A bunch of questions/comments/possible bugs for borg/dominio

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 4:36 pm

First off I'm a huge fan of this mod, and it's come a long way since the last time I played it. But I've noticed a few things in playing the game with my friends and I'm curious what the consensus is on them.

1. I'm pretty sure this is a bug but it's possible to shove a ship a good distance under the map level, at which point it becomes nearly invulnerable as most attacks simply pass above it. I've seen this twice in ai games, both with assimilators on the same map (Central Point) in the same relative area (the assimilators are half under the asteroids near the entrance to a base). The first time the ship was only there for a short time before leaving (nothing to shoot I suppose) but the second time an assimilator parked out in front of my allies base and started assimilating his ships while dodging every shot taken at him (from a full 16 member fleet of multitech akiras, the kind with 2 torp launchers). We ended up using both of my full fleets (1 of long range dominion vessels, the second ship in the basic shipyard, and one of fed mixed tech ships) to kill the assimbler, and only a few shots ever hit it so it took forever (5+ minutes) to kill it, during which time it destroyed/decrewed 4 of my ships. I've got no problem with powerful assimilators, but assimilators able to survive for more than a few seconds against 3 full fleets? Again, pretty sure this is a bug, and going to try and replicate it soon, from what I've seen it looks like you just order the assimilator to go somewhere where half of it will bump into an asteroid field.

2. Leading right off that why is it that you can see out of blue nebulas? The nebulas on that map are of the no shields, no cloak, can't be seen type which become really annoying when ships sit in there (especially borg ships, who suffer no disadvantage at all) shooting passerbies and defenses while being effectively invincible unless you want to take your ships into a situation where they won't have shields. The worst part is that even if you can see the ships (in my case via deep space scan from my hyperspace sensor) defenses can't fire at ships inside those nebulas, I had 3 perimeters sitting at the entrance to my base and even when I revealed enemy ships in the nebulas and tried to force them to fire I couldn't, there was just no option to fire on them with perimeters meaning I had to move my fleet out to destroy them. I don't understand why those nebula don't also disable sensors of ships inside them, that would make things much more interesting in my opinion as it would give the borg a disadvantage to using those nebula (whereas right now they're basically borg nebulas) and mean that anyone using them wouldn't be able to see what was outside until they energed. Just my .02 cents

3. Dominion Hyperspace Artillery. Is it working as planned? Because from what I've seen it's worthless. And I don't mean not worth the cost worthless, I mean doesn't do anything worthless. I was in a 2v2 game where I played puretech so I got two of them, up against 2 borg players, and the shots literally did no damage to borg ships (not even a detector I got lucky to catch in the radius) and about 2% hull damage to a resource processing node. Is it just not good against borg or is it bugged?

4. Borg mixed-tech. Why can only the adaptor mount the modules? I understand that allowing all borg ships 50% resistance to enemy damage would be way overpowered, but why not allow the modules on any borg ship, but with varying effectiveness. Something along the lines of the adapor being purposebuilt to adapt and other ships not being as good at it, with varying bonuses like 10% per module for the assimilator, 5% for the cube etc. If nothing else the diamond should be capable of adaptation as well. Right now borg mixed tech is pretty much worthless, especially with the change from priority making adaptors easily skippable in favor of better ships.

5. Collective Connections. I read somewhere that these are being modified in the next patch, but I just want to get my .02 cents about them in this patch in, if these are the things being changed then that's great, else this is my opinion on them having played borg quite a few times in 3.0 and 3.06. Firstly swapping priority for them is something I think wasn't so great a move, but I can understand why it was done. Personally I would just have left priority in and modified the priority required for each ship so that you started off building scoutcubes and adaptors, then got assimilators later, then diamonds, then cubes, so you'd always have choices. However I understand connections are here to stay, so here's my question, why do they gather so fast? I've played 3 borg games (optimize all the time) and I have never once had to glance at my connections or worry about upgrading them (I do the first 2 researches for connection rate when I get around to it because they're cheap). And it's not like I build small fleets, I generally go for 16 assimilators as fast as I can gather resources, then start building cubes. Not once have I ended a game with less than 300 connections, and I generally have 16 assimilators and 3 cubes by that point. The rate for connections either needs to be turned way down or the per-ship cost needs to go way up if they're ever going to be limiting factor that priority was. Ideally I'd like to see the ship building costs cut down for the borg and the connections cost bumped up a lot so they played a little more interestingly, sort of not spending that much money on ships but only having a certain number of points to spend, so that you could build 16 assimilators, but you'd have to wait until late in the game. Or you could build one cube, but you'd have to wait until midgame and have no other ships, etc. Also I'm of the opinion that resource collectors and constructors should take connections, so that the borg spend connections on everything they do, making it their limiting factor. The problem I have with connections right now is that it feels like there's nothing holding me back from getting a cube as soon as I have the resources which, for a cheap module cube, could be done in the early game. What prevents me from getting a 'weak' cube out when my enemies are working on mid-game ships? I'm fairly certain 1 'weak' cube could destroy any midgame fleet it came across.

