Fusion Inhibitors

Fusion Inhibitors, along with Solar Shields are the only objects that protect against the sun directly. A fusion inhibitor can be constructed on a planet for 1200 metal, for 31 secs and with an amount of deuterium that scales with how much the player is zoomed out (before 1.4.0.0) and the distance of the planet from the Sun. Fusion inhibitors will slowly fall to the Sun If Solar Reflectors are constructed, the construction can take 27 seconds. If this is done repeatedly, the player can reduce the size of the sun.

This can be done with a little less than 200000 before 1.4.0.0 and a little less than 600 million in 1.4.0.0 people and solar reflectors.

To calculate the minimum population, the largest amount of time it can be is 30 seconds. Any more and a net gain in Sun size is apparent. The time is defined as ceil(0.85 * ceil(bTimeRequired+bTimeRequired/(power(max(1,bPlanetParent.pPop),1.3)/10^6))) with solar reflectors.

For pPop > 100000, this simplifies to ceil(0.85*ceil(30+30/(10^6*pPop^1.3))). Since the ceil is used, no planet without solar reflectors can have construction times of less than 31 seconds. For planets with solar reflectors, the smallest value has been approximated at 163668, equivalent to 163 million 668 thousand in 1.4.0.0. This means that the player can reduce the sun over time with enough resources with only 163668 people and solar reflectors.

In 1.4.0.0, the player cannot reduce the sun's size at 30 seconds anymore. 29 will probably hold the sun at bay, and 28 will probably slowly reduce the sun's size. Also, a larger distance from the planet to the sun makes the effects of fusion inhibitors less, but Earth can be used to hold the Sun at bay.