Enhanced Star Swarm
v2.6 adds an additional option for Star Swarm. This is a separate checkbox called ‘Enhanced Star Swarm’ and will only function when the normal ‘Star Swarm’ option is active.
When Enhanced Star Swarm is active, the initial chance to encounter the swarm in a newly-generated qualifying system (suitable mineral source) is reduced from 1 in 30 to 1 in 50.
This first encounter will be the only one that occurs ‘normally’ via exploration, as it is just the start of a Swarm Invasion. After that point, there is a 30% chance per year that new Swarms will be generated. As this is done per 5-day increment, there could be multiple swarms in the same year, or none for several years.
If a new Swarm is generated in a real stars game, it will arrive in proximity to the original invasion system in real 3D space. This is not necessarily close in terms of transits, but due to the way connections work, it should be in the general area. The arrival system is checked by arranging all known system locations (including those that have not been generated) in order of real space distance from the original invasion site and checking each one in turn with a 20% chance of selection.
If this is a random stars game (which does not have real space coordinates), the normal system number selection process will be followed, using the invasion as a start point and using the local chance and local spread settings to generate a ‘destination’ system. This could be an existing system, or an unused system number.
If an unused known stars location or unused system number is generated, the associated system will be generated and the new Swarm placed within it. This will be completely invisible to the player and any NPRs as they will have no knowledge of the system until they discover it (or something emerging from it discovers them). If this is an existing system, the Swarm will be placed in deep space, around twice the distance of the outer survey location ring. This could be an NPR system or player system.
The new Swarm will be generated in the normal way and may have different designs and technology to the original swarm. Later arrivals will generally have better technology. When a new “Invasion Swarm” is generated, there is a 20% chance the invasion will end and no further Swarms will be generated in the game.