Ok, I have to ask.. and you can call me a 'hater' and label me 'negative' all you want..
Why would you want to re-create this?
This 'battle' was more of a one sided slaughter where Federation Ships were hopelessly destroyed with no real hope of victory. That's something you want to re-create as a STF or mission?
If so, it won't be hard to do. You just need one Borg Cube that's completely invincible and give it beam arrays that are capable of one shotting player ships. The mission starts, the cube activates BFAW and everyone dies.
That would be a pretty accurate re-creation if that's what you're after.
Actually, I think it's not quite accurate.
The reason I say this is because Wolf 359 lasted long enugh that the Enterprise was able to catch up to the Borg Cube despite requiring repairs and the Cube being at least as fast as the Enterprise, probably much faster.
So the whole mission would need to be designed with the goal of the players lasting long enough to keep the Cube busy.
Ultimately, the fleet at Wolf 359 was not able to seriously threaten the cube. Why did it even stop to fight them in the first place? I would say that the mere act of attacking the cube forced it out of warp, and as long as the fight continued, it couldn't just go to warp.
New question: how do you balance it so that it's not stupidly easy to 100k DPSers, yet beatable by 10kers?
With the above in mind, I think the misison objective would be not to destroy the Cube, and instead keep it busy long enough. There might be special events at regular intervals where players must complete some kind of interact to stop the Cube from going to warp. Maybe beaming aboard troops, activating some science gizmo, or whatever. Maybe people also need to ferry survivors away before they get caught in the cross-fire.
So the whole thing is not a DPS challenge, but a tanking challenge. People are forced to stay close t the Cube, otherwise it leaves, and are getting exposed to increasingly more powerful attacks, until no ship can survive it, even the worst cases.
The best tankers in the game might be able to last a while longer, and get extra rewards. Say after 5 minutes the mission is "won", but you can extend it up to 10 minutes (at which point the Cube will fire insta-kill attacks, representing it having adapted to the enemy ship's defensive abilities.)
I kinda like the idea of "no respawns". But I am not sure people would want to spectate for that long, so it might be a no-go.
Overall; I think there might be ways to represent the challenge accurately, but I am not convinced it would be all that fun. And of course, recreating it with player ships instead of canon-appropriate ships kinda makes one wonder what the whole point is anyway. We know today we can blow up Cubes - it's as easy as eating pancakes.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
No Win Scenarios only happen either in training, when an instructor test your frustration and suspension-of-disbelief threshold, or when someone else drops the ball and screws over the guys on the sharp end. And even then, it's very, very hard to force an armed combat anything into "no win."
Because NWS only applies to that scenario. Once a competent leader embraces Game Theory and start changing the rules of engagement, all bets are off. Case in point, the Kobiyashi Maru. I know full well what I'd do, were it not for a computer saying I can't: After defeat becomes a forgone conclusion, I'd start tractoring burning klink hulks, jumping to warp 2, and hurling them at klingon population centers. Incoming ships can either intercept, or sacrifice their civilians trying to kill me.
The only reason Starfleet no win scenarios work is because everyone, for some reason, blithely assumes that the captain they're observing isn't more brutal than they are.
"So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again."
-Dedication plaque of the Federation Starship U.S.S. Merkava
So the whole mission would need to be designed with the goal of the players lasting long enough to keep the Cube busy.
Even if you took this route, I still have the same question..
Why bother?
Right now, it's been suggested that we have either a mission where a large number of players fight an invincible Borg cube until they die, or a mission where players have to distract said cube by feverishly running for their lives long enough for what? for someone else or something else to come along and save the day like the Enterprise did?
Neither scenario sounds like very much fun from a players perspective. The 'Battle of Wolf 359' is great as a story and as part of Star Trek Lore. As a playable scenario in game however, I'm still not seeing a way that this would even remotely enjoyable.
As an STF mission, this just sounds to me like the early makings of yet another totally empty queue.
So the whole mission would need to be designed with the goal of the players lasting long enough to keep the Cube busy.
Even if you took this route, I still have the same question..
Why bother?
Well, as an intellectual exercise on how one could represent a historic event, it's interesting. I don't think it would really work so well.
Right now, it's been suggested that we have either a mission where a large number of players fight an invincible Borg cube until they die, or a mission where players have to distract said cube by feverishly running for their lives long enough for what? for someone else or something else to come along and save the day like the Enterprise did?
Neither scenario sounds like very much fun from a players perspective. The 'Battle of Wolf 359' is great as a story and as part of Star Trek Lore. As a playable scenario in game however, I'm still not seeing a way that this would even remotely enjoyable.
As an STF mission, this just sounds to me like the early makings of yet another totally empty queue.
The need to "last as long as possible" certainly means it would be one of those "forced timegate" missions that people hate so much.
