Idea: Borg adaptation in lieu of veteran ranks.

posted on November 8th, 2010, 12:17 am

Ok, the idea itself is fairly simple really.

Heres what'd need to be done and the way it'd work ingame (I've not took the time to get used to the differnces with fleet ops, so I'll explain the basic idea using stock A2 mod knowledge)

To start Remove the adaptor, or at least re-purpose it, as adaptation modules will be a all ships type thing

Past that, add an ataptation matrix as a building. It should be moderately armed and have a decent defence (say 100 defence, 50 offence, long range) and be a unique station, you only get one.

From there, take ALL weapons ingame, and sort them into base catagories. A Beam Disruptor is a beam disruptor across race lines, ditto pulse disruptor, ditto photon torpedo. Make a list of the base type of each disruptor. (Note: I dont mean the base weapon .odf but the looking at it from a trek prespective. If the weapons use the same base tech to work, they are in the same base catagory on the list)

From there, take ALL non borg ships and catagorize them based on the weapons they have.

For the adaptation matrix, add a special weapon similar to the borg assimilator thingy in stock that assimilates special weapons.  When you process a ship thru this, you gain a certain ammount of defence against the weapon types it has. This bonus gets more and more expenseve for each additonal % of protection. The protection will be either for every single ship/station.

So for example, if I assimilate a Sovereign class vessel, then Federation beam phasers and quantum torpedos would do less damage to me, and if I assim enough then the federation would end up doing better sending photon armed vessels against me as I'd be too adapted to Quantum torpedos.

The same bonus should be applied when you DESTROY a ship/station, however it should count for far less, as destroying it is far differnt from assiming it.

posted on November 8th, 2010, 1:01 am

Although the idea by itself is interesting i fear the impact.
The Adapter was kept from being OP by being mixed tech and race specific. Unless you're in a team with the same faction (Federation, Klingon, Romulan or dominion) it takes quite some work to get your hands on an enemy constructor. This places the adaptor as a late game unit.

What you're proposing is to add a powerful feature of adaption on top of the already impressive Borg defensive capability. This one feature would force a complete overhaul of the balance system to give non-Borg a chance to survive.

The idea can be written down as a concept, but IMO its best to wait and see how the scheduled Borg-redo will turn out.

As i said: the idea is interesting, but i fear the impact on the balance of the factions.

posted on November 8th, 2010, 1:53 am

Answer is simple: dont let too many ships get captured.

The key issue is to balance the rate at which the borg adapt.

The biggest bonus at once should come with the first five or so ships, and after that, the number of ships for each additonal protection level increase by a bit more.

The chart works as such

A-B-C
A- Upgrade level
B- Number of captured ships mounting a weapon type required for that adaptation level. It is the TOTAL number of captured ships,
C- Defense bonus % against that weapon type.


0  - 0
1  - 1    -  5
2  - 2    -  6
3  - 4    -  7
4  - 8    -  8
5  - 16  -  9
6  - 32  - 10
7  - 64    -  11
8  - 128  - 12
9  -  256 - 13
10  -  512 - 14
11  -  1024 - 15
12  -  2048 - 16
13  -  4069 - 17
14  -  8192 - 18
15  -  16384 - 19
16  -  32768 - 20


It could go up to full immunity to some weapons, however if that happens in a MP match the player facing a borg immune to a weapon either was letting him get full immunity, or was being played with by said player.

Either way, it would proably take many hours to assim that many ships.

Realisticly, I wouldnt see someone getting more than a 10% bonus against a weapon type.