Botnet Golem - Question about Zombiez

[zebramatt]

I'd have failed my high AIP Fallen Spire campaign a long time ago if not for an early Dyson planet!

[Vinraith]

Eh he he he he

And I've never seen Gatlings do much, to be honest. Sure, they keep the surrounding systems clean up to two or three hops out...but unless your Dyson placement is *very* lucky, or your map is very small, I don't see it making much of a difference. Well...never made one for me.

It's a 100 star map but the dyson homeworld was reasonably close. I'll let this screenshot speak for itself, this is my homeworld mind you:

[Shrugging Khan]

I'm not sure I've ever seen the Dyson Sphere even spawn 200 gatlings at once.

[zebramatt]

Here, you'll enjoy this:

[Vinraith]

I'm not sure I've ever seen the Dyson Sphere even spawn 200 gatlings at once.

200's nothing, there's traffic just like that on three or four of my other core worlds as well.

I'm honestly not sure what the AI could do that would actually pose a threat in the face of that.

[Sir t]

Which is why I suppose there should be a cap on the number of gatlings *quiet sobbing for my friend the sphere*

[Red Spot]

I'm honestly not sure what the AI could do that would actually pose a threat in the face of that.

The AI doesnt have to pose a threat to the gatlings. It just has to raid-rush your CC, before the gatlings responds the CC has been destroyed.
After which there will be quite a few less gatlings patroling ... 

Doesnt take away it needs some loving though.

[zoutzakje]

I always enjoy abusing the dyson sphere, but I suppose it's wrong and making defense to easy at some points.... I even always make sure most of my worlds are connected to eachother so I can abuse the dyson when I find it lol. This + all the zombies from a botnet golem even prevents enemy ships from rushing to my command station and killing it, as the zombie ships start piling up at the command station when they're in huge numbers (over 5000 zombies in my current and almost finished game).
If this gets changed at some point, I won't download that new beta just yet... I still enjoy abusing it lol

[Shrugging Khan]

Thinking about it...how about this?

Zombies: Mindlessly aggressive; travel randomly through wormholes
Gatlings: Come from a position of superiority (the godlike Dyson Sphere that really doesn't need to be careful); they don't need to stay in friendly territory

Resistance: Are few and careful; they stay behind and form a defensive patrol, only passing through friendly wormholes, and attacking

[TechSY730]

Thinking about it...how about this?

Zombies: Mindlessly aggressive; travel randomly through wormholes
Gatlings: Come from a position of superiority (the godlike Dyson Sphere that really doesn't need to be careful); they don't need to stay in friendly territory

Resistance: Are few and careful; they stay behind and form a defensive patrol, only passing through friendly wormholes, and attacking

How do you stop Gatlings from doing more harm then good? I have had situation where minor factions had popped guard posts but for whatever reason did not kill all the ships guarding it, thus leading to situation where large numbers of high Mk. lvl ships were streaming into my planets, due to poor decisions made by something completely out of my control. This very issue is one of the big factors that lead to their current "enemy planet avoiding" behavior in the first place.

With zombies, that is less of an issue. You are straight up told by ships that can zombify that zombies are mindlessly aggressive, and as such, you should consider them doing stupid things and putting you in a bad position because of it as part of the risk.

[Shrugging Khan]

Well...I just don't think the Gatling would care as much about protecting the humans as it would think about killing the AI.

[zoutzakje]

Well...I just don't think the Gatling would care as much about protecting the humans as it would think about killing the AI.

and normally they don't. Until you kill the AI command station at the planet on which the dyson sphere resides, and then the dyson sphere sees humanity has potential.... or something like that

[Red Spot]

I'd let gatlings group up at the sphere, in random groups 6-12 in size.
Than set them out to randomly patrol worlds, with a small preference towards enemy gates .. as a group. Let them patrol there without further control(no direct attack orders, just patrol). Give them an other 'gate-move' command after a few minutes .. etc. Let them patrol the universe, they just happen to not attack you. Mr Sphere doesnt like you, he just doesnt shoot you on sight.

Zombies I'd sort of like it if they just go wonkers, but again with a preference towards enemy gates. Cant help think of actual zombies when talking about zombie-ships and dont recall ever seeing any zombies running away from things .. in general.

Resistance? Can they actual go out and patrol? On your side? So far I only ever had them attack me, and usually got shot up not soon after ...  

[TechSY730]

Well...I just don't think the Gatling would care as much about protecting the humans as it would think about killing the AI.

Then you are saying that this possibility of the Gattlings unintentionally putting you in a very bad situation is an acceptable part of the risk? Considering that there is at most only one Dyson sphere per game, and you have to explicitly choose to free it, that doesn't seem unreasonable. But maybe a warning in a tool-tip (either for the minor faction description or on the Dyson sphere itself) about how they can start freeing stuff haphazardly (by killing guard posts) may be in order.

Or maybe just not allow Dyson gattlings to target guard posts. That seems like a simple solution. There are already provisions in place to stop the AI from freeing stuff due to minor faction intervention, so long as what a ship is guarding stays alive. If they cannot target guard posts, then Dyson gattlings can wander throughout the galaxy all they want and you don't have to worry about them accidentally sending stuff your way.

Human resistance ships need to either get this same targeting restriction or be disallowed from entering enemy planets without a human player doing so first (if they spawned on an enemy planet, you were attacking it anyways, so no harm there). Human resistance ships spawn too frequently on factors not entirely under your control for the risk of unintentional freeing to be introduced.

Again, less of a deal with zombies; you were warned about their mindless over-aggressive behavior.  

[Shrugging Khan]

I'd actually allow them to target the posts.

The deal with the Dyson ought to be this: The AI kept in check. The DS hates the AI for this. You can free the DS, and it will consider you its enemy's enemy, but not actually a friend - it will attack whatever it can get its gatlings on (excluding valuable / AIP-intensive structures), and if the AI suddenly has a lot of loose ships on its hands, then that's as a consequence to your actions. If you can't take the risk, then don't mess with the Sphere's containment.