Voidworms hatred

[HunterNightShadow]

I am sorry for my English, because English is not my native language.

Important information for start: it is vanilla Stellaris (without any mods) and on Ensign difficulty. And empire build is Machine hivemind exterminators. Voidworm setting is on 0,5x. And no.. I don´t want to use mods.

I don´t understand what is going on with Voidworms mechanic. They completely destroy colony on one of my planet; completely destroy my fleets; almost always when i had in some system transport ships, voidworms just went there for no reason and just destroy them; they completely ignore any other empire to just get to me.. and all of those things happening when I can only afford fleets with max. 5k and have maximally 3 of them without ruining my economy.

Basically my empire is doomed when game announce: Voidworm plague. Suddenly if i am lucky only 1 voidworm 37k in time (if not 3 of them with few small 12k fleets).

And what finally made me wrote this is: i basically had 3 planets. And voidworm 37k fleet decide to go to my capital, completely destroy my 2 fleets (3k each) and than completely bombard it. And suddenly other empire in same time decided to launch war on my empire.

And I was checking forums and I am even more confused when people telling things like "oh they will just destroy like 3 population and nothing more" or "you don´t need big fleets to defend against them".. and other "clever" pro Stellaris comments.

And I know I am not good Stellaris player, but I feel like Voidworms are little bit annoying and maybe they should be little bit changed.

And I will not start on my confusion about storm mechanic in Stellaris.

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

In short: You are far too small and weak.

The Voidworm Plague is a Midgame Crisis - a punishing event that can only occur once per campaign after the midgame start date has been reached (2300 on default settings). Midgame Crises are meant to be challenging and dangerous, in many cases something that forces empires to join forces and work together to deal with - though of course highly skilled players and those deeply familiar with the game's mechanics are frequently able to solo them simply by scaling quickly enough to become strong enough to handle it.

Anyways, getting back to the core point - 3 planets and a empire-wide maximum of 15k fleet power by 2300 is very poor, especially for an empire type such as Determined Exterminators who thrive on expanding rapidly and constantly through anybody who stands in their way. You should be colonizing and building up many more planets, in order to have enough Research to out-tech your enemies, enough Alloys to build more and bigger fleets, and enough Energy and Minerals to comfortably sustain these things.

Do NOT be scared by the "Empire Size" number up at the top of the screen - it is not a hard limit, and you are not expected to stay under it beyond the very early game. Yes, going over your unchangeable Empire Size cap results in penalties to Tech and Tradition cost - but the extra Research- and Unity-producing jobs you can create on the extra planets you take will easily out-produce all of the penalties that extra Empire Size is giving you. This is true even for Machine Empires, who suffer increased penalties from going over the Empire Size cap.

I haven't played around with machines yet since they changed them to no longer have +200% Habitability everywhere for simply existing, so I can't offer you any specifics - but in general, any planet with a Habitability of 70% or higher should be an immediate colonize about as soon as you grow your borders to reach it, and anything above 40-50% should be strongly considered once you've built yourself up a bit. The most important resource in Stellaris is your pops - Pops are required to work Jobs, and the vast majority of the buildings in the game do not just directly produce resources, they add Jobs to their planet that must then be filled by Pops to produce those resources. Every fully settled planet you own produces Pops separately - therefore, the more planets you have, the more Pops you'll produce, and the more powerful you'll become (assuming they're employed).

[vodan]

I don't know how you had problems with them before plague when you could just attack them at your border with you fleet accompanied by station, but plague have annoying thing sadly - voidworms not just attack closest planet but pick it somewhat random and might fly right to your(or not your) empire.(or at least this is how it was working for me)
Although here you probably did another mistake - when voidworm plague starts it shows locations of their nests, so you could buy active sensor link for tiny amount of crystals/alloys/anything else to see what they are and to what you should be ready, after seeing that they are just piece of hull and armor you could change all weapons on your ships to plasma and lasers, and after seeing their first fight you could change all your shields to armor since voidworms ignore shield.(but well i guess this will not work if nest is one jump away from you)

Also you really do not need much ships - 1 cruiser can kill fleet of worms with 90 thousand power!(i play on 25x crisis and i somewhere seen that 20% of modiefier applies to mid game crisis, so this 90k is usual bunch of 3 voidworm troikas) Cruiser which i seen doing this had 168 speed so it could just run away without being shot, while cruiser had hangars.(so ai managed to win those 90k)
So after this i made fleet of somewhat similar ship for myself, added it to my 30k and to 60k federation fleet which i got when i overtook presidency by switching federation type from galactic union to hehemony ending with 110k fleet upgraded to fight against voidworms, started moving to their nests and on halfway crisis situation ended and voidworms turned back from 90k to 6 k.(so now federation fleet is on 1000 day path to another nest and my ships are returned to my empire, also i see that troikas are not in fleets of 3 troikas now but just many fleets of 2k and 1 troika sitting at nests)

Here is what i created after seeing amasing victory from ai ship in my federation -
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3369426724

*but first version i created had no proton launchers and one less tier in armor, and seeing few hunder thousands at their nests i gathered fleets for time long enough to let crisis die from old age.

[HunterNightShadow]

Well. It will be nice to join anybody, but as Determine Exterminator I cannot be allie of any organic specie. I am limited to machine empires.

I am not great player.

But problem is: when game annouce Voidworm plague, they immidietly attack.

Also I am not able to build cruisers in year when Voidworms start attacking.