There are probably better historical battles. For example, The battle to take back Deep Space Nine, for example.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I fiddled with that particular battle around in my mind as a PVP scenario...
The cube, a NPC entity on a trajectory escorted by probes controled by players. Goal for team BORG would be the save arrival of the cube at point X.
While federation ships comprised of mostly mirandas, constitution and excelsiors try to blow it up or slow it down (forcing it into regenerative mode).
15 minute countdown until the bulk of the fleet arrives (win federation team) or the Cube reaches earth (win BORG team)
Borg Probes can either heal the cube or fight the federation.
Has been seen and done in many other games already, so ...
it's even a pattern for future historic PVP engagements, because the historic part gets rif of the current political situation in the game, namely galactic peace.
Really?
History lesson: NWS was a laughable contradiction of itself. Shortly before it was (rightly in my opinion) removed there were two-player teams completing it, there were higher (at the time) DPS players soloing it. There were groups completing it in shuttles or T1 ships. And lets keep in mind that BFAW wasn't the be-all-end-all god ability back then.
Sorry - it needs to stay gone in my opinion. The powercreep that the game currently 'enjoys' has reduced STF's such as the ever-popular ISA to a joke that is easily completed in anything between 55 seconds and two minutes and no longer requires any thought or anything resembling tactics to complete. Why do the same to NWS?
A No-Win scenario should be EXACTLY that; a scenario where ther player DOES NOT WIN.
NWS should be a series of 15 - 20 waves of increasingly difficult enemies, with the added hindrance of a stacking 10 percent debuff to all your weapon and ability damage values. Every time you complete a wave, you would have another stack added to you, with the debuff maxing out at 99% damage reduction. Overcoming those odds would be truly impossible.
the kobayashi maru (KM) was the original no win scenario for cadets to take part in to learn about their character. the problem with the current nws is that its a training scenario against waves of enemies instead when really it should be about 3 overpowered enemy ships and limited choices over what course to take that will either end in the end of the simulation as is typical for cadets to fail that part and learn something about command choices that have dire consequences or the slim chance of rescuing the crew of the KM and evading the enemy long enough to do so and then escape.
additionally the KM:NWS quickly adapted to strategies to provide the idea of not being able to win, learning to overcome it or not is a challenge in itself rather than the groups of braindead holographic npcs that want to be repeatedly slaughtered many times over.
the first borg invasion was a true no win scenario in every sense of the word to anyone who does not know a lot about command or what the borg are about with very limited knowledge on them.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. In ST:First Contact, it was only because Picard knew the Cube's weakness that they were able to destroy it. But the Borg plan was never to decimate the fleet...it was to launch the sphere into the past and assimilate earth before Starfleet even existed. (Lots of loopholes here...but whatever.) If Picard hadn't arrived and told the Fleet to concentrate its fire on a specific area of the Borg cube, then that cube WOULD HAVE decimated the fleet. It would have been Wolf 359 all over again.
It would kinda be like Crystalline Entity, except you can't win.
That's exactly what I thought of also.
The only thing I see here is a cut-scene as it wouldn't be playable content.
I'd like to see other historical combat, but it wouldn't work in STO very well IMO. Would need to come from a simulator based game not an MMO style game.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. In ST:First Contact, it was only because Picard knew the Cube's weakness that they were able to destroy it. But the Borg plan was never to decimate the fleet...it was to launch the sphere into the past and assimilate earth before Starfleet even existed. (Lots of loopholes here...but whatever.) If Picard hadn't arrived and told the Fleet to concentrate its fire on a specific area of the Borg cube, then that cube WOULD HAVE decimated the fleet. It would have been Wolf 359 all over again.
that cube would of made wolf 359 looks like a simple broken paperclip compared to what they would of done to humanity if earth had been taken and ships got assimilated or completely destroyed.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. In ST:First Contact, it was only because Picard knew the Cube's weakness that they were able to destroy it. But the Borg plan was never to decimate the fleet...it was to launch the sphere into the past and assimilate earth before Starfleet even existed. (Lots of loopholes here...but whatever.) If Picard hadn't arrived and told the Fleet to concentrate its fire on a specific area of the Borg cube, then that cube WOULD HAVE decimated the fleet. It would have been Wolf 359 all over again.
Don't entirely agree - in First Contact the cube WAS being slowly damaged by attrition.
how long would the fleet had lasted against that kind of pressure though without picard? when before picard ordered the fleet to fire, in those few seconds several ships were destroyed and who knows how many more would of been destroyed before the enterprise jumped.
the cube would of survived that engagement had picard not been there to coordinate fire on the cube with everything.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. In ST:First Contact, it was only because Picard knew the Cube's weakness that they were able to destroy it. But the Borg plan was never to decimate the fleet...it was to launch the sphere into the past and assimilate earth before Starfleet even existed. (Lots of loopholes here...but whatever.) If Picard hadn't arrived and told the Fleet to concentrate its fire on a specific area of the Borg cube, then that cube WOULD HAVE decimated the fleet. It would have been Wolf 359 all over again.
