Best of Both Worlds type Borg is what we were seeking There is no one "right" way to play them.. There is however a "wrong" way Same goes with any faction.

GRRRRR! 3 days into the release and i STILL have had no time to play it GRRRRR!!

As far as whats in the next patch only Jay can answer that at the moment. I said before that once i recover ill start construction of the 0.5 build of the mod. Yes, there will be a Diplomacy version once Diplomacy is released. We may discontinue the OS version just because of the lack of dynamic ship movement, and other features in original sins. It depends on if there is a demand for an OS version, or not. Diplomacy merits a port of the mod from what i have seen of it.

Now for a topic that is sure to spark a heated debate... Pirates. As in what should be in the pirate faction. Now that we have a mesh and texture increase with the 1.05 patch we have much more room to play with as far as adding ship meshes.

My original plan was to have 2 NPC factions. One for the Pirates. One for the planetary defenders. Pirates obviously have to be Orion. The Defenders will be a "ship of the week" faction with Talarion, Sona, Bajoren, Ferrengi, Maquis, etc. etc. You get my drift.

Some want Ferrengi as pirates, but you have to understand that the ferrengi changed after Rom became the nagus. They arent "violent", or aggresive anymore. IMO they are too much cheese to be SoA 2 pirates. Some want delta quadrant races to be pirates.. Kazon, 8472, Hirogen, Vidian, Krenem.. NO. They are delta quadrant.. Let them STAY in the delta quadrant. The borg will wipe them out soon enough anyway.

IMO the best corse is to use Orions as the pirate faction. Enterprise Orions along with the FASA Orions. I may include the Starfleet Battles Orions if we are short on ships.

Agreed On Diplomacy. The next patch will not be a patch at all. It will be a complete download, Sorry Everyone, but due to the size of the mod and the amount of work the team has done. Makes better sense to just release a complete build, rather than deal with checksums and the possibility of human error, also with the nifty installer we now have its easy. Details of the patch will be coming.

I've been following (lurking) this mod for a while now, and finally got around to downloading it.  First game was Systems of War with 3 hard AIs.  I played the Feds, my opponents were the Romulans, Dominion, and Borg.

Of all the opponents the Borg were the hardest to fight (I don't think the AI handles their abilities the best though) simply because my ships kept getting assimilated.  Is there anything to prevent/migitate this, I tried using the Intrepid (Voyager) with the antiassimilation ability but it didn't seem to work all that well.

This mod really captures the flavor of the Star Trek universe.  You are doing a great job.  I'm looking forward to the next update.

I hope to get online later today for the multi-player game.

Kevin

Just finished playing a 1v1v1 with some friends tonight.  I was Rom, and we had Klink and Dom representing the other factions.  Some things I noticed as far as balancing concerns.  At end game research levels my Lvl 4 D'Deridex had around 500-550 Beam damage.  Dom's heavy cap ship (forgetting the name) had over 800!  Needless to say his fleet of 6 of those suckers plus 3 support cap ships blew through my fleet of 6 D'deridex, 4 Valdore's, 3 of the colony/repair ships (with 2 of those being maxxed on repair) and a couple of the 32 fleet population caps.  I was even trying to micro their cloaking so they'd cloak after an attack run and being damaged in return.

He lost a couple ships 1 support, one big boy, but I had my fleet decimated, only 2 was able to warp out due to being able to cloak.  That fleet of 6 caps then took on my fully upgraded SB (in the next system) and blew through it's shields in one pass and 2-3 more passes had finished off the 21k+ hp.  No losses there for him that time.  Klink fleet warped in to my system (as I was adjacent to both of them on that side) which had about 7-8 caps, 3 being neg'vars and about 50-60 frig/cruisers.  I noticed the neg's only had ~350 beam damage (not sure how much she had researched though) and they were quickly taken out as well.

