[QuarianRex]

I'm currently working on a Borg mod, complete with tech tree etc. Tech tree looks something like this:

Assimilation Studies 1

-Assimilation Weapons - giving things like
shield depleters(as temporal shield
accelerators), cutting beams (skips
armor), tractor beams (longer range),
boosted boarding parties (x2 strength
and regenerating to reflect drones
being reallocated to ship
assimilation), boarding cannon (to
take out those pesky self-destruct
devices), and assimilation tubules
(troop weapon) stretched over about 10
levels.

-Assimilation Tech - maturation chambers (as
organic replicant center with some
more levels), solar assimilator (as
crystaline solar generator, though
this depends on how resource
generation works on constructed
planets), restructuring node (as
crystaline restructuring plant), borg
troops (from 10 to 25kt), assimilation
node (as a shipyard with 0 resource
utilization weighing 10kt, for on-site
assimilation of captured tech and
adaptation of cube design), and small
borg armor over @10 levels.

-Borg Ship Tech - Borg cubes (lowered maint
cost and speed remaining high
throughout the sizes), regeneration
nodes (5kt repair bays starting at 1
component/turn), vinculum (as neural
combat net, 5kt), Borg scanners (as
long range scanners), security
stations (x2 strength), neural link
(as master computer with regeneration
to reflect the adaptive borg comand
structure) over @10 levels.

-Borg Adaptive Defenses - borg armor
(regenerating and such), adaptive
shields (slightly reduced strength
shields that regenerate) over @10
levels (to account for the shields).


Assimilation Studies II

-Borg Stellar Engineering - as stellar
manipulation. Included to give them
access to warp point creation, s
phereworlds, etc., innately. The Borg
always seemed to be ahead in such
things.

A lot of the items in these techs will only become available after other techs have been assimilated [eg. the carrier cube (interceptor?) will only be accessible once fighters I is assimilated, while adaptive shields III is only available once shields III is assimilated, etc.].

I'm also creating an assimilator culture (designed using the racial characteristics window to keep it balanced with existing cultures) that, among other things, would give the Borg a -80 on research (when combined with racial penalty). This should give the Borg player a pretty big incentive to loot other races (and generally act like a Borg). Also, their racial techs are reduced in cost (though still high so it takes some time to get it all) so that they are not completely outclassed.

Also, most of the Borg shipset won't be Borg at all. There will only be four or five actual cubes (from borg shiptech, not ship construction, though those after the first will require levels in SC as well) while most of the ship sizes will be made up of other races (I want to eventually get around to 'borgifying' the picture of each ship but time and talent constraints may delay this), with the exception of the escort (I'll use a borg scout) and colony ship (standard borg cube).

When it comes to racial creation I was renaming and slightly reducing the costs of emotionless and mechanoids (giving the new Versions a prerequisite of Borg Tech) so that they can actually have some racial points to put into characteristics. For characteristics , besides the obvious ground combat/aggression/defense/etc. upgrades, they should have bottomed out reproduction and environmental resistance (from what I've read the only effect that ER has is on reproduction) to slow pop growth to a crawl without the use of maturation chambers.

Also I decided to go with very small repair components instead of trying to make a Borg-exclusive components list where every component gets regeneration added to it, though a few components do regenerate (like boarding parties for the possibility of multiple ship take-overs, etc.). Also this helps with faster retrofitting to reflect adaptation.

So far this is being designed as a player race since I don't know how well the AI analyzes captured tech (from what I've seen it doesn't) and I have a feeling that it would get stalled at the lower tech levels and die a pathetic death, at least not without some major rewrites to the AI, if even then.

How well this is going to work I do not know since all I have is the Gold demo (for the love of God I hope Gold ships tomorrow). Once I get it worked out I'll post it for review. But till then are there any comments or suggestions?

[ 04 March 2002: Message edited by: QuarianRex ]