How to counter a cube/tactical cube????

posted on April 1st, 2011, 8:16 pm

Guys this might be a stupid question but if an opponent gets a Tactical cube or a cube is that pretty much game over? Does anyone have a video of a game where someone had tactical cubes and actually had them destroyed by Federation, Klingon, Rom, etc

More specifically what combination of units would you get as a K to counter a tact cube in combat? Velarghs right as they are long distance and can disable the engines or

I just see them as very overpowered and wonder if there are units that can counter a cube, not one on one of course but as a group. Just remember that I played Starcraft so each unit had a counter to it, including carriers, ultralisks, etc. Seems like in Fleet Ops the cube has no counter or am I wrong?

[Tyler]

posted on April 1st, 2011, 8:19 pm

Last edited by Tyler on April 1st, 2011, 8:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Just swarm it, probably with things that do better against large battleships and medium range ships.

The Guide has a page that lists what units counter what targets, on the Strategy page. It's called *racename* Unit Analysis.

posted on April 1st, 2011, 8:26 pm

Lure the cube into a regen nebulae.  It'll benefit you, but the cube will not be benefited as they have no shields.

posted on April 1st, 2011, 8:32 pm

Haha!  Yep Cubes on the field can be pretty scary.


   First thing to know about Cubes:  If you can't kill it, don't engage it!  You have to KILL a Cube when you engage it or you're just wasting vessels that you desperately need in order to finish the thing off.

  Second thing:  You're almost ALWAYS going to lose some ships when you fight one.  Many of us like to play a game where we don't lose a single ship.  That ain't gonna happen .  A Cube is an entire fleet locked into one ship and it will destroy ships before you have a chance to effectively get them out.


  Thirdly:  And most importantly - you want ships engaging it to be mostly Beam or Torpedo based in their weapons.  Pulse ships just get too much of a reduction against the large size of a cube (-40% damage from pulses).  One of the easiest ways of taking a cube is using large fleets of small sized vessels armed with beams and Torpedoes.  A Cube does most of it's damage through it's torpedoes and will miss small ships 40% of the time.



 As Klingons:  You should be making lots of KBQ / Sangs / Vorcha against a standard Borg gameplay.  Borg can change their builds at the drop of a hat, so having your fleet be comprised mostly of ships that will fair well against nearly all types of Borg ships.  Thus, once a Cube is on the field you should already have a strong force of ships ready to take the fight to a Cube .

  My suggestion:  KBQ / Sang fleets backed up by The Moq'bara station and any weapon upgrades you can get.  Sang and KBQ are great against Cubes because the KBQ will be targeted first, the Cube's torpedoes will miss 40% of the time, and the KBQ's hull is very strong.  The Sangs are torpedo based, long range, and small sized.  It will take a Cube a LONG time to kill all of your ships.



  Ninja'd by TCR:  Yes I suppose ... if your opponent is stupid enough to follow you into a green nebula ....  but I wouldn't count on that.

posted on April 1st, 2011, 8:41 pm

Boggz, thank you very much for your detailed analysis!! Muchly appreciated

Does anyone know of a commentary from the past or recent or have a replay in their folder that has a game were they destroyed a tact cube? If so, please let me know as I would like to analyze it

posted on April 1st, 2011, 9:01 pm

There is no counter for a cube, you just have to engage it with a massive force, good borg players dont stand still with a cube they will kite your fleet and chew off a few ships at a time, the best move is to flank it from all sides if a cloak race, vorcha do very good as they have poleron torp and can disable alot of systems.

posted on April 1st, 2011, 9:13 pm

yup, specials that disable are very useful. a handful of veqs of course would do wonders stopping it from escaping, but only really if its alone, as other borg ships could probably take them down fast.

lots of torps as always is good. cubes arent that zippy, excel 2s can put some dps, but position them well or they wont keep up. sovvies are useful if you already have numbers, as they can also disable engines. defiants do well at killing weapons.

whether you beat a cube will be decided greatly by how the rest of the match went, if u got your arse kicked and have few ships left then the cube will push you over. if u fought an equal battle then by the time they have a cube you should have plenty of ships too.

throwing something that is weak and has adai would help. probably not bugs, they will get oneshotted regardless of passive. intreps might tank a hit, then run away with them. an alternative is to get a few weak cheap ships out. maybe ktingas or similar, so that the cube will 1 shot them, and some damage will be wasted and your more expensive ships like sangs wont die as fast.

posted on April 1st, 2011, 9:53 pm

For the feds, the defiants magic missle of weapon disabling works wonders, Vorcha's polaron for klinks, any disablers do good really.

