Playing as the Borg

[erazortt]

So I'm not sure where to post bug reports, so since its while playing the boirgs I'm doing it here.

Using latest binary SupremacyTest_20200331 with or without the Apr 26 patch, already at first turn.

When/while building the first Research Lab, type 1 Research Lab and Security Lab are shown in the production tab.
After Research Lab was build only type 1 Security Lab can be built.

When building first building a Security Lab instead, the situation is the same.

[erazortt]

Oh I just stumbeled over another bug: I just got an announcement that there was an earthquake at one of my borg colonies and that 93m had died. However when I looked into the colony the population was unchanged.

[Iceman]

Hey erazortt, thanks for posting!

Your 1st issue is due to the fact that since the Borg don't start with any labs or intel (it's still up in the air if they will actually have any use for research and intel), once you hit end turn, the game (re)calculates the colony's default Tech Levels for those Production Facilities - and since you started the game with the Starting Facilities option set to Default, the default value is TL1 (same as in BotF). If you set it to Best, they'll always be TL11 (for the Borg).
At some point, the rest of the Borg PFs will be changed; right now only the Regeneration Alcoves have been implemented. Suggestions for names and descriptions are welcome! Once I have those, and pics to go with them, perfection is attained - mostly.

The 2nd issue, nice catch! That's due to the fact that they have the Maturation Chambers, with 100% Population Health - which prevents all casualties. You probably got a negative number of casualties? A check was missing there, fixed it.
I also haven't gotten to write different texts for events when their effects are prevented... lazy me.

Thanks for your feedback! And keep it coming.

[erazortt]

Ok great!

on 1. I see. I also figured out that playing as Borg and starting at early age is kind of pointless since then I'm completly dominating the other civs. Apparently borg is to be played only at best, so that the others have a chance.

on 2. I really cannot say if it was negative or not, but it could well be.

I'd give it a try to compile that all from bitbucket on the weekend. So is there a specific version of Visual Studio I need, or is current Community 2019 ok? I found in the wiki the following pre reqs, I assume thats all I need.
Microsoft DirectX Runtime
Microsoft XNA Framework v3.1 Redistributable
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.1+

[Iceman]

on 1. I see. I also figured out that playing as Borg and starting at early age is kind of pointless since then I'm completly dominating the other civs. Apparently borg is to be played only at best, so that the others have a chance.

They weren't really supposed to be a playable civ, but a random event. They still need to be (more) properly balanced.

Maybe I should just remove all starting ships for Early and Developed
When controlled by the AI, they won't leave their homesystem for quite a while (unless they're "woken up" by someone). Obviously, the human player will not stand by and wait for empires to develop...

There's an option in Settings to disable the Borg as a playable empire.



Added some placeholder PFs for the Borg. No texts or pics yet, but it will have to do for now.

[erazortt]

I saw that the Borgs civilication picture was somehow stretche, which really drove me crazy. I added an unstreched version of it here:
https://bitbucket.org/mstrobel/supremacy/issues/486

[Iceman]

The modifiers are the exact same as in BotF, and they're moddable in the Tables\ResourceTables.txt file.
I've made the Borg's 2.0, but it might be more intuitive to make it 1.0 and halve ship maintenance costs - actually that was the value I had before, but I thought having the maintenance costs be that low would be really odd... it would help with the calculations though.

Since CaptScarff is working on the Borg again, here's a question.
Should their population support modifier be reduced from 2.0 to 1.0 and they would have a Building with a 100% +PercentPopulationSupport bonus (to be created), Homesystem only, so that if their homesystem falls their fleet support capacity decreases?

Another question, should they be defeated if their homesystem falls? The queen and all that.

[CaptScarff]

Another question, should they be defeated if their homesystem falls? The queen and all that.

I believe the Borg should continue until all systems that they assimilate/colonize have fallen

[Iceman]

Copying this here, for reference.

Do you think the Borg should be able to colonize systems? Maybe only a couple?

For me it would be too big advantage. The Borg is hard to be stopped without that. Of course I haven't experienced any AI improvements for Borg yet.