Don't entirely agree - in First Contact the cube WAS being slowly damaged by attrition.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. One cube holds off a large number of Starfleet vessels while taking minimal damage to itself. Imagine if the invasion plan was to send several cubes? NO CHANCE! But that wasn't their plan.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. In ST:First Contact, it was only because Picard knew the Cube's weakness that they were able to destroy it. But the Borg plan was never to decimate the fleet...it was to launch the sphere into the past and assimilate earth before Starfleet even existed. (Lots of loopholes here...but whatever.) If Picard hadn't arrived and told the Fleet to concentrate its fire on a specific area of the Borg cube, then that cube WOULD HAVE decimated the fleet. It would have been Wolf 359 all over again.
Don't entirely agree - in First Contact the cube WAS being slowly damaged by attrition.
It's pretty much a guess what would happen without Picard in the First Contact battle.
I remember that the first time the Enterprise D used a phaser against the Borg, it seemed pretty effective. The Borg regenerated that damage fast enough to see it happening, slow enough that it made me wonder if they could have destroyed it if they had kept firing. But later, phasers were quickly useless and dealt no visible damage anymore.
It could be the Borg took also damage at Wolf 359 - but not enough to cripple it, and it managed to disable or destroy all its attackers, regenerating the rest of the damage. The same might have happened in the battle of Sector 001 without Picard...
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. In ST:First Contact, it was only because Picard knew the Cube's weakness that they were able to destroy it. But the Borg plan was never to decimate the fleet...it was to launch the sphere into the past and assimilate earth before Starfleet even existed. (Lots of loopholes here...but whatever.) If Picard hadn't arrived and told the Fleet to concentrate its fire on a specific area of the Borg cube, then that cube WOULD HAVE decimated the fleet. It would have been Wolf 359 all over again.
Don't entirely agree - in First Contact the cube WAS being slowly damaged by attrition.
how long would the fleet had lasted against that kind of pressure though without picard? when before picard ordered the fleet to fire, in those few seconds several ships were destroyed and who knows how many more would of been destroyed before the enterprise jumped.
the cube would of survived that engagement had picard not been there to coordinate fire on the cube with everything.
Although...we also have to keep in mind...that just as the Borg can adapt...so can Starfleet. They continually defeat the Borg in canon because they come up with solutions that are outside the box. They infiltrated the Borg collective's Hive mind and got into their system structure to put them all to sleep and regenerate...a low priority, low security subroutine. Well...I bet ya not anymore it isn't, but Starfleet beat them with that solution. They un-assimilated an important drone who had access to their systems and technology. Not good for the Borg! This ultimately leads to their second defeat. So now the Borg are up against an adversary that is hard to assimilate en masse. Starfleet is tough and resourceful. But Borg technology is extremely effective as can be seen in the two space combat encounters, Wolf 359 and ST:First Contact. It's very hard to "beat them up."
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. In ST:First Contact, it was only because Picard knew the Cube's weakness that they were able to destroy it. But the Borg plan was never to decimate the fleet...it was to launch the sphere into the past and assimilate earth before Starfleet even existed. (Lots of loopholes here...but whatever.) If Picard hadn't arrived and told the Fleet to concentrate its fire on a specific area of the Borg cube, then that cube WOULD HAVE decimated the fleet. It would have been Wolf 359 all over again.
Don't entirely agree - in First Contact the cube WAS being slowly damaged by attrition.
It's pretty much a guess what would happen without Picard in the First Contact battle.
I remember that the first time the Enterprise D used a phaser against the Borg, it seemed pretty effective. The Borg regenerated that damage fast enough to see it happening, slow enough that it made me wonder if they could have destroyed it if they had kept firing. But later, phasers were quickly useless and dealt no visible damage anymore.
It could be the Borg took also damage at Wolf 359 - but not enough to cripple it, and it managed to disable or destroy all its attackers, regenerating the rest of the damage. The same might have happened in the battle of Sector 001 without Picard...
the borg adapted to the phaser frequencies pretty quickly in opening attacks by starfleet, typical behavior of the borg, the enterprise managed to get some big hits on it before the borg adapted to it and regenerated the cube. i doubt the cube would of taken any significant damage after this when the entire phaser frequency was only a limited one to choose from.
only thing that had a little ability to work was a modulated phaser blast rotating after each shot, but again that would only last so long against the borg due to the limited frequencies that starfleet ships could cycle through before the borg adapted and became immune to them.
also torpedoes were not terribly effective against the borg either.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
New question: how do you balance it so that it's not stupidly easy to 100k DPSers, yet beatable by 10kers?
