Der Wiederaufbereitung Zentrum, and other fun stuff

posted on July 17th, 2009, 1:10 am

I’ve got some opinions on changes to the Borg!  I apologize if it sounds like one big complaint, I wrote the bulk of this about two weeks ago, and just kept writing down thoughts as they came to me.  (I also apologize for the title not being quite correct.) :kid:

First, the Borg recycling center.  I feel it needs to be changed in some way.  Here’s a lengthy post as to why.  It generates dilithium and/or tritanium once every 2 seconds, or 30 every minute.  It costs 600 dilithium and 300 tritanium, so to pay for itself it takes 20 minutes for dilithium, and 10 minutes for tritanium. 

Not to mention that it’s draining supply, and that will have to be accounted for rather quickly during that 20 minutes of gameplay.  Supply is used at the rate of 1 every 10 seconds, so 6 every minute.  6x30 minutes (20 for the dilithium and 10 for the tritanium) =180 supplies.  So you’ll have to build at least one upgraded incubation center to almost account for the supply drain, as it does 1 supply every 6 seconds.  An upgraded incubation center costs 630 dilithium and tritanium, which would take the recycling center an additional 21 minutes to pay for.  So just to make the recycling center fully self sufficient, it takes a total of 41 minutes just to get the money you put into it back (31 minutes total for the tritanium).  This is assuming you make a recycling center at the very beginning of the game, which of course you wouldn’t.  

And unfortunately, most games are over by this point.  Plus once you do get it paid off, at 30 dilithium per minute, you’ll have just enough resources to purchase a detector if you wait almost seven and a half minutes.  So I was wondering if there would be any changes in the upcoming patch (or whenever) that would help the recycling center out some.  Any change is good, although I’d like to see the transmuter come back, because later in the game I’ll have large tritanium stocks,  and I don’t always want to make 3X Assimilator Beam Assimilators to use up all my spare tritanium.  I’d rather have the dilithium.

Also, while I wasn’t able to find the rate at which Perfect Logistics generates resources, I feel the same way about it as well.  It takes a lot of resources, and I’m not sure that I’m seeing it pay itself off, let alone give any resources to make it worth my while.

Collective Connections rate.  The total cost of all the Collective Connections upgrades end up being about 10,000 dilithium and 5000 tritanium.  I’ve had 4 moon pairs of resources before, collecting tons of resources, but my CCs at level 5 simply could not keep up with ship building.  While probes and turrets make great work-arounds for now, I’d like to see end game energy node levels be more like priority, where at a certain point they matter a lot less, and you can build anything you want so long as you have the other resources.  I remember reading that Resistance is Futile might become more than a one-time deal, and I think that should help fix this nicely.

Also, part of what makes the early sphere so great for optimize is that it comes with a great special that is really worth it, so I feel I am getting all my money’s worth when I get a sphere.  Scout cubes don’t really have this and it takes quite a while to get the transmission matrix up, which is part of why I never use them anymore, except in certain anti-Borg tactics.  I was wondering if scout cubes could get a module that used special energy.  Something that would be worth it for the early game, perhaps a special that heavily increased the defense of the scube like phase shields does for the C-17.  Or a module that increases its range to long for a time.

So there are some of my thoughts on changes.  Understand, I’m not saying that the Borg are underpowered in any way, and I also wanted to say thanks for making them so well balanced and fun to play.  I can’t wait to see the changes that happen in 3.0.8!

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on July 17th, 2009, 1:29 am

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on July 17th, 2009, 1:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

Agreed on every point Mal (hey, I'm just here for moral support, since we've already talked about everything here!)  . Well written 

One thing I think you might have left out is the Probe complaint: a Probe for Optimize costs more than a Scout Cube for the same avatar. Might it be possible for the Probe to get the 30% reduction as well (as you mentioned to me Mal), to actually make it buildable for Optimize?

Another possibility to enhance the Scout Cube is to give it a long/medium range Transwarp right off the bat. With the addition of the Transwarp ability ability from the Transmission Matrix, the Transwarp of the Scout Cube would be greatly increased (to the current normal range or whatever is desired). This would keep everything the same, but enhance the ships survivability by allowing it to teleport out of danger.

posted on July 17th, 2009, 1:34 am

think probes should be built from nods any way.  They seem to powerful, and expencive to be a scout.  I agree on all points as well.

