A new collective feature...

posted on December 25th, 2009, 9:43 pm

those cubes are good for capturing due to large crew and energy reserves. nearly guaranteed capture, cos it can take the pain

posted on December 26th, 2009, 2:47 am

thats also why holding beam-modules give the cube way better hull reg.

build 2xArmor + 3xHolding + 1xReg and try to kill it^^

Hard to kill, but more cost ineffective since it does far less damage than the "optimum layout". Right now holding beams are just wasteful, as even with a fully holding beam equipped Cube, it can only capture vessels with below ~170 crew before running out of special energy. ...and who's gonna wait the 3 minutes that are required!? 

posted on December 26th, 2009, 3:57 am

Hard to kill, but more cost ineffective since it does far less damage than the "optimum layout". Right now holding beams are just wasteful, as even with a fully holding beam equipped Cube, it can only capture vessels with below ~170 crew before running out of special energy. ...and who's gonna wait the 3 minutes that are required!? 

  Quite right.

  I was thinking while reading this thread earlier that the Holding Beam might do well if the special energy cost was directly related to the size of the vessel.  I think that destroyers should have maybe 6-10 seconds.  I don't know if it could be coded as a percentage but if Destroyers were reduced per-second by 15% of their total crew, that would make assimilating them feasible, without making a blank drone number that would have a huge discrepancy between a battleship and a destroyer.

Or something like that.  So that assimilating a destroyer might take 6-10 second, a Cruiser 10-14, and a battleship 15+.  In massive battles it still wouldn't be UBER but in smaller battles in can easily be useful without being overpowered.

posted on December 26th, 2009, 4:16 am

Any change would be welcome in my opinion, and that sounds like a decent one . I believe that for the next patch we will be seeing some more goodies attached to the Holding Beam (resistances and something special) but I'm not sure what specifically. Optec won't spill the beans about what "cool stuff" (as he put it) that the Borg get. 

posted on December 26th, 2009, 4:26 am

Sounds nice.

  The Borg just need a way to ACTUALLY assimilate things without rendering tiny vessels with low crew a complete waste.

  I'm hoping that if Mal's suggestion of making Pulse Phasers not do 60% to the larger Borg vessels, they will be used far more often against Borg ships and the Holding beam might actually have a use.  That will balance itself because a human can only select and click so quickly .  Against many many small ships they will assimilate more quickly but take out less firepower per-assimilation

posted on December 26th, 2009, 9:58 am

what i would like to happen is to have the assimilation process easier (ie when the auto assimilator is used it actually gives the assimilated ship crew as atm it just kills the ships crew.) would be awsome if they could get it so that once a ship gets assimilated then they gain the recrew ability (then loose it again if recaptured)

posted on December 26th, 2009, 3:54 pm

The Auto-Assimilator doesn't kill the crew, it gives them to the Assimilator as replacements for lost drones or the crew pool (void since it was removed). The Assimilator doesn't really need the recrew ability because of its weapon.

posted on December 27th, 2009, 2:38 am

Why not have the Assimilator have the holding-beam, so as it uses the auto-assimilate beam it will transport drones to the ship to quicken the assimilation process.

And when a ship/station get assimilated, could it be possible to have the ship/station look like it has been assimilated?

posted on December 27th, 2009, 5:33 pm

Why not have the Assimilator have the holding-beam, so as it uses the auto-assimilate beam it will transport drones to the ship to quicken the assimilation process.

And when a ship/station get assimilated, could it be possible to have the ship/station look like it has been assimilated?

  Cool thought, but I've saved SO many destroyers from the evil clutches of those nasty Assimilators by retreating them the second the special begins.  That way they make it out of range JUST in time to have some crew left over.

posted on December 27th, 2009, 5:34 pm

And when a ship/station get assimilated, could it be possible to have the ship/station look like it has been assimilated?

Planned for a future patch

posted on December 27th, 2009, 5:57 pm

i would be totally for it if the assimilated ship would have a fraction of its original crew when assimilation is finished, so that is doesnt become debris...

posted on December 27th, 2009, 6:01 pm

Holding beam already does that, Auto-Assimilator doesn't because it wasn't meant for ship assimilation, it was meant for crew assimilation.

posted on December 27th, 2009, 9:01 pm

Hard to kill, but more cost ineffective since it does far less damage than the "optimum layout". Right now holding beams are just wasteful, as even with a fully holding beam equipped Cube, it can only capture vessels with below ~170 crew before running out of special energy. ...and who's gonna wait the 3 minutes that are required!? 

Can still be effective if you use them in a decent sized fleet but yeah still pretty useless.