Dyson Sphere and sundries

[BadgerBadger]

I have always really like the Dyson Sphere, and its mirror image the Antagonized Dyson Sphere. I'm adding support for Dyson Antagonizers so that the Dyson Sphere will be able to turn against you.

At the moment the Dyson Sphere works approximately like the AIWC Dyson Sphere did, and at the moment I'm coding the Antagonized version to be basically the same as the AIWC Antagonized Dyson.
As a reminder, the Dyson Sphere produces ships constantly at varying rates (they produce relatively few ships while the Dyson hates everyone, ships slightly faster when they like the player, ships much more quickly when they are trying to chase the player off the planet). Also sometimes the Dyson Sphere will do a Big Spawn where it creates a couple ships at once.  Different ships are unlocked for the Dyson Sphere depending on the intensity of the faction.
The Antagonized Dyson Sphere will take its ships and send them toward the player's Home Command Station one planet at a time. The Antagonized ships will fight previously spawned friendly Dyson Sphere ships, and will actually stop to crush your defenses for each planet they attack.

This is solid and functional gameplay, but it would be cool to have them do "something else". Do people have any fun ideas of what else the Dyson Sphere (or the antagonized version) could do? It would have to fit in the general Dyson Sphere flavour (enigmatic, doesn't like anyone else on its planet, not particularly cooperative). Perhaps instead of a steady stream of antagonized ships, it should "save up" a bunch of ships, then release them en masse to help break your defenses? I don't want to change it too much though; the Dyson is a simple, solid piece of design.

[zeusalmighty]

Given that they Dyson Sphere presumes a tremendous undertaking of utilizing the energy of a star, it might be interesting for this faction, be it the Dyson or the antagonized version, to occasionally attempt to capture a neutral planet

I'm imagining a "Return of the Jedi" half-completed death star (in this case, half-completed Dyson sphere or ring-world)

This wouldn't be invulnerable like a Dyson sphere so it can be destroyed by other factions. But it would provide a bonus to production, potentially allowing them to produce more than normal limits would allow.

So in addition to the behavior of Dyson to send units to attack planets, they occasionally turtle up and begin construction

[BadgerBadger]

This would not be too hard for me to implement, but I'm not sure it really fits the lore of the faction. At the moment the Dark Spire does do what you describe in expanding to nearby undefended planets, as do the Marauders. ANd right now if you want more Dysons you can enable more in the game lobby.

That said, it's Chris/Keith's call if they think it would be a good idea.

That said, if an enterprising modder who isn't me wants to try putting this in and see if it's fun, by all means do so. The Dyson Faction is coded to work with multiple Dyson Spheres, so it should be straightforward.

[zeusalmighty]

Don't fix what's not broken, the Dyson sphere is already a sweet faction and any deviations should be both mechanically and lore friendly

That being said, hearing out ideas may lead to interesting things not necessarily tied to this specific faction

[zeusalmighty]

Thought of this as I was falling asleep. Think this is mechanically and lore friendly and another dimension to how to interact with this faction

Currently there is no incentive to take over the Dyson Sphere (quite the contrary). But what if there was?

If you takeover a Dyson Sphere and hold it for a set amount of time, the player gets access to more efficient energy collectors. (For example, for each minute you hold the planet, improve efficiency by 5% to a max of 25%)

This can be tweaked however, my basic contention is that humans get a way to improve their energy storage if they hold the planet for a while

This seems lore friendly--the Dyson Sphere is the most advanced form of harnessing energy in the galaxy so it stands to reason that the humans could learn a thing or two from them. It adds another dimension to how to interact with this faction too that is appropriate to their personality

Thoughts?

[tadrinth]

Perhaps instead of a steady stream of antagonized ships, it should "save up" a bunch of ships, then release them en masse to help break your defenses?

I think switching the Dyson ships to use threat logic rather than zombie logic would accomplish this.

Also sometimes the Dyson Sphere will do a Big Spawn where it creates a couple ships at once.

Is this big enough to justify an alert in the alert box? If not, it should be.  Might make the most sense if this only happens if the Dyson is Friendly or Antagonized, and for the spawns to use Exo behavior.  Would provide an extra incentive to befriend the Dyson, if you get an occasional friendly Exo assaulting into AI territory.