You don't. That's impossible. You make Normal, Advanced, Elite versions of it so everyone has an appropriate level available. Then you set up rewards, penalties and/or unlock conditions such that players are encouraged to play at their own level instead of curbstomping easy mode or trying to get carried through one that's way over their heads.
Not that Cryptic has shown any interest in doing that with any other missions, though.
I find the idea of a truly unwinnable mission very attractive. A recreation of wolf 359 would preclude victory.
But perhaps the goal can be delay. Your attacks on the Borg cube do not damage it in the conventional sense, but they do require the Borg to draw power away from weapons and engines, prolonging your fight.
Here's my vision: the map is a long narrow section of space, with the Borg cube traversing on the direction of earth. Your goal is not to destroy the cube, but to prevent the cube from crossing the map in under ten minutes.
Unimpeded, the cube will cross the map in five minutes, but your attacks cause the Borg engine and weapons power levels to drop. You'll need to coordinate with your team to divide your targeting between the massive cube's engines and weapons systems. If you put too much fire on engines, your team will be wiped out. If you put too much fire on weapons, the cube will not allow enough.
In the end, your rewards will depend on how quickly the Borg crossed the map. 5-7:30 minutes gets you a minimal reward. 7:30-10 gets you a standard reward. 10 gets you max reward.
I find the idea of a truly unwinnable mission very attractive. A recreation of wolf 359 would preclude victory.
But perhaps the goal can be delay. Your attacks on the Borg cube do not damage it in the conventional sense, but they do require the Borg to draw power away from weapons and engines, prolonging your fight.
Here's my vision: the map is a long narrow section of space, with the Borg cube traversing on the direction of earth. Your goal is not to destroy the cube, but to prevent the cube from crossing the map in under ten minutes.
Unimpeded, the cube will cross the map in five minutes, but your attacks cause the Borg engine and weapons power levels to drop. You'll need to coordinate with your team to divide your targeting between the massive cube's engines and weapons systems. If you put too much fire on engines, your team will be wiped out. If you put too much fire on weapons, the cube will not allow enough.
In the end, your rewards will depend on how quickly the Borg crossed the map. 5-7:30 minutes gets you a minimal reward. 7:30-10 gets you a standard reward. 10 gets you max reward.
how can that be a nws though if you can win by artificially stopping the cube? it is meant to be unstoppable and besides the moment you start messing around with the functions of a borg vessel or the directives the borg are on, you become a threat along with the rest of your team to the borg, a few ships wouldnt stand much chance against a cube if it were made impossible to deal with, no matter what you may of had to plan if you start going "pop" as you should be doing. the borg are highly adapatable, that is their main purpose after a few attempts, so any interference like you suggested even if you managed it maybe 2 times, the borg would of adapted around it.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. One cube holds off a large number of Starfleet vessels while taking minimal damage to itself. Imagine if the invasion plan was to send several cubes? NO CHANCE! But that wasn't their plan.
And as much as I enjoyed First Contact, this has always been a big issue I had with the movie.
The Borg hatched this elaborate plan to destroy the Federation which involved sending Borg back in time when they could have just wiped out the federation at any time by sending 2 cubes instead of one.
Want to make sure the plan can't fail? send 3 cubes.
As much as I like the Borg, their plans and methods never seem to make much sense.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. In ST:First Contact, it was only because Picard knew the Cube's weakness that they were able to destroy it. But the Borg plan was never to decimate the fleet...it was to launch the sphere into the past and assimilate earth before Starfleet even existed. (Lots of loopholes here...but whatever.) If Picard hadn't arrived and told the Fleet to concentrate its fire on a specific area of the Borg cube, then that cube WOULD HAVE decimated the fleet. It would have been Wolf 359 all over again.
Don't entirely agree - in First Contact the cube WAS being slowly damaged by attrition.
how long would the fleet had lasted against that kind of pressure though without picard? when before picard ordered the fleet to fire, in those few seconds several ships were destroyed and who knows how many more would of been destroyed before the enterprise jumped.
the cube would of survived that engagement had picard not been there to coordinate fire on the cube with everything.
Although...we also have to keep in mind...that just as the Borg can adapt...so can Starfleet. They continually defeat the Borg in canon because they come up with solutions that are outside the box. They infiltrated the Borg collective's Hive mind and got into their system structure to put them all to sleep and regenerate...a low priority, low security subroutine. Well...I bet ya not anymore it isn't, but Starfleet beat them with that solution. They un-assimilated an important drone who had access to their systems and technology. Not good for the Borg! This ultimately leads to their second defeat. So now the Borg are up against an adversary that is hard to assimilate en masse. Starfleet is tough and resourceful. But Borg technology is extremely effective as can be seen in the two space combat encounters, Wolf 359 and ST:First Contact. It's very hard to "beat them up."
in other words your confirming my point. starfleet are not invincible and neither are the crews that have been assimilated in the past.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. One cube holds off a large number of Starfleet vessels while taking minimal damage to itself. Imagine if the invasion plan was to send several cubes? NO CHANCE! But that wasn't their plan.
