question: resistance is futile-mod

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gandalf1987
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question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by gandalf1987 »

hi,

i downloadet the borg-mod "resistance is futile" in the download-section and have a single little question. ;)

is there any chance to terraform or colonize a planet as borg? because they don't have colony ships.

THANKS!
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Peter1981
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Re: question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by Peter1981 »

I havn't played this mod but IIRC the borg are forced to 'colonise' by assimilation. -- use the transports.
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Re: question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by gandalf1987 »

Peter1981 wrote:I havn't played this mod but IIRC the borg are forced to 'colonise' by assimilation. -- use the transports.
so there is no way to colonize an uninhabited system? :cry:
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Re: question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by KrazeeXXL »

BORG don't colonize, WE ASSIMILATE!

:mrgreen:
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Re: question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by Tethys »

If I may suggest, Galaxies Mod (which is not finished yet) includes Borg (replacing Ferengi). They can colonize, its one of the things I am testing. I think Borg DO colonize planets as we see in Voy: Scorpion Species 8472 destroying a Borg colony with some Bioships. It is located in one of the threads in Modding Info, not hard to find ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4LR6Ev27FQ

Now this may have very well been an assimilated species, but I don't remember it being stated as a colony or a species, so we can only speculate ;)
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Re: question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by crazyewok123 »

I think its pretty resonable to assume borg have "colonies" if there dilithium or other resouces on the planet then a minning outpost would be contructed. Of course colonising just to expand would be irellivant.
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Re: question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by geon »

Ah, the Borg, one of my favourite subjects. After posting some articles on the subject in this forum, I’m feel irresistibly drawn to comment on this matter. So, here’s my humble opinion on Borg colonization in BOTF mods

The Borg worlds we see on screen seem to be made up of assimilated populations.

In Star Trek First Contact, the Borg go back in time to take over the Earth:

WORF: Captain, ...Earth.
DATA: The atmosphere contains high concentrations of methane, carbon monoxide and fluorine.
PICARD: Life signs?
DATA: Population ...approximately nine billion. ...All Borg!
TROI: How?
PICARD: They must have done it in the past. ...They went back and assimilated Earth. ...Changed history.
http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie8.html

The movie clearly states that assimilation was used to take over the planet and its population.

In Voyager ‘Dark Frontier’, the Borg have developed a new method of attack on the Earth:

SEVEN: You intend to detonate a biogenic charge in Earth's atmosphere.
QUEEN: It would infect all life forms with nanoprobe viruses. Assimilation would be gradual. By the time they realised what was happening, half their population would be drones.
SEVEN: Inefficient. The virus would take years to proliferate.
QUEEN: We've waited this long.
http://www.chakoteya.net/Voyager/517.htm

It’s new nanoprobe virus, but the process of planetary takeover remains assimilation.

In Voyager ‘Scorpion’, Species 8472 is happily destroying Borg worlds:

BORG [OC]: Species 8472 has penetrated Matrix Zero-One-Zero, Grid Nineteen. Eight planets destroyed, three hundred twelve vessels disabled, four million, six hundred twenty-one Borg eliminated.
http://www.chakoteya.net/Voyager/321.htm#To be continued

There is no talk of other populations in these worlds, they are all Borg, and hence all assimilated.

Assimilation seems to be the main (if not only) method the Borg of this era have to replenish losses and increase their populations. New worlds have their populations turned into drones and added to the collective.

In Voyager ‘Drone’, a new Borg method for growing drones is discovered.
SEVEN: I will be recognised as Borg. A drone, but unlike any I've ever seen.
TUVOK: It appears to be in the foetal stage.
SEVEN: I don't understand. The Borg assimilate. They do not reproduce in this fashion.
JANEWAY: Where did he come from?
SEVEN: I believe it was created here in the science lab. When the away team beamed back to Voyager there was a transporter malfunction. Our patterns merged briefly. It is possible that some of my nanoprobes infected the Doctor's mobile emitter.
TUVOK: They began to assimilate.
SEVEN: Yes. Nanoprobes are encoded to utilize any technology they encounter. Once it assimilated the emitter, it began to transform this diagnostic station. When Ensign Mulchaey entered the room, they sampled his DNA.
JANEWAY: Using his genetic code as a template to create a lifeform.
http://www.chakoteya.net/Voyager/502.htm

This ability to manufacture new drones from cells means that Borg theoretically can colonise barren worlds, instead of relying on existing populations to assimilate. But as this drone is effectively a 29th century Borg, this ability will not be available to the Collective for another 400 to 500 years.

So, what does all this mean for the game?

Given the current limitations in altering the AI and source code, the easiest path for modders to take is to use the existing colonisation subroutine and have colony ships colonise worlds like any of the other Star Trek races. It’s not accurate, but it’s easy to implement, and avoids any problems the game may have with changes to its normal game cycle.

Ideally, however, if you want to be as accurate as possible, then the Borg take over new worlds by assimilation. This means they do not have dedicated colony ships, but have their normal ships invade and take over a planet. How would this work?

Again, not knowing how far the current game program can be manipulated, I can only offer a theoretical model.

