Battlefleet Gothic - Code and Gameplay. news

Code-based differences from vanilla Dawn of War:

Gorb wrote: 1. There is no Requisition, there is only Manpower. Manpower determines your ability to crew your vessels (and stations) with, well, crew. All Orbitals will produce a static amount of Manpower upon acquisition and only a slight amount per second after that. Mining Asteroids generate a constant rate of Manpower (decaying over time, naturally).

2. Power is a necessity of space warfare. You do not need power to power ships; they generate their own. Ship construction is something done far from the field of battle; the mysterious nature of the Empyrean is needed to transport battlefleets to where they need to go. For this you need Research Points, generated by research and excavation of Relics and in small quantities by the continued refinement of Mining Asteroids. You may even be able to strip-mine Asteroid Fields, however this is a dangerous (but rewarding) operation.

3. Space is dark, vast and anything but empty. You need to know if you're flying into an asteroid field or a planet's gravity well and for that you need sensor technology. From the smallest frigate to the oldest corrupted behemoths of the Traitor Legions, ships generate sources of light that reveal nearby locations. The larger the vessel, the greater the sensor range (and luminousity).

4. Combat is completely different. Gone is melee combat (predictably) - at least, in the first release (honestly Orks what the eff I don't even know). But ranged combat is not a nimble dance of death based on reflexes and armour/weapon matchups. It's very much about the strategic and tactical manipulation of your battlefleet as broadsides are fixed emplacements you have to turn to fire (slowly, in a lot of cases) as they are sidewards-facing. This tends to put what lances you have out of use as well as their firing arcs are typically forward-facing.

5. All ships have shielding capabilities. The strength of the shield is reflected by a significant health regeneration modifier - however once you go under a certain health percentage this regeneration is lost until the craft is repaired. This isn't Dawn of War with relatively rare vehicles that serve as counter to other unit types. All units in Battlefleet Gothic are ships. They're all vehicles of a kind. Not including a self-repair mechanic would unnecessarily punish/stall-out gameplay. As such (and bearing in mind coding limitations) this is how shields are implemented.
These are only the confirmed changes I have based on what I have implemented and what I am about to implement.

Further changes may come, post release, as well as tweaks to existing mechanics. However, these are the largest changes to the game you know and love. Changes to make it more suited for fleet-based combat in the cold void of space.

Originally posted by Gorb on the RelicNews forums.