Nomad Spoilers continue:
So I toned down the difficulty a bit, to try the Nomad event sequence. First: Boom! Problem solved, indeed. Slightly disappointed there isn't a popup image or cutscene or a disconnected dead star... I was hoping to be able to gloat over the rubble. But obliterating it so thoroughly that not even the wormholes remain is not bad. Would it be possible to remove all the wormhole links but leave the star visible on the Galaxy map - maybe with a Black Hole or Supernova icon - and a "Destroyed Planet" label.
Second, because I'm that sort of person, as soon as the Journal told me not to split the graph, I had to try it. First time I did it, it was bugged. The journal specifically says something like "Not including the Nomad's transient wormholes", and yet I was able to split a Snake map without problem, because the Nomads connected the two pieces. The other Nomads also kept 'connecting' to the missing HW, which led to some odd maps. I could Ctrl-click the wormholes to go to the missing HW, and then to the missing Nomad as well. I also discovered that if two Nomads get close enough during the same movement tick, they'll both be destroyed.
When I tried again with only 1 Nomad planet, I got the intended result - a Nuke III. But it didn't kill that AI! I mean, a Nuke III backlash that killed the AI might be worth it, but one that is nothing but an AIP-free Nuke III is just plain suicide.
I understand this is a "Don't do that, silly!' sort of thing to prevent all the problems that would result from graph breaking, but I feel that if you're going to lose everything you have, you could at least take out that one AI.
I also had an accident - I was moving the Beacon from Nomad 1 to the AI HW, and it was passing through an AI system when the Nomad movement tick occurred - and there happened to be a Nomad planet close enough at that moment. Boom! Oops.
Then there's the actual usage of the beacon. On diff 7, 100 AIP, on a normal AI world, I was getting 2 exo spawns of 2500 budget = 200 strength every minute. On the AI Homeworld, I was getting 2 exo spawns of 10,000 budget = 1250 strength every 10 seconds. On my screen, a Nomad moving 1 inch (roughly the normal distance between linked stars) took between 7 and 8 minutes (420 to 480 seconds). That means that if there was already a Nomad planet fairly close to the AI HW, you would still need to defend 40-50 exowaves on a planet that still has the Core Guardposts and Strategic Reserves. If you have that much strength, then conquering the HW straight up would be much simpler.
The one strategy I can see that might be workable is to stick the Beacon on a Core World until a Nomad got close to the HW, then cross the wormhole and hope to survive those last few minutes.
I would suggest instead that the Beacon have a "deploy" button or the like that will put it into "Summon Nomad" mode. In this mode, the Nomads will all move much faster, such as every 10 seconds rather than every 40, or move several times as far per move. Maybe this bonus should only apply to Nomads that are connected to the Beacon's current system with a wormhole. But some way to prevent the need to sit there forever defending against a crazy high number of exowaves. Because right now, I don't think the Beacon is usable against the AI HW in 99.99% of games. Easily usable against non-HW systems, though.
In fact, I wish there were "Lesser Beacons" on the other Nomads for offing non-HW systems... but that'd be rather too powerful, yes indeed. But oh-so-fun.
I'd also like to take a moment to renew an old request for the ability to shift-click-drag stars on the Lobby Galaxy Map. With Nomads, having a convenient base layout matters a little more.