Any Borg vessel (instead of a normal transport as with other races) can attack a system (after the defending fleets are dealt with). The computer works out whether the system is taken or not (again as in a normal attack). However, instead of a reduced population at the end of the attack, a percentage of the initial population becomes Borg (as per assimilation). These are added to the subsequent Borg planetary attacks till either the planet is taken over, or the attack fails.

Whether this is currently possible at all, I’ll leave to the experts. Such a system means that the Borg are limited to inhabited planets only, when taking over systems. But this is not necessarily a bad thing, as it balances their more powerful vessels, and initially limits their expansion, giving the other players a fighting chance.

Factors to also consider in a planetary assault may include the type of assimilation being employed (whether microcircuit fibers, tubule nanoprobes of nano virus) which may affect the speed and percentage of assimilation and the level of resistance of the target species (ie the ground combat factors).

A mod set in the far future, ie 29th century, would not need to worry about all this, since the Borg development of cellular drone manufacture means that both assimilation AND colonisation can be employed by the Collective, hence colony ships can be used as per normal.


Cheers

Geon
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Re: question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by KrazeeXXL »

haha geon. was thinking about you earlier today. will read your post later ;)
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Re: question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by Tethys »

its a good post and did not take long to read ;)
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Re: question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by KrazeeXXL »

problem is the time here as it's 0530 am... my post wasn't meant to be sarcastic btw...

I'am also writing a bigger post @this thread here about that BORG topic (isn't finished yet). So yea ;) perhaps I'll post it later that day. Will see what geon has written. But now it's time to sleep.
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Re: question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by xDx »

OK I was going to make a really long thread about how to make the Borg a little more canon in game but really whats the point. IMO the Borg should not be a playable race because.... They do not colonize, they do not use dilithium to power their ships, they do not rely on credits as a resource, they do not rely on research or food or intel, they do not rely on morale for faster production (easily fixable though look at Galaxies mod), they do not use diplomacy and make treaties... blah blah. They assimilate period. So in game they could only assault planets which would be interesting to mod but boring to play. How much fun would it be waiting tons of turns until another empire expands to a point you invade them or attack them with your powerful ships at any tech? Not much fun to me tbh.

but..

As Geon points out they can theoretically colonize with 29th century technology so.... Anyone interested in making a 29th century BotF mod? :mrgreen: Which of you modelers out there want to make this Enterprise? :D



If this is done then making the Borg a playable race would be cool. Definitely a different project for someone in the community to think about....
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Re: question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by geon »

Hello xDx,

While the Borg do behave differently from other 'normal' races in BOTf, they can be made into a playable race.

i've already made some suggestions on how this can be done in a previous article,

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=373&hilit=canon+borg

and others on this site have provided other ideas.

Remember also, that the characteristics you describe apply only to the Borg of the TNG era. Anyone making a mod of an earlier time frame could legitimately say that the earlier Borg still retained some characteristics used by the other Star Trek races.

For example, we do not really know when they discontinued using anti matter/dilithium drives, or at what point they stopped researching themselves and started relying primarily on assimilated technology. Nor do we know when their physical systems stopped needing food and go over to a fully energy based nutrition system.

Clearly, the initial Borg race must have been like any other in terms of research, intelligence gathering, food production, colonisation etc.

That they chose to go down the road of cybernetics does not make them unplayable. And given the major developments currently being made in the development of BOTF by the dedicated fans out there, it is not inconceivable that one day this game will be able to depict the Borg as they were meant to be.
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Re: question: resistance is futile-mod

Post by gandalf1987 »

i did not knew, that my question would start such a big discussion... :o

i'll try to bring in my opinion, even if my english became worse since school is over... sorry, if you don't understand something, it's my fault... ;)

OK, about borg in BOTF: i played this mod, which is in the download-section. in this mod, borg are a playable race. PROBLEM: borg-ships need much more maintenance than other races. a cube II needs somewhat about 1000 credits. i know, i could use UE to make the ships maintenance cheaper, BUT - thats the problem - BOTF's gameplay depends on the fact, that ship building and ship maintenance cost money/credits. the borg could use something else... "drones", "energy"... but they have to use anything that depends on the number of planets, which are assimilated.
when playing the mod with "-Mudd" and F10, having infinitive money, another problem occurs: the cubes maximum distance is "short", so you can't assimilate worlds, that are fare away.

solution: you have to change some things in UE: first, making the ship-maintenance much cheaper. second, canging the maximum distances of all ships to maximum (because borg use transwarp) and their speed. third, changing the sciences (If this is possible, i never tried this), so that the borg ships can cover a much wider distance. the aim are much cheaper and faster borg-ships. as balancing, the building costs could be increased, because such a cube is a realy huge vessel.

now about the more philosophic question, if borg do colonizing.
if there are no evidence in the movies and ST-series, there is another point: borg-ships are made of any kind of metal. and this metal comes from any planet. so, if a planet is made out of any metal, the borg need, they will build any kind of mine there, to get this ore. they don't build houses, schools and swimming pools, as other species, but they exploit the ressources of a planet.

i hope, you understand the most of my thoughts... ;)
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