Turning storms off after this game ruining interaction

[Birri]

Just had a voidworm start bombarding my capital while a storm was going on. Fleet wasn't home because asshole evangelizing zealots declared on me, and the voidworm immediately started eating all my capital pop because it was at 25% devastation from the storm, while spawning 12k worth of offspring. There was nothing I could do in this situation and my economy was completely ruined from having my capital eaten down to 1k pops.

 

[metalosse]

Personally, I deactivated all devastation from storms.

 

[Grief Bacon]

This is why all my planets have orbital rings with either ion cannons or a handful of defense platforms. Realistically it's not gonna help much against huge fleets but it does make for a good stall tactic against whatever it can't actually kill.

 

[Enailios]

Do they actually eat pops? I know they should but wonder if its bugged like purges since besides devastation, I don’t see anything happening

 

[Birri]

Do they actually eat pops? I know they should but wonder if its bugged like purges since besides devastation, I don’t see anything happening

Starts happening at 25% devastation.
First time I've had it happen, so I was shocked to see just how fast it devoured my pops.

 

[Thiend]

This is why they had to add the slider, and I advocate always turning devastation from storms off completely.

It is NOT an appropriate mechanic to just passively be gaining. It's ruinous by itself, and it also does stuff like this. Also turns off planetary FTL inhibitors.

 

[Miuramir]

Just had a voidworm start bombarding my capital while a storm was going on. Fleet wasn't home because asshole evangelizing zealots declared on me, and the voidworm immediately started eating all my capital pop because it was at 25% devastation from the storm, while spawning 12k worth of offspring. There was nothing I could do in this situation and my economy was completely ruined from having my capital eaten down to 1k pops.

While this was admittedly a bit unfortunate, you left your homeworld undefended, and that's always a significant risk. Did you not have gravity snare tech yet? A voidworm troika counts as a single monster; one science ship with a scientist can almost always get it captured before the pop loss gets bad. This sort of thing is why I prioritize gravity snares as soon as they come up, so I don't have to have a frigate fleet hanging about to deal with the worms.

 

[Thiend]

While this was admittedly a bit unfortunate, you left your homeworld undefended, and that's always a significant risk. Did you not have gravity snare tech yet? A voidworm troika counts as a single monster; one science ship with a scientist can almost always get it captured before the pop loss gets bad.

The "before" period is it stacking devastation.

There WAS no before, because it was already above the devastation requirement for it to get really bad due to a storm. That's the problem. You shouldn't need to permanently park a fleet above any valuable world lest voidworms spawn in without moving through the intervening space (separate problem), and normally you don't because they take a while to start having an impact... and they instantly have that mechanic when storms are present if devastation from storms is on, because that was never an appropriate mechanic for them to use.

 

[DarkHelmet110985]

Voidworms are annoying but I’ve found that Static Defense does wonders in terms of preventing them from being a pain. Orbital Rings and/or a Citadel are all you need. Should they somehow get through, Unyielding + Adaptability + Shield Generator = 97% Bombardment reduction so it’ll take them eons to reach the point of causing considerable harm. Key for me is locating and extermination of their nests since their systems make great sources of Dark Matter and have size 30 Toxic worlds(making Detox semi worth it). Frigates are a cheap and effective counter but I prefer Missile Cruisers(w/ Torpedoes).

Plus Void Hunter Trait makes killing them so much easier while also bumping fleet speed and attack range. The early game Voidworm Tech also helps but is a sizeable Society investment.

Oh and I never have Storms on. They junk up the Tech tree and GC resolutions…

 

[RingworldUtopia]

Just had a voidworm start bombarding my capital while a storm was going on. Fleet wasn't home because asshole evangelizing zealots declared on me, and the voidworm immediately started eating all my capital pop because it was at 25% devastation from the storm, while spawning 12k worth of offspring. There was nothing I could do in this situation and my economy was completely ruined from having my capital eaten down to 1k pops.

this is more a voidworm issue than a storms issue. for me, i do the following: i research voidworm cure IMMEDIATELY when it pops so I don't have this issue, in the meantime, i grab unyielding IMMEDIATELY and update my defense platform template to hangarbays, and full unyielding policy spending. a starbase can easily deal with voidworms long enough for my fleet to arrive, if not on its own entirely (i build the other half of the defense platform capacity while my fleet is on its way).