Heh, I considered the Romulan's starting ship, the one with the 1k damage aoe stun, to be ludicrously overpowered. Just chain a few of those off and no one can do anything ever. Actually, I found those ships to be the best out of the entire Romulan capital lineup. There was also the dudes who could teleport to a target and disable everything around them in a huge AoE. I had six of the former and four of the latter, and those alone just absolutely massacred anything I came across. Except for starbases, which do an utterly insane amount of damage and would kill a level 7 capital in five seconds if they didn't all approach as a group and stun it before it got enough shots off.

Now, if that 6k Cleansing Brilliance those one guys had actually did damage... well, that'd be even better. But as it is that AoE stun wave is just insane. Otherwise the Romulan capitals aren't too great, especially since the Dynamic AI loves to bug out and cause the capitals to indefinitely run away from an enemy, sometimes far away enough from the gravity well to take 5-10 minutes to fly back if I'm not paying attention.

That repair was very weak and practically useless, though. I think it did like 15 hull/sec on the upper levels which is pretty much nothing.

Currently I consider the Federation unusable.

Is there a simple way to edit the improved shield mitigation?

Invincible ships makes it rather silly.

First off... Thank you again!!!  This has been incredably fun so far.  You guys have outdone yourselves!!!

But I'm confused...  you're not going to release the patch until Diplomacy comes out??

Or release the patch first and wait on 0.5 until Diplomacy??

It doesn't really matter to me, I'm gonna get around to buying Diplomacy eventually... I'm just curious because of something thing I noticed... The bigger Borg cubes have no abilities... yet.  I'm assuming this is one of the things your going to be ramping up. But right now they're actually kinda boring.   

So if you're releasing the patch soon I'll just hang out and wait. But if it's not going to be until Diplomacy then I'm gonna plug in some existing abilities in my copy for now.  They at least have to be able to assimilate...

Again guys thank you so much for the mod!! It really is great!! We're just trying to help with balancing. So to sum it up I think....

1. Federation is pretty much invincible due to shield mitigation bug

2. Romulans are actually pretty much worthless (even with the D'verix aoe disable ability, I've tried them half  dozen times and they definitely need to be beefed up).

3. Klingon start ship seems to be a bit overpowered, as it can beat almost any other ship in the game.

4. Seems to be some bugs with the odd extractors (iron extractor on an ice planet produces no metal. etc)

well that's all I can remember off the top of my head...

I'm all for both ideas Pirates & Planetary defenders!!! 

As for playing factions wrong, in my case the Borg... You nailed it exactly, and this is something I had to think about a bit to get right.  But now I have a question.

Normal BOBW scenario... old school Borg ... at least in my opinion, would not go charging around rampaging planet after planet, contrary to popular belief.  The Borg were methodical... and more importantly, apothetical.  They didn't care what was going on around them.  Hell, for a while they didn't even care if humans were in their cube!!!  If you aren't a threat it didn't matter.

Now granted you've set up a somewhat more agressive scenario for the Borg, but at the same time it's more like BOBW, complete collective without a Queen..  so I see them as almost a defensive/research style of playing. Start by sending out scouts to look around, auto attack turned off... your just gathering data.  At the same time begin to exploit your home world...  The borg are driven by technological perfection... this is key!  So build labs.  Don't go nuts, the Borg are not stupid, leave room for trade ports or culture centers, whatever you plan on having later... but upgrading first is vital in my opinion...

We are The Borg, We are Perfection!!!

I would also start building Planet defences.  But until someone shows up I would concentrate on technology first.

While your doing this determine your first target planet and exactly how many ships you need to deal with, along with any planatary defenses if necessary.  At first this is easy because it's just planatary defense ships.  If there are 5 defenders, build 5 coffins.  If they have colonized then planet build 4 coffins and a siege sphere, which can also assimilate.  Also build a colony ship or Queen, so you can capture the planet.  be patient, do not jump until everything is ready... remember, unless a threat presents itself, the Borg don't care what's going on.

When everything is ready jump in and assimilate everyone of possible.  If a ship manages to dodge it (so far I've only seen 1 fed ship somehow get away), destroy it.  Use any assimilated ships to take out the planet defenses, if any, before exposing any of your ships... Siege and conquer the planet, and then stop.  Freeze all ships and regenerate all that can. 