And as much as I enjoyed First Contact, this has always been a big issue I had with the movie.
The Borg hatched this elaborate plan to destroy the Federation which involved sending Borg back in time when they could have just wiped out the federation at any time by sending 2 cubes instead of one.
Want to make sure the plan can't fail? send 3 cubes.
As much as I like the Borg, their plans and methods never seem to make much sense.
borg queen has been shown to be quite arrogant thinking the borg are so big that they can do whatever they pleased, this is likely what resulted in the queen sending one ship instead of a small group of cubes. the best way to deny the enemy is by taking their toys off them and driving them off quickly and then chasing them down so they cant be trouble. just shoddy writing through voyager that turned the all fearing borg into a joke.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. One cube holds off a large number of Starfleet vessels while taking minimal damage to itself. Imagine if the invasion plan was to send several cubes? NO CHANCE! But that wasn't their plan.
And as much as I enjoyed First Contact, this has always been a big issue I had with the movie.
The Borg hatched this elaborate plan to destroy the Federation which involved sending Borg back in time when they could have just wiped out the federation at any time by sending 2 cubes instead of one.
Want to make sure the plan can't fail? send 3 cubes.
As much as I like the Borg, their plans and methods never seem to make much sense.
Yup...totally agree. That's why I said in my first post (Big loopholes).
borg queen has been shown to be quite arrogant thinking the borg are so big that they can do whatever they pleased, this is likely what resulted in the queen sending one ship instead of a small group of cubes. the best way to deny the enemy is by taking their toys off them and driving them off quickly and then chasing them down so they cant be trouble. just shoddy writing through voyager that turned the all fearing borg into a joke.
Yup...plot loopholes or sheer arrogance? Who could say?
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. One cube holds off a large number of Starfleet vessels while taking minimal damage to itself. Imagine if the invasion plan was to send several cubes? NO CHANCE! But that wasn't their plan.
And as much as I enjoyed First Contact, this has always been a big issue I had with the movie.
The Borg hatched this elaborate plan to destroy the Federation which involved sending Borg back in time when they could have just wiped out the federation at any time by sending 2 cubes instead of one.
Want to make sure the plan can't fail? send 3 cubes.
As much as I like the Borg, their plans and methods never seem to make much sense.
Because then there would've been no movie. Or, because then they would've had to nerf the Borg like in Voyager so the invasion could be defeated anyway.
But in character, I think the First Contact attack makes perfect sense...if you disregard Voyager and the nerf-queen's inexplicable obsession with the Federation (or assume the obsession only emerged after First Contact). Without it, First Contact is not an "elaborate plan to destroy the Federation," but a casual attack of opportunity by a cube and sphere that had nothing better to do.
After all, if going back in time was their plan all along, instead of an improvisation they came up with after the main attack failed, they could've done it lightyears away without engaging Starfleet in battle and nobody would even have noticed.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. One cube holds off a large number of Starfleet vessels while taking minimal damage to itself. Imagine if the invasion plan was to send several cubes? NO CHANCE! But that wasn't their plan.
And as much as I enjoyed First Contact, this has always been a big issue I had with the movie.
The Borg hatched this elaborate plan to destroy the Federation which involved sending Borg back in time when they could have just wiped out the federation at any time by sending 2 cubes instead of one.
Want to make sure the plan can't fail? send 3 cubes.
As much as I like the Borg, their plans and methods never seem to make much sense.
Because then there would've been no movie. Or, because then they would've had to nerf the Borg like in Voyager so the invasion could be defeated anyway.
But in character, I think the First Contact attack makes perfect sense...if you disregard Voyager and the nerf-queen's inexplicable obsession with the Federation. Without it, First Contact is not an "elaborate plan to destroy the Federation," but a casual attack of opportunity by a cube and sphere that had nothing better to do.
which wouldnt make sense without something to direct the cube to the area and what the motives and objectives are.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
My memory is fuzzy now at best, but I seem to recall that on launch day the devs were flying about in cubes vaporizing the new players in their low level ships.
Can someone please confirm or deny this - I need a fact check on my grey cells badly.
Don't entirely agree - in First Contact the cube WAS being slowly damaged by attrition.
The Cube would remain fully functional even if up to 78% of it was destroyed...so...
To repeat my reply to Mirrorchaos: To be clear I am not saying Starfleet would have won without Picard's invervention. My point was simply that Starfleet came better prepared where the battle of Sector 001 was concerned and their attacks were, through attrition, having an effect.
