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Monster Waves 4

Stellaris version supported: v2.1.*

This mod spawns space monsters continuously. I found the idea of having space monsters as opponents fun but after the early phase of the game you soon forget them as they are extinct. Not anymore!

Fifty years before the midgame starts the monsters will start with their counterattack that will only become more fierce during the following centuries. From that moment there's a chance each month that a fleet of monsters (Tiyanki, Amoeba, Void Cloud, Ancient Drone or Crystal) appears somewhere in the galaxy. This can happen at any planet or star depending on their attraction, completely ignoring country borders. These monsters will move between systems searching for planets and resources they find attractive.

During the endgame there's a chance that Monstrosities will appear. They are on a completely different level from normal monsters and should not be unestimated. It's possible to use the Monster Waves Monstrosities policy settings to determine how many will appear or disable them, but these settings will only appear once the endgame has started.

The monsters will become stronger depending on the difficulty level choosen at the start of the game and the size of the galaxy. The monster fleets will grow continuously stronger regardless of the choosen difficulty: how strong depends on the time that has passed since the game started as well as the fleet power of the default (playable) country that's nearest to the location where they appear.

The following monsters will appear:

Tiyanki
The Tiyankis are the most common of space monsters and they will generally not attack unless provoked. Sometimes they are accompanied by a Matriarch which is a slightly more powerful variant and they can have several younglings with them. They are attracted to gas giants and strategic resources of the gas variant. They can provide food if eliminated.

Some Tiyanki fleets may turn hostile. This is meant to keep the population down. Hostile Tiyankis will attack passive Tiyankis. The Tiyanki country will not turn hostile towards you if you attack the hostile Tiyankis.

Monstrosity: If you own and activated the Leviathans DLC a Wraith might appear mixed in with Tiyankis. Lore: when a Tiyanki is exposed to too much radiation from certain stars they mutate into Wraiths.

Amoeba
Space Amoebas hunt Tiyankis and are aggressive. They are pretty powerful and will occasionally destroy an orbital facility. They come in 4 different colors which can all be found in any fleet. If they're not hunting Tiyankis they will visit molten and toxic planets. They can provide food if eliminated.

Monstrosity: If you own and activated the Leviathans DLC a Dragonspawn or Grand Dragon might appear mixed in with Amoebas. Lore: in the rare case that an Amoeba actually hatches, a Dragon is born!

Cloud
Void Clouds are energy based lifeforms that are attracted to stars. During the midgame all clouds will become active and start roaming around the galaxy while performing mitosis whenever they get the chance. They can provide energy upon dissipation.

Monstrosity: A new type of cloud might appear mixed in with Void Clouds. Lore: the Ether Cloud is a extremely powerful variant of the Void Cloud, origins unknown.

Drone
Ancient Mining Drones are automated space miners equipped with powerful lasers and armor. They will send large fleets of drones out into the universe to find barren worlds and precious metals to exploit. It's also possible to encounter a Drone Carrier that deploys drone fighters. They can be dismantled for crystals and energy.

Monstrosity: A powerful drone leader might appear in Drone fleets. Lore: rarely used because of its ridiculous size the Ancient Drone Leader is capable of mining whole planets. Equipped with almost 100 small drones and armed with extremely powerful lasers. It's also capable of using extremely small drones to heal its allies.

Crystal
Crystals are health based monsters that use kinetic weapons to attack. They will now venture out into space in very large fleets to find frozen planets and strategic resources. All fleets may consist of a mix of blue, green, yellow and red Crystals. They can be harvested for crystals when defeated.

Monstrosity: A very large solid Crystal might appear in Crystal fleets. Lore: the Crystal Core's existence is enough to spread fear into enemies and give moral support to nearby crystals.

You can use the "Monster Waves" policy settings to set the chance monsters will appear. The minimum chance is 1% (averaging 1 monster fleet of each type every 100 months) but you can increase this to up to 100% (averaging 1 monster fleet of each type every month). Default chance is 5% (averaging 1 monster fleet of each type every 20 months). It's also possible to disable spawning completely.

You can seperately configure the Monstrosities using the Monster Waves Monstrosities policy settings. These policy settings will appear when the endgame starts.

The monster fleet sizes can be adjusted using the "Monster Waves Difficulty" policy settings.

Multiplayer
In a multiplayer game the policy of a random player that has not set the policy settings to "Disabled" will be used to determine the spawn chance.

Disabling
You can disable the Monster Waves using the policy settings which will stop them from spawning while the monsters stay active.

If you decide to disable this mod through the game loader new monsters will no longer spawn and existing monsters spawned with this mod will no longer move from system to system or they might disappear, depending on the type of monster.

Should be compatible with almost all other mods except previous Monster Waves versions.

It's compatible with existing savegames.

• All the fleets will continuously grow stronger with years passing.
  
• Enclave stations will not be attacked by the monsters.
  
• Monsters will not destroy starbases, but rather disable them. This is the default functionality that Paradox introduced in version 2.0.
  
• An event will be added to your situation log after encountering each monster type for the first time containing an overview of the interaction with the monsters.
  
• Three of the Monstrosities have been newly created by using existing Vanilla assets while the two others come from the Leviathans DLC.
  
• FTL inhibitors work really well against monsters.
  
• Not achievement compatible.
  
• Update of Monster Waves 3.
  
• There's also the mod Pirates Waves 3 which introduces waves of pirates.
  
• For more defence I recommend Starbase Defenses Extended 2 and Military Station Fortifier 2.

Testing
If you wish to create monsters manually use one of these commands in the console:
will spawn one random monster fleet immediately.
will spawn 10 random monster fleets immediately.
will spawn 100 random monster fleets immediately.

will immediately destroy all the monsters and monster countries.

For the more casual gamer I'd recommend not going above 10% (Once every 10 months) when selecting a policy setting. Because it's all based on chance.