Adaptive Scan

posted on September 23rd, 2009, 1:46 am

I’ve been looking at the big book of modding recently, trying to understand the inner workings of the game better.  The limitations are pretty clear now as to why there isn’t any passive adaption for Borg vessels.  Without some FO magic, standard weapons will never be able to do anything similar to what we would want.  Before I go on, I want to mention that I like “The Best of Both Worlds” style adaption, where it is possible to damage a Borg vessel, but the ships constantly have to change their phaser frequencies, and so my suggestion is designed to mimic that style.  

One thought I’ve had is to make a special weapon called “Adaptive Scan”, which could be innate or upgraded at the transmission matrix.

Adaptive scan would be a constant wave (either seen or unseen) that is sent out every so often that would have a low chance to disable the weapons of enemy ships for 1-2 seconds in a long range.  This would simulate the fact that the ship wasn’t doing damage and had to re-tune their phasers before firing on the Borg again.

I oftentimes find that having fewer ships as Borg means that my opponent has a much easier time targeting me than I am of his important ships, so this might be one way to level the playing field in larger fleet engagements.  It would also allow the Borg some crowd control, something I feel they definitely need.

Another thought I had if it’s doable is something similar to the Remoore’s ECM, that reduces damage by about 25%.  I was wondering if it would be possible to do the same thing, but with multiple waves at 25, 50, 75, and 100%, and then resets, again simulating adaption, with the enemy vessels switching to different frequencies.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s possible, but I wanted to put that out there.

posted on September 23rd, 2009, 3:04 am

Another possible way to do it would be something similar to the romulan 'shoots fast then slows down' thing.  Except kinda backwards.

The longer a single engagement with a Borg vessel goes, the higher it's rate of regeneration gets.  Simulating the Borg adapting to more and more frequencies, but after being out of combat for a set amount of time, they revert their systems to a more resource-efficient standard setting.

[Anonymous]

posted on September 23rd, 2009, 3:13 am

Last edited by Anonymous on September 23rd, 2009, 3:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

Unfortunately, the regeneration rate of a ship and the romulan shot cycles thing are completely different.   That would be the way I would like to see it, just having increased regen during combat like you're suggesting.  But the only way to change regen rates is by changing the odfs.  The way the game mechanics are set out it seems like trying to make adaption work well is about as easy as walking a tight-rope over the Grand Canyon with both your arms tied behind your back, with one of your legs sawed off!  

posted on September 23rd, 2009, 4:08 am

Lol, that's pretty true...
Welcome to the modding club Mal, glad to have you!

posted on September 23rd, 2009, 5:50 am

Hrm.  Not being a modder, I can only toss ideas, of course.

There's always the option of giving Borg ships the ability to trigger the stock power (set to self-target) for 'Modulate Shields' giving them a few seconds of absolutely nullifying all but the most powerful of attacks (That's right, the Dominion Dreadnaught and the Neggy's overload will still do some damage, even with -that- power running.)

I'm not sure what that would take, though, or how to make it balanced.  It'd be great for when you're trying to survive against a massive wave of ships long enough to finish constructing your backup, though.

posted on September 23rd, 2009, 11:00 am

we have some ideas for adaption in the future, and i think we will get one or two points working. we still want to focus most of the adaption on the adaptor, as its a mixed-tech feature. the adaption modules will get a few new twists, either way

posted on September 23rd, 2009, 1:06 pm

How about there being a small chance (say, 1 out of 100) for every weapon hit against it, a particular Borg ship (maybe just Cubes/Tac Cubes) gets a weapon from the attacking ship added to its own arsenal.  Alternatively, assimilating (through the autoassimilator & beaming, holding beam or whatever) another ship could do this.  Since Borg don't gain experience and veterancy, they should at least get more powerful over time as they survive battles to emulate their canon superstrength to "analyze and adapt."  It shouldn't come from their killing other ships, though -- the Borg only "learn" from assimilation and analysis, simply destroying another ship.

I have also thought that perhaps non-Borg mixed tech ships could include specific anti-Borg technologies, to emulate the notion of collaboration bringing better results.  Maybe something like a "counter-nanites" special of nanites that attack Borg nanites, that could greatly reduce a Borg ship's ability to regenerate, or maybe a "transwarp disruptor" that could disrupt a Borg ship's collective interlinks, causing the Borg ship to lose combat effectiveness, maybe resulting in system failures on a Borg ship (that the Borg's strong normal resilience against would not be as resilient against).

posted on September 23rd, 2009, 1:10 pm

Hmmm.... I was wondering for the Adaptor's adaption pods not only should it decrease incoming damage by 25% each, but shouldn't it also increase damage dealt by 25% each? I think that'd be reasonable...