Starfleet also changed their tactics, rather than attack in neat formation as at Wolf 359, they adopted swarm tactics to hit the cube from all angles at the same time
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. In ST:First Contact, it was only because Picard knew the Cube's weakness that they were able to destroy it. But the Borg plan was never to decimate the fleet...it was to launch the sphere into the past and assimilate earth before Starfleet even existed. (Lots of loopholes here...but whatever.) If Picard hadn't arrived and told the Fleet to concentrate its fire on a specific area of the Borg cube, then that cube WOULD HAVE decimated the fleet. It would have been Wolf 359 all over again.
Don't entirely agree - in First Contact the cube WAS being slowly damaged by attrition.
how long would the fleet had lasted against that kind of pressure though without picard? when before picard ordered the fleet to fire, in those few seconds several ships were destroyed and who knows how many more would of been destroyed before the enterprise jumped.
the cube would of survived that engagement had picard not been there to coordinate fire on the cube with everything.
Completely agree; and to be clear I am not saying Starfleet would have won without Picard's invervention. My point was simply that Starfleet came better prepared where the battle of Sector 001 was concerned and their attacks were, through attrition, having an effect.
im not so sure of that, as i pointed out starfleet were loosing ships pretty quickly, and the less ships there are, the more the borg survive the swarm attack from starfleet ships, less fire power to deal with. true starfleet still had a good number of ships in the sector, even so, it is all they had to defend the sector from an attack on earth.
even if the enterprise never arrived, the fight would of taken a while to resolve itself, remember that the borg can regenerate damage fairly quickly, so playing the swarm tactics only spread out the damage and so there is less potential to make any significant impact on the hull of the borg ship, and with the chain of command decided by the ship and captain that had a tactical advantage, i mean there were a number of akira class ships, heavy cruisers in action, so the chances are that there would be no clear chain of command in the fight.
the defiant would of been destroyed with all hands that remained on board including commander worf. its a more grim picture for starfleet. unless they are packing some significant firepower with one ship that had seniority in the fight to coordinate from, attrition would be the borg's strength to take one ship out at a time and repair the damage.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
To get back on track how does this sound:
Give the cube a phenomenal healing rate that makes just shooting at it pointless. However give science ships the ability to interfere with this system and lower the rate via a dilithium mining type game that gets progressively faster the longer you do it. But the science ships have to be protected, one hit disrupts the matching game and they have to start over. Have ships able to block the cube's firing arc and take hits for the science ships while healing themselves and shooting down projectiles aimed at them and the science ship. Once the regen rate starts to drop, the rest of the ships can attack the cube directly.
Teamwork would be the only way to succeed.
Comments
Actually, I think it's not quite accurate.
The reason I say this is because Wolf 359 lasted long enugh that the Enterprise was able to catch up to the Borg Cube despite requiring repairs and the Cube being at least as fast as the Enterprise, probably much faster.
So the whole mission would need to be designed with the goal of the players lasting long enough to keep the Cube busy.
Ultimately, the fleet at Wolf 359 was not able to seriously threaten the cube. Why did it even stop to fight them in the first place? I would say that the mere act of attacking the cube forced it out of warp, and as long as the fight continued, it couldn't just go to warp.
With the above in mind, I think the misison objective would be not to destroy the Cube, and instead keep it busy long enough. There might be special events at regular intervals where players must complete some kind of interact to stop the Cube from going to warp. Maybe beaming aboard troops, activating some science gizmo, or whatever. Maybe people also need to ferry survivors away before they get caught in the cross-fire.
So the whole thing is not a DPS challenge, but a tanking challenge. People are forced to stay close t the Cube, otherwise it leaves, and are getting exposed to increasingly more powerful attacks, until no ship can survive it, even the worst cases.
The best tankers in the game might be able to last a while longer, and get extra rewards. Say after 5 minutes the mission is "won", but you can extend it up to 10 minutes (at which point the Cube will fire insta-kill attacks, representing it having adapted to the enemy ship's defensive abilities.)
I kinda like the idea of "no respawns". But I am not sure people would want to spectate for that long, so it might be a no-go.
Overall; I think there might be ways to represent the challenge accurately, but I am not convinced it would be all that fun. And of course, recreating it with player ships instead of canon-appropriate ships kinda makes one wonder what the whole point is anyway. We know today we can blow up Cubes - it's as easy as eating pancakes.
No Win Scenarios only happen either in training, when an instructor test your frustration and suspension-of-disbelief threshold, or when someone else drops the ball and screws over the guys on the sharp end. And even then, it's very, very hard to force an armed combat anything into "no win."
Because NWS only applies to that scenario. Once a competent leader embraces Game Theory and start changing the rules of engagement, all bets are off. Case in point, the Kobiyashi Maru. I know full well what I'd do, were it not for a computer saying I can't: After defeat becomes a forgone conclusion, I'd start tractoring burning klink hulks, jumping to warp 2, and hurling them at klingon population centers. Incoming ships can either intercept, or sacrifice their civilians trying to kill me.
