#4: Tylarans

The Tylarans are a medium-difficulty race with a slow rate of expansion.

1. Unique traits
2. Buildings
3. Building strategy
4. Missiles
5. Ships
6. Starting resources
7. Colonization strategy
8. Mining strategy
9. Population
10. Spying
11. Scouting
12. Tactical
13. Art inspiration

Unique traits

The Tylarans do not use missiles, and do not mine.

They do not have any specific building to produce food, air or water, and can survive without Habitat as long as their Control Centre survives. They are resistant to radiation,

As long as there is at least one Habitat, Tylarans gain 2 population per day, to a maximum of 200 per Habitat. They are resistant to radiation, losing one colonist per day if radiation is 50% or higher, but this does not prevent new population, meaning population can grow by 1 per day even with high radiation.

The Tylarans possess a technology which repels missiles to random asteroids. Since the game treats spy satellites in transit as missiles, this can even repel a spy satellite.

A unique quirk of the Tylarans is that you can fire missiles at asteroids you have not yet discovered, but which you can see via the Telescope cheat. This may be a feature added for testing purposes.

They possess a unique golden Vortex Mine ship hardpoint. Since they don’t use missiles, the missile launch sprite slot is used for the golden Vortex storm graphic.

Buildings

Each alien building has a name, a type (as it counts on a spy satellite report), Hit Points, build time (in days), a height (for the purpose of scaffold), a width (1, for one-square, or 4 for a 2x2 building), a softcap (buildings marked ! have a hard cap instead), and the building at the equivalent position in the Terran building list.

Control Centre

Colony must have at least one Control Centre or Habitat, or be destroyed.

Data Gatherer

Increases the chances of spotting Terran spy satellites. The base chance is 1% plus a cumulative 1% per day, and each Data Gatherer adds an additional chance per day, although a colony will never build more than one.

Energiser

Offensive category building. Every 60 days, all Energisers trigger, making a noise like a Static Inducer.

Fleet Factory

A shipyard. A maximum of four per colony can operate. Requires either a Power Collector or Power Generator.

Fluxxer

A power type building required to build ships.

Force Field Node

Screen Generator. Halves all building damage to covered buildings, assuming it works like the Terran equivalent. Has a soft cap of 2 per asteroid.

Habitat

Each Habitat holds up to 200 colonists. If there are no Habitats, the colony can still survive, losing one colonist per day. This fits the lore of Tylarans being at home in the cold of space. If there are no Habitat or Control Centre, the colony is destroyed.

Power Collector

A powerplant. A Power Collector or Power Generator is required to build ships.

Power Generator

Equivalent to a solar panel. A Power Collector or Power Generator is required to build ships.

Proton Launcher

An unknown “General” type building. Often built alongside a Warp Manipulator.

Rad Shield

Reduces radiation by 30%. If radiation is 50% or higher, the colony loses one colonist per day (but new colonists can still be produced, at a rate of 2/day, for a net gain of 1 colonist). Since the housing and power checks occur first, population losses to radiation are ignored if there’s a housing or power shortage.

Science Facility

Unknown.

Seismic Atomiser

An Offensive type building. Mines eight ore per day, starting with the rarest types.

Thrusters

Asteroid engines observed to allow travel at speeds of up to 8. Require at least one Power Collector or Power Generator.

Turret

A laser turret which deals 4 damage, twice as powerful as the Terran laser turret. Fires on a 6-day cooldown.

Turret

A plasma turret which deals 6 damage, 20% more powerful than the Terran plasma turret. Fires on a 6-day cooldown.

Turret

A photon turret which deals 10 damage, 20% more powerful than the Terran photon turret. Fires on a 6-day cooldown.

Warp Manipulator

Unknown Defence type building. Reacts to incoming missiles 50% of the time. This appears to be the technology which reflects incoming missiles. Often built alongside Proton Launcher.

