Dysonsphere OP ally?

[Shrugging Khan]

@Proposal: No. That'd just be a friendly devourer golem of sorts. HAS NO APPROVAL.

@Bugging: Yes. Is it really that bad, even on higher difficulties?

[BobTheJanitor]

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

Educate thyself! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere

Dyson spheres are a really cool, theoretically possible, incredibly massive construction. They would effectively capture all, or almost all of the energy output of a star. The only real way to do that is to entirely surround the star. Of course, you have to have some amazing ability to store and utilize that energy output. The idea is to have as much energy grabbing surface area as possible exposed to the energy output from the star, and then using that energy to do whatever your highly advanced civilization needs to to do. If you trace it back, all the energy on Earth originated with our sun. So we do the same thing, just that our efficiency is terrible. Most of our energy first came from the sun, then to plants, then was eaten by various giant lizards who died eons ago and were squished over time into oil so we could come around later and quibble over it. Anyway, Dyson spheres, very cool.

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

Oh sure, I don't think the balance is right. I just want any fixes to still make it useful. It's an optional minor faction after all. If it was balanced in any way that makes the risk not worth the reward, people will just turn it off.

[Philo]

@Bugging: Yes. Is it really that bad, even on higher difficulties?

Well, tbh I haven't played this game THAT much yet. Just gotten into it. But we have a 8 and a 7 AI against the two of us. So, yeah I guess it's quite bad. It's almost game breaking imo cause you used to need to estimate how much fleet you leave back to defend but with the Dyson Spher spawning endless gatlings, all my planets have at least 30 Gatlings hovering around. Which will always buy me enough time to get my fleet back from offence in place to defend.

We haven't lost a planet after allying with the Dyson Sphere, we lost many before that's what I'm saying. It's pretty much I feel the AI can't touch me now which is  not what I feel ever in this game, no matter how much fleet I've had.

[BobTheJanitor]

I'm playing in a 7/7 Fallen Spire campaign with a friendly sphere, and I bet I could pull my entire fleet back to behind my home planet and the exo-waves wouldn't even be able to scratch the paint on my home command station. Of course, I've expanded pretty far and it's an X map, so we're talking about 8 or 9 jumps they'd have to make through worlds full of gatlings. I'd lose a few outer command stations, but my homeworld would be safe. So yeah, they're pretty strong. I'll try and remember to grab a screenshot tonight of the galaxy view with the show allies filter on to give a good idea of how crazy their numbers can get.

[Ozymandiaz]

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.

I always pictured it as a representation, that it really was far away around the sun, thus it seems small. The illusion fades once you send ships to it of course.

I got a DS in my current game, its not helping le at all even after I freed it. The dysons just die to its neigbouring planets. I however got a bunch of zombie bots patrolling my planets thanks to a bot net golem (awesome wave defence that one). The zombies like the resistance fighters never leave the core planets I got, and makes defence easier of course. Thats ok, to a degree. But 200 dyspns on a plant? It does seem a bit mucj

Perhap make them go on offence a lot more (same for zombies)

[TechSY730]

Let me go ahead and shamelessly bring your attention to my suggestion (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2719). IMO, this should nicely balance their defensive behavior but still letting them help your attacks.

Combine this with a moderate nerf to the allied Dyson gattling's spawn rate, and certainly a hard cap on the number of any one type (to prevent absurd situations like 1700 of them patrolling) from happening.

[Panopticon]

How about an increase to the regular AI progress as long as the player is allied to Sphere? It would make sense from an in-game perspective. I'd think the AIs would certainly find an alliance between the remaining humans and a Megastructure of awesome power like the Sphere alarming. As the AI progress goes up, this would increase difficulty in a natural manner, while avoiding any potentially messy rebalancing of the Dyson Gatlings or the like. So now players have a choice, a powerful ally with massive defensive potential for sure, but at the risk of bringing the AI wrath-hammer down that much faster, that much more often and creating tougher situations overall.

Furthermore, this could receive the same treatment as Golems did and the Spirecraft. For those who want the Sphere to remain as it is in-game, you could have an Easy Dyson Sphere option. Medium Dyson Sphere would include the AI regular increase to AI progress every half hour. For the hard option either more AI progress increase or keep it the same and something fun, like an Exogalactic Strikeforce to make those Gatlings really earn their keep.

[Shrugging Khan]

AGAINST AI PROGRESS. DO NOT DO.

I'd rather just have them as a defensive force.

[TechSY730]

Agreed. AIP increase on ally would be a very bad idea unless there was some way introduced to make it nuetral again.

[BobTheJanitor]

AIP increase is bad. You have to remember that the sphere might spawn on a world that you need to take, with an ARS or factory or suchlike. If not, it might spawn at least on a planet that you can't route your expansion around, like a major choke point world. So even if you don't take it, you'll still have to deal with angry gatlings spawning against you for the rest of the game. Neither sounds like fun to me, so it would stay turned off.

[Panopticon]

I can see your points against it, and I agree. I'd be one of the people using my suggested Easy Dyson Sphere setting because frankly, I like them as they are. Why do you think I thought of that caveat in the first place?  

I'm just trying to come up for options for the masochists around here who seem to think they are too good.

[Philo]

I think the AI progress increase is probably the best idea for rebalancing them yet. It makes sense too, the AI is more aggressive the more players or "friends" you have anyways, so it would make sense that if you were friends with tha Dyson AI progress would go up. I'd be happy with it  

[TechSY730]

I think the AI progress increase is probably the best idea for rebalancing them yet. I'd be happy with it 

A one time increase on freeing it would be fine. An over time increase would be very bad idea IMO, but could work if there was some new way to make it neutral or passive even after you freed it, otherwise you would doom yourself to a perpetual increase, and thus be a questionable investment (for most players, questionable on the side of leaving the Dyson off)

[Philo]

Well imo, there should be some incentive for leaving it off, or letting it just be. For almost invincible defence what price wouldn't you pay?

Another easy way to rebalance it would be to put a hard cap, say 100 Dyson gatlings as the limit? That way it would help a lot especially if you found it early on and have just a few planets but it wouldn't be completely OP.

[BobTheJanitor]

A cap might not be too bad. I might like it better if they got an alteration in their behavior that made them more likely to follow large concentrations of friendly firepower around, or the suggestion for them to follow you when you go attack an AI world. It would at least help with the massive lag that you can get in a late game when you found a sphere early and it's been spawning gatlings for the last 15 hours...