For the supplies.  I think the stations should be built as modular addons to a singular node.  When this node is destroyed supply production is halted, but the moduls are not destroyed, and the node can be easly reproduced, maybe even automatically.

posted on July 17th, 2009, 1:55 am

I'd like some more module ships... especially for Optimize objective.

posted on July 17th, 2009, 2:08 am

Might it be possible for the Probe to get the 30% reduction as well

I knew there was something I was forgetting.   Thanks.

posted on July 17th, 2009, 4:41 am

I agree . But would like to add that  Ide like the "old Style" reclycler  ability to recycle opponents ships to  add to your materials for usein building your fleets.I In the older  editions of FO this ability came in handy to  rebuild ones fleet quickly if you resourse collectors got clobbered.

posted on July 17th, 2009, 9:19 am

i would like to see the old recycling center too^^
imagine: the borg as effective race couldbring their old ships back to the recycler to get the recources back(or a part of them)
an example:you build torpedo cubes, but then you see, that your enemy builds fleets of desroyers.
so you can recycle some cubes, to get recources for building multiple-beam spheres and slaugthering the enemies fleet when he attacks. but the spheres aren*t good agains buildings, so you recycle them to build some brand new cubes.

What do you think about it? it would llow the borg player a greater flexibility..

posted on July 17th, 2009, 9:38 pm

/agreed to OP.
by the way mal, its called "Das Wiederaufbereitungs Zentrum", while we're at it. 

and zax?
probes = scouts? since when..? the scout is the detector

posted on July 17th, 2009, 9:50 pm

Oh, so it's neuter.   German articles are the hardest for me to get.  I'll keep trying.  Thanks, Klok.  

posted on July 17th, 2009, 10:00 pm

That is what I mean.  It isn't a scout, so it shouldn't be built by the "starbase" or at the begining of the game.  It would slow the scout cube spam I think, and would make me more likely to build probes.

posted on July 17th, 2009, 10:04 pm

@ mal
even some germans have problems with it, so no big thing

@ zaxxon
i would agree "if" nodes would behave like a yard, cause i dont want to spam the whole map with nodes to get a few earlygame ships 

posted on July 17th, 2009, 10:12 pm

Of course, but then maybe scout cubes should actually be used in place of the probes.  It wouls be more fitting of their name.  But I don't know, maybe it is better the way it is now.

posted on July 18th, 2009, 7:35 pm

Just want to say, that I fully agree with mal!

[Anonymous]

posted on July 18th, 2009, 8:50 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on July 18th, 2009, 9:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with mal on this.

Darthashur and I have been mentioning CC issue for the past 5-6 weeks, so it's nice to see the nay sayers and fence sitters are now on board.

Optec mentioned he was going to allow the CCs to be bought more than once, and he was planning to modify it in some way. I believe he will be fixing it to our liking, and if he allows the purchase to be implemented on a more than once basis with a crescendo of increasing cost, it should help with the CC issues.
Also, the added module of adaptation or similar functionality that was also confirmed by Optec should be able to make each microed borg vessel more durable in line with slower CCs.

I agree with mal completely that the recycling center needs to be reworked - with the transmuter functionality needing to be researched and then adapted to the main center.

I believe the logistics when activated again on the miner of choice after first being researched does work, albeit at a rate that is not very significant.

Nice points mal
hopefully we'll see them all in 3.08

**edit** agreed on the probe as well. However, instead of reducing the probe's cost, I would prefer if the probe had an increased range and quicker build rate - a unique role as it were. (and no Zaxx it will not lead to probe spams as the probe is rather weak early on, and also a bit costly..especially since ht eprobe is being built a the Sbase - to spam it u are sacrificing ur early mining.. and later on more powerful ships can eat the probe alive)
It would be nice to have the probe with long range capability as currently it is mostly a redundant ship class that is mostly overshadowed by the cost advantages and early game benefits of scubes in optimize and 2 assimilators of assimilate respectively.

posted on July 18th, 2009, 11:46 pm

Well, I wouldn't call myself a fence sitter or a nay sayer, mate.   At the end of my post I mentioned that I don't feel the Borg are underpowered, and I'm completely confident that's the case.  Directive Assimilate was fine, and I've never needed to go past the first energy node upgrade to get all the CC's I need, since assimilators are so cost effective with that avatar.

The tough nut to crack was Optimize, since scubes really aren't all that anymore.  But the early regen/prime sphere is incredibly strong, so now there's a good strategy for them as well.  The early game CCs feel alright to me, it's just the later ones (possibly level 3, definitely 4-5) don't seem worth it for the cost.

And yeah, probe spamming isn't the way to go.  They cost as much or even more than a scout cube!   Detectors are way better at harassing mining in groups of 3 and 4.  Not very borg-like, but effective! Not to mention $%^&ing annoying!  I'm not sure what I'd like to see for the probe, honestly.  All it does now is allow you to build a ship when you're low on CCs.

I certainly welcome any ideas.  Since this is mostly a balancing patch, I figured I'd get this out and maybe we can think of something cool.  Like with the recycling center, there's 100 ways that they could go to make it good.  I'm really hoping that someone will come up with something we haven't even thought of yet.