The only reason Starfleet no win scenarios work is because everyone, for some reason, blithely assumes that the captain they're observing isn't more brutal than they are.
-Dedication plaque of the Federation Starship U.S.S. Merkava
Even if you took this route, I still have the same question..
Why bother?
Right now, it's been suggested that we have either a mission where a large number of players fight an invincible Borg cube until they die, or a mission where players have to distract said cube by feverishly running for their lives long enough for what? for someone else or something else to come along and save the day like the Enterprise did?
Neither scenario sounds like very much fun from a players perspective. The 'Battle of Wolf 359' is great as a story and as part of Star Trek Lore. As a playable scenario in game however, I'm still not seeing a way that this would even remotely enjoyable.
As an STF mission, this just sounds to me like the early makings of yet another totally empty queue.
The need to "last as long as possible" certainly means it would be one of those "forced timegate" missions that people hate so much.
There are probably better historical battles. For example, The battle to take back Deep Space Nine, for example.
The cube, a NPC entity on a trajectory escorted by probes controled by players. Goal for team BORG would be the save arrival of the cube at point X.
While federation ships comprised of mostly mirandas, constitution and excelsiors try to blow it up or slow it down (forcing it into regenerative mode).
15 minute countdown until the bulk of the fleet arrives (win federation team) or the Cube reaches earth (win BORG team)
Borg Probes can either heal the cube or fight the federation.
Has been seen and done in many other games already, so ...
it's even a pattern for future historic PVP engagements, because the historic part gets rif of the current political situation in the game, namely galactic peace.
Agreed completely.
NWS should be a series of 15 - 20 waves of increasingly difficult enemies, with the added hindrance of a stacking 10 percent debuff to all your weapon and ability damage values. Every time you complete a wave, you would have another stack added to you, with the debuff maxing out at 99% damage reduction. Overcoming those odds would be truly impossible.
additionally the KM:NWS quickly adapted to strategies to provide the idea of not being able to win, learning to overcome it or not is a challenge in itself rather than the groups of braindead holographic npcs that want to be repeatedly slaughtered many times over.
the first borg invasion was a true no win scenario in every sense of the word to anyone who does not know a lot about command or what the borg are about with very limited knowledge on them.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
That's exactly what I thought of also.
The only thing I see here is a cut-scene as it wouldn't be playable content.
I'd like to see other historical combat, but it wouldn't work in STO very well IMO. Would need to come from a simulator based game not an MMO style game.
that cube would of made wolf 359 looks like a simple broken paperclip compared to what they would of done to humanity if earth had been taken and ships got assimilated or completely destroyed.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
how long would the fleet had lasted against that kind of pressure though without picard? when before picard ordered the fleet to fire, in those few seconds several ships were destroyed and who knows how many more would of been destroyed before the enterprise jumped.
the cube would of survived that engagement had picard not been there to coordinate fire on the cube with everything.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Borg technology is better than anything Starfleet can throw at it. One cube holds off a large number of Starfleet vessels while taking minimal damage to itself. Imagine if the invasion plan was to send several cubes? NO CHANCE! But that wasn't their plan.
I remember that the first time the Enterprise D used a phaser against the Borg, it seemed pretty effective. The Borg regenerated that damage fast enough to see it happening, slow enough that it made me wonder if they could have destroyed it if they had kept firing. But later, phasers were quickly useless and dealt no visible damage anymore.
It could be the Borg took also damage at Wolf 359 - but not enough to cripple it, and it managed to disable or destroy all its attackers, regenerating the rest of the damage. The same might have happened in the battle of Sector 001 without Picard...
Although...we also have to keep in mind...that just as the Borg can adapt...so can Starfleet. They continually defeat the Borg in canon because they come up with solutions that are outside the box. They infiltrated the Borg collective's Hive mind and got into their system structure to put them all to sleep and regenerate...a low priority, low security subroutine. Well...I bet ya not anymore it isn't, but Starfleet beat them with that solution. They un-assimilated an important drone who had access to their systems and technology. Not good for the Borg! This ultimately leads to their second defeat. So now the Borg are up against an adversary that is hard to assimilate en masse. Starfleet is tough and resourceful. But Borg technology is extremely effective as can be seen in the two space combat encounters, Wolf 359 and ST:First Contact. It's very hard to "beat them up."
the borg adapted to the phaser frequencies pretty quickly in opening attacks by starfleet, typical behavior of the borg, the enterprise managed to get some big hits on it before the borg adapted to it and regenerated the cube. i doubt the cube would of taken any significant damage after this when the entire phaser frequency was only a limited one to choose from.
only thing that had a little ability to work was a modulated phaser blast rotating after each shot, but again that would only last so long against the borg due to the limited frequencies that starfleet ships could cycle through before the borg adapted and became immune to them.
also torpedoes were not terribly effective against the borg either.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Not that Cryptic has shown any interest in doing that with any other missions, though.
