Late game assimilation

posted on September 8th, 2009, 4:43 pm

I'd expect outnumbered people to be more dangerous due to desperation...

posted on September 8th, 2009, 4:47 pm

Well, if you think about it. How long will 20 Humans last against 150 Jem'Hadar? 3 mins, 5 mins, 10?

Maybe make it so the boarding party has the struggle until the get the bigger number. And the closer the number the more equal of a struggle.

posted on September 8th, 2009, 4:51 pm

Should work good. How long 20 Humans last depends on how creative they are and how well the two sides know the ship their fighting over.

posted on September 8th, 2009, 4:53 pm

The Olympic class medical ship could have a special ability to remove the assimilation effect from the vessel. Sort of like finding a way to restore crew members to like 7 of 9 and Picard. In fact each race should have it's own way differing from others.

The romulans could have a self destruct weapon that's available only when a ship is being assimilated.

Klingons and domion would fight to the bitter end, perhaps only their shipyards can remove the effect.

posted on September 8th, 2009, 4:58 pm

The Olympic class medical ship could have a special ability to remove the assimilation effect from the vessel. Sort of like finding a way to restore crew members to like 7 of 9 and Picard. In fact each race should have it's own way differing from others.

The romulans could have a self destruct weapon that's available only when a ship is being assimilated.

Klingons and domion would fight to the bitter end, perhaps only their shipyards can remove the effect.

I mentioned in another post that if the olympic class was implemented it's special ability should be to bolster crew strength. Or reduce the chances of crew death by some percentage, including reducing the rate of assimilation for nearby vessels... It could be a good way of countering assimilators early in game when they are most devastating to lower crew destroyers and cruisers.

posted on September 8th, 2009, 6:47 pm

but remember, the game isnt only bout the feds...

[Tyler]

posted on September 8th, 2009, 6:52 pm

Last edited by Tyler on September 8th, 2009, 6:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Which would explain why this discussion isn't, either...

posted on September 8th, 2009, 7:07 pm

I'm not just supporting federation ideas, I'd like to see a unique way of counteracting the assimilation idea stated here. Each race should have a way to do it other than just using a shipyard. The Olympic makes sense as an additional warp in option "emergency medical support" this way she can get to ships that might not make it back to a shipyard in time.

Klingons would rather fight and die than be assimilated. I have no idea how to implement a counter using this as a theme.

Dominion don't care about it's troops. Once again need ideas on how to use this theme to create a counter.

Romulans strike me as preventive. So that why I thought self destruct works as a good counter incase of failed defense against assimilation.

posted on September 8th, 2009, 10:11 pm

Tbh I think Klingons would self-destruct too.

Maybe an option to put the ship on automated while the klingons fight off the drones.
So the ship is controlled by its computer it doesn't choose a target, just at whatever is in range, maybe mutiple targets at once?

posted on September 9th, 2009, 8:09 am

What about a simple "autopilot mechanism" which you can activate when a ships getting assimilated like that where it will plot a course to repair and disable all crew control, so that the klingons still have a ship to fight with?

posted on September 9th, 2009, 1:27 pm

So what you mean is, when the ship is put on "priority repair" auto-assimilation is slowed?

posted on September 10th, 2009, 5:59 am

Something like that. Maybe it takes some extra damage for having to blow out consoles and stuff so the assimilated klingons dont take over the ship as fast?

posted on September 11th, 2009, 4:13 am

(inspired by First Contact's attempted assimilation of the Enterprise-E)

Idea: Give the Diamond (or another Borg ship) an ability to transport assimilation drones onto a target ship. The target ship would gain a status icon (similar to Graviton Mine) and would slowly (but exponentially) loose crew. Once the crew reached 0, the ship would become Borg with X number of crew (probably 1/2 of the original crew). The status ailment could be cured by repairing.

This ability would be available to the Assimilation avatar.


Variants: Having a mixed tech against a specific race would increase the rate of assimilation. 

A fantastic idea!

Maybe make it a weapon that isn't used very often and can only be used on ships of sufficient size - then provide ships infected in such a way with a means of self destruction.
OR don't provide the self destruct, and instead force the player to divert valuable ships to destroying the infected ship via friendly fire.

posted on September 12th, 2009, 8:20 am

So... the problem with the 'beam more troops/personel to cure the affect' is the display. (but other than that, it's a great idea) Someone is going to ask, "how many more troops do I need to beam over to cure?"

So, here's the proposed solution to that display problem: Have the lifesupport icon turn into a "borging lifesupport icon" (slight change in graphic, maybe a border, and flashing), that does that whole pie chart/clock/percentage graphic thing indicating how much time is left till the ship is assimilated from withing and indicating how many more troops are needed to cure it. As you are being assimilated, it slowly moves in the direction of 100%. As you beam troops, the percentage goes the other direction.

The crew number would still go down, and doing some rough math, could tell how many borg are on the ship  (ie. borgafied = 50%, and I've got 20 crew, then there are ~20 borg on the ship). Combat between the borg and the crew is affected by some modifier that is race specific (i.e. making Klingons harder to assimilate, Feds less difficult, etc). Initially, this modifier is very high, expressing the tactical advantage of surprise. However, over time this modifier degrades.

Initial borg presence is 10% and will, without repairing or beaming more crew on board, assimilate the vessel in ~60 secs (race specific). After 60s, the 'surprise' modifier is completely gone and the borg become standard borg vs someone else fighting.

Upon initial "infection" of borg, the ship looses any special abilities, and gains several additional "abilities"/options. Self-destruct, Disable LifeSupport, Disable Engines, Disable Weapons. As long as you have a single crew member left, these options are available to you. If you hit "Disable LifeSupport", both crew and borg will loose numbers due to lack of life support as well as due to combat and th borg would continue to gain numbers due to assimilation. Once assimilated, the options go away and the borg get the ship with the original special weapon(s).

posted on September 12th, 2009, 4:05 pm

Sounds like a good implementation to me Yandonman