I've noticed an odd behavior that I found when being aided by the Dyson Sphere. Mind you, the Dyson Sphere doesn't seem to be required for this, but I doubt I would have noticed this oddity if not for such. It should be noted I'm only playing on 6/6, so that may have to do with the AI's oddity here...
http://i.imgur.com/Cm8iDID.pngWhenever an attack fleet is attacked while enroute over a neutral planet, they seem to continue moving to the wormhole, then pull back to another point and regroup there. They then wait a bit before trying to proceed onwards- and when the Dyson Sphere is constantly sending their gatlings, this means that with certain fleets, I've basically been able to take my sweet time in handling them since every gatling they encounter seems to reset them. And this has happened multiple times over the course of this playthrough, so it's not a one-off thing.
On the plus side, I've been able to exploit this behavior by popping in my spire fleet, thinning their numbers, then retreating when they get too close for comfort. Rinse and repeat and I take very small losses against thousands of ships.