Was it fun? What could make it better?

The Borg perfection and unification means that there is a lot of grind in their system development, but probably that's inevitable. So only fun is in the expansion.
I suppose my last attempt to switch the Research Rate as Fast, the Tech Level as Supreme and the Starting Facilities as Best should be the standard ones for any Borg game as these ones concern the Borg opponents.
I also suppose the AI should force other empires to form a kind of alliance against the Borg including merging their fleets (or some parts of them).

--

The Borg have a +100% Scrapping building now, we might in the future consider having them assimilate ships in battle and then have the option to scrap them at these locations to get resources for shipbuilding.

Have them only replenish the crew of ships (when not at max) through ship assimilation (instead of automatic regen every turn) The amount of crew gained would be the current crew of the assimilated ship(s).

[redhat1968]

Sorry Iceman, we are all hoping for global warming in Oklahoma. We've had 2 weeks solid of freezing rain, ice fog, and over a foot of snow with temperatures down to -13 and that's Fahrenheit. My wife has been working from home and that means plenty of honey do lists for me.

Late at night however, I have had the opportunity to do some testing. I am very impressed with all of the hard work people have put into this project.

I played the Borg on for the first time and it seemed rather monotonous. On Early or Developed settings, their level 12 ships could swat enemy ships like flies, but it took forever for the Borg to break down the planetary defenses during an assault even with the highest level Combat skill in the game. A Borg Cube with 8000 shield was going up against Minor ships with 50 or 150 shields. By turn 134, I had "explored" the entire Delta Quadrant but had successfully assimilated only a couple of Minor Races. Is there anything to prevent us from doing the following?:

1. Set Borg research to the same Tech Level as the other Empires in the game settings.
2. For Early Tech Level settings, make only the Probe, Sphere, Cube, and Assembler ships available.
3. Create 4 or 5 copies of the ships listed above each with different stats based on the starting Tech Level.
4. Make the Tactical Cube and Diamond available only in higher Tech Levels with only 2 or 3 copies.
5. Cut the range down of earlier ship versions to limit Borg expansion.
6. Adjust up the Planetary Assault ability to make assimilation somewhat easier.
7. Once Intelligence is fully implemented, add a -50% Internal Security penalty, say maybe to the Resonance Chamber to reflect Borg obsession with perfection rather than minor espionage or sabotage events committed by Empires.

The Borg would still have superior ships against every Empire and Minor in order to overcome the lack of colonization ability, but playing them would be a bit more challenging. If you are intrigued by the idea, I can come up with some potential additions to the TextObjectDatabase.xml file to come up with some suggestions for you to review?

[Iceman]

Moved the posts to this thread, as it deals with all things Borg.

Sorry Iceman, we are all hoping for global warming in Oklahoma. We've had 2 weeks solid of freezing rain, ice fog, and over a foot of snow with temperatures down to -13 and that's Fahrenheit.

Yea, I've seen on the news that the US is having a hard time with the weather; in some parts of Europe too. Luckily, here in Portugal it's not too bad, just another regular winter.

My wife has been working from home and that means plenty of honey do lists for me.

ROTFLMAO!

Late at night however, I have had the opportunity to do some testing. I am very impressed with all of the hard work people have put into this project.

I played the Borg on for the first time and it seemed rather monotonous.

Yes, right now they're only meant to be played in Large or Huge galaxies, and in Advanced or Supreme starting levels. And with Fast research rate, most likely.



I have to go do one of those honey do chores right now , my wife is telling me to go cook dinner but I'll edit this post later and answer the rest of it.



edit:

On Early or Developed settings, their level 12 ships could swat enemy ships like flies, but it took forever for the Borg to break down the planetary defenses during an assault even with the highest level Combat skill in the game.

Which planetary defenses are you refering to? My guess is population and garrison, as OBs are destroyed rather easily.
If so, it's kind of intended, to make assimilation less of a walk in the park. To give breathing room for the empires to grow.
Also, see point 6 below.

