Special Abilities

The Cyborg have two special abilities that are unique to them. One is very effective at keeping the Cyborg’s warships on the go. This abilities allows them to repair their starships in space without the use of supplies. The other ability is very powerful. This ability, assimilation, can cause the Cyborg to be an infection in the universe that will not be very easily destroyed.

Assimilation

The Cyborg have the ability to assimilate any native race that they encounter, except the amorphous life forms. The Cyborg in assimilating a race will take an amount of the native population equal to the number of colonists and convert them into Cyborgs . The Cyborg convert colonists at a one to one ratio. This ratio can be configured in the HCONFIG.EXE program, but the default is 100% assimilation (1:1 ratio) and it is recommended that you leave this as the game setting so as to maintain game balance.

This means that a planet with a 7 million native population would soon become a planet with 7 million Cyborg colonists. Effectively a new homeworld. You can see where this ability would make it very hard to eliminate the Cyborg from a game.

The Self-Repair Ability

All Cyborg starships can repair themselves at a rate of 10% per turn, without the use of supplies. These repairs can only be effected is the starship is not moving under its own power. The starship needs to have its special mission selected to Repair Self ( [F9] ). The starship must not move, although it can be towed, otherwise the repairs will not be made.

The Cyborg Collective Fleet

The Cyborg’s fleet consists of many small starships and probes. These starships are very effective at searching out minerals, natives and their enemies. The battleships that the Cyborg have are the fearsome cube starships. These starships are equal in size to two Bird Man battleships and they pack huge firepower.

Note: Cyborg starships collect fuel and minerals from the debris of an enemy starship after they have destroyed it.

Raceplus

The Cyborg’s new mission, Super Tractor Beam, is race specific to the Quietus Class Cruiser. This mission allows the Quietus to generate a high energy tractor beam. This as the most powerful tractor beam ever developed. This beam will allow the Quietus to PULL ships to it, and not just tow them.

This mission has three configurable components. The first is the amount of fuel consumed each turn that the beam is active. This configuration ranges between 200 and 350 KT per turn. The next is the range of the of the beam. The range can be between 25 and 100 LY. The last configuration is the fail rate of the tractor beam. The host can configure the beam to fail 0-10% of the time. This means that the target ship will break the tractor beam if the percentage requirement is met. So if the fail rate is 5% there is a 5% chance that the target ship could break the beam and escape. Ships with more than two engines or a hull mass that is greater than 300 cannot be towed.

To activate the beam the Cyborg have to be within range of the target ship. Range is dependent on the RPCONFIG settings. They then set their mission to INTERCEPT and selected the ship that they wish to use the tractor beam on, as the intercept target. Then they set their friendly code to ‘STB’. This will draw the target ship to the Quietus Cruiser, unless the ship escapes (per Tractor Beam fail rate).

Gryphon & Jupiter

Move Mines.

The Cyborg ships can order any Cyborg minefield to move up, down, left, or right on the starmap at warp (5) using the FC “MMX” and: the first three characters of the name must be the minefield’s ID number. The fourth character of the name must be the direction to go, “D” for down, “U” for up, “L” for left, and “R” for right. For example, FC “MMX” and name “023D” will cause the minefield 23 to move down. The controlling ship must have the warp factor of 0. Up to two ships can cooperate on the move mission and move the minefield up to twice as fast.

Super Intercept.

Both cube ships can greatly speed up in their pursuit of an enemy vessel. Whenever the ship is intercepting an enemy and is not close enough to get to him in the regular movement phase, the ship will accelerate to twice its regular speed to cover twice as much distance burning the same amount of fuel! The cube’s web/mine hit probability is halved, because the ship moves so fast the mines cannot lock on. The ship has to be undamaged, have engines of tech 8 or higher, be on an intercept mission, and have the warp factor EQUAL the engine tech level. Allied ships cannot be super-intercepted.

Nemesis & Jupiter

Planet strip.

The Cyborg have found another use for their ships’ cutting beams. Now the Quietus Class Cruiser can strip the planet of all its structures and assume ownership of the planet, all without fighting. In addition, the StarBase that’s orbiting the planet will see the terrible destruction unleashed on the planet and surrender, also without a fight. So a single Quietus would be able to capture an entire planet with stocked StarBase, all without firing a single shot! All the planetary structures are cut up into pieces and converted into construction minerals, 3 per building. So if a planet has 200 factories, 100 mines and 50 defenses, it will get (200+100+50)*3 or extra 1050 kt of every mineral. Use FC “STR” on an undamaged Quietus to “strip” the target planet (the planet at the waypoint). Strip will use 50 units of fuel from the Quietus. Ships on the strip mission will avoid enemy mines and may not tow or intercept another ship.

Each use of this mission will raise planet’s temperature by 10 degrees. Ships can not strip planets belonging to their own race. The greater the number of enemy defense posts is, the higher the change for mission failure. The number of defense posts indicated in NMConfig is for 100% resistance.

Solidify Amorphs.

The Collective has decided to do something about those pesky amorphs who are impossible to assimilate. Now, all their ships with over 50 crewmen have an a2S device that solidifies amorphs into siliconoids. The resulting silicon population will be totally confused (in the state of anarchy) and quite unhappy. Moreover, a set percentage of them will not survive the solidification process and die. However, the result will be achieved: the Cyborgs will have a planet of Siliconoids to assimilate! To use the a2S device, set the FC “a2S” and have warp factor 0.

Sweet-talk immunity.

Borg ships are immune from the Federation sweet-talk. See Sweet-talk for details.