Borg Tractor Beams

posted on June 29th, 2010, 12:23 am

I had a game today with some mates. Our fleet was regrouping after a succesfull attack. My federation ally had one veteran Execelsior with disabled engines still near the enemy stronghold. Naturally, he wanted to rescue that ship. My base was closer so I wanted to send my constructor in. However, the borg construction ship is not equipped with a tractor beam.  We had to bring one of his construction ships in, that was on the other end of the map. That took a while of course and it was only luck that there mere sight of my Tactical Cube guarding the vessel was enough to deter any attempts to destroy the Veteran Excelsior.

So please give one Borg Vessel the ability to tractor ships without engines like the constructors of other races.

Yes, i do realize Borg alone have no use for that, since their ships are hardly ever disabled for more than a few seconds. But if you have some allies, it really would help a lot. It would also helpfull if you have assimilated ships that have engine damage. Little use in a ship that cant fly on its own and you cant even tow it away.


Another idea which I would love to give the tractor beam ability to larger borg ships. I mean when we speak about the Sphere, the Diamond or the cube, we could easily imagine a tractor beam fitting on those. It looks rather ridicolous, there is this massive 28 cubic cilometer cube and you have to wait for that pity small construction ship from another race. And hey, it would finally make the holding beam more interesting if we change the holding beam a bit too. (More to that in another thread)

Here, I speak only about adding a standard tractor beam to at least one large Borg vessel. That would not harm balancing at all. You could only tow ships without engines, something hardly evers happens in fights against the borg as most hostile ships are destroyed completly. It however would allow Borg to aid allies better and made assimilating of disabled ships more interesting when you can rescue your "prize". 

Thoughts?

[Tyler]

posted on June 29th, 2010, 12:30 am

Last edited by Tyler on June 29th, 2010, 12:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

You could add the standard Tractor beam to the Holding beam module? They're both the same thing (aside from one working on non-disabled ships), so both using the same module shouldn't be out of place.

posted on June 29th, 2010, 12:37 am

I'd agree with tractor beam for the Assembly Node.

Absolutely disagree with giving a tractor beam to a large Borg vessel. Completely unbalanced. Holding beam is situational - you hold it in place. Tractor beam means you get an enemy ship for free every time. For instance, imagine staying in a nebula and tractoring in passing ships 

[Myles]

posted on June 29th, 2010, 12:40 am

Last edited by Myles on June 29th, 2010, 12:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

@tyler indeed, although when tractoring a ship with no engines it should drain either no energy or close to no energy, as it needs far less energy as its not holding a ship against its will nor trying to board/bypass shields etc.

EDIT: ninjad by dom

to clarify my above point, when using holding beam on a ship with no engines it can behave like normal tractor beam.

the other holding beam stuff should be discussed in another post.

[Tyler]

posted on June 29th, 2010, 12:41 am

Last edited by Tyler on June 29th, 2010, 12:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

Absolutely disagree with giving a tractor beam to a large Borg vessel. Completely unbalanced. Holding beam is situational - you hold it in place. Tractor beam means you get an enemy ship for free every time. For instance, imagine staying in a nebula and tractoring in passing ships 

Providing they have the courtesy to shut down their engines for you first.

I'm not for or against the idea, I was just offering another idea about how it could be added.

posted on June 29th, 2010, 12:43 am

Another possibility would be to make it a Collective Feature that takes one slot.

posted on June 29th, 2010, 1:21 am

I'd agree with tractor beam for the Assembly Node.

Absolutely disagree with giving a tractor beam to a large Borg vessel. Completely unbalanced. Holding beam is situational - you hold it in place. Tractor beam means you get an enemy ship for free every time. For instance, imagine staying in a nebula and tractoring in passing ships 

1. Good. 

2. Why? I stated that it would ONLY work for ships that have their engines disabled.... Borg weapons rarely disable enemy ships at all... they outright destroy them normally. if you see it such a large issue what about ONLY allied ships? So you could hardly tractor passing ships at all. Not to mention that this is already quite possible.  Hide a few assimilators in a nebula.... and that even at long range.... 

posted on June 29th, 2010, 1:24 am

Hide a few assimilators in a nebula.... and that even at long range.... 

auto assimilator beam does nothing for engines, only crew.

posted on June 29th, 2010, 1:27 am

auto assimilator beam does nothing for engines, only crew.

Yes, but Dominus Noctis thinks, that giving large borg vessel mere tractor beams would allow them to get lots of ships for free. Which I explained above does not work. EDIT: A tractor beam could only tow vessels that have disabled engines.... how often does a borg weapon hit result in a disabled engine? It usually results in destruction.

Then I mentioned that the Borg Auto Assimilator is already quite capable of getting free ships, since it is build into a relative durable vessel and has long range. All you need after it is done to beam over a few drones. Thats is free in my book.

posted on June 29th, 2010, 1:31 am

Then I mentioned that the Borg Auto Assimilator is already quite capable of getting free ships, since it is build into a relative durable vessel and has long range. All you need after it is done to beam over a few drones. Thats is free in my book.

actually skilled players will beam support to their ships, making it bloody hard to capture ships.