But perhaps the goal can be delay. Your attacks on the Borg cube do not damage it in the conventional sense, but they do require the Borg to draw power away from weapons and engines, prolonging your fight.
Here's my vision: the map is a long narrow section of space, with the Borg cube traversing on the direction of earth. Your goal is not to destroy the cube, but to prevent the cube from crossing the map in under ten minutes.
Unimpeded, the cube will cross the map in five minutes, but your attacks cause the Borg engine and weapons power levels to drop. You'll need to coordinate with your team to divide your targeting between the massive cube's engines and weapons systems. If you put too much fire on engines, your team will be wiped out. If you put too much fire on weapons, the cube will not allow enough.
In the end, your rewards will depend on how quickly the Borg crossed the map. 5-7:30 minutes gets you a minimal reward. 7:30-10 gets you a standard reward. 10 gets you max reward.
how can that be a nws though if you can win by artificially stopping the cube? it is meant to be unstoppable and besides the moment you start messing around with the functions of a borg vessel or the directives the borg are on, you become a threat along with the rest of your team to the borg, a few ships wouldnt stand much chance against a cube if it were made impossible to deal with, no matter what you may of had to plan if you start going "pop" as you should be doing. the borg are highly adapatable, that is their main purpose after a few attempts, so any interference like you suggested even if you managed it maybe 2 times, the borg would of adapted around it.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
And as much as I enjoyed First Contact, this has always been a big issue I had with the movie.
The Borg hatched this elaborate plan to destroy the Federation which involved sending Borg back in time when they could have just wiped out the federation at any time by sending 2 cubes instead of one.
Want to make sure the plan can't fail? send 3 cubes.
As much as I like the Borg, their plans and methods never seem to make much sense.
in other words your confirming my point. starfleet are not invincible and neither are the crews that have been assimilated in the past.
borg queen has been shown to be quite arrogant thinking the borg are so big that they can do whatever they pleased, this is likely what resulted in the queen sending one ship instead of a small group of cubes. the best way to deny the enemy is by taking their toys off them and driving them off quickly and then chasing them down so they cant be trouble. just shoddy writing through voyager that turned the all fearing borg into a joke.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Yup...totally agree. That's why I said in my first post (Big loopholes).
As Mirrorchaos said in his post above:
Yup...plot loopholes or sheer arrogance? Who could say?
But in character, I think the First Contact attack makes perfect sense...if you disregard Voyager and the nerf-queen's inexplicable obsession with the Federation (or assume the obsession only emerged after First Contact). Without it, First Contact is not an "elaborate plan to destroy the Federation," but a casual attack of opportunity by a cube and sphere that had nothing better to do.
After all, if going back in time was their plan all along, instead of an improvisation they came up with after the main attack failed, they could've done it lightyears away without engaging Starfleet in battle and nobody would even have noticed.
which wouldnt make sense without something to direct the cube to the area and what the motives and objectives are.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Can someone please confirm or deny this - I need a fact check on my grey cells badly.
cheers
Starfleet also changed their tactics, rather than attack in neat formation as at Wolf 359, they adopted swarm tactics to hit the cube from all angles at the same time
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
im not so sure of that, as i pointed out starfleet were loosing ships pretty quickly, and the less ships there are, the more the borg survive the swarm attack from starfleet ships, less fire power to deal with. true starfleet still had a good number of ships in the sector, even so, it is all they had to defend the sector from an attack on earth.
even if the enterprise never arrived, the fight would of taken a while to resolve itself, remember that the borg can regenerate damage fairly quickly, so playing the swarm tactics only spread out the damage and so there is less potential to make any significant impact on the hull of the borg ship, and with the chain of command decided by the ship and captain that had a tactical advantage, i mean there were a number of akira class ships, heavy cruisers in action, so the chances are that there would be no clear chain of command in the fight.
the defiant would of been destroyed with all hands that remained on board including commander worf. its a more grim picture for starfleet. unless they are packing some significant firepower with one ship that had seniority in the fight to coordinate from, attrition would be the borg's strength to take one ship out at a time and repair the damage.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Give the cube a phenomenal healing rate that makes just shooting at it pointless. However give science ships the ability to interfere with this system and lower the rate via a dilithium mining type game that gets progressively faster the longer you do it. But the science ships have to be protected, one hit disrupts the matching game and they have to start over. Have ships able to block the cube's firing arc and take hits for the science ships while healing themselves and shooting down projectiles aimed at them and the science ship. Once the regen rate starts to drop, the rest of the ships can attack the cube directly.
Teamwork would be the only way to succeed.