How do instigator gates work?

[Ecthelon]

Does the effect remain even after you kill one? I think I missed one spawn and it survived for quite a while before I noticed. Am I screwed?

[Loss Aversion]

Instigators only have any effect while alive. Once it dies, that's it.

If it was adding to something like a wave, the boost it gave to that wave will still be there of course, but it won't be adding more (since it's been blown up).

[🐉Kesseleth🐉]

Not only are you not screwed, you could potentially stand to benefit! The more ships there are in a wave, the more salvage you get when destroying that wave. This of course necessitates you being able to survive that wave, so there is a cap on how far this can take you, but having an instigator base or two increasing waves and CPAs can help you get more metal. How useful this is remains to be seen, I'm testing it but it seems like salvage needs to be boosted a bit before this becomes practical.

In short, you're fine.