Topic: Andromedans versus the Borg (Read 6165 times)

NightStalker-SFC3 · « **on:** November 16, 2003, 11:26:24 pm »

I wonder if the Borg could beat the Andromedans. That would definitely be a battle to behold! I would like to see a game that portrays the races as they truly are without any balancing.

Every time I get more information about the Andromedans I get more respect for the people that actually chose to fight against them in SFB. For those of you who played the Andromedans, did you feel sorry for your opponents? When I play SFC: Orion Pirates I feel sorry for frigates that decide to stay and fight my Romulan XCB. There have even been instances where a single frigate will stand and fight against up to 3 heavy battlecruisers! In those battles I never destroy the frigates. I choose to capture them instead. I cannot bring myself to destroy such a brave captain even if it is controlled by the AI.

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #1 on:** November 17, 2003, 12:33:29 am »

Quote:

I wonder if the Borg could beat the Andromedans. That would definitely be a battle to behold! I would like to see a game that portrays the races as they truly are without any balancing.

Every time I get more information about the Andromedans I get more respect for the people that actually chose to fight against them in SFB. For those of you who played the Andromedans, did you feel sorry for your opponents? When I play SFC: Orion Pirates I feel sorry for frigates that decide to stay and fight my Romulan XCB. There have even been instances where a single frigate will stand and fight against up to 3 heavy battlecruisers! In those battles I never destroy the frigates. I choose to capture them instead. I cannot bring myself to destroy such a brave captain even if it is controlled by the AI.

Well, I guess that would depend on the effects of Andromedan technologies on the Borg systems. In a straight slugfest the Borg would win easily. Andromedan ships aren't that heavily gunned, galactic ships of equivalent BPV have Andros outgunned, and the Andro ships aren't anywhere near the size of Borg ships. They are actually somewhat smaller than their galactic counterparts. Their unique systems and very high battle speeds are where they gain their advantage. While PAs have a better capacity to absorb an alpha strike and regenerate faster than shields, once you overwhelm them the Andromedan dies rather quickly (and very spectacularly when the panels cascade their power into the Andromedan vessel).

They move at speed 31 most of the time during battle passes. Galactic ships just can't match their battle speeds. This, combined with their wide weapons arcs, makes plasma all but useless against them. They can transport out of their ships without having to drop the PAs. They're T-bombing mothers and this makes using drones against them a bit of a chore. Their displacement device can be used to move enemy ships randomly around the map. This badly effects fleet strategies and formations. Especially for races like the ISC, who's ships are designed to operate most efficiently in the echelon (Inverted delta) formation, and the Tholians, who like to hide behind and block the enemy with their web.

NightStalker-SFC3 · « **Reply #2 on:** November 17, 2003, 01:04:33 am »

Imagine the Borg once the have assimilated the Andromedans. Scary.

Cleaven · « **Reply #3 on:** November 17, 2003, 02:09:15 am »

A reasonable assumption is that the Andro's (like the Tholians) could be incompatible with the Borg. You can't assimilate what you can't touch.

Aldaron · « **Reply #4 on:** November 17, 2003, 11:33:01 am »

For those not familiar with the Andromedans and the cascade destruction effect Each PA panel (power absorber) can hold a certain number of damage points (depending on if it's been charged as normal or reinforced). If that panel takes a hit and is destroyed that energy must go somewhere (either another panel on the ship, energy module inside a hangar or a satellite ship inside a hangar). If that energy cannot be absorbed it's taken as damage on the ship, if another panel is then hit the process repeats. You can see where this leads, pretty fireworks as panels destruct and continue to destroy the ship

NightStalker-SFC3 · « **Reply #5 on:** November 17, 2003, 06:33:19 pm »

You would not need to touch the Andromedans to assimilate their technology.

NightStalker-SFC3 · « **Reply #6 on:** November 17, 2003, 06:34:29 pm »

If the mothership is destroyed are the satellite ships destroyed too?

Aldaron · « **Reply #7 on:** November 17, 2003, 11:34:59 pm »

If they are still inside, yes.

Death_Merchant · « **Reply #8 on:** November 18, 2003, 12:06:02 am »

Remember: PA panels also halt transporter activity into an Andro ship. Visiting Borg transporter beams would be absorbed as energy by the PA panels, channeled to the batteries, and fired back at the Borg ship as a TR beam

OK, in SFB the energy of a trans beam is too small to power even a P-III, but still it's an evil thought...

Julin Eurthyr · « **Reply #9 on:** November 18, 2003, 12:41:36 pm »

Hmmm... Borg-Andro...

The Borg (at least in SFC3) have rudimentary T-R beams (note the weapons mode of their tractor...)
The Andro's have their PAs, Displacement device, and sattelite ships.

The biggest problem is getting a boarding party onto the Andro ship. Annoyingly enough, the power absorbers need to be completely down (shut off or blown up) to let people aboard, and usually blowing up the panels also leads to the ship blowing up (cascade effect mentioned above. For the records, Andro panels are grouped in banks of panels, some of the bigger ships have 6 panels to a bank. Each panel holds up to 6 power (regularly) or 10 (reinforced), but lose some capacity with every hit (about 25% of the damage, more if the attacker uses disruptors)...

And we don't even know that, once a Borg gets aboard, that there's anything organic for them to assimilate. All we know is that their ships are protected by robots that do the boarding party duties...

