Strategy Tips for borg assimilate

posted on February 12th, 2013, 8:57 pm

Is this not micromanagement going a bit mad or am I missing out here . I do find the micromanagement of the borg quite intense at times but enjoyable for the most part. But is micro-ing your scubes with a peripheral then your peripheral with a dode not just leaving these support vessels open to target practise. Or have I underestimated the abilities of the peripheral scube, I dont use it because I dont really notice a difference, but not played with it enough to back up that comment.

borg micro is definitely more intensive, but a typical fleet of scubes that i'd field would only be 3-5 scubes, so the micro is manageable.

a possible scenario: 3 or 4 regen scubes,1 peripheral scube and 1 VV dode have a battle that goes equally, hopefully come home with very damaged regen scubes, maybe a lightly damaged peripheral scube. borg ships are tough, so to keep balance, they can't repair at a yard. these scubes will take ages to repair on their own, use peripheral special to give regen scubes the regen special. use all regens immediately.

energy runs out fast on scubes, they don't fully repair. they get 32 seconds of the regen button being available, but don't have enough energy to use all 32. use dode to give energy. it gives 300 energy split between all valid targets (including the peripheral scube that now needs energy). energy doesn't transmit instantly, it takes a couple seconds over the duration of the animation. VV dode has high system value, hence can afford to give the special a second time after a very short cooldown. after both uses of the special, trigger regen again on all scubes. before the 32 seconds is up, they'll be close to, if not completely healed.

what's more is that none of this requires the scubes to stop defending themselves, they can all still shoot while using regen.

in general peripheral scube is more expensive than other scubes, but it adds great flexibility to the scube chassis. something you need if the enemy strat prevents you from making other chassis. eg s2 spam. each scube gets its own unique temporary bonus from the peripheral special, the ingame tooltips explain it better than the guide:

intercept scubes get to fire more torps. regen scubes get regen. em scubes get a torp launcher (does more dps than the standard intercept torp), probes fire 1 tachyon ping immediately. if used offensively it can rapidly increase the dps of a bunch of intercept/em scubes for a short time, surprising an enemy. the scenario i described above uses it to mitigate the lack of a yard for borg. the aim is to repair the fleet before the next battle can occur.

posted on February 12th, 2013, 10:36 pm

Great tips, thx myles....I will need to keep practising my micromanagement skills as what you've described sounds like a viable way to keep scubes alive and kicking.

When it comes to micromanaging the borg, do you have any tips as I feel that they have a mind of their own..

each scube gets its own unique temporary bonus from the peripheral special, the ingame tooltips explain it better than the guide

This is a great tip that I didnt know about and will check it out immediately, the guide is concise but huge and I never thought the ingame tooltips may have more....

probes fire 1 tachyon ping immediately

Does this still cost supplies??

posted on February 13th, 2013, 1:55 am

Am I the only one who hate micromanaging? After years of training in their respective academies I like to think that the captains of the ships I send out to battle know when to use their weapons to the greatest effect.

posted on February 13th, 2013, 9:37 am

Great tips, thx myles....I will need to keep practising my micromanagement skills as what you've described sounds like a viable way to keep scubes alive and kicking.

When it comes to micromanaging the borg, do you have any tips as I feel that they have a mind of their own..

the same micromanement methods that apply to other races really, just doing them more often and slightly better. for bigger borg ships (assims and above), your combat power will be concentrated in less areas, as you can't split a sphere in half (still waiting on sphere mvam devs). so positioning is very important, you won't be able to run accross the map much. scout well. your scout also has no shields, so expect the enemy to attempt to beam to it often.

try get used to numbering your fleets (control+number). a common arrangement is to number by range. having supports in their own number is also worth trying. there's no set rule, just get something you're comfortable with.

you can also try beaming strats. if an enemy ship is decloaking, it lacks shields for a short time, start beaming aboard and it won't be able to raise them again. borg ships have no shields to drop, so they don't suffer at all from beaming. also the transporter makes a very annoying sound, so you can just use it to annoy your enemy.

holding beam modules automatically stop your ships from shooting the target ship (1 volley may get in before the holding beam stops them). but the holding beam also immobilises the target ship. the holding beam will stay active if you order your ships to force fire on the enemy. so you can use a RRRH sphere's holding beam as a ghetto combat tractor beam if you're confident that you won't need that energy for regen. all allied ships will need to force fire on the stuck ship. the crew loss is insignificant for your sphere.

This is a great tip that I didnt know about and will check it out immediately, the guide is concise but huge and I never thought the ingame tooltips may have more....

the strategy section has a bit more info than the database, but it's consequently a bit wordier. in most other cases the database gives a fine description of the special. as the strategy section says, peripheral scubes should never be your first/second scube as they exist almost solely to make other scubes be more awesome.