And begin to build this world... do exactly what you did with the last... build it up, build whatever labs you can, aquire whatever new technology possible and apply it.  Also study and learn what you can about your assimilated ships.  If they're useless, use them as first strike fodder.  Pirate ships may get taken out fast... but they also can make an opponent waste an ability... They are Cattle... use them as such.

If you have assimilated a heavy frigate, or maybe a utility frigate... they may have technology (abilities) that would be useful to the collective, so these I would keep.  It is defnitly within the Borg character to use one's own technology against an opponent. 

Anyway, this is just my opinion... I'm just rambling.  I started thinking this last night when I started a game and my homeworld came up named:

Machine Planet...

This really made me stop and pause...  Machine Planet... yeah.  That really sums up the Borg, at least to me... you have to think like a machine...then would be 10 times more logical and methodical, and again apothetical tha even the Vulcans... Humans with a computer mind, more or less...  Even in this more agressive mode it doesn't change their nature...  and I'm PRAYING the Borg have wiped out Hue and that pitiful bunch of Borg wanna-be's  (I HATED that episode).  So we're back to the pure collective again, right??? 

I'm curious how you guys might play them. 

Oh, as far as this shied mitagation thing, I have nothing to do untilthis afternoon, so for laughs I'm starting up a small 1on1 game with the AI as federation unfair and play like I just said... let's see if these inpenatrable shields can withstand the brute stregnth of the my collective!!!

I am glad people are enjoying how i did the borg while atm yes assimilation plays a part in the borg since the ship costs are that high to get the ships (its a must for now)

the cubes will eventually get abilities + a taunt hehe

transwarp will eventually be in

unicomplex + remaining stations should be added soon

-end transmition-

The feds will be getting gimped, we had no intention of making them unstoppable.

The dominion will probably also need some more attention as far as balance is concerned.

The abilities put on the romulans are just placeholders, they will be getting better stuff.

This new update will give all borg caps their abilities.

Please remember the balance is a WIP, that being said we appreciate your feedback.

Are there supposed to be two b'rels for klingons? the only difference i see, is one costs 20 supply, the other 40...

Just a placeholder for now.

I love this mod!!!

I just have  one question for you guys. Is the sound for a few things suppose to play only on one side? 

example. For the Feds, when you click on a ship, it sounds normal, yet when it fires its weapons, the phasers sound right, but the torpedoes play only from the left channel on my headphones. Also , the voice for research only plays out of the left channel.

 All borg sounds from weapons and voices do that too.

Thanks :) 

Hiya guys!

I've been a lurker of these forums since SINS first came out and I've been following this project since it was in Alpha phase.

I recently downloaded the mod and I'm in ST heaven

I've been playing as the Federation against every race that was placed in.

So far I've a Klingon ally, whos taken up about 80% of the star system we're in.

Unfortunately, he's becoming a target for eveyone else, so I've slowly built up my Federation, placing Starbases at strategic points, like asteroid bases or wormholes, to create beachheads and hold off invading forces.

As of now, its going well..and I shall begin moving further out into the stars...

But theres a problem...the Romuluns have began sending their attack forces through my space to get to my ally...not good.

And another thing...I've been recieving intel reports from Section 31...

Some of my ally's outer colonies have suddenly been lost...and not a few hours there was sighting of a dozen BORG scouts probing my defenses...

THANKS FOR THE PLAY GUYS!

Hey guys, BORG observations here:

Borg Assimilator (Crusier which doesn't have a unique model yet, not the planetary one): It says in the description it can assimilate more than one target at once, but the assimilate abilities it carries share the same cooldown/cast: two buttons for one ability, as it were.

I know you're still working on the Tech Tree, so I'm sure you're aware of the weapons tech issues. Also, the "LIGHT" tech does nothing- but should it really?

improved salvaging is really useful when combined with the assimilation ability, because you can capture and scuttle an entire pirate raid for a massive credit boost.