Building strategy

The Tylarans build more slowly than any other species, with each asteroid attempting a new build every 70 days. They do not require currency or ore to build (in fact, they do not mine). When there is no particular need, they randomly build one of the following clusters of four buildings:

• 0: Proton Launcher, Warp Manipulator, Turret (Laser), Power Generator
• 1: Habitat, Power Collector, Habitat, Control Centre
• 2: Fleet Factory, Fluxxer, Power Generator, Turret (Plasma)
• 3: Thrusters, Seismic Atomiser, Turret (Photon), Power Collector
• 4: Rad Shield, Force Field Node, Turret (Photon), Turret (Plasma)
• 5: Energiser, Turret (Photon), Turret (Plasma), Power Generator
• 6: Science Facility, Turret (Laser), Data Gatherer, Habitat
• 7: Warp Manipulator, Turret (Photon), Fleet Factory, Rad Shield

Each building has a 100% chance to be placed until it reaches the cap for that building type, with a 15% chance to ignore the cap, except for Data Gatherer, Thrusters, and Control Centre, which are hard capped at 1 per colony.

The Tylarans have a more complex decision-making process when it comes to buildings than most aliens. They are slow to react to emergencies, placing build priority after 32 days instead of 16 days like most aliens.

If there are no Power Collector or Power Generator, or no Habitat, the colony sets its priority to build cluster 1: Habitat x2, Power Collector, and Control Centre. They do not appear to have a food building.

If radiation is 50% or higher, they set priority to build cluster 7: Warp Manipulator, Turret (Photon), Fleet Factory and Rad Shield.

Otherwise, unless a certain flag is set, it builds at random. If that flag is set, building priorities shift as follows:

If there is a power or housing shortage, it builds cluster 1 as normal. If there is a radiation problem, it switches to cluster 4 (Rad Shield, Force Field Node, Turret (Photon), and Turret (Plasma).

Otherwise, it builds cluster 3 (Thrusters, Seismic Atomiser, Turret (Photon), and Power Collector); unless there is already a Thrusters, then it builds cluster 4; unless there is already a Force Field Node, then it builds set 5 (Energiser, Turret (Photon), Turret (Plasma), Power Generator).

Missiles

Tylarans are the only alien which do not use missiles. They have no equivalent to Weapons Factory or Missile Silo.

An specific quirk is that when using the TELESCOPE cheat to see asteroids you have not yet discovered, the Tylarans are the only enemy where you can fire at the undiscovered asteroids. Normally, your missiles disappear unless you have actually detected the asteroids with sensors, scoutship, or a freak sensor scan event.

Ships

To make progress on ship construction, each Tylaran colony requires at least one Power Collector or Power Generator. It also requires one Fluxxer. It requires at least one Fleet Factory, and can use up to four Fleet Factories to speed construction. Notably, since they do not build missiles, they do not have a Weapons Factory equivalent, and do not require one for shipbuilding.

Each ship an Armour value, speed, number of hardpoints (sometimes erroneous), ID number in the game code, chance to build, build time, and up to six hardpoints. The names here are arbitrary and do not appear in the code.

Ship $3c “Fighter”

A fast 20 Armour ship with a Plasma Cannon (6 damage).

Ship $3d “Blue Dragon”

A fast 30 Armour ship with Photon Cannon (10 damage), Ion Cannon, and Vortex Mine.

Ship $3e “Red Dragon”

A slower 40 Armour ship with four hardpoints: a Photon Cannon (10 damage), Laser Cannon (4 damage), Ion Cannon, and Napalm Orb. Never built randomly, and appears to be dummied out.

Ship $3f “Scoutship”

A slower 5 Armour ship with a Laser Cannon (4 damage). Exceptionally weak among alien scoutships. Each colony sends out a scoutship every 40 days, which is quite slow.

Ship $40 “Small Transporter”

A slower 30 Armour ship with a Photon Cannon (10 damage) and Plasma Cannon (6 damage). Its number is swapped with the previous ship in the game data. A long narrow ship. Despite its small size, this is a Transporter, which starts new colonies. Colonies started by this ship appear to be military outposts which do not engage in mining, missile construction, or shipbuilding, and may to be intentionally founded for the purpose of asteroid crashing.