 

[jedavis]

Orbital Rings and/or a Citadel are all you need

If it's early enough in the game that 12k of voidworm fleet is a problem and capital pop loss is crippling, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that orbital rings and citadels weren't going to be options for OP for a couple more decades.

Getting corvette rushed? Just build carrier battleships!

 

[-Marauder-]

Did they remove the option to just "catch" them? I found scientists deal with them best personally.

 

[DarkHelmet110985]

If it's early enough in the game that 12k of voidworm fleet is a problem and capital pop loss is crippling, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that orbital rings and citadels weren't going to be options for OP for a couple more decades.

Early game Voidworms are typically in the 2k range for me. Outposts with some Defense Platforms can easily defeat that and especially with Unyielding and Eternal Vigilance providing significant buffs. Crisis slider affects their strength so instead of 40k at mid-game crisis, you can be looking at a fleet strength well above that.

Also catching them works quite well.

 

[patrykc159753]

Just had a voidworm start bombarding my capital while a storm was going on. Fleet wasn't home because asshole evangelizing zealots declared on me, and the voidworm immediately started eating all my capital pop because it was at 25% devastation from the storm, while spawning 12k worth of offspring. There was nothing I could do in this situation and my economy was completely ruined from having my capital eaten down to 1k pops.

not like i support cosmic storms i personaly think its ok(but its still worst dlc we have) but dont the void worms have limit in eary game for how many pops can they kill its like 300 and then they go away for 20 years. If it happend in lategame when void worm plage is on its on you.

 

[Drachasor]

Personally, I deactivated all devastation from storms.

I'd note that within the Stellaris universe, the devastation seems unrealistic. Otherwise wouldn't every civilization have a history of dealing with it and have developed measures against it? Infrastructure would be designed to minimize damage just like we see in areas with natural disasters.

 

[Thiend]

I'd note that within the Stellaris universe, the devastation seems unrealistic. Otherwise wouldn't every civilization have a history of dealing with it and have developed measures against it? Infrastructure would be designed to minimize damage just like we see in areas with natural disasters.

Far better than that, even.

This is a world with energy shields that is 200 years or less from developing armor made of neutronium. Modern stuff built in areas with natural disasters still usually breaks, but I'd expect no repeated natural phenomena to have any impact whatsoever here. If it's not novel or designed to maximize damage (IE ordnance), it's probably reasonable to expect Stellaris baseline construction is too advanced to receive notable damage, let alone the total annihilation implied by even 25% devastation.

 

[Nakkivene]

You can prepare for something like that, sure, but you wouldn't necessarily know that can happen (fleetless devastation into total instant pop loss combo) nor do you usually put overly much defenses on your capitol, at the heart of your territory, before resources become trivial.

 

[Nyrael]

Did they remove the option to just "catch" them? I found scientists deal with them best personally.

I have noticed that a lot of people don't even realize that Scientists can wreck the Voidworms (even easier if you have First Contact and your Scientists are invisible to them) and instead they try to fight them head-on.

 

[Romulus Augustus]

Cosmic storms has easily been the second worst thing to happen to Stellaris but at least it can just be disabled without losing much else.

Wish I could say the same about 4.0.

 

[fourteenfour]

Astral Planes was the worst DLC I can recall and I never expected worse from PDX but 4.0 gives me pause.

At least they look pretty on the galaxy map. I just wish they did not feel as if they were a harbinger of an oncoming crisis or an actual crisis level event. I too had more than one game cratered by storms where it usually destroyed AI empires to the point it felt like no one was home.