Celestra being targeted too much

[Fister Roboto]

Has anyone else experienced their Celestras being targeted the most? I've had multiple missions begin with the entire Cylon fleet and Raiders ignoring my gunships and Jupiters and flat out firing ALL their missiles and swarming my Celestra. Even the Basestars will fire their entire missile complement at the Celestra, ignoring the Heracles currently pounding its face in.

[Marky Mark]

I always try and hide my celestra behind my battlestar wall, with flak on to take on any incoming missiles. I also try and assign a couple of squadrons to the celestra as defense in case any cylon fighter squadrons evade the battlestar wall.

[USS Midway veteran]

It's ridiculous....it would be like a battleship being blasted by three enemy battleships focusing its attention on a PT boat. LOL.

[Teliron]

I think the AI goes for the weakest target, if you have a Celestra it's the weakest. I noted that they will obsessively pursue damaged ships that are withdrawing from the fight, even when it means running through a formation of ships firing at them. The AI does suffer from tunnel vision and often fails to update its targets as a fight unfolds.

[condottiere]

The Cylons have better sensors than the Colonials, and I tend to target the weakest and/or most dangerous ship first, by looking at the Cylon's ship's current stats.

The Cylons tend to target the closest ship first, then the weakest once they identify it, then the flagship.

The wekest ship tends to be the Celestra, then the Manticore, then the Bezerk, and then the Adamant.

So either have the Celestra far to the rear, or hug a battlestar; if necessary, bath in the sparkly glow of a flak screen.

[USS Midway veteran]

"Weak" ships should be targets of opportunity - in the real world - but targets of opportunity should not be the primary focus in any realistic battle. The Celestra and damaged ships should not be logically targeted when the remaining enemy fleet is tearing you apart. Still, you should expect some fire on the "weak" ships. I don't think the attacks on the Celestra by the AI is excessive, but it happens more than it should. Until - or unless - the situation is adjusted by the developers, try using the Celestra as a decoy. I have kept the ship's motion in a circular pattern up and down to draw enemy fire while also keeping it nearby so it can make use of resupplying weapons and providing shielding to damaged ships. About 80 percent of the time, it will take some damage from guided missiles, but will either make it through to the end of the battle or will retain enough hull to jump out after doing its job.

[Lack of Stuff]

Yeah they beeline for it, I've even seen massive fighter blobs just rushing into my flak wall to take out the Celestra. Considering how a Celestra can make a Battlestar even more tanky I guess it makes the AI seem a bit more like a human opponent.

[That Is So Fetch]

This really needs to be fixed, it seems to sort of suck in two different ways.

On one hand, it's frustrating as a player sometimes when it's really hard to keep your celestras alive because the Cylons some fights are trying so ridiculously hard to kill them.

And yet on the other hand, it almost feels like using a celestra is abusing the AI and your victory ends up feeling stupid. Some fights (not all, but many), the Cylons act like a suicide unit where their entire objective is to kill the celestra, like it's carrying the death star plans and killing it is the only thing that matters. I've won fights where the Cylons just go all out to kill my celestra, while ignoring my ACTUAL dangerous ships who are sitting there in full offensive posture taking little to no damage while shooting the hell out of the Cylons. Not really a satisfying victory when guided missiles, torpedoes, and hails of gunfire are flying past my actual ships of the line in a desperate bid to kill some useful but not critical support ship of mine, leaving my combat ships free to effortlessly destroy the Cylons.

[phily]

This has been an issue since they came out. Use them as bait, but accept them as casualties. Especially on Fleet Admiral.

[Fister Roboto]

Originally posted by Phil:

This has been an issue since they came out. Use them as bait, but accept them as casualties. Especially on Fleet Admiral.

I find Fleet Admiral to actually be easy, the only difficult part of FA is there's ALOT more Raiders swarming my ships.

[condottiere]

It's expensive bait, whether that or a Manticore.

At least the Manticores can run.

