Mot's Advice on the Borg #6: Choosing Personnel [Nav]

(01/21/1998)

Astrogation Drone (Eighteen of Nineteen): No "classification" skills here, which is a drawback - not much help in dealing with dilemmas. The RANGE enhancement to Borg ships can be quite nice, though, especially if faced with Cytherians, or simply by trying to get to the location you've targeted with your next objective faster. (And it's pretty near impossible to catch up with the Pasteur or Future Enterprise without this drone if you're trying to Eliminate it.) MOT'S ADVICE: Most Borg strategies work without this drone. If you're trying to get to your next location faster, use a Sphere. Move your Cube its full RANGE, launch the Sphere and move its full RANGE, then start scouting. Next turn, you can move the Sphere back, pick up the Cube, then move the Cube back and pick up scouting (or probing) where you left off.

Quantum Drone (Six of Eleven): A vital part of a successful Borg deck. Three regular skills - Physics, Navigation and SCIENCE. The Navigation will help you against a few dilemmas, and help you use cards like Asteroid Sanctuary if things get really rough. The SCIENCE is a basic staple dilemma requirement. All this, plus the ability to download an Alternate Universe Door in place of a card draw. The AU Door will unblock your Gateways that your opponent has tried to block with a Revolving Door (or unblock any other Doorway, for that matter). It'll get you by Q-Nets if the Queen isn't handy. And it'll nullify Temporal Rifts if you should come up against a player favoring those (you'll have to download it before the Quantum Drone gets put in the Rift, of course).

Survey Drone (Sixteen of Nineteen): Archaeology and Geology don't help much with dilemmas as of yet. That means the main reason you'd use a Survey Drone is its ability to acquire artifacts for you. Since the Orb of Prophecy and Change can be so useful in rigging probe draws, you might strongly consider stocking him for that reason. MOT'S ADVICE: You aren't likely to be stocking many artifacts when playing Borg. Your dilemmas need to be really tough to hold your opponent at bay if you encounter any delays. You don't have as much free space for artifacts. Don't count on using the Survey Drone too much to steal artifacts from your opponent, either. While this is easy enough at space locations, it is difficult indeed at planets. The Survey Drone must be on the planet to acquire the artifact, but the Borg may not form Away Teams unless a card allows them to. You would have to either stock something like Emergency Transporter Armbands, or target a planet location with an Assimilate objective - and planets without point boxes worth 35 or higher aren't legal targets. That leaves plenty of places your opponent can seed artifacts that you'll be hard-pressed to get to. If you want to use an artifact in your own deck, obviously you'll need the Survey Drone. But if you don't, you can probably ignore him.

Tachyon Drone (Ten of Nineteen): Navigation appears on other drones you'll be using, and Astrophysics won't help solve any dilemma that can't be solved with some other skill anyway. The real value of the Tachyon Drone is its ability to force your opponent's ships to decloak. If you have a battle-oriented strategy, you'd better stock this drone in case your opponent is playing Klingon or Romulan (or the Future Enterprise).

Transport Drone (Two of Eleven): Transporter Skill, the put upon skill. I did a few "Useless" Reviews some time back, on Anti-Matter Pod, and the three planetary obstruction Events. In an unlimited deck size environment, you might start seeing these cards more, and might do well to have Transporter Skill in your hive. ENGINEER, of course, you'll need (but can get elsewhere). Really, this Drone's main ability is to beam through your opponent's SHIELDS. You'll need this if planning an Assimilate Counterpart strategy, or if you are planning to use Undetected Beam-Ins to report personnel to your opponent's ships or Borg Servo to acquire drones (in order to retrieve them later). If you are planning other tactics, the Transport Drone is not likely to help you.

Transwarp Drone (Two of Nineteen): Yet another drone with Navigation, so nothing extraordinary there. The Stellar Cartography is unique to this drone, but also not needed for anything other than mission attempts, so currently of no value to you. The ability to download a Transwarp Network Gateway or Transwarp Conduit, however, is very powerful indeed. MOT'S ADVICE: I stock one Transwarp Network Gateway for every Establish Gateway objective in my deck, another for my outpost, and usually two more for transportation purposes or emergency building situations. This is not always enough to guarantee one will naturally come up in a card draw, depending on the size of the deck. So be sure to stock this drone so you can download one when you need it.

Navigation drones are important to have around, since you need at least two to staff a Borg Cube or Borg Sphere. Even the easy to staff Borg Scout Vessel requires a Navigation Borg. Swarm strategies will definitely need lots of Navigation to get all those ships staffed. These drones also facilitate your movement by allowing you to build Transwarp Network Gateways. If your strategy is space-intensive, you'll want these in your deck for the probing - both Establish Gateway and Secret Salvage will succeed on a Navigation icon.

NEXT TIME: Choosing Personnel (Defense)