The Cyborg

Cyborg portrait from Planets Nu

The Cyborg race icon from VGA Planets Nu

The Cyborg are loosely based on the Borg from Star Trek the next generation. Loosely speaking, they could also be compared to the Cybermen in the Doctor Who universe, or any other half-human half-machine race with a predilection for turning organics into copies of themselves. Roleplay appropriately.

Race Characteristics

The Cyborg are a half-machine, half-organic race that will assimilate native life, spread widely, and develop a deep logistical network in order to build their large, heavy warships. They are considered a more challenging race to play, as the planning required to accomplish this can be daunting and timeconsuming, but the rewards are ample, as they offer unparalleled mobility and, once established, are extremely tenacious and difficult to eradicate entirely.

Strategy Guides

The following guides below may provide helpful information: I, Cyborg by WarriorSol Cutter's guide to the Cyborg by Cutter Cyborg: Collective strategies by Noysh Noysh is wrong about the 350ly limit; it has since been patched to 340-360ly. The Frycutus Maneouver - tl;dr: chunnel towed ships to waiting Biocides. The Borg by Derek J. Kalweit

Racial Abilities

• Assimilation: Transforms natives into colonists, allowing for massive colonist outputs supporting heavy infrastructure.
• Recover Minerals: A participating ship can recover minerals (hull cost + fuel) of each ship it defeats in combat, in reverse order (Molybdenum, Tritanium, Duranium, Neutronium)
• Repair Self: Any starships that do not move under their own power can repair 10% damage per turn it uses this mission.

Ship List

See The master ship list for a list of The Cyborg ships.

Important Ships

• B200 Class Probe: Expand like mad, take as many planets as possible.
• Firecloud Class Cruiser: One of the most powerful designs. It can open Warp Chunnels, facilitate infrastructure, and allow for nasty surprises.
• Biocide Class Carrier: Heavily armored carrier. Works best against other carriers.
• Annihilation Class Battleship: Heavily armored torpedo ship. Works best against other torpedo ships.

Strategy

Overall Strategy

The Cyborg, if all goes well, have the most powerful economy in the endgame: money is plentiful, minerals are plentiful, supplies are plentiful. The trouble, as always, is the question of how to translate this marvelous bounty into deadly, overwhelming force, and thence, to translate this force into scrap metal under your salvage beams. A smaller trouble is the limitation of taxation on the natives (20% max).

Logistics, the science of how to get what you have, to where you need it, is a constant travail of the Cyborg, your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness. A Cyborg player deprived of his Fireclouds is an easy target. Protect them. Do not expose them unnecessarily. Other players will be gunning for them, to capture them and to prevent their spawning fleets of cubes.

Three Fireclouds are required to make a two-way endpoint: one at each end as a target, and one to make the trip. Don't make a one-way Warp Chunnel if you can avoid it.

Early Game

• Build B200s and spread them throughout the quadrant. Seek out forgotten crannies that other races fail to exploit, and assimilate them, or, at the very least, assimilate their natives in order to deny the benefits of those natives to your future enemies. In biology, this is called an "R" strategy; create many children. Many of them may not survive, but those that do will form the basis of your formidable empire.
• Make a friend early. Make two friends early. Make as many friends as you possibly can.
• Nearly everyone will gun for you on general principles: your ships are weak, your planets are easily rooted out in the beginning, and most players know that the time to deal with the Borg is before they have cubes.

Endgame

• Things can get extremely nasty for the borg's enemies. The borg rule straight up conventional warfare in the end-game.
• 30+ cubes appearing to break everything in sight is not unheard of, attacks come from all directions simultaneously, their fleet resupplies, arms and refuels like no other. It can be a nightmare scenario.
• Example finished games on nu: Rebirth3, Beta 2, and especially the Taurus War]

Alliances

Overall

Nearly every alliance can benefit from your assimilation ability to turn planets with marginal natives and a convenient climate into a far more productive one; a planet containing 6 million Anarchy-government Amphibians is mostly useless, but when handed to the Borg, will produce credits and supplies. If an orbiting ship then matches friendly code, it's easy to beam those up. Similarly, if you have particularly valuable natives in your territory, handing them the planet can be a massive benefit; a Unity Bovinoid (angel chorus) in the hands of anybody but you is a large benefit. Your little eaters, on the other hand, will just turn them into yet another carbon copy of all your other planets.

The Solar Federation

The Feds can provide you with ships to heat your desert planets and heat your arctic planets.

The Lizard Alliance

The Lizards can provide cloakers for advance minelaying and scouting, can HISS your planets for additional tax money to feed the unceasing hunger of the Biocides, and offer you an Eros to cool down the troublesome desert planets with hundreds of clans dying every turn. To them, you can provide a ready source of clans on their front lines (they give you the ship, you beam up clans, you give them the ship), and you can give them Fireclouds, which they will be very pleased to have. They can be your best friend early on in the game. You'd really, really rather have them as your friend early on in the game.