Does this still cost supplies??

nope. maybe you're getting pings confused with intel report. intel report does always cost supplies, and lots of them. and isn't very frequently used due to the high cost. the peripheral special doesn't cause an intel report, it makes the probe give off a decloak ping (like from fed sensor station).

posted on February 13th, 2013, 11:49 am

Am I the only one who hate micromanaging? After years of training in their respective academies I like to think that the captains of the ships I send out to battle know when to use their weapons to the greatest effect.

I have to agree with you on this one.....although I dont mind some micro-ing, but I dont like it when a ship has more than one special and is on high weapon autonomy and they use them badly IE/ using boarding when the ship has full crew and not using it when a ship has no crew...one of many examples. I do however understand that fleet ops is a work in progress.

as you can't split a sphere in half (still waiting on sphere mvam devs)

what is sphere mvam

I do number my fleet but usually its everything together thou, will try different groupings...

I am practising beaming as a strategy but its a hit or miss at time, trying to beam onto a moving target . I have watched some replays where Ive seen it being used to great effect, if I play against the feds, I usually try and assimilate a newton class, sadly by the time I capture one, I have my regen spheres out....so I need more practise here, not just to get a newton class but to use it offensively as well....

I only use holding beams if I play the assimilate avatar and use 4 of them with the pyramids, great for assimilating base stations and then have them fire on surrounding structures ...Yet again I will look at them offensively

nope. maybe you're getting pings confused with intel report. intel report does always cost supplies, and lots of them. and isn't very frequently used due to the high cost. the peripheral special doesn't cause an intel report, it makes the probe give off a decloak ping (like from fed sensor station).

ok I completely misunderstood this and thx for clarifying this for me.

posted on February 13th, 2013, 12:08 pm

what is sphere mvam

a bad joke on my part, sorry for confusing you. MVAM is multi vector assault mode, what the prometheus does in voyager.

8 cubes merging into a fusion cube was stupid. imagine 2 hemispheres merging into a sphere.

posted on February 13th, 2013, 12:33 pm

what is sphere mvam

a bad joke on my part, sorry for confusing you. MVAM is multi vector assault mode, what the prometheus does in voyager.
8 cubes merging into a fusion cube was stupid. imagine 2 hemispheres merging into a sphere.

No no no I loved the fusion cube albeit was over kill, and not a bad joke at all, Im sure if the borg assimilated you then we would have single hemispheres

.....but on a more serious note the step from assimilator to sphere is quite a jump and maybe something is needed between them. A MVAM is a great idea, we know the borg adopt this in a way, in the film first contact when the sphere comes out from the cube.

posted on February 13th, 2013, 1:58 pm

.....but on a more serious note the step from assimilator to sphere is quite a jump and maybe something is needed between them..

that's a common problem with the borg, the jump between chassis can be steep at times. that's why i like the idea of not needing to install a module into every slot. building a sphere with less than 4 modules would cut down its costs and bridge the gap. just like a cube with less than 6 modules would bridge the pre cube gap. the only problem is that CC is usually the culprit in a jump in costs. currently CC goes completely to selecting a chassis. i'd suggest moving some of the CC to modules so that all costs scale with number of modules chosen. i'd like to keep the current FO paradigm of later game ships being more cost effective, so a sphere with all 4 modules built should be more cost effective than a sphere with less modules.

on a more serious mvam note, i am opposed to mvam and saucer sep, i don't think either belong in stock fleetops.

posted on February 15th, 2013, 11:55 am

that's a common problem with the borg, the jump between chassis can be steep at times. that's why i like the idea of not needing to install a module into every slot. building a sphere with less than 4 modules would cut down its costs and bridge the gap. just like a cube with less than 6 modules would bridge the pre cube gap. the only problem is that CC is usually the culprit in a jump in costs. currently CC goes completely to selecting a chassis. i'd suggest moving some of the CC to modules so that all costs scale with number of modules chosen. i'd like to keep the current FO paradigm of later game ships being more cost effective, so a sphere with all 4 modules built should be more cost effective than a sphere with less modules.

Is this just an idea or is it being looked at for future releases for fleet ops.

posted on February 15th, 2013, 12:12 pm

that's a common problem with the borg, the jump between chassis can be steep at times. that's why i like the idea of not needing to install a module into every slot. building a sphere with less than 4 modules would cut down its costs and bridge the gap. just like a cube with less than 6 modules would bridge the pre cube gap. the only problem is that CC is usually the culprit in a jump in costs. currently CC goes completely to selecting a chassis. i'd suggest moving some of the CC to modules so that all costs scale with number of modules chosen. i'd like to keep the current FO paradigm of later game ships being more cost effective, so a sphere with all 4 modules built should be more cost effective than a sphere with less modules.

Is this just an idea or is it being looked at for future releases for fleet ops.

this is just an idea on the forum, sorry for any confusion, it came up in another thread recently.

some guy had a mod that accomplishes most of the idea with modules that cost nothing and do nothing (null modules), i'm not sure if he redistributed the CC cost.

the devs haven't spoken much about borg yet, so i have no idea where they're taking the borg. they may get rid of modules for all i know.