Collective Adaption (experience idea for the Borg)

posted on April 7th, 2010, 7:04 pm

I always found the Borg were not behaving like Borg for the long run in FO. I'd like to see the Borg gaining a Collective Adaption (Experience) that would make the whole Borg fleet to increase in values. Means the experience that was gained by one vessel would float into the Collective Adaption pool and so increase the overall value stats of all Borg vessels. That would result for the scout cube once having "1" offensive value gaining "2" offensive value. Also all other scout cubes that are going to be build have increased stats.
The collecting of Collective Adaption would always be the same for all vessel (Scout Cube up to Cube) types and increase by 0.02 value per unit killed (increasing with the grade of the technology the other ship has - not the ship type/size! So science vessels would give more Collective Adaption when killed. Assimilating a vessel would add 0.08 to the Collective Adaption pool.

So the balancing i made up here was just an example. In fact this would be up to you Optec.

posted on April 7th, 2010, 7:05 pm

Very clever idea 

You have my vote 

posted on April 7th, 2010, 7:19 pm

i can see a problem with this. eventually the borg would become very hard to defeat. solving this would involve nerfing late game borg ships, or making all borg ships weaker, nerfing even further their early game. balancing this would be very difficult, you would have to keep the early borg strong, but not let the late game borg get out of hand. but if it can be balanced i might like it, if it grants some small specials other than just raw power.

posted on April 7th, 2010, 7:42 pm

The only way I can see them even being able to do it is by using the weapon upgrades.  I'm not sure if they're limited to how many they can have.  We usually only see 2 upgrades.  All of the damage a vessel does is decided by the odfs, which are static and cannot change.  When a vessel ranks up using replace weapon, it simply swaps the old ship out for a new one, which has static damage values as well.  That's why they invented modules I think, so that you could choose your "adaption" beforehand, as that's the only way they can go.  They can make it so that ships do variable damage to the borg, but people didn't respond well to that for some reason.  That sounded great to me, as it would be like when the enterprise keep rotating their frequency.  Some shots would do better than others due to trying different frequencies.


It's a nice idea, but from my understanding of the mechanics, it's not exactly possible.

posted on April 7th, 2010, 7:55 pm

i can see a problem with this. eventually the borg would become very hard to defeat. solving this would involve nerfing late game borg ships, or making all borg ships weaker, nerfing even further their early game. balancing this would be very difficult, you would have to keep the early borg strong, but not let the late game borg get out of hand. but if it can be balanced i might like it, if it grants some small specials other than just raw power.

The Borg become hard in the late game all the time. So I cant see any difference if balanced right. It would also make it more even as all ather races gain level. The Collective Adaption would not effect the early game at all as the Adaptive pool becomes significant with hiher numbers of vessels. The five Scout Cubes in the beginning won't crack the head.

The only way I can see them even being able to do it is by using the weapon upgrades.  I'm not sure if they're limited to how many they can have.  We usually only see 2 upgrades.  All of the damage a vessel does is decided by the odfs, which are static and cannot change.  When a vessel ranks up using replace weapon, it simply swaps the old ship out for a new one, which has static damage values as well.  That's why they invented modules I think, so that you could choose your "adaption" beforehand, as that's the only way they can go.  They can make it so that ships do variable damage to the borg, but people didn't respond well to that for some reason.  That sounded great to me, as it would be like when the enterprise keep rotating their frequency.  Some shots would do better than others due to trying different frequencies.


It's a nice idea, but from my understanding of the mechanics, it's not exactly possible.

As the mighty scripter Doca Cola himself said: With this engine nothing is impossible anymore. 

posted on April 7th, 2010, 8:06 pm

True Borgie stuff is planned for their redo, don't worry 

posted on April 7th, 2010, 8:07 pm

  You may be right, Jan.  You may be right.

[Shril]

posted on April 7th, 2010, 8:12 pm

Last edited by Shril on April 7th, 2010, 8:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Or let the borg 'experience' be the currency for the upgrades (as opposed to that weird 0/10 stuff)

posted on April 7th, 2010, 8:39 pm

Or let the borg 'experience' be the currency for the upgrades (as opposed to that weird 0/10 stuff)

To make the improvments vessel specific? That could be another option, yes.

(sry for the edit yandon...that was the wrong button for the morderator )

posted on April 7th, 2010, 10:31 pm

Maybe yandon means like a unique currency gained like Klingon supply that can be used to pay for the universal system upgrades that the other races get?

posted on April 7th, 2010, 11:01 pm

@cabal - yup.

posted on April 7th, 2010, 11:18 pm

I liked the idea, but borg would become way to powerful late game, and balancing wouldnt help much

all of there ships would rank up as one, whereas all the other races its only individual ship, so borg power would increase exponentially

posted on April 8th, 2010, 12:59 am

I liked the idea, but borg would become way to powerful late game, and balancing wouldnt help much

  But balancing WOULD help ... balancing is the process of making sure it doesn't become a late-game stomp.

posted on April 8th, 2010, 1:34 am

Depends on which version of the idea ray320 is refering to. The experience as current upgrades currency doesn't suffer from a late game balance issue - late game borg already have access to the current upgrades. It would potentially be an early game balance issue.

A +1 (+X) to ship values is a lot like Partial Adaption (+10%). If we took Jan's idea and made it +1% per each experience 'level' (with a level cap of 10 = 10%), then late game would be equal to the Partial Adapation - which is already considered 'balanced'


Here's another variation: What if engagement events unlocked upgrades: For example, if engaging a ship, the Borg ship that engaged would have a button appear that would allow the research of the Partial Adaption upgrade. (actually, I would break that down into engage a small ship = Small Ship Partial Adaption OR only +2% Partial Adapation, engage medium ship = Medium Ship Partial Adaption, etc). If a ship starts to board another ship, the Boarding Strength upgrade would appear on the Borg ship that boarded. The kicker here is that when the upgrade button is pressed, the Borg ship goes into a refresh cycle style state for some amount of time (i.e. the current upgrade research time), where the ship is immobile. So, as Borg, you would have to engage, survive and then keep that ship(s) alive for a certain amount of time while it researched the upgrade.


And Mal suggested somewhere else that it could cost CCs...

posted on April 8th, 2010, 12:07 pm

I can barely imagine the millions of odfs to pull that off...