What I can have in times of Voidworm plague: fleet size 50; if I am lucky with researches 140 naval capacity (but i need to get correct researches); ships available to build: corvettes and destroyers )frigates if i get research). Atleast in last playthrough.

[vodan]

Well if you will just survive till the end of situation their fleets will get back to their usual powers and also they will stop going to you at all -
"Each empire will gain the Voidworm Plague situation. Any empire that completes the situation will no longer be invaded by Voidworms."
Thats from wiki


Also you maybe can test do it work with smaller ships and artillery(destroyer) or swarm(corvet) computers(i don't know will this work) - voidworms have max range of 90 while nuclear missiles availabe from start have 100, so you maybe can try whatever technology available version of those -
*will place 2 screens in few sec
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3369434225
Probably even this thing can kill voidworms if it will keep between 91 and 100, but i never tried swarm corvettes with rockets
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3369434389

This one with artillery will have +5% weapon range so probably better, but i don't know will it try to be as far as possible like carrier combat computer

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Originally posted by HunterNightShadow:

Well. It will be nice to join anybody, but as Determine Exterminator I cannot be allie of any organic specie. I am limited to machine empires.

Consider playing something less punishing in future runs. Determined Exterminators can be strong, but you need to be aggressive and expansionist to get them to snowball; if enemy empires outscale you, they will make it their mission to wipe you off the galaxy. The fact that you only had 3 planets by midgame tells me that you are not playing in this manner. A regular Machine Empire without the Determined Exterminators starting civic would grant you all the same machine advantages of not having to deal with Food or Consumer Goods, but still allow you to engage in diplomacy with the rest of the galaxy with only minor penalties.

Originally posted by HunterNightShadow:

Also I am not able to build cruisers in year when Voidworms start attacking.

What I can have in times of Voidworm plague: fleet size 50; if I am lucky with researches 140 naval capacity (but i need to get correct researches); ships available to build: corvettes and destroyers )frigates if i get research). Atleast in last playthrough.

Yes, as I suggested before, you are not teching up nearly fast enough. Assuming you're using default midgame/endgame start dates, you should probably at least be close to unlocking battleships by the time a Midgame Crisis begins, if not already actively using them. If you have set the midgame start year to happen sooner, set it back to the default 2300, or maybe even push it further back to 2350 or later if you want breathing room for a more relaxed experience.

You need to colonize more than just 2 planets beyond your homeworld, and you need to build a lot more Research Labs. You should have multiple planets where nearly every building slot is filled with Research Labs, and at least one medium-to-large planet filled with Industrial Districts supplying you with Alloys to build and rebuild your fleets. Every planet in your borders with substantial Energy or Mining district capacity should be full of districts pumping out the raw resources necessary to fuel that industry and research. Your homeworld is very flexible, and can pick up the slack for whatever you're lacking in the early stages of the game, but eventually you'll want to specialize it too once your economy is stable enough to afford it.

[vodan]

Originally posted by HunterNightShadow:

What I can have in times of Voidworm plague: fleet size 50; if I am lucky with researches 140 naval capacity (but i need to get correct researches); ships available to build: corvettes and destroyers )frigates if i get research). Atleast in last playthrough.

I will do three pretty surely useless advises which you probably already know and which will be useless at the moment when you don't have time and resourses:
1. You can freely go over naval capacity - it will just increase upkeep % by %
2. You can build up to 11 strongholds on any planet, each will give 12 capacity, so it will be 132, thats if strongholds are not upgraded.(you will need 2 pops per stronghold)
3. What is this 140 from techs - you can build anchorages on starbases and each anchorage will give you +4 capacity almost for free, out of my 585 capacity 272 are from starbases!(you can get up to 24 from starbase depending on how upgraded it is, and you can improve anchorages with naval logistics office(if you have tech and this will give +2 to each anchorage) so it will be 32)

[HyperKnight]

Originally posted by HunterNightShadow:

Well. It will be nice to join anybody, but as Determine Exterminator I cannot be allie of any organic specie. I am limited to machine empires. I am not great player.

I understand that you wish to EXTERMINATE but consider playing normal machines and joining a federation for security.

Originally posted by HunterNightShadow:

Also I am not able to build cruisers in year when Voidworms start attacking.

I am usually fielding battleships at the same time and I am not a great player either.

[HyperKnight]

Originally posted by Mentato:

Originally posted by HunterNightShadow:

Also I am not able to build cruisers in year when Voidworms start attacking.

I am usually fielding battleships at the same time and I am not a great player either.

It haves something to do with me having about 20 planets and a few habitats at the time.

[hanus_amos]

I made the mistake of moving the mid-game date up to 2275: I find that makes the Khan situation more interesting. Much to my dismay, it makes the voidworm plague much LESS interesting. Despite being the strongest empire in the game next to the fallen empires, I was immediately steamrolled and now I'm just right-clicking notifications and waiting for the situation to resolve via research. Years of this. This is easily the most unfun mechanic they've added thus far.

[HyperKnight]

Yep. Fiddle with default settings then complain about unfun unbalanced stuff.

[HyperKnight]

I am playing on default settings midgame right now and my doomstack instantly shoots down the troikas.
So your complaints are caused by either changing default settings or skill issues.

[mss73055]

You're worm food :D

I'm fighting most of the worm crises with science vessels.
"Last month's research from captured wildlife: 5000" oh yes got to catch them all!