What is a Dryad queen?

[Eoin Lynne]

"A dryad caste with the unique ability to produce new Gauranlen pods and reproduce the Gauranlen tree along with its symbiote, the dryad queen. To do this, three gaumaker dryads must slowly merge."

Even the wiki has no info on what a dryad queen is! Does anyone know what it is or what it does? Also what is the point of gaumaker? New pods appear yearly, this seems kind of useless unless this queen is the main thing for it?

[Nerdygamer1]

I haven't had a chance to really dig in to 1.3, but to answer your main question, the Dryad queen is just flavour text for the game. She's not actually in the game, according to the news post a few weeks back, "These dryads are born from a dryad queen who lives inside the tree (and isn’t seen in gameplay)."

[Helios]

Originally posted by Eoin Lynne:

"A dryad caste with the unique ability to produce new Gauranlen pods and reproduce the Gauranlen tree along with its symbiote, the dryad queen. To do this, three gaumaker dryads must slowly merge."

Even the wiki has no info on what a dryad queen is! Does anyone know what it is or what it does? Also what is the point of gaumaker? New pods appear yearly, this seems kind of useless unless this queen is the main thing for it?

Its what you already pointed out it produces more trees if you get them every year you got lucky but its simply a caste to produce more trees.

[Excellion]

Originally posted by Eoin Lynne:

New pods appear yearly, this seems kind of useless unless this queen is the main thing for it?

The queen is little more than lore, it is not an in-game unit. That said - do you really consider the ability to make more Gauranlen Trees at will useless?

If you were to lose a tree (Fire, Alphabeaver, combat and so on) you'd have to wait a year for a replacement. Especially on nature-heavy playtroughs such a loss could severely handicap a playstyle.

Also: If you have 10 pawns and wish to supply each with a tree that would take you 10 years to accomplish by just waiting for pod drops. Or longer, if you wish to have more than one tree per pawn.

[adobo]

You can assume the queen is inside the tree which is the actual thing the dryads are protecting.

[Eoin Lynne]

Originally posted by Excellion:

Originally posted by Eoin Lynne:

New pods appear yearly, this seems kind of useless unless this queen is the main thing for it?

The queen is little more than lore, it is not an in-game unit. That said - do you really consider the ability to make more Gauranlen Trees at will useless?

If you were to lose a tree (Fire, Alphabeaver, combat and so on) you'd have to wait a year for a replacement. Especially on nature-heavy playtroughs such a loss could severely handicap a playstyle.

Also: If you have 10 pawns and wish to supply each with a tree that would take you 10 years to accomplish by just waiting for pod drops. Or longer, if you wish to have more than one tree per pawn.

I only have 2 trees, they are a pain to deal with as the pawns assigned to them get stuck pruning and don't eat or take their free time so they keep having breaks. I don't want to babysit more pawns than I already am. Also my trees have never been harmed by anything. They are on the beach next to the ocean, the only thing that has harmed them is me as I cut one of them down to move it.

[Astasia]

Dryad Queens are genetically modified psychic entities that are able to control multiple puppet like plant creatures. The more psychic power they have (which is boosted by human connections) the more puppets they can control at once. The tree they live inside is most likely similar in functionality to the anima tree, capable of tapping into archotech psionic energies permeating the planet allowing some base level of power even without a human connection. The queens are likely more energy based than physical, capable of surviving in 0 light conditions with minimal nutrients being absorbed by the tree, they may even sustain themselves almost entirely off archotech psionic energy, and as such can not be seen or exist outside of the tree.

That's my head canon anyway,

[Spicy pineapple]

Having more trees planted can be beneficial.

You don't require a pawn connected for immature dryads to spawn from a tree. So they could be used for distraction, reserves for if your connected tree is destroyed, or just kept there for when you can support more dryads in your colony.

While they aren't great distraction as immature dryads aren't usually targeted unless they attack first, it never hurts to have the tree planted. Worse case is you need to remove the tree later on or a stray bullet hits a dryad and it aggro on the pawn. But they are very weak and quite harmless. And if memory is correct, don't usually attack, it's only can attack. Not likely to retaliate. this does also improve surrounding beauty score too. Which can be taken advantage of to reduce mood loss from ugly surroundings outdoors.

At least one dryad tree is pretty essential for a tree connection playthrough as the harmed trees mood debuff can get quite significant. And one is good for levelling up plant skills. While the same can be done by planting lots of crops that requires more land and effort for storing or utilising the excess, and to me is less beneficial then some of the dryad castes. Having bait is a lot more essential throughout the colony life then just extra crops to sell since you less likely to lose a pawn if they attacking something else first that can deal at least some damage back.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Eoin Lynne:

Also what is the point of gaumaker? New pods appear yearly, this seems kind of useless unless this queen is the main thing for it?

The tree connection meme has trees as its RP element. Everybody "wants" a tree connection later on. You even get more free trees with treeconection each year and you can get multiple seeds on harvest both from the wild pod and the gaumaker pod if your plant yield is over 100%.

It's pretty easy to get more colonists than free seed pods, even if you take it slow with recruiting and a plant specialist can be capable of growing enough food for an entire small colony + care for ~3 trees each with 4 dryads each when boosted with bionics. I think if you have someone just caring for the trees and no other plants you can have them tend 4 trees. People with manipulation or sight deficits or body purists are pretty good for this, since they get no real malus (apart from Circadian bionics for body purist). Free seeds will never be able to fill up those slots unless you are playing for a long long time or take recruits in really slow. Or just don't care about the trees enough.

How useful dryads are in your eyes is another thing. The mood debuff from treeconnectors not having a tree is also rather insignificant and more of a player motivator for RP than anything, but it's there. You can probably build a colony that revolves entirely around the trees. I have not done this up to late game yet, but early game dryads can just fulfill most of your needs if you choose too. This is especially true in areas where growing stuff is a problem.

The queen is just RPG stuff inside the tree telling you why a tree spawns creatures. Astasia's explanation is quite cool.