Fallen Spire Shard Spawning

[Kraiz]

I'm playing my first Fallen Spire game in AI War 2.  So far, really dig it.

Though, i seem to be missing something in regards to how I get more shards. 

I found the first shard, and then scanned and found a second.  I'm playing with the Scourge, who proceeded to grab up two other shards that I couldn't get to at the time.  Now, for about the past 45 minutes, the only "clue" I get about where a shard is points me towards the AI Spire Citadel with 200+ strength, and I have a meager 90 or so at the moment.    The hack for relic option is no longer available in my Hack menu.

So... am I just going to have to topple this AI Spire Citadel in order to continue getting shards? Or Or will more shards appear throughout the galaxy and I have to hack for them once they become available?

[BadgerBadger]

Each faction should only be capable of claiming a single relic except the AI, who can claim as many as they like. So the scourge taking 2 relics sounds problematic (unless there are multiple scourge factions).

You should get a new relic seeded more frequently than 45 minutes. Is there no Notification about a relic someplace?

[Kraiz]

As it turns out, two planets in my game are spelled very close to the same.  One has the AI Spire Citadel, which is why i didn't give it a second glance.  Careless on my part

That said... what actually happens in the event that the AI/Scourge take a relic/shard?  Or is this spoiler-y material?  I've already started getting exo-war ships, which is what I assumed those shards/relics went towards creating. 

[Lord Of Nothing]

What I think you're referring to when you say the AI/scourge is debris, which is generated on explored worlds you don't own when you build a new city. The results vary somewhat - the marauders and AI factions taking debris is not really that much of a problem and has little real effect, while the macrophage taking one has a very significant one-time effect, the nanocaust taking one is something to be scared of, and the scourge taking one is a "Oh god, oh god, we're all going to die" level of severity.

For the marauders, nanocaust and scourge, it permanently unlocks new ship types for them, but the marauder ones are actually not really much nastier than their existing stuff IMHO, while the scourge spire hybrids are just death incarnate. Meanwhile, the macrophage one spawns what I would describe as a fallen spire scale version of the devourer golem - it's immensely powerful, but slow. The generic AI factions spawn a spire cruiser into the threafleet.

The AI can also take actual shards, via relic trains reaching their destination - this spawns a mk1 spire battleship (IIRC) into the threatfleet, but because it's only Mk1 it's not really that threatening.