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on June 29th, 2010, 1:49 am

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on June 29th, 2010, 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sorry, was a bit fast with that response and came off sounding rather snarky  . Been a frantic day  .

What I can imagine with that is that a few Dodecahedron's paired with the upper level Borg ships, or Nanites will mean a whole lot of ships with disabled engines. Not to mention being able to go into the field and bring any captured - but damaged - ships back with you. It feels like it would have a real capacity to be abused in my opinion .

EDIT: wait a second, you mean that the tractor beam would be active when engines were disabled? Then Holding Beam would be able to drag stuff anyway 

[ARES IV]

posted on June 29th, 2010, 2:43 am

Last edited by ARES IV on June 29th, 2010, 2:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

actually skilled players will beam support to their ships, making it bloody hard to capture ships.

Whats the trouble? Simple change target to the supporting ships which are not even on full crew anymore.

We speak about small amounts of ships. If the tractor beams (which are useless for the task at hand) would be working the way Dominius Noctis thinks, they would only work against a few ships at most.  Following that wrong model of thinking, what would be the advantage anyway? Lets imagine a large battle.... now as borg I can tow in a few ships into closer range in theory... Does that help me? No. Not at all. I might even give the towed in ship and advantage if it is close range. So tractor beams are useless for that too, even if the would work on ships with operational engines. So only interesting use scenario is when they are only few enemy ships. And for that situation the auto assimilator is much better suited anyway.

I want to see your 10 destroyers resisting for long against 4 assimilators. If I tractor 4 of those 10 destroyers away.... what does that help me? I cannot outrun them, I have still 10 destroyers firing on me.... useless.

The point however is: Tractor beams dont work so. . They work only against disabled targets. Period. Before I go and tractor enemy ships to my base where I need an Holding beam to assimilate or an Auto Assimilator anyway I will just send in the Auto Assimilator itself and get the free ships immediatly.

Please consider, one the tractor beam is released the ship can fly away. So I need something to prevent that too, which is alone however far more efficient.

So tractor beams are hardly a change balancing wise, unless you give a lot better reasons.

They are unsuitable for anything else than towing single ships with disabled engines away.


--- Above was posted before Dominus below post ----

Sorry, was a bit fast with that response and came off sounding rather snarky  . Been a frantic day  .

What I can imagine with that is that a few Dodecahedron's paired with the upper level Borg ships, or Nanites will mean a whole lot of ships with disabled engines. Not to mention being able to go into the field and bring any captured - but damaged - ships back with you. It feels like it would have a real capacity to be abused in my opinion .

It is ok. 

My answer is delayed because I did test the effect of Dodecahedron's subsystem disabling ability. Those appear to be only of relative short nature. Far to short to disable a ship, tractor it and then pull it anywhere far away. No way. Nanites last longer, but still imo far to short to make any reasonable distance away from the battlefield. I play often as Borg and I never noticed any trouble of the enemy fleet following my retreating vessels, although I had a lot of nanites working. So engine failure doesnt seem to happen that often or it wont last very long.

Still, even if it would work for 30 seconds. And then? I can transfer away one single enemy ship from the battle, but at what costs? Losing the entire firepower of a cube? And that for what? When the tractor effect is over, the ship will not be assimilated... because it is a tractor beam and not a holding beam. So I have to work on that later. Not to mention it will fire everything it has against my vessel. Not exactly a good deal. And there is always the change that the engines will undisabled earlier than expected.... and your well planned assimilation plan is history. Imho that are a lot of "ifs" to make this even remotly usefull for capturing hostile ships against their will in reasonable numbers. Larger borg weapons usually dont leave survivors anyway.

PS:
If the Assembly Node gets a tractor beam,you could use this ship too. The Assembly Node is quite a durable ship, it can take impressive punishment. Yes, concentrated fire will destroy it relative quickly, but then you have to ask yourself. What is the smarter target for my fleet, that Assembly Node that steals one of my ships or that Tac Cube massacring my fleet?^^

posted on June 29th, 2010, 2:09 pm

Whats the trouble? Simple change target to the supporting ships which are not even on full crew anymore.

u will lose energy fast. and the second you start nomming the other ship they will reverse the transport and start beaming to that ship. you wont have enough energy to eat the crew on all their ships.

posted on June 29th, 2010, 3:28 pm

If the Borg were to get a tractor beam. It should be given to the weakest  powered ship class, like the probe. Duration of the tractor effect should be for  5 seconds and should use special energy at a  extremely high rate .  I also feel that  the ability should have a long  cooldown  time before the ability could be used again. I feel a slot based (max cap of 2  refitted ships )  build  method should be a way to  affect the  cap the  # of  outfitted ships that  could use the ability . This  way  one can add a tow    ability  with out  adding the ability to SPAM or ABUSE  the ability.

posted on June 29th, 2010, 3:48 pm

i think the nexus should get a special to transport ships with disabled/destroyed engines to it's position or better, have the adaptation matrix being able to transport ship, and cuz it has ally repair as a research the ship can be repaired at the station.  of course, i can predict if this happens, it's going to be like old transport onto enemy ship from nexus, where you could also do this to enemy... but that could also be good thing?? forcing the enemy player to use their constructors to repair their ships?? *as in encourage them*