Dysonsphere OP ally?

[Mando]

I'm playing a fallen spire campaign 7.3/7.3 started before the end of the Beta period (but not that long). And a friend dyson sphere has basicly covered my planets with dyson spawn.  1700 of them to be exact (see screen shot for distribution).


Is it supposed to do that?

Mando

[Invelios]

There was a change to make them no longer self-damage on non-AI planets, but now they just patrol Human planets and build up since the sphere keeps spawning more. I don't have a problem with the new no-self damage trait, but they should go into AI worlds sometime. It would be pretty cool if they would follow you to help when you went to attack an AI world. As they are right now, they really build up over time. Especially if the sphere spawns near your home base, because they are building up pretty much the rest of the game.

[Lancefighter]

please refrain from telling people how OP dyson spheres are.


This has been a public service announcement from the Lord of Dysons.

[Zeyurn]

In our current game, 80% of our planets have 40 or more dyson gatlings on them.  Since we have too many contiguous planets and 600 AIP, they can't really fight off waves by themselves, but they're pretty OP anyway and great help on the counterattack guard posts or if a few things slip through our main planets.

I'm pretty much completely sure this can't be what Chris and Keith are intending.

[Irxallis]

In our new game Dyson Sphere is located quite close to the homeworlds (5 hops).
After taking the planets which were interesting for us we had Dyson planet at 3 hops away.

It was completely worth it to fire two counterattack guard posts just to border the Dyson planet; our current defense paradigm (~200 AIP, 3h into the game, ~8~10 planets total) is military station mk3 with several sniper turrets, ~4 tractor turrets at warps, no gate raiding and a single forcefield over military station (very different to our previous strategy). At the moment the above is sufficient to wait until Dyson Gatlings start pouring into the attacked system and massacre hapless invaders without losing the command station (exception: things like 500 bombers wave).

We can fully use both fleets on offense, the above is sufficient for defense for now (diff 7/7). I don't know if it is as intended; we don't mind it (as we don't have many planets yet and we made a decision to get to Dyson planet as soon as possible), but maybe there should be a cap on gatlings or gatlings should also attack the worlds bordering our planets if more experienced players see this as a problem?

Side note: does Dyson Gatling fire a Raid Engine when it appears on a planet next to one? We got one unexpected Raid Engine fired and neither me nor my wife recall sending any ships into systems protected by one.

[Ozymandiaz]

I can see how it might be OP in a X map type, since the X map types are bascially just a bunch of choke points. But i never seen it as OP at all on my realisitc map types. (and it seem OP ha a kind of game going on that I never play, 588 AIP and so many planets is taboo for me ;P)

More often then not its far away form me and its not always realistic to free it, but if I do it is of help on thoose close by planets, but seldom anything more. But it should really send its units to the AI and not stock them up (as much at least) on friendly planets. If it this more often it would be good, then you would have the occational dysons here and tehre, but not 100s of the at one point.

There was one game where I had a MK IV Factory on the Dyson world tho. That was nifty protection for an important asset, and very lucky

All in all I dunno about it being OP, I think the dysons themself are fine, but the behaviour with stocking up units on frindly worlds might not be good (even tho its very handy ).

[Philo]

I thinki it is pretty OP too for the player. Me and my friend have like 15 planets and all of them have about 30 Dyson gatlings so I don't have to build turrets or nothing for my inner planets at all. I can pretty much just use everything I have for an attack fleet all the time.

I think there should be a 50/50 chance of the dyson sphere still remaining neutral even after you've destroyed the AI on the planet. At least that way there would be some risk involved since right now it's just a win/win situation for the player.

OR, have the gatlings attack AI planets and make a small overall limit for them, like 20 so they would be a disturbance for the AI with which to sneak your own troops to the planet but they wouldn't kill off AI planets all by themselves.

OR, maybe the Dyson gatlings would really be a great force but only attack planets 1 hop away from them. This combined with the 50/50 chance of the Dyson remaining neutral after killing the AI on the planet I think the risk/reward would be pretty nice for the player. Since they might just as well kill of your planet right next to them.

