Saw zombie ships right at the start of the game --- where do they come from?

[Martyn van Buren]

I'm kinda curious; I started a map, and right on the first or second world I attacked I found a few hostile zombie ships.  I don't remembering seeing anything that I know can create them --- mainly triangle ships and then a few sentinel frigates, snipers, and teleport stations --- so is there any way the AI could be producing them in his territory?  Actually, now I think of it, I can't think of anything that makes zombies besides botnet golems, so I think most likely I'm forgetting.  I was up against some pretty basic AIs, Starfleet Commander and Vanilla, with golems and spirecraft on medium, so it oughtn't to have been from those.

[x4000]

Was there an ai eye? Those produce zombies so that players cant farm them with leeches. A few other things like that, such as the ai's reaction to a mark III science lab on their planet, or a superterminal, also produce zombies. But I presumed it wasn't one of those.

[Martyn van Buren]

Not on a world I attacked --- but that raises a second question, actually --- do world count as alerted while they're firing at a declocked scout?  How about scout starships?  I sent a big clump of them in to look across a MkIV world and was surprised to see the homeworld behind it on alert for a short while (I am still playing small maps, hence finding a homeworld in the first twenty minutes).

[x4000]

I believe that starships of any sort automatically alert the planets they are on and adjacent to -- scout starships are still included in this perhaps, though they should not be.  Regular scouts shouldn't be alerting anything.

If you attacked a world next to another world, it's also possible that you alerted something then; but nothing I can think of would create zombies in that specific instance.

[zoutzakje]

perhaps a zombie guardian that killed some of your ships and you didn't notice? happens to me quite often

[Martyn van Buren]

Oh!  That is very plausible; I didn't realize there were zombie guardians.  And I only saw three or four zombie ships, which would fit with that a lot better than an AI Eye.  Thanks, that almost certainly answers that.

[x4000]

Oh, good!  That would definitely explain it -- great idea zoutzakje!

[zoutzakje]

thx ^^ glad I could help =)

Martyn, you might want to make it a habit of checking all enemy ships and structures before you attack. If you see something you don't know, read the description. In the past I often used to go on the assault without checking enemy ships... I lost count of how many AI eyes and Raid engines I accidentally triggered lol. Also keep in mind that some guardians only appear on higher difficulties. And trust me, you do not want to get surprised by an EMP guardian... a certain incident with one of those still gives me nightmares.