[fluxtorrent]

Originally posted by Battlestar Midway veteran:

"Weak" ships should be targets of opportunity - in the real world - but targets of opportunity should not be the primary focus in any realistic battle. The Celestra and damaged ships should not be logically targeted when the remaining enemy fleet is tearing you apart. Still, you should expect some fire on the "weak" ships. I don't think the attacks on the Celestra by the AI is excessive, but it happens more than it should. Until - or unless - the situation is adjusted by the developers, try using the Celestra as a decoy. I have kept the ship's motion in a circular pattern up and down to draw enemy fire while also keeping it nearby so it can make use of resupplying weapons and providing shielding to damaged ships. About 80 percent of the time, it will take some damage from guided missiles, but will either make it through to the end of the battle or will retain enough hull to jump out after doing its job.

This logic only applies to real people. The toasters literally don't care if they die. The Celestra's are a high value target because without support the fleet will falter. They aren't going to lose to attrition but the colonial fleet will so all loses are acceptable to kill them XD

[condottiere]

No, I'm pretty sure they pick on the closest, weakest, targets.

True, I've seen them try to shoot through a wall of flak screens with missiles to get through to the sheltered Celestra.

[fluxtorrent]

Originally posted by condottiere:

No, I'm pretty sure they pick on the closest, weakest, targets.

True, I've seen them try to shoot through a wall of flak screens with missiles to get through to the sheltered Celestra.

Doesn't mean you can't fluff it

[USS Midway veteran]

Originally posted by fluxtorrent:

Originally posted by Battlestar Midway veteran:

"Weak" ships should be targets of opportunity - in the real world - but targets of opportunity should not be the primary focus in any realistic battle. The Celestra and damaged ships should not be logically targeted when the remaining enemy fleet is tearing you apart. Still, you should expect some fire on the "weak" ships. I don't think the attacks on the Celestra by the AI is excessive, but it happens more than it should. Until - or unless - the situation is adjusted by the developers, try using the Celestra as a decoy. I have kept the ship's motion in a circular pattern up and down to draw enemy fire while also keeping it nearby so it can make use of resupplying weapons and providing shielding to damaged ships. About 80 percent of the time, it will take some damage from guided missiles, but will either make it through to the end of the battle or will retain enough hull to jump out after doing its job.

This logic only applies to real people. The toasters literally don't care if they die. The Celestra's are a high value target because without support the fleet will falter. They aren't going to lose to attrition but the colonial fleet will so all loses are acceptable to kill them XD

You might want to take a look at that again, fluxtorrent. Cylons are not robots and do not fight mechanically. That is the whole point. They are supposed to be much like "real people" and becoming more like them all the time. They believe and are motivated by "THE GODS." They build ships designed to give them technical advantage and are willing to sacrifice themselves just like a human kamakazi. That is what makes them such an implacable enemy. "Just robots" would be easily predictable...and easier to defeat. You might want to rewatch the 2004 series....you seem to have missed a lot there.

[fluxtorrent]

Originally posted by Battlestar Midway veteran:

Originally posted by fluxtorrent:

This logic only applies to real people. The toasters literally don't care if they die. The Celestra's are a high value target because without support the fleet will falter. They aren't going to lose to attrition but the colonial fleet will so all loses are acceptable to kill them XD

You might want to take a look at that again, fluxtorrent. Cylons are not robots and do not fight mechanically. That is the whole point. They are supposed to be much like "real people" and becoming more like them all the time. They believe and are motivated by "THE GODS." They build ships designed to give them technical advantage and are willing to sacrifice themselves just like a human kamakazi. That is what makes them such an implacable enemy. "Just robots" would be easily predictable...and easier to defeat. You might want to rewatch the 2004 series....you seem to have missed a lot there.

Where did I say "just robots"? Sure maybe I could have clarified "real people" better by saying "humans" but the rest of the points stand. And as for what cylons are, Maybe you should rewatch the TOS more :P. In addition tyhis is THE FIRST cylon war. What they've evolved into by the second is irrelevant. Even the 2004 Galactica shows them as standard centurians during the first war and the whole early show premise is that the people aboard the fleet don't even know humanlike cylons exist.

So before questioning my knowledge of the series... maybe brush up yourself. Hell if you had actually read any of the books you might even know that the basic combat unit of the cylons during the first war was the cylon drone, which WAS "just a robot".