When does the Dyson start spawning ships?

[contingencyplan]

In my current game (Dyson Sphere 6, Golems Hard 3, Spirecraft Hard 3, Botnet Golem Hard 3, Fallen Spire 3, Super Hybrids 3-3), I scouted the Dyson planet a while ago, but until now I didn't actually position a scout on the system. When my scout entered, there was one Dyson ship immediately at the sphere, and all of the AI ships on the planet were asleep. With my scout there, the Dyson sphere suddenly became interested in spawning ships at the pace I expected, and these ships promptly began attacking the AI ships in the system.

Is this Heisenberg-esque behavior normal? At what point does the Dyson sphere actually begin spawning ships?

The Dyson planet is 3 hops away from my current planet, if that makes a difference. I can post saves as desired, as well.

[Bossman]

It only spawns gatlings when the player has sight on that planet. If it didn't, the Dyson sphere would send a constant stream of gatlings to clean the surrounding planets before the player could even reach the sphere's planet to free it.

You can use this behavior to your advantage: put a scout on the world so the sphere spawns one or two gatlings, then remove the scout. Wait five minutes and the gatlings will clear the planet of units before dying to self-attrition. Then rush some Heavy Bomber Starships in to kill the Command Station. Voila, one freed Dyson sphere without having to deal with those tough enemy to all gatlings.

[contingencyplan]

Ah, okay, that makes sense. Thanks!

Unless somebody else has something to add, would anybody be opposed to changing this to a "Mechanics questions that don't deserve their own thread" thread? Or should we just let this one pass quietly into the night?

[KDR_11k]

The ally gatlings will attack the enemy to all gatlings too.

[Mánagarmr]

The ally gatlings will attack the enemy to all gatlings too.

True, but the enemy gatlings would nom the attacking force attempting to free them

[ZaneWolfe]

I find that if the Dyson sphere is deep enough into AI territory that I wont be getting a fleet in there to free it soon and/or I don't want to send in my raiders just to kill the command station because it would alert some MKIV or higher worlds, I just leave the scout on the planet and let it spawn gatlings all the time. While Enemy to All gatlings are nasty to deal with, they first have to kill all the active AI ships on their way to me, and tend to do far more damage to the AI than they do to me overall. In the end, especially on the Maze style maps I enjoy, the gatlings will do a great deal of my work for me with little cost on my part other than a scout. By the time they have carved a path to my worlds, they have cleared out most of the freed threat along the way, as well as the Tachyon Guardians as well. This makes it easier to scout deeper into AI territory, and before they could be a major threat to me they have to get through my main fleet or my defensive choke-points, if not both. All in all, even before I free the Dyson Sphere and make it friendly, its still helping me out as long as I keep that one scout watching it.

[Bognor]

It only spawns gatlings when the player has sight on that planet.

Apparently it requires you to actually have a ship there, as if you play with no fog of war, the Dyson Sphere doesn't immediately start pumping out Gatlings.

[Diazo]

It's actually a CPU cycle savings mechanic, only worlds that the player has ships on get their full CPU cycles, worlds you don't 'see' or have ships on have a reduced CPU usage (or no CPU usage) to prevent CPUs from melting even more then they do.

Normally this is not noticed but there are a few borderline cases, such as the Dyson sphere, where this results in odd behavior.

D.

[Winge]

It's actually a CPU cycle savings mechanic, only worlds that the player has ships on get their full CPU cycles, worlds you don't 'see' or have ships on have a reduced CPU usage (or no CPU usage) to prevent CPUs from melting even more then they do.

Normally this is not noticed but there are a few borderline cases, such as the Dyson sphere, where this results in odd behavior.

D.

Maybe it should be changed to work from when it is first scouted?  Just a thought.

[Hearteater]

I believe it is intended to give you a way to control the Dyson Sphere.  First scouted would making scouting potentially lose you the game.

[contingencyplan]

I'll go ahead and ask this here, since it's somewhat related. A Spire Civ Leader is also located on the same planet as the Dyson. It says that it's captured on planet ownership change, but when I destroyed the command post on the planet (mid-construction), the CL is now listed in the AI's color again. As a side note, the civ leader did decrease the AIP during this construction phase.


Does the capture only work if I have a command center on the planet, or will it continue dropping the AIP even after I've destroyed the command center?

[Diazo]

Spire Civilian Leaders will increase AIP while the AI Command Station is present and decrease AIP once the AI Command center has been destroyed.

The presence (or lack of) a Human Command station does not affect the AIP reduction.

What the presence of the Human Command Station will do is Capture the Civilian Leader and so make it vulnerable to the AI destroying it and the associated AIP increase for it's destruction.

(Er, does it have one for being destroyed? I can't remember.)

So right now, if there is no command station or a human command station present, the civilian leader gives the same amount of AIP reduction.

D.

[contingencyplan]

Spire Civilian Leaders will increase AIP while the AI Command Station is present and decrease AIP once the AI Command center has been destroyed.

The presence (or lack of) a Human Command station does not affect the AIP reduction.

What the presence of the Human Command Station will do is Capture the Civilian Leader and so make it vulnerable to the AI destroying it and the associated AIP increase for it's destruction.

(Er, does it have one for being destroyed? I can't remember.)

So right now, if there is no command station or a human command station present, the civilian leader gives the same amount of AIP reduction.

D.

Gotcha. I went back and let the command-station finish construction this time, which actually transferred control (along with AIP := AIP - 3). I think the previous decrease (which is what confused me to begin with) was due to the non-owned CL AIP increase step; because one of the CLs wasn't owned by the AI, it decreased the AIP instead of increasing it.


Which brings up an interesting question: if I leave it as unowned / owned by the AI but with no AI command-center present, would it continue decreasing the AIP without being targeted by the AI? A bit of cheese, but as fragile as these things are, I wouldn't be opposed... I'll reload the latest auto and let y'all know.

[Hearteater]

Yes.  That's currently the best way to use SCL.  Without that technic, SCL is bascially an entirely negative faction unless you are planning something like capturing all systems.

[contingencyplan]

Yes.  That's currently the best way to use SCL.  Without that technic, SCL is bascially an entirely negative faction unless you are planning something like capturing all systems.

Yeah, I tend to think of them as an automated AIP increase that I can at least do something about (versus how I originally thought of them when I first tried them - oh cool a way to bring down the AIP some!  [size=78%]).[/size]


As another side note regarding the Dyson: the gatlings that have been spawned seem to only patrol my planets; they don't ever venture into enemy territory. Is this intentional? I think this --- i.e., allied factions never going on offense --- has been complained about before, but I don't recall the resolution.