NightStalker-SFC3 · « **Reply #10 on:** November 18, 2003, 04:50:44 pm »

I thought the Borg could assimilate the technology by examining the ship. The Borg don't need to transport through the PA panels. If they could cut through the PA panels without destroying the ship they could assimilate the Andromedan technology. Why would they want the Andromedans themselves if they can assimilate the Andromedan technology?
I am basing this on the episode of TNG when they first encountered the Borg. The Borg drone was scanning the ship and ignoring the crew.

Lieutenant_Q · « **Reply #11 on:** November 19, 2003, 12:03:53 am »

The reason the drone was ignoring everyone else, wasnt for assimilation, it was for Information. The Borg wanted to know where this strange looking ship had came from, where its defenses were, and the quickest way to get to its homeworld to assimilate their entire species. Assimilation comes when the Borg start diceing you up into managable pieces.

Toten · « **Reply #13 on:** November 19, 2003, 12:07:35 pm »

Borg vs Andros.... hmmm

Pros n Cons....

Borg tech requires some invetigation and subsequent assimilation of the target host to deal with defencese, but they do start with known defences first then adapt as needed.

Andros are a supplanted race from another galaxy and as such had to capability to adapt. They were stuck with what ever tech they brought with them. This is evidenced by there being NO ship upgrades EVER for Andros ships in SFB. However all other races had subsequent upgrades and new weapons designs produced. The ONLY exception has been the Terminator Mauler Satellite ship. Which is a generated ship class of only the FF size, with no upgrades possible.

In a stand up fight I would pit an Andros ship with satellites vs a borg ship any day. The combination of displacement device, TR beams, and satellite ships vs a borg ship would be catastrophic. Tactics would be typical Andros vs galactic foe but specific weapons such as the mauler ships would be murder.

No hit and runs are possible either way. The Andros are not very limited witht T-Bombs, too bad for the borg but c'est la vie.

Close range TR beams with phasers and maulers would gut most borg ships in one pass.

HOWEVER if the borg survive the attack long enough to get good intel out of the battle to the rest of the collecive I think an adaptation could be found that would be usefull.

Such as an ANTI TR beam (heck its just a fancy tractor beam, how about a 180 out fo phase tractor beam to nullify by interference pattern the original TR beam)
Phasers are covered with borg armour and shielding
The displacement device doesnt help the slug fest between the mother ship and the borg ship, no delays there so the borg are free to toast the Andros mother ship at will regardless of being displaced.
Borg weapons tend to be omidirectional unlike Andros weapons so there is no "get behind" a borg ship using the displaceemnt device.

etc

So in short. The andros would probably have ONE and ONLY ONE good engagement vs the borg. There after they would be getting their butts handed to them by an Equal BPV of borg ships.

Borg by definition of "Adapting" are continually "Upgrading" their ships.
Andros by game definitions were comparatively "Frozen" with their technology.

IMHO SFB SFC etc is ultimately a "technology" game. Who would last well in an early era CA in late era without some serious upgrades. Eg Fed CC early vs Fed CB late, give me the late CB anyday to kill early era ships easier., Now throw in the F-XCC and u have a slaughter.

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #14 on:** November 19, 2003, 12:23:06 pm »

No Galactic races were ever able to operate never mind duplicate any of the Andro tech. that they were able to capture. The power system that the Andros use is completely different than anything that the Empires have ever seen. Of course, it might be different for the Borg, but if all of the scientists for all of the other races couldn't make heads or tails of it, odds are that the Borg wouldn't be able to either. Besides, the Borg already have Transwarp technology which doesn't require any bases/beacons to operate like the RTN does and "adaptive, regenerative shielding/armor" which seems to be superior, defensively anyway, to PA panels. The Andros standard warp drive isn't as fast for strategic movement as the warp drive used by the galactic races. The DisDev is powered by the Andromedans warp engines. Since none of the andro systems are compatible with galactic technologies all of the power systems would need to be changed. I don't see the Borg giving up their already proven advanced systems. Besides, if you could adapt Andro tech to galactic systems, then the Andros would have done it themselves to adapt the systems that were superior to there's. Be glad that they couldn't.

There's my .02

Julin Eurthyr · « **Reply #15 on:** November 19, 2003, 12:31:57 pm »

Rod:

What's to say that the Andro "inability to upgrade" is due to the fact that (possibly) the Andro ships are purely robotic creations with minimal to no "live" crew?

We will not know until the promised "Andro invasion of the WYN cluster" to hear hints as to what may be in these green disks of death...

NightStalker-SFC3 · « **Reply #18 on:** November 20, 2003, 09:23:02 pm »

Maybe it is a good thing that GAW was not made. Otherwise the Andromedans might have been balanced like the Borg. They might have lost their PA panels, Displacement Device, and satellite ships. In SFC3 the Borg are not as formidable as they are on television. They don't even has shields!

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Topic: Andromedans versus the Borg (Read 6165 times) var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

NightStalker-SFC3

Rod O'neal

NightStalker-SFC3

Cleaven

Aldaron

NightStalker-SFC3

NightStalker-SFC3

Aldaron

Death_Merchant

Julin Eurthyr

NightStalker-SFC3

Lieutenant_Q

Julin Eurthyr

Toten

Rod O'neal

Julin Eurthyr

NightStalker-SFC3

NightStalker-SFC3

NightStalker-SFC3

Potemkin

Topic: Andromedans versus the Borg (Read 6165 times)