Your Mining Are Belong to Us

posted on October 10th, 2010, 12:19 am

Some time I'll show you, Myles .  You're a nay-sayer, sir . 


  Anyway, I am not trying to nerf Borg, I'd just like to bring it to light that losing a station CAN happen and is a major loss.  I'd like to test with Dom as he's very much into testing 1 v 1 strats to make sure they aren't abusable.

  Can't hurt to test! 

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on October 10th, 2010, 12:21 am

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on October 10th, 2010, 1:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'd be fine for testing it  :thumbsup:

In the meantime, it still is a choice - either most likely lose that Assimilator to forces while getting the (small) reward for maybe removing a mining station, or use the Assim to fight the ships  ^-^. But I'm just repeating what Myles said at this point  :sweatdrop:

EDIT: in fact, come to think of it, a good station demolisher Assimilator will surely destroy that station or those ships and be much more durable. Usually I'd be more scared of that then an auto-assim I'd say   :sweatdrop:

posted on October 10th, 2010, 1:31 am

Honestly, I think I'd be more afraid of (I can't believe I'm about to say this) a pair of 1torp/1regen adaptors rushing in to attack the mining station.  They're not slow, are still lobbing gravimetric torps, and are tough enough that they can probably kill the station and run.  Maybe a trio of them, but it's still pretty affordable.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 4:34 am

The general balance of assims right now is, by the time the assim is up the enemy can kill it.  If the assim can capture even one ship, the fight becomes more even.

I believe there's a yandonman replay that shows this quite clearly: the borg player rushes an assim ASAP and heads down to the dominion player, who has 5-6 bugs.  He assimilates a constructor, then the bugs swoop in and annihilate the assim because it has no energy.

On another occasion, though, I played romulan vs funnystuffpictures as assim borg, and he rushed an assim and 2 probes and locked down my mining, HARD.  There was nothing I could do, although admittedly he's a better player than me.  I wouldn't be opposed to increasing the crew count a bit alongside the other borg balance changes that are coming.

One last thing I want to comment: I spent a while trying out "combat assim" strategies and found that they just don't work, for one key reason.  The auto-assim modules add a large amount of system value to the assim, if you build beam/torp/regen assimilators their health regeneration will be so pitiful you have to leave them out of the fight for ages while they regenerate.  Still experimenting with beam/regen/1aa assimilators, but at that point it feels like I should have gone full aa.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 4:50 am

I believe there's a yandonman replay that shows this quite clearly: the borg player rushes an assim ASAP and heads down to the dominion player, who has 5-6 bugs.  He assimilates a constructor, then the bugs swoop in and annihilate the assim because it has no energy.

  That seems likely.  If the goal was to assimilate the the station though, wasting the energy on a bug or two is not worth it.


  I'll do some testing.  I'm most concerned about Romulans just because the Rhienns can't kill the thing quickly enough due to it's large size .  If you choose to go Leahvals I can see it dieing pretty quickly (not a bad idea ).

  When I lost my station (repeatedly) to Clint, I made Griffins to avoid losing them to the Assimilator.  I even had Jammer in an attempt to turn off it's weapons when the blue beam of doom came on .  The griffins (plus a few Rhienns) just couldn't kill it before it managed to reach my mining.

  Anyway enough conjecture without testing.  This is a 1 v 1 strat so it shouldn't be difficult to try out .

posted on October 10th, 2010, 9:29 am

   I'll do some testing.  I'm most concerned about Romulans just because the Rhienns can't kill the thing quickly enough due to it's large size .  If you choose to go Leahvals I can see it dieing pretty quickly (not a bad idea ).

your talon will see your enemy is borg assim before u have to choose your first ship. then u can skip to leahval, or go with only 1 rhienn then leahvals.

leahvals i find are very good vs borg. they can finish off a retreating borg ship with meta d. then as most players go opti, when the spheres come rolling in you have leahvals with ssec ready for them. and their crew isnt terrible either. nearly 100. if the enemy makes even more auto assims u can mix leahvals and griffins if u want, then decloak the griffins first and hope they fire their beams.

i guess if u survive the first assim u can try go for cehaers, with 250 crew they can survive a the blue beams, and with hdsg combat assims wont work either. might be too slow though.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 2:06 pm

I believe there's a yandonman replay that shows this quite clearly: the borg player rushes an assim ASAP and heads down to the dominion player, who has 5-6 bugs.  He assimilates a constructor, then the bugs swoop in and annihilate the assim because it has no energy.

