Monster Waves 3

Stellaris version supported: v1.9.1
Monster Waves 4 for Stellaris 2.0 has been released!

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!

Each month there’s a chance that a fleet of each type of monster (Tiyanki, Amoeba, Void Cloud, Ancient Drone or Crystal) will spawn somewhere in the galaxy. This will happen at a random planet or star depending on their attraction, completely ignoring country borders. You can control the chance they will appear using the Monster Waves policy settings. Whether a monster will appear depends on the fleet power of the (most powerful) player country.

Also introduces Monstrosities which are on a completely different level from normal monsters and require a large fleet to defeat. Three of these Monstrosities have been newly created by using existing Vanilla assets while the two others come from the Leviathans DLC. You can use the Monster Waves Monstrosities policy settings to determine how many will appear or disable them.

There’s also Pirates Waves 2 which does the same but with pirates.

I wrote this mod as a companion mod for Novio Magnum 3 but it is not required to enjoy this mod. If you’re not using this or any other mod that increases your static defenses (and those of the AI) you could check out my lightweight Military Station Fortifier mod.

The following monsters might appear when using this mod:

Tiyanki
The Tiyankis are the most common of space monsters and they will not attack unless provoked. Half of the time they are accompanied by a Matriarch which is a slightly more powerful variant and they can have as many as five younglings with them. They are attracted to gas giants and strategic resources of the gas variant. They will start appearing from the start of the game.

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 if any player country has at least 35k fleet power by default. 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 will start to appear when any player has at least 4k fleet power.

Monstrosity: If you own and activated the Leviathans DLC a Dragon might appear mixed in with Amoebas if any player country has at least 55k fleet power by default. 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. A fleet might contain up to 20 Void Clouds. They will start to appear when any player has at least 8k fleet power.

Monstrosity: A new type of cloud might appear mixed in with Void Clouds if any player country has at least 75k fleet power by default. Lore: the Ether Cloud is a extremely powerful variant of the Void Cloud, origins unknown. It seems capable of absorbing shield power and distributing it to its allies.

Drone
Ancient Mining Drones are automated space miners equipped with powerful lasers. They will send large fleets of drones out into the universe to find barren worlds and precious metals to exploit. They will start to appear when any player has at least 16k fleet power.

Monstrosity: A powerful carrier drone might appear in Drone fleets if any player country has at least 95k fleet power by default. Lore: rarely used because of its ridiculous size the Ancient Carrier Drone 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 the most fearsome type of monster you can encounter. They will now venture out into space in very large fleets to find frozen planets and strategic resources. All fleets consist of blue, green, yellow and red Crystals. They will start to appear when any player has at least 32k fleet power.

Monstrosity: A very large solid Crystal might appear in Crystal fleets if any player country has at least 115k fleet power by default. 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).

Multiplayer
In a multiplayer game the policy of a random player (who has not disabled spawning using the edict) will be used to determine the spawn chance. If all players except the host disable the mod using the edict only the policy settings of the host will be used.

Disabling
You can disable the Monster Waves with a country edict called "Disable Monster Waves" which will stop them from spawning while active.

You can also seperately disable the Monstrosities from appearing using the Monster Waves Monstrosities policy settings.

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.

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

It’s compatible with existing saves. Any existing drones and crystals will receive a large boost in their power!

The use of 0.55 Military Power Exponent is supported.

The fleets in this version of the mod are even more powerful than in the previous version. The required fleet power is equal to the average amount of fleet power one fleet of that type of monster will have. This means that you should expect a fleet equal to your current total fleet power spawning. It can be even more powerful than that and spawn near your capital planet if you’re really unlucky (although the chance is low).

The required fleet power for the Monstrosities is around equal to their fleet power alone.

The Drones and Crystal fleets that are created by the Vanilla game will receive an upgrade when using this mod.

Enclave stations will be fortified using modifiers to increase their chances in encounters with a monster fleet.

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.

Testing
If you wish to create monsters manually use one of these commands in the console:

will spawn one monster fleet of each type immediately.

will spawn 10 monster fleets of each type immediately.

will call the event that uses the policy settings 10 times.