A Borg Cube with 8000 shield was going up against Minor ships with 50 or 150 shields. By turn 134, I had "explored" the entire Delta Quadrant but had successfully assimilated only a couple of Minor Races. Is there anything to prevent us from doing the following?:

By turn 134 the empires are not ready for the Borg yet
And minors are, well, minors. There's maybe a couple in the DQ that can hold their own though. Vaadwaur IIRC.

1. Set Borg research to the same Tech Level as the other Empires in the game settings.

That wouldn't make much sense?

2. For Early Tech Level settings, make only the Probe, Sphere, Cube, and Assembler ships available.

The Borg's current implementation has them start at top tech, and use research only for synthesizing Particle 010 and reaching perfection (get a Tech victory basically).
This doesn't mean that this is carved in stone though, but before any radical changes are made we need to find a solid design for them.

3. Create 4 or 5 copies of the ships listed above each with different stats based on the starting Tech Level.
4. Make the Tactical Cube and Diamond available only in higher Tech Levels with only 2 or 3 copies.
5. Cut the range down of earlier ship versions to limit Borg expansion.

Making them work like the other empires, yes.
I'm not sure their playstyle would work well with this, but that's just an opinion.

6. Adjust up the Planetary Assault ability to make assimilation somewhat easier.

I think the issue might be that you may be trying to assault the colonies with mainly Spheres? Spheres are the Destroyer equivalent, they're not suited for planetary bombardment (or assimilation). You should use Cubes and above for that. Spheres are mainly for patrolling, attacking stations, space combat and colony defense.

7. Once Intelligence is fully implemented, add a -50% Internal Security penalty, say maybe to the Resonance Chamber to reflect Borg obsession with perfection rather than minor espionage or sabotage events committed by Empires.

Intelligence and the Borg might be a can of worms we might not want to open. Stealing a Cube?

The Borg would still have superior ships against every Empire and Minor in order to overcome the lack of colonization ability, but playing them would be a bit more challenging. If you are intrigued by the idea, I can come up with some potential addition to the TextObjectDatabase.xml file to come up with some suggestions for you to review?

Sure, go ahead.

An implementation of the Borg that can be played by both the human player and the AI will be a real challenge. We might actually need to create 2 Borg civs - a Borg empire and a Borg special event. I'm not sure the former will be less monotonous than the latter(/current) though.

[Iceman]

1. Set Borg research to the same Tech Level as the other Empires in the game settings.

That wouldn't make much sense?

BTW, some minor races, those that are supposed to be the more advanced ones, have a minimum starting tech level: 11 for the Cytherians, 8 for the Hirogen, 7 for the Vaadwaur, etc.
If we make the Borg start at min TL7 (early TNG) or so, we need to adjust some of those.

A good starting point would probably be to make their starting TL be moddable.
Then create a mod and test.

[Iceman]

6. Adjust up the Planetary Assault ability to make assimilation somewhat easier.

I think the issue might be that you may be trying to assault the colonies with mainly Spheres? Spheres are the Destroyer equivalent, they're not suited for planetary bombardment (or assimilation). You should use Cubes and above for that. Spheres are mainly for patrolling, attacking stations, space combat and colony defense.

One other observation. If you do not have a Command ship in the assault (Diamond), you will by default use the Maximum Damage assault option. That's very inneffective against Garrison; it is most effective against Population and structures.

[Kellir]

I would rather see a total redesign of the Borg. Set them back to an early TNG style.

Borg start with one Cube and no base. The ship has unlimited fuel.
Borg do not destroy ships but consume them as resources for new Probe ships and some tech points.
Borg do not turn a system but instead rip the population/colonies off of the planets and turn them into Probe ships and tech points.
The Probe ships can merge into bigger ships.

Borg never, ever attack a colony ship.

[Iceman]

The question is, would this be more fun to play?

Borg do not turn a system but instead rip the population/colonies off of the planets and turn them into Probe ships and tech points.

By this you mean they "harvest" population from colonies and do not destroy those colonies, or would they get destroyed?