Ship $41 “Gold Dragon”

A slower 50 Armour ship with four hardpoints: Static Inducer, Plasma Cannon (6 damage), Vortex Mine, and a unique golden Tylaran Vortex Mine. Has the incorrect number in the game data, but this is ignored in the game code, and if you generate a ship 41 it appears as this ship. A wide ship that looks like two side-by-side.

Ship $42 “Transporter”

A slow 20 Armour ship with two Photon Cannons (10 damage).

Ship $43 “Battleship”

A slow 100 Armour ship with six hardpoints: Two Plasma Cannons (10 damage), two unique golden Tylaran Vortex Mines, one regular Vortex Mine, and an Ion Cannon.

Starting resources

When facing the Tylarans, the player starts with the following resources:

• Cash: 250,000 credits (default)
• Blueprints: Asteroid Tracker, Missile Guidance System, Powerplant

The alien colony begins with the following building clusters:

• 1: Habitat, Power Collector, Habitat, Control Centre
• 2: Fleet Factory, Fluxxer, Power Generator, Turret (Plasma)

They start with the following ships:

• $3f “Scoutship” x1
• $40 “Heavy Fighter” x1
• $41 “Gold Dragon” x1
• $42 “Transporter?” x1

Colonization strategy

Each Tylaran colony considers starting a new colony every 45 days. There is a 5% chance each time that it creates a new colony. The initial colony takes 80 days to activate, and each new colony takes 40 days to activate.

A new colony builds the following cluster of buildings:

• 1: Habitat, Power Collector, Habitat, Control Centre

Mining strategy

The Tylarans do not mine. They have no buildings for mining or storing ore.

Population

Population increases by 2 per day, to a maximum of 200 per Habitat. If there are no Habitats, they instead lose population at a rate of 1 per day. They also lose 1 population if radiation is 50% or higher, although as long as they are gaining 2 per day from Habitats, this still results in a net gain of 1 per day. The colony requires at least one Control Center or Habitat to survive, otherwise the colony is immediately destroyed.

Spying

Each colony has a daily chance to spot one Terran spy satellite in orbit and shoot it down. The chance begins at 1% and increases by 1% per 16 days. Once they shoot a satellite down, the chance drops to 6%.

The daily chance is increased by 1% per 16 days for each Data Gatherer.

Scouting

Every 40 days, each colony sends a scout ship to explore a random sector of space.

Tactical

The Tylarans are unique in that they do not use missiles at all. They have no sensors which react to incoming missiles or fleets in the usual sense.

If any of our asteroids are known, Thrusters are fired at speed 8 and the colony’s natural Gravity Nullifier effect is disabled.

Every 60 days, every Energiser triggers. This countdown is shared between all colonies with an Energiser, and nothing else happens on Energiser days.

Every 10 days divided by the number of colonies, a proximity trigger checks for the risk of asteroid collisions, and evacuates all fleets. However, colonies founded by the small Transporter ship do not bother with evacuation protocols, and may in fact have been founded specifically for asteroid ramming.

On other days, every 14 days fleets are formed at any colony with at least 8 available ships, and forms fleets of 0-14 ships. Their retreat value is 100%.

Art inspiration

The design of the Tylarans appears to have been inspired by an artwork by science fiction illustrator Peter A. Jones, which appears on the cover of Panther Science Fiction’s 1975 publication of The Second Experiment by J. O. Jeppson (ISBN 0-586-04316-0). It appeared on page 2 of Jones’ 1980 art anthology, Solar Wind.

It was not unheard of for science fiction artists to license their past works for use in video game art. While some of Peter Jones’ art was licensed for use in video game cover art around this time, he is not specifically credited in K240.

Below is a comparison between the alien as it appears in the game, and the artwork: