New Borg Cube Concept

[Jhook]

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 12:40 am

Last edited by Jhook on July 2nd, 2011, 12:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hi all,

I had a thought that would be more towards canon for the Borg Cube (s).  I do not know if that has been discussed, but here's how this would go...

(a) make the Borg cube (s) much bigger!  They were quite huge in the series/movies

(b) to build them, make sure it requires an enormous amount of material/resources.

(c) make the cubes more powerful with beam emitters that carve pieces out of ships, then uses it's assimilate beam to drain energy/crew

These are suggestions, but having a lot to do with canon.  I feel there shouldn't be 20 cubes, at any one time, onscreen or battling a fleet.  If so, the fleet should be wiped out! The Borg cube is a powerful ship.  It should take a lot to knock her down.

How does everyone feel about this?

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 12:55 am

The scout cubes don't take that much to destroy and aren't usually seen in groups of more than 10 to 15, but I definitely agree on the standard cubes.  Just for a referance, the Intrepid is 345m and a cube is 3,036m (8.8x the size of the Intrepid).  Doubling the size of the cube and cutting the sizes of all the other vessels and a lot of stations by [sup]1[/sup]/[sub]2[/sub] should put it closer to cannon.  It can be balanced by requiring a ton more resources to build as well as a lot more time.

PS:  I believe that this has been discussed several times before.  The guide says something about "command" cubes which probably will have the desired specs, but there's nothing about "command" cubes in canon.

[Boggz]

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 1:00 am

Last edited by Boggz on July 2nd, 2011, 1:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

First of all  -  Hello and welcome!  

(a) make the Borg cube (s) much bigger!  They were quite huge in the series/movies

 Well, there are two things to say here:  1, that the Cube can't be TOO much bigger or it will cause problems with the actual range a ship must be at to fire upon it.  2, there is a Command Cube Planned for the future that will be bigger .  3, think of the Cubes we have in Flops now as the Cubes from Voyager that aren't planet destroyers.  The Command Cube in the future will be the kind that got sent to Earth in TNG.

(b) to build them, make sure it requires an enormous amount of material/resources.

  Heh, well the Cube is already the single most expensive unit in the game ... and when the Command Cube shows up I can imagine it will be even more expensive .

(c) make the cubes more powerful with beam emitters that carve pieces out of ships, then uses it's assimilate beam to drain energy/crew

 They have both of those things already!  The Transmission Matrix can equip them with Slicer Beams and the Cube itself has the ability to equip the Holding Beam Module that does just that.  If you research "Boarding" from the Transmission Matrix you can beam huge quantities of Borgzies onto your enemies /.

These are suggestions, but having a lot to do with canon.  I feel there shouldn't be 20 cubes, at any one time, onscreen or battling a fleet.  If so, the fleet should be wiped out! The Borg cube is a powerful ship.  It should take a lot to knock her down.

 It sounds to me like you're playing Single Player.  If you play Multiplayer online with us via Tunngle, you'll rarely see a Cube on the field and, when you do, it is the single greatest threat (I feel) that can exist in the game.


   I think that, if you tried playing online against other humans, all the things you've asked for will already be there!!

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 1:29 am

Voyager had shield modifications that allowed them to stay in battle longer.  Besides, the only real battle that Voyager had with the Borg was in that one episode where a transporter malfunction assimilated the Doctor's hollow-emitter and Unimatrix Zero where I don't think the Borg were doing everything to destroy Voyager.  They put their energy phasers on stun for that one.

I knew there was a reason not to increase the sizes of those ships.  It would be unplayable.  And people say it's unplayable with latencies that extend a second of gameplay to 1.25 seconds.  Also, I tried this once and the Borg couldn't return fire, but the enemy could easily fire on the cube.  Size increase would mean a sensor range increase as well.  Plus, some maps already have pathing issues.  Imagine what it would be like to have a 5-grid wide cube go through a 4-grid wide opening in an asteroid belt.

PS:
Endgame doesn't really count because of the technology used to destroy the Borg.  And "Dark Frontier" in my mind, was just board the sphere, get what we're after, and get out.  The sphere never detected Voyager and the Borg never found out about their plan to take the coil.

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 4:04 am

Hi and Welcome, I like the suggestions
But

it is the single greatest threat (I feel) that can exist in the game.

I disagree Boggz, the single greatest threat is a cube with a fleet behind it

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 9:58 am

To solve weapon and sensor range problems, cant devs increase the range by the radius of the ship/station? That way the size of the ship/station will be independent from its effective range.

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 2:28 pm

The reason behind the Cube sizes and strengths is because of the difference between Voyager Cubes and TNG Cubes - a TNG-style Cube will arrive in the Borg redo .

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 3:19 pm

Said 'Command Cube' seems to be partly done already, going by the half-done SOD in the current version.

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 6:22 pm

This thread reminded me of something, with the discussion of the problems of a large borg cube.

Back when I played Birth of the Federation, I remember one time I played as Federation with Random events on I believe it is, that allows for Borg to come. Anyways, I engaged the borg cube with a fairly hefty sized fleet. But it was the funniest thing.

I set all my ships on charge. In the first round I probably lost all my destroyers. In the second round, lost plenty of my cruisers and battleships. In any case, one ship survived, one of my galaxy's.

It charged every turn, and got with in millimeters of the cube. The cube couldn't lock on to it with it's phasers.

Anyways, I thought for sure with the start of the one round with just my galaxy I was dead meat, I was surprised that my galaxy survived at all. Then, after the one on one against the cube, my galaxy survived! I was so confused. I just kept taking round after round of charging at the cube. Eventually, after like 10 20 rounds, my little galaxy destroyed the cube.

Just reminded me of it. The cube in BoTF I guess was so large, that it's phasers couldn't target ships at point blank range. some pretty funny stuff I thought.

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 7:52 pm

That was the old SOD from beta2 I believe .

[Tyler]

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 7:54 pm

Last edited by Tyler on July 2nd, 2011, 7:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Was that one missing the outer layer? When I load it in a viewer, only the team color section and a few pipes appear without any hull in sight.

I don't recall it looking like this:

Attachments

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 8:00 pm

Last modified in 2007 according to the date 

[Tyler]

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 8:02 pm

Last edited by Tyler on July 2nd, 2011, 8:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

A ship from V3 of FO, so likely a partly done Command Cube.

I'm sure the 2.0 Command Cube looked more like a wimpy version of the 'Stat buffer' SCube.

posted on July 2nd, 2011, 8:15 pm

according to that picture you would need 18 cube shaped objects to make a big cube...

posted on July 3rd, 2011, 8:01 am

Great to see so many replies!!!

I see now your train of thought on this.  The Command Cube seems to be the BEAST that could bring down a fleet!  VIA online does sound interesting.  Yes, I play single only because I don't have a lot of time in the day to play.  So, a quick skirmish is all I have time for usually.

Perhaps, the Command Cube can only have 1 built at a time, thus being so powerful, a fleet of lesser cubes would be a battle enough!  I never said that the std. cube was week, I said that there can be too many of them.  In Voy., the Nexus was a huge hive that had many different types of Borg ships.  I see your point that lesser cubes being part of a Borg fleet, while a Command Cube would be the beast to reckin with.  Can't wait to see this beast come alive!  Great job guys!