Most borg ships seem to have the Explore ability. intentional?

only Tac-cube and Planetary Assimilator can bomb planets. Shouldn't at least the cube/assimilator cube be able to bomb too?

Now, I really like the playstyle you've set for the Borg. I was playing along, assimilating and scuttling planetary protectors (I was saving up for a Scout Cube, I never liked the Diamond in any of the games/situations it has appeared, so no experience loss) and building my little empire. Now, the Federation and I signed a non-agression pact, which allowed me time to lock down and max out my three worlds, and as much research as I could afford/thought might be working, but the Feds blocked me in. Took both of the worlds I was bordering on, so I went to war (had the scout cube by this time) and attacked one of the two worlds with my whole fleet. It was unprotected, so I just wiped out a bunch of structures- and that was when I discovered that Scout Cubes can't bomb planets. my population would have needed another upgrade (and the associated deduction of my income) to build seige ships, so I was trying to figure out what to do next when the feds kindly attacked me with five of their planetary bombers. I jumped back, assimilated them, then sent 'em to the world I had just cleared and had them bomb it out for me.

Made me feel badass, and felt very borg like to boot. I know they're not quite done, but I love the focus on assimilation. If you get the two seperate assimilate abilities on the Assimilators to work, just a group of them would be a bloody terror against any fleet with a frigate/crusier compliment.

You hit it on the nail Just Jim. The Borg "should" ignore anything it doesnt percieve as a threat. However the Borg did wipe out outpost on the romulan, and federation neutral zone (at least it is assumed it was the borg). They were no threat to the borg then. Then they tried to assimilate the federation twice. That IMO is pretty aggressive behavior. Then they attacked 8472, and started the events that happened with Voyager. The borg now see that the Alpha quadrant races given time can defeat them. So they are performing a "pre-emptive strike so to speak to make sure that does not happen. They do not need the tech from any of the four factions because they already have it. If not for the fact that Voyager damaged the transwarp network temporailly. The Borg would have just remained in the delta quadrant. That one single event triggered a quest for the borg to "defend" themselves. The borgs idea of defending themselves unfortunetly is to wipe out anything it deems a threat. Like removing a cancer. Yes they are methodical, but if they are given time they are nigh unstoppable. As it should be. They are not invulnerable, because a fleet of 10 should be able to take out a scout cube. This time they have an advantage of numbers as well as tech. No longer will they send just one cube to perform a mission. A good Borg player should use these advantages.

For other factions you should understand that the Borg are coming, and in full force. You should prepare yourselves accordingly. They will assimilate some of you, because they know how to use fear against you, and because they know it will thin your numbers. Do not give them the chance to entrench themselves, and build up thier forces, and tech, because if they do your done. Expect to lose lots of ships fighting against the borg. Build up your defenses. Then take the fight to them. When you fight the borg a good offence will be the best defense.

The Sins AI does very stupid things with Vanilla ships. So we should expect it to do even more stupid things with mod ships. Thats IC's fault. Not ours. All we tried to do was minimize the stupidity of the AI. Same with abilities. In Vanilla Sins the AI doesnt utilize all of the ships abilities it has. So the same will happen in the mod. That is just how the AI is. Hopefully diplomacy will fix some of that.

To the SoA2 team.. I would like to see the grav well sizes doubled.  Like in the SOGE mod. Perhaps we can make this happen? I will implement 1/2 scale in 0.5 (this will include weapon ranges, and ship speed). It will fix two things. One will be the "bumper car" syndrome we have with dynamic movement. I may also fix some of the ships wanting to leave the grav well. Though that is a separate issue. Two it will add an even more epic feel. SOGE got it right. I want to do the same here. But we will keep the weapon ranges in proportion so you can see who you are fighting. (EDIT: NM about the grav wells. already done)

I just wanted to say that, having played the 0.3 OS release a long time ago, I am extremely happy with the improvements that have been made with 0.4e.

The SOA2 team has my utmost respect and thanks for producing an amazing game. The few things I would've changed about it are already on your todo list from reading these pages, and best of all, I  have been utterly unable to get the game to crash. It's very stable.

