fighters yaw/pitch while keeping direction, but I didn't get a good 
feel for how the fighters themselves made 180 degree changes of 
movement - it seemed a bit too fast for a vector reversal. There are 
clearly grav type forces available. I suspect PSB of linear/vector 
turbo boosters +cinematic grav	turning ability. The battlestar and 
basea stars give little indication of combat speed - but IMO showed at 
most thrust 1 or 2 in combat.

Primary armaments were slugs and missiles. I loved the Galactica's 
Point defense barrage. Its what missile combat should look like in FT, 
IMO.

Galactica combat in general would be hard to model in FT. The 
Battlestars and Base Stars would be mega-carriers of some kind (400 
mass?) Vipers would be Heavy fighters (or extra-heavy 3-point fighters) 
- you see them taking knocks  and still surviving. Cylon fighters are 
almost scoutship sized vehicles - 2 per "group" with special weapon 
loads. Ships seem incapable of engaging fighters effectively, though 
they do OK with missiles  - when the defense grid is active/armed.

I'm not a big fan of the retractable landing bays. It seems like a 
purposeless plot device, but it looked cool.

I liked Boomer's Raptor "scout" ship. It seems like what a scoutship 
should be. Jumping in Galactica does not seem to be as hard on people 
as in FT - preparations/calculations take a long time (many game 
turns), but give little to no warning before jump.

One last complaint  - it was a copout we only saw some of the 12 types 
of human cylons by the end. Clearly they're keeping some/many 
intentionally mysterious, so they can pull the "covert cylon plot" 
several times if they reach series format, but just showing us several 
of the same models we've already seen bugged me (except for 
***spoiler****).

I, Brazen Gnome   (Noam Izenberg)