Past that, arty ships do pretty good against it but dont bring them in at the begining, wait a bit so they may not be noticed (and thus killed fast).

But as said above, swarm it. No matter what you do, swarming it is required.

posted on April 1st, 2011, 9:55 pm

12-14 vorcha with poleron torp and 1-2 quadush wiht poleron field will kill a lone cube with ease without to many losses (if unlucky with killing its weapons)   i have proof that it works (even with a full borg fleet behind it lol)

for dominion    few b5s and like 8+ c17s   with all specials will work a treat (3 of them pink beams in a row is alot of punishment    or about 20 v15s should be enough

for roms i think the best bet is mass dedex with special cycled and maybe torp refits (both expencive)  tbh roms vs tac cube is bad no matter wot u do   tho 2 taravas will deal out some pain   if merjul  the first warbird with its special that *locks down* a target  could be usefull if cycled with enough could kill a lone cube but ull run out of specials quickly so have ALOT of ships to do damage while its locked down

as for feds   well mass e2s sovs few defiants (with special) is more than enough    and if ur stuck with small ships ur just gonna die just gg lol


and yes i cant spell who cares im not a grammer nerd

posted on April 1st, 2011, 10:01 pm

There's a recent replay on FF2 where I engage a full health cube with a bizarre mix of Romulan ships and take it apart in it's own base .  Part of that is because of Plasma Bolt.  Never underestimate the power of crit shot and plasma bolt !!!

  Romulans have a lot at their disposal for handling a Cube.  You are a fool not to go with several supports for plasma bolt but a large number of Leahvals with energy reeling will do AMAZING while anything else you've got to back it up is just icing on the cake.

posted on April 1st, 2011, 10:02 pm

There's a recent replay on FF2 where I engage a full health cube with a bizarre mix of Romulan ships and take it apart in it's own base .  Part of that is because of Plasma Bolt.  Never underestimate the power of crit shot and plasma bolt !!!

  Romulans have a lot at their disposal for handling a Cube.  You are a fool not to go with several supports for plasma bolt but a large number of Leahvals with energy reeling will do AMAZING while anything else you've got to back it up is just icing on the cake.

forgot all about the supports >.<

posted on April 1st, 2011, 10:12 pm

use of support ships in general for any race will do good against a lone target. that applies to dreads too etc. thats mainly cos the specials can control 1 ship easily. thats why its risky going for 1 big ship.

posted on April 1st, 2011, 10:17 pm

There's a recent replay on FF2 where I engage a full health cube with a bizarre mix of Romulan ships and take it apart in it's own base .  Part of that is because of Plasma Bolt.  Never underestimate the power of crit shot and plasma bolt !!!

  Romulans have a lot at their disposal for handling a Cube.  You are a fool not to go with several supports for plasma bolt but a large number of Leahvals with energy reeling will do AMAZING while anything else you've got to back it up is just icing on the cake.

Romulans being good at taking down cubes yes, but laheavals haha noooo cubes will eat them for breakfast with or without auto repair. Torp rhienns eat all borg ships and stations so they would be my first choice if fighting a cube perhaps some support genrix for assistance in shield regeneration and some deridex for its special at reducing the damage to the fleet.

posted on April 1st, 2011, 10:25 pm

actually the leahvals i can see being helpful.

they do extra damage to the medium sized cube, and they are earlier game so you can make them in numbers and by that time in the game it should be easy to get all their specials. reeling is always useful. and auto repair lets you do the borg trick back at them, regen. they hit your leahval, you turn on reeling and escape and repair. makes it hard for the cube to get kills. and the leahval will probably be auto targeted cos its defence will be weaker. and they are easily fast enough to keep up. its a good choice. gensups are also a brillaint choice, as they allow you to control that cube.

posted on April 1st, 2011, 10:34 pm

Myles and I agree on something!  Tasaday! 

The Cube can't kill your Leahvals if it's weapons are turned off