Borg mechanics

posted on March 26th, 2009, 9:18 pm

Your post on how easy it is to disable a borg cube made me wonder if cubes should really be this susceptible to special weapons. Maybe there could be a module on bigger chassis that allows your to "reroute primary systems" or something that prevents subsystem damage, with a different module for each subsystem.

Just an idea, discuss as you see fit...

posted on March 26th, 2009, 9:27 pm

Well, they are pretty easily disabled one on one which is irritating... but that's why you throw in a bunch of Diamonds and Spheres with nanites...

posted on March 26th, 2009, 9:50 pm

idk, maybye i havent been using my support and specials effectively, it just seems that before i can get anything up, most of my ships haven ben assimilated, and late game, i crush people with my cubes

now im interested in this defiant special, i thought it only disabled weapons, and didnt do damage

posted on March 26th, 2009, 9:53 pm

idk, maybye i havent been using my support and specials effectively, it just seems that before i can get anything up, most of my ships haven ben assimilated, and late game, i crush people with my cubes

now im interested in this defiant special, i thought it only disabled weapons, and didnt do damage

that's the idea. it disables the weapons and then throws the doors open to making the cube a punching bag.

posted on March 26th, 2009, 11:03 pm

Ray, so you know, the Borg have a trick for dealing with low resource maps.  The Conduction Matrix has a really expensive research you can take that adds 1 priority every 20 seconds once it's been researched.  This allows you to save large amounts of Dilithium and Tritanium that would otherwise be spent on Scout Cubes and Assimilators that you won't use late-game.

Then you buy the Unimatrix tech from the Transmission Matrix, giving your Assimilation Matrix, Conduction Matrix, and Transmission Matrix an infinite-duration Holding Beam ability that you can use to steal incoming attackers and harrassers.

Once you've set this up, you focus on defense and economy, using Conduction Matrix frequently over Graviton Relay, so you can steal attackers and use them to defend your base.  If a construction vessel gets too close, you can steal it and build a mixed-tech yard so that you can repair captured vessels.

A little while later, and a few Assimilators built (maybe 4 to 6), Spheres become available, and a sphere with either 1 beam, or 1 torp module and 3 regeneration modules takes forever to kill, making it a good ship for slowing down an enemy attack.  A small number of them should hold your base while you collect resources from whatever moons you've been able to get so that you can get the Cubes rolling out.  Once that's in place, a cube configured for raw punch rather than special weapon use can be used to dip into an enemy base for a short time and smash a couple stations, and a few ships, and then pull back. 

In the meantime, if you have a captured shipyard or a mixed-tech, you can decommision unneeded ships that you've assimilated to get more resources for cube building.  Cubes in single and pairs are excellent for hurting a base badly while the opponent's fleet is expending it's firepower against a regenerating sphere at your base, possibly eliminating the entire base, so that you just have to mop up their fleets with cubes.

It's not foolproof, but it's an effective strategy providing you don't get gutted before the Unimatrix tech finishes.  However, it means that you absolutely will not be doing any harrassment because of the initial drain on your resources with the upgrade to get the priority going up 1 every 20 seconds.