Red Hot Cardassian Love

posted on August 8th, 2011, 2:54 pm

I know this is a much covered topic, we want spoonheads etc. But in this thread I thought it would be interesting to take a slightly different angle:
How would the Cadassians fit into fleet ops?

After all as a race they seem less advanced than the feds or dominion. Less war focused or hard as the Klingons, less sneaky than the Romulans (they've lost the order so no cloaking) and less unique than the borg.
So how would they work as a balanced race in the game it certainly wouldn't be right to make them a jack of all trades master of none type faction and these weaknesses add up.

Here's my Ideas:
Numbers in the early game: Cardassians build things in threes, they think it's lucky or something. The klingons have an upgradable triple yard but what if the cardassians had one out of the box that produced three ships at one for double the price - balanced by being somewhat weaker. This would start with harassment minis and tech up to decent Galors that are a good all rounders.

Fortresses & Fakes:
DS9 is a mining station, imagine if your mining station and starbases could be progressively upgraded with tech unlocks (or if we must manually) into serious defence platforms. I'd also like to throw in te ability to build fake bases with weak armour and weapons (not necessarily shields so the illusion is convincing) that can be detonated for area damage. So you think twice about committing to that assault on a mining outpost.

Good commanders:
A Son'a Alliance commander for some decent range ships and a capitals that can drop upgraded station bombs. And a war general to build better Keldons and with a large well armoured tank ship to counter late game killer fleets.

Finally: slightly hampered phasor range or accuracy for baseline ships. So Cardassians get know for being all up in your face and generally you get an extra shot or chance to flee/kite. This would force Cardassians to go all in when not defending. and increase the chancess of horrible losses if engagements go the wrong way without an organised withdraw.

I hope that this would create a race that there's no right time to get into it against: you'd feel like you could take them and yet know it's will bog you down, when there are other, more pressing threats. Unless you can get at them very early or very late when you're prepared. Which would make them a creeping threat or useful ally. As Cardassians you would be either holding out, or chipping away at the map and seizing opportunities as the others fight.

Cardassians for the win - Flame shields up.

posted on August 8th, 2011, 8:36 pm

Overall I like your thinking - though the spoonheads wont be a playable faction. NPC is what is slated for them. Though I expect that certain aspects of them will be usable like getting a galor or keldon to fight with for resources.

Ive always considered the Cardies to be a combination of klingon and romulan aspects. Warlike like klingons but not after any sort of honor more of a "win at all costs" race. While the romulan aspects seem to revolve around the Obsidian order (which no longer exists).

I like the idea of the Cardies being really centralized. using a low number of stations to do multiple things. using the Nor class space station as the starbase and mining facility make a lot of sense to me. Having a single cardy shipyard that is like the field yard is a great idea, only instead of only low tier vessels one extension could be the large yard equivilant.

If i remember right in DS9 the shipyards at chin toka had theses arms coming off them with vessles being built/repaired. So each one could be an extension that builds vessels.

posted on August 9th, 2011, 2:29 am

Overall I like your thinking - though the spoonheads wont be a playable faction. NPC is what is slated for them. Though I expect that certain aspects of them will be usable like getting a galor or keldon to fight with for resources.

I'm taking from Sigma for this example, but the NPC's in Sigma basically seem, from the few games I've so-far played, to act like a regular AI player, except that they aren't selectable. So, I think that the devs may be balancing a few NPC races as well. I mean, Cardies are included in the list of races that could very well be a playable faction but aren't for various reasons (in this case, storyline). So, if you were to ever make them so that they'd be selectable in your own game, they should be balanced so that you (or the AI) doesn't have a huge advantage (or disadvantage).

This is just my thoughts, though, and I cannot speak for anyone since I don't know what's going on.

posted on August 9th, 2011, 9:55 am

Njm1983 I think you're right on the money with a few stations doing a lot. I remember talking with the devs on the B5 Mod about the starbases being tradestations as well, that turned out to be impossible but one super science station Mining/defence platform and perhaps a combined  Shipyard/Starbase that goes through the whole tree could be good.
I think if TMP Star Trek the radically different philosophies of other races have proxies: Klingons represent the Soviets (agressivly competing with Feds) and the Romulans are China (Closed, secretive and large) then Cardassians are VeitnamAfganistan an apparently inferior opponent capable of waging grinding costly war.
For much of DS9 your right they were a cross between Klingon agression and Romulan sneakiness but they got seriously neutered first by losing the order then thier state which had been build up as all important, the Klingon rout and finally by becoming a dominion pawn. We really need a new series to establish what will rise from the ruins of Cardassia.
Chain of command Part 2 remains one of my all time favourite TNG episodes and shows what good villans Cardassians can be