#Battle fleet 2 series

In spite of the niggles, it’s an absorbing space strategy game, and we don’t get enough of them. The vivid backgrounds can make battlefields hard to read, and interface icons aren’t distinct enough to be quickly readable to me, even now I’ve learned what they all are. Capture points spread wide across a map can create scattered and messy battles. There are some pretty good directed missions (and be sure not to miss out on the glorious spectacle of the prologue campaign), but you’re frequently playing set scenarios that are a bit of a let down. That frees you up to manage special abilities and skillshot abilities like the plasma bomb, which procrastinates for ten seconds before erupting into a ball of deadly blue energy. You can order enemy ships into a priority list that your fleet will strike ship-by-ship, and you can even target enemy subsystems to attack shields, crew, engines and weapons. An autopilot function orders ships to keep sensible range while firing. As the enemy sails towards a nearby asteroid field I’m left to imagine the crew tearing itself apart, moments before a final catastrophic explosion ends them.īattles swing on these precise bursts of micromanagement, but Battlefleet Gothic 2 smartly blends directed automation and micromanagement to create a satisfying fleet commander simulator.

#Battle fleet 2 series

A series of small messages announce fires on board.

The Chaos ship fires boarding vessels directly into my flank as a last-ditch defensive measure, but it is certainly doomed.Īs the Chaos ship powers away I order my capital ship to fire a brace of torpedoes right up its tailpipe. I select an order that essentially allows my city-sized capital ship to do a drifting turn. You can give ships special manoeuvre orders like ‘all ahead full’ to burst forward quickly, but for this attack Then, after enjoying the spectacle for a moment and taking the screenshot at the top of this review, I give my flagship vessel some commands. In order to complete my bold jump attack I need to pause the fight. Cruisers and larger battleships can unleash fighter and bomber squadrons, torpedo barrages, laser attacks, and boarding actions. Smaller escorts can scan the map and identify enemy vessels. The ships handle like cruise liners, and each vessel has a whole dashboard of special abilities. Battles take place on a 2D plane populated by capture points and asteroid fields. Armada 2 is a real time tactics game about giant spaceships clashing in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.