6. Perfect Logistics. I love what you've done with the upgrade, while the old upgrade had its uses (I used to spam cheap scoutcubes using it and a couple maximized incubation center) it was a very situational upgrade, whereas the new one is very useful in general. The only question I have is is it supposed to be limited to upgrading 4 resource ships? Because from what I've seen, it is right now. That's fine if it's supposed to be, it's quite powerful even at the point, but there's no indication that it's supposed to be limited so when you go to click on the 5th ship's upgrade it seems like it's a bug. I've tested this in 3 games, to the exact same result. I generally have 2 miners per asteroid, and 4 asteroids under my control, so I almost always have more than 4 miners. If the button greyed out after 4 ships and 'Perfect Logistics Slots (4/4)' was displayed at the bottom of the tab then that would work great, but as is it feels like a bug.

7. Recycling station, it feels to weak. I know it's actually quite useful, but it just feels really weak and useless, especially with the new perfect logistics. I mean, you build one, hit transmute on something, and then you might catch one of the numbers increasing by 1 if you're watching carefully, and you don't have perfect logistics. It's overshadowed in every way by the new logistics, with its only advantage being that it's early game. My suggestion would be to make it more like armada 2's trade stations, click the dilithium button and spend, say, 100 tritanium and 10 supply to make 100 dilithium, or visa versa. Something like that where you get an instant bonus, easily seen, and powerful but not too powerful (in my opinion it should be 100 dilithium for 100 tritanium, with supply making up the lost element, rather than 100 for 70 or something like that).

That's all the comments I have. What do you guys think? Again, it's a great game, I just wonder about a few things.

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 4:52 pm

1. Indeed a bug: easy for the AI to replicate, but much harder for the average human. I'm guessing it's a remnanat of A2 when we could change the height of our units at will (most units will have different heights in the game, but not to that extreme  )

2. That's a Fluid nebula. If you changed it to disable sensors it would be the purple Mutara nebula. Each nebula (there are 5) has its advantages and disadvantages, so it's no glitch. Afterall, the green snot (shield recharging) nebulas are virtually non-Borg territory 

3. It works: however Borg vessels have very high hull hitpoints... so the Hyperspace doesn't do much to most ships.

4. I'll leave that to others who are more opinionated... 

5. What early game has 16 (!) assimilators!!!?? If you try playing online, you'll probably struggle to get out 5 before early game stages are over. Generally one goes for an early Assimilator rush (assim directive) or early sphere (opti directive)... both of which deplete your collective connections enough that you just can't wait to get that first ships out. Still, patch 3.0.7 will definitely futz around with collective connections versus resource costs... so I'm hoping things will be for the better 

6. Yup, you indeed can only have 4: it is a bit unclear unfortunately...

7. The recycling center was more useful in the previous version... now it is indeed not substantially effective. However, keep in mind that you can't always get Logistics, but as opti you can always build a recycling center... still, the center isn't exactly worth it currently.

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 5:13 pm

4. I'll leave that to others who are more opinionated... 

more?

thank you?? 

is that even possible??? 


jk 

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 5:28 pm

5. What early game has 16 (!) assimilators!!!?? If you try playing online, you'll probably struggle to get out 5 before early game stages are over. Generally one goes for an early Assimilator rush (assim directive) or early sphere (opti directive)... both of which deplete your collective connections enough that you just can't wait to get that first ships out. Still, patch 3.0.7 will definitely futz around with collective connections versus resource costs... so I'm hoping things will be for the better 

I was speaking of our early game, not the average. My friends and I tend to play much longer game than I would expect of any online game, early game is about the 15-20 minute mark for us. Still though, even building ships at the maximum rate I can in the mid game I never run out of connections. Those 16 assimilators were built as fast as I could as soon as I had the resources, and are the 4th thing I start building (incubator, resource collectors, tech, start building assimilators). I get the first two or 3 out before the AI's first attack, and still have plenty of connections by that point to build a cube, no problem. I'm hopefully going to play a game with a borg player who plays a much more military borg than I do, so I'll see if he's also not limited by connections, or if maybe it's just me.

Also I have a suggestion for improving the adaptor, if you want to leave it the only ship that can mount adaptation modules. Why not give the adaptator a new module that gives it some kind of adaptation beam that it can fire at enemy ships, leaving it and the enemy immobile for some length of time while it adapts, then giving a defensive bonus against that enemy type of ship? That way the borg benefit from stealing construction vessels, because they can just build adaptors with the standard module for instant defense, or adaptation modules with an ally and adapt the ship to enemies for a lower defense but without needing a construction vessel?

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 5:35 pm

As Opti you are generally limited because you have to wait to get those 50 connections before rushing. As Assim, you generlaly are not limited by connections (assims take up 15 I believe), but by supplies/ resources early on.