I believe that was also only 1 auto-assimilator module included (thought can't recall off the top of my head now). In fact, if you try and rush full Auto-Assims with the same strategy as a normal Assimilator rush, you'll end up dead in the water for a veeeeery long time, as that Yandonman replay demonstrated.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 2:09 pm

In the replay, it was Dominion vs. Borg so the S2 worked great.  Romulans do not have such an easy long-range counter from the small yard.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 2:16 pm

In the replay, it was Dominion vs. Borg so the S2 worked great.  Romulans do not have such an easy long-range counter from the small yard.

lol they already have the leahval, which is pretty good vs borg. you dont always need direct counters.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 2:17 pm

...and the Spectre, and the Griffin

posted on October 10th, 2010, 2:34 pm

Honestly, I find the fixation on direct counters to be a bit disappointing.  Thinking outside of the box tends to net better results than trying to play rock-paper-scissors.  And each ship has other strengths than just their 'countering specials'.  The Leahval, as a classic example, has the Meta-D.  That thing changes the rules up, being a vicious attack no matter what it's hitting.  In fact, generally I find the Leahval to be a good unit to produce when you aren't looking for a specific job.  Quick enough, tough enough, hits hard enough.  So long as it's weapons still work, it can repair in the field too.

I personally feel defenseless if I don't have 3 leahval sitting around, ready to defend me when I play Romulan.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 3:09 pm

...and the Spectre, and the Griffin

yep those guys are good too. hard to assimilate.

leahvals i prefer against borg as they are more than hard to assimilate, they also have the awesome meta d as silent93 noted. and the leahvals will help against spheres and cubes too. plus by the time any pyramids come out you should have cehlaers.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 3:47 pm

lol they already have the leahval, which is pretty good vs borg. you dont always need direct counters.

Agreed that you don't need direct counters...but in instance everyone was citing regarding the ease of dispatching an assim... it was S2 versus a lone assim. I just wanted to remind the group that other matchups are a bit more problematic.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 8:17 pm

Actually the replay I cited had no S2 at all.  It was just bugs.  AND it was a full assim, you can't assimilate a dominion worker with a half-assim.  My point was, the assimilator has to keep its energy high so it can deal with enemy combat ships, it can't afford to blow it on a mining station.

If you have enough ships to kill the assim, you can kill it.  If you don't have enough, it can harass your mining.  I don't think the strategy of assimilating the mining station works in any situation where attacking the miners wouldn't work, which is the real question of this thread.

posted on October 11th, 2010, 12:19 am

your talon will see your enemy is borg assim before u have to choose your first ship. then u can skip to leahval, or go with only 1 rhienn then leahvals.

leahvals i find are very good vs borg. they can finish off a retreating borg ship with meta d. then as most players go opti, when the spheres come rolling in you have leahvals with ssec ready for them. and their crew isnt terrible either. nearly 100. if the enemy makes even more auto assims u can mix leahvals and griffins if u want, then decloak the griffins first and hope they fire their beams.

i guess if u survive the first assim u can try go for cehaers, with 250 crew they can survive a the blue beams, and with hdsg combat assims wont work either. might be too slow though.

  Lol @ you, Myles .  You're a disagreeable fellow on this subject 

  Yes, all very valid points you make, sir.  I daresay though that you haven't really tried what Dom and Clint and I just tried.  I'm not saying that Borg will steamroll the Rommie player, I'm just saying that they have the ability to completely strip a mining station, causing a lot of problems.


  We tried a couple things earlier today.  While nothing was concrete evidence of a problem, Rommies repulsing a 2 Probe / 1 AA Assim was a bit difficult.  Dom went Spectres during that test which piled up quickly and hit a critical mass (shocking, right? ).  I did force a decom of and completely deny his tritanium moon for the rest of the game.  Luckily Spectres are CHEAP on tri (141) so his production of ships was almost uninterrupted.



  Lemme be clear, Mr. Myles.  I am not saying it's somehow overpowered, I just wanted to make sure that Romulans have the ability to stop assims from gobbling up their mining WITHOUT (this is key, that without part...) having to IMMEDIATELY choose a specific strategy with their first two buildings.

  I think that's in everyone's interest, no?