Nanites and borg cooldowns

posted on September 14th, 2010, 6:04 pm

I just want to ask about borg nanites:

How do they disable subystems?
Do they deal damage all at once or over time?
What is the area of effect?
Is the effect different for a diamond and a cube?

I was experimenting with nanites in an AI game recently (I had to snipe my AI ally to keep him from winning) and I threw 4 nanite swarms onto a handful of ships.  I wasn't firing on them, so I could watch what happened.  None of them seemed to take damage, although their various subsystems flashed for 1-2 seconds.  I was wondering what was the point, and then they all exploded at once.  Probably 3 intrepids, 2 excel I's and a galaxy and they were rather far apart from each other.  Was this the nanites or a bug?  I used nanites a second time so there were 8 clouds stacked on top of each other.

In kind of unrelated news, what are the penalties for yellow and red crew levels?  I thought it was a 50% rate of fire penalty for yellow, 90% penalty for red?  Plus the subsystem repair penalties.

I love nanites, strangely I first started liking them after a cube used them on my cloaked romulan fleet.  It makes sense that borg cubes would find a way to combat dozens of ships at once, since that's what they always have to face.  The insane torpedo is great for single targets, but it wastes a lot of damage overkilling small ships.

The second thing I want to point out is the lack of borg cooldown indicators on their abilities.  Devastating attack and Slicer are good abilities, but trying to keep a fleet using them is very difficult because you can't see when the ability is ready again.  I know it'll be some work but I ask that they get cooldown icons implemented like everybody else.

[Tyler]

posted on September 14th, 2010, 7:05 pm

Last edited by Tyler on September 14th, 2010, 7:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In kind of unrelated news, what are the penalties for yellow and red crew levels?  I thought it was a 50% rate of fire penalty for yellow, 90% penalty for red?  Plus the subsystem repair penalties.

It seems to be +10% repair for yellow and +100% repair for red. Weapons seem to be +50% for yellow and +150% for red. The Federation has a repair bonus, though (no change at yellow and only +50% at red).

I changed them to fit the canon races better.

posted on September 14th, 2010, 8:17 pm

That mass death sounds like a very odd bug to me, though 8 clouds should deal a fairly significant amount of damage all at once I think. 

Nanites deal damage over time (small amount of damage per second), the only difference between Diamond and Cube is special energy cost I believe, but that's without checking the odfs. It could turn out to have the same cost. They disable up to two subsystems every (is it second) for 2 seconds and effect a small radius if I remember correctly (again, all from memory, so I'll give the correct values when I have my install in front of me  ).

Tyler answered the second question, but if you should ever wonder where to find that piece of information again (other than the ODFs), it is in the Basics section of the guide, under Vessel Management

Cooldowns I'm sure will be added with the redo - the Borg hadn't yet been touched

posted on September 15th, 2010, 8:01 pm

Do the Nanites stick to ships after they leave the AOE?  You'd think they would cling to the hull for awhile, 'chewing.'

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on September 15th, 2010, 8:20 pm

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on September 15th, 2010, 8:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Do the Nanites stick to ships after they leave the AOE?  You'd think they would cling to the hull for awhile, 'chewing.'

Nope, that's not in the current incarnation of the ability I'm afraid.

EDIT:

Since I forgot yesterday...
Cube's Nanites costs 600
Diamond's costs 700

Both last the same amount of time, same range. Both have short range, 0.2 hits per second, dealing ~1 damage each time. Roughly 10% disable chance per hit with ~1 second off time for the affected subsystem. Engines get disabled v~ 30% with a default of 2 seconds as the only exception. Total time of the ability is 10 seconds.

EDIT2:

Oh right, and cloaked vessel's weapons are disabled ~60% of the time, with 5 seconds of delay time standard. This occurs once every second for up to 2 units.