[BobTheJanitor]

I do see the problem with these, but making them only patrol to the planet next door would make it kind of pointless. The risk/reward is that if you wake it up before you're ready to deal with it, it's going to spawn lots of gatlings that are hostile to everything, and they will start chewing their way out through the AI worlds and into your worlds. Just a few of these guys can really wreck your defenses in the early game. That said, I did manage to befriend one in a recent game with only about 3 planets to my name at the time, so it is possible if you blitz the command station on the dyson planet early and then pull back everything you have to defend your home command station. (I lost every other world, but still) That risk paid off in a huge reward, because I now have between 50-200 gatlings on every single planet (X map and fallen spire, so skipping worlds is kind of pointless). If nothing else, I would love to see their numbers decreased. If their power should stay the same you could increase their power and hp proportionally to their number decrease, but they are really slowing down the game when I have to move in a big fleet to a planet that they're also patrolling.

I'd just hate to see the sphere turned into a pointless part of the game that no one uses, and I think having it only visit next door worlds would do that. Even in a small 40 planet map that will quickly become irrelevant. Giving it a chance to remain neutral would also make it unusable. Those gatlings are TOUGH. If you didn't have a way to make them friendly, you might as well end your game right there. Once you wake it up they'll just be plowing into your worlds and eating your resources for the next 5-10-15 hours. There's nothing fun about that!

[Entrenched Homperson]

I love em, in a current game they are really helpin out.

One small thing, tell them to shut the **** up when they go through a wormhole.    As bad as Human Resistance Fighters!

[BobTheJanitor]

I love em, in a current game they are really helpin out.

One small thing, tell them to shut the **** up when they go through a wormhole.    As bad as Human Resistance Fighters!

This should be fixed in beta 5.002.

[Philo]

It's not really hard at all to destroy the AI base in the Dyson planet since the Dyson is already attacking the AI there. Just send bombers to take care of the command station and you're done.

So it's really a no brainer, there is no risk at destroying the AI base. There however is a risk at letting the Dyson just spawn more neutral dudes.

I think there should be somekind of a choice there, not just "Hey, there's a Dyson sphere, looks like I'm secured for the future defences".

Maybe an ongoing cost for it? Or maybe it changes places every hour or so? Something to make you really think about the alternative of maybe just letting it be.

I mean, the whole game is choices from the getgo from what to use your early science to how much you spend on defenses etc. and the Dyson sphere is really just not a choice. There's no downside to allying with it.

I really like the bastard you know, but it's just overpowered imo for the moment.
--
Maybe get rid of the Gatlings and have Dyson wander around your planets? If it by chance happened to be in a planet where the AI is attacking it would be a huge boost to your defence there. I mean, this way you'd at least have to have people defending your planets cause you can't just rely the Dyson to be there for you when you need it.

[Arcain_One]

The biggest problem, it seems, is that the Gatling prefer a friendly planet as opposed to a non-friendly planet, thus they just spin around our planets (I don't even see them reenter their own planet). Practically, I would rather the Gatlings to be a constant thorn in the AI's side.

Side note: when the Gatlings don't have an ally planet to enter they attack the AI planets (as expected) and conveniently dispose of the Tachyon Guardians that they encounter. I believe this would be over powered if they can accomplish this past one hop (and they probably will).

[Shrugging Khan]

Hoh. I'd much rather have them be a constant patrol.

Attacks being too easy is one of my main problems, lately. Defence being to bothersome is another. Defensive Gatlings would nicely resolve that, if only I found some since the patch.

[BobTheJanitor]

Maybe get rid of the Gatlings and have Dyson wander around your planets? If it by chance happened to be in a planet where the AI is attacking it would be a huge boost to your defence there. I mean, this way you'd at least have to have people defending your planets cause you can't just rely the Dyson to be there for you when you need it.

Aesthetically, that would bug me. I'm already stretching my disbelief to accept a dyson sphere that is somehow small enough to be in orbit around a planet. What's it built around, a neutron star? The idea of it just traipsing off under its own power while apparently hauling the star around with it... yeah my head would probably explode.

[Philo]

Aesthetically, that would bug me. I'm already stretching my disbelief to accept a dyson sphere that is somehow small enough to be in orbit around a planet. What's it built around, a neutron star? The idea of it just traipsing off under its own power while apparently hauling the star around with it... yeah my head would probably explode.

K, didn't know that I just thought it was a golem

Still, does it not bug you that the player basically gets almost impenetrable defence after an hour once they've befriended a Dyson Sphere?