Big units are fun. In RTS games, big units get to go on a rampage, killing lots of smaller units and having all the fun. Depending on the game, they might even get to repair themselves and do it all again. Big units are the tip of the spear.
When a player chooses Borg in their Star Trek Strategy game, you better believe they want to go on a little rampage. They want ships that are big, tough, and able to regenerate like in the shows. They want to fight with one ship against many.
Something like this
Unfortunately there are some problems when every ship in your faction is big like this. Battles become extreme affairs: a Borg Cube that kills 5 ships and survives with 10% of its hitpoints, only to regenerate back to full health, has 100% perfect efficiency. A Cube that kills 5 ships and dies on the other hand, might be a terrible loss.
On top of this, large units scale exponentially, not linearly. Two cubes is not 2x as strong as one cube: it's more like 4-5 times as strong. Once one cube takes damage, it can start to run away while the healthy cube keeps pounding away at its pursuers. Once you take this into account, most games involving the Borg will be completely decided by the first battle: the Borg player will win or lose based on whether their first ship lives or dies.
In Star Trek Armada 2 (2001), this isn't a very big problem since most ships aren't so huge, and die relatively easily. But ships dying easily is the number 1 complaint about the game from the community: none of the races in that game get to do the big-ship rampage that players crave (except for the Fusion Cube, which is not exactly cost effective).
Fleet Operations is a total overhaul of Armada 2, and it does feature big, tanky ships with all the joy and all the problems described above. Tactical Maneuvers is, in turn, a balance overhaul of Fleet Operations which aims to keep that sweet enjoyment without the sudden death.
Enter the Vinculum. A Vinculum is the core of a Borg ship, and takes up a fraction of that ship's cost. Each ship requires one Vinculum, but if the ship dies the Vinculum can be reused in a new ship. As a result, they are cheaper to build the second time and the strength of the Borg fleet can be matched by its cost.
Soon.
A single Borg cube costs around 4000 Dilithium to build...the first time. But with almost 2000 of that in the Vinculum, if the ship dies it costs only around 2000 Dilithium to build a second time. Or, you could reuse its Large Vinculum to build a Tactical Cube, getting a sort of discount on the game's most powerful unit.
Of course you would always prefer for the ship to survive in the first place, and maybe it will. But this way, games can continue even after the loss of several massive Borg vessels, as your enemies face a neverending boss rush of all their favorite Borg threats from the shows.
Version 4.3.1 of Tactical Maneuvers brings the Borg faction very close to its final state. The Borg special station has finally been added: at the end of the tech tree, the Transwarp Matrix allows them to call in their ships as warp-ins rather than building them. Ships called in this way cost full price and drain the station's energy, so the effect isn't infinite, but it is still very powerful.
With the Transwarp Matrix the Borg can call in new ships, or replacements for destroyed ships, straight to the location of their fleet. With a strong economy, a lost Cube can be replaced by a brand new Cube, warping straight to terrorize those who defeated its precursor. This endgame station provides the final piece in the Borg fleet's ability to fight repeated, large-scale battles and remain combat effective.
This version does not yet feature the AI building and using the station, as some time is still needed for it to assimilate the technology. Once the programming is complete (and then, lots of balance testing), you can expect to see all sorts of nasty surprises when facing the Borg AI collective.
Star Trek Armada 2 is available at GOG.com or on a very old CD/ISO
Fleet Operations can be found at fleetops.net or here: moddb link. There is an extra step or two to install it using the GOG version of A2, but you can find instructions on the forums or on the Fleet Operations Discord
Tactical Maneuvers is available here on moddb and requires Fleet Operations
And finally, Fleetops Remastered is a graphical update by a fellow modder named Drayzon. It is compatible with both Fleet Ops and Tactical Maneuvers and may be easier to set up for people on newer systems. I recommend trying it first; it can be found on Google Drive here.