This is a great distraction while I wait for Crypsuck Studios to add some more servers to Star Trek Online. And even once STO is back up, I can't play as a Sovereign-class (my favorite ship) for a looong time.

A million thanks, guys... if any of the modders did this in part to make others happy, know that you've been fully successful at that for at least one person.

Im having a bit of a problem with the dominion ai, i set it to agressive but it just sits there and waits to get keldon, instead of getting leviathan as first cap. And why does the klingon starting cap cost more fleet supply, latinum, etc, then all other klingon caps besides negh'var?

I believe it's because the audio files are set as Stereo. A simple batch conversion in Audition can correct this for all of the files at once. I noticed it, too, and it actually gave me a headache

Stress, I had a thought when you said "perciecved threat"... until your storyline began the Borg didn't perceive the Alpha Quadrant as a threat.  But we did get to see them reacting to a real threat.... once.  I know you don't necessarily like Voyager, but think back to Scorpion, near the beginning before 8472 showed up...  Voyager is trucking along, and then everything started rumbling, eventually got so bad it knocked them out of warp... lo and behold there are 9, count them 9, cubes behind them & closing fast...  Janeway freaks, everyone scrambles to do something... and the Cubes just rocket past them... never even pause to look.  It's like Voyager wasn't even there.  That was a great scene... and a good example of how to play the Collective reacting to a real threat.

It's definitly easy to get into the mindset of whatever race your playing in this mod... outstanding job once again!  I gave up on the Borg game a couple hours ago and started up a new one.  I had an idea from one of your earlier posts and started up a small Me as Romulin vs Borg set to unfair researcher.  I'm playing derelict, one of my favorite small games... normal everything.  So far not much has happened, but it's early. 

One thing I'm surprised is you made the Romulin Cloak a tier 4 technology???  I would think at this point in history it's be lower for them... I seemed the Klinks was 3... (???)  so I reset mine to 2.  But other than that the Rommies are all sorts of fun... Stealth... everything is stealth.  Even the way the Roms think... they're sneaky, shadow lurkers... they'll make a great Diplomacy race I'm thinking...

So anyway, let's see what happens... I'm off to go to make a stand and see if I can take them down... remember, the Borg may be tough, but you can't assimilate what you can't see... hehehe. 

I totally agree, and I think you have the right idea Stress.  Go with that !!

Don't forget the "assimilate" ability only works on frigates and cruisers, so ALL Caps are considered immune.

I think that if you set them to "economic", they seem to want to expand a little better, and hopefully combine with a harder difficulty, they will become more of a threat.

I always used hardest aggresive AI, and that seemed to kick start all of the AI factions. Sometimes ill get a game where one will lag. Its a hit, or miss situation. Also i noticed when i watch recorded games that the AI builds according to what you build. Watch a recorded game, see for yourself then observe the AI. It will almost always build something right after you build something. We still do not fully understand how the AI works. However most games set to hardest aggresive seem to have the least issues. At least for me. Experiment, and see what works for you guys. Make notes of it, and pass the info along. Just know that the AI will always have problems until we can figure out what makes it tick. Until then all we can do is try to minimize the lag, and stupidity.

There was an ommision in 0.4E. The Elite research pre-req's that are in the OS version. You should only be able to have one free elite unit, and that should be a colony ship. The AI needs a colony cap to expand which is why we left it free. The rest should have a weapon, and/or armor pre-req. Having the pre-reqs for the rest of the elites doesnt effect the AI build orders. As long as the colony elite is free. This should be fixed because it has to do with balancing.

Im not sure if yall have tweaked the AI settings but if you bump up the numbers between 20 to 50, from what Ive seen personaly it seems to give the AI more freedom in spending and doing things. IDK, it could be my imagination thinking they are harder though. I couldnt hurt to try though if your having problems

I never had an issue with sound. It may have to do with hardware. I use crappy realtek sound so i never noticed any "one sided" sounds. I used goldwave to convert wav to ogg. That may be an issue as well. Much of the sounds are converted wav format. If you can fix this, and send us your fix's we will credit you.