Personally I find Mixed-Tech Adaptors to be quite powerful already. Even though torps don't hit destroyers and cruisers that readily, Adaptors are cheap with mixed-tech, and take a lot less damage (and fire quickly). Normal Adaptors are not really useful... except in Borg versus Borg battles. In some ways, Mixed-Tech Adaptors are actually more useful late game with Spheres and Assimilators as backup.

Of course, I am also a proponent of the Borg adaption.. but I'll go with whateve the Devs think optimum.

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 5:46 pm

For the borg, I would prefer to wait till 3.07 is finally released before mentioning anything about connections and the rest.

Things would be clearer then as 3.06 Borg are currently in flux till 3.07.

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 6:08 pm

Indeed: exactly why I'm waiting before writing another guide 

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 6:16 pm

I would have to agree that we should Waite for 3.07, because most of those features are new.  I Also think that borg mixed tech should work in that way, but it should have nothing to do with capturing a construction ship.  You should gain more resistance to enemy weapon fire with the more enemy ships you assimilate.  It would be more cannon IMO.

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 7:25 pm

Perhaps one could implement a relation between vessels assimilated by the assimilator and and a slight and capped bonus granted against that for the adaptor in 3.07?

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 7:59 pm

You could do that as a kind of "borg experience" and veterans, I think it is the easiest way, because every ship has its experience...

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 8:16 pm

Since thankfully an overall/global experience system has been dismissed, the idea behind it was that the adaptors strength increases with the amount of assimilated technology of that particular race.

However I would appreciate that you cannot gain the capped bonusvalue without assimilating every shiptype of that particular race.

This would encourage spamming (as long as the bonus is decent enough), which is bad but forces player to sacrifice the advantage of balanced fleets. However it would only a minor balance issue.

If I think that through (look! alliteration!) this would lead to a very distorted game: EITHER we have one spamming player (who spams so that the adaptors gain is minimal) and the borg player drops the adaptor  OR we have a balanced-fleet-player who faces an assimilator and adaptor spamming Borg.

Your thoughts?

So in terms: If experience for the borg, then only for the assimilator as such and only via some process of assimilition, perhaps provided by the assimilator.

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 8:40 pm

So maybe it would only adapt to the ship class from the race it assimilated and only the assimilation would Gain Experience.  This would discourage Enemy spamming, and Wouldn't honorably un balance the game.  I supose it wold be like experience.

posted on June 3rd, 2009, 9:33 pm

Shipclass? You mean destroyer, cruiser, battleships? as "classes"?
But since we perceive the Borg as an unified mind it has to be some kind of global experience, hence any gain should be very well balanced. I personally like my own idea of adding another role to the assimilaors for that instance

posted on June 4th, 2009, 5:48 pm

Well it should be pointed out that the adaptor is a small, not too powerful ship, and the only way it can really fare well is with a 50% damage reduction, so letting it get a 25% or so damage reduction against an arbitrary enemy fleet via an adaptation beam wouldn't really make much of a difference. However I have seen the light about that question, I suppose, having seen my friend, who is a much better borg player than me, make good use of the current adaptors in a 3v3 dom/fed/borg vs. dom/dom/rom game where he used the adaptors for defense.

However that game, and others since, have convinced me that the current connections system is way out of whack. I'm perfectly willing to wait and see what is done about it in 3.07 but right now the borg are the most powerful race in the game by far. My friend had a cube out on the battlefield heading for the enemy base at the same time as my other friend, an akira spammer who pumps them out very quickly, had 4 akiras. He literally walked into an AI medium base, destroyed everything, and never took more than 10% hull damage. What is supposed to stop the borg for just cube-teching? Mind you his cube was out within 10m of the game start and he had a small fleet of 2 assims and 2 adaptors defending him while it was building, with normal resources and other settings. Is there some part of online play that balances this out that's not present in skirmishes against the ai? It's not like he wasn't under attack during his cube building, but his small fleet held them off just fine. I have no doubt that, had he been inclined, he could have walked the cube through the other two bases and won the game on his own.

So in short, I've played borg in 3.06 3 times now, and seen then played by a good player 4 times. Every time a cube has been on the battlefield 10x earlier than a 3.0 cube, and everytime there has been nothing capable of standing up to a cube out by that point. What am I missing that balances the borg out right now? I know they can't be this unbalanced in online play, or there would be other complaints all over the board.

posted on June 4th, 2009, 5:54 pm

Shipclass? You mean destroyer, cruiser, battleships? as "classes"?
But since we perceive the Borg as an unified mind it has to be some kind of global experience, hence any gain should be very well balanced. I personally like my own idea of adding another role to the assimilaors for that instance

Indeed, so maybe to Analise the the thing assimilated you would have to "sell" collective connections. I'm just thinking of something more cannon is all.