Are these things meant to occasionally spawn right next to a station and blow it up? Not a feature I'm a fan of.

I wish I could do that as it would save me work, I'd keep subscribers and it's much more user friendly. I prefer updating. But adding it as an option would require me to write a lot of redundant code and would make it hard to find balance. And as I have several mods that add policy settings I'm trying to keep them as small as possible.

The main problem is that mod updates are not optional. Everyone would get the update immediately when restarting the game. And with this latest update monsters from an existing save game might become even more powerful than they were meant to be; a Crystal Core with double the amount of hitpoints (I came across one with 200k fleet power during testing), a crystal fleet that's suddenly three times as strong as it was when you last exited the game, etc. Some people might also prefer to be attacked by monsters while not having a lot of fleet power.

The older versions of Monster Waves should still function as designed.

So with this release of the third one are you dropping support for this version like you did with the first version? Why not just do it as one mod with updates, and as Looking at the new version based on the discription you just made the monster fleets stronger, why not just add options to change it in game ie like the month spawning rate, rather than relaseing a diffrent version? Surely your mods would grow in popularity more if you kept with the one for more than a month jumping to a diffent upload. Not trying to be negative but just giving some constructive thoughts on how you update as a user of your mods which I enjoy very much.

Released Monster Waves 3 !

@Doomwarrior: I've not found a way to actually find out which country is the host. I can check if it's a multiplayer game and if a country is player controlled, but it seems to end there. It's only possible to restrict the functionality if I could compare country indexes or have a trigger that finds out who's the host.

Sounds about right, probalbly complicated to just have the host make that call i guess?

@Doomwarrior: I've modified the way the mod handles the edict so the mod will only be deactivated if all of players disable it though the edict during a multiplayer game (instead of any). Any settings from players that have done this will not be used. If all but one player disable the mod using the edict during a multiplayer game, that player has full control over the policies related to this mod and can act as the host.

@Doomwarrior: I'll see what I can do. Curious how another mod can make policies vanish...

There are 2 things that would make that mod even better:
Host based settings for the Game and ISBS Compatibility since the Monster Waves 2 policies vanish as soon as isbs is active. Could you have a look at it?

OK! so, Just got to about mid/end game, and I activated the "every month spawn" and "full" SO MANY CRITTERS!!! lol it's almost overwhelming. I DEFINATELY suggest the "Defense fleet" mod (No FTL becomes an option for fleets, beats the hell outta stations) I'd be starportless if not for that mod xD but damn guy, awesome mod, I'm loving the constant assaults, keeps me on my toes lol

thansk for the answer.

@Caellach: No, neutral Tiyankis will stay neutral unless you attack the neutral Tiyankis. You're free to attack hostile Tiyankis without repercussions.

Russian Translate https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4XbrP_uhWqnVHY4Nl8zeTRtQlU/view?usp=sharing

I would like to ask a question Sceprax... with the lastest update.. if you destroy the hotile Tiyanki that had turned hostile.. will it turn all the Tiyanki Hostile??

So I managed to implement something to take care of the the Tiyanki overcrowding. Took some time as I couldn't hook any fleet events or flags to the Tiyankis as the monster countries don't support that. Every 1-5 years a random Tiyanki fleet will turn hostile towards everything else. How much time depends on the amount of Tiyanki fleets. Obviously this may include a Wraith if you're (un)lucky.

This is one mod I cant live without... You do awesome work...

Any chance the void clouds could be toned down a bit? I keep having to deal with 2K fleets of these things tearing through my systems one by one and leaving behind their void babies after killing my research stations. I try to fortify with defense platforms, but they're too tough and too numerous to even dent before they kill a few of them and spawn a void baby from them.

I'd say when more than 3 sets of tiyanki are in a single system might be a good estimate 4 tiyanki herds in a single system should be a pretty obvious indication you need to do something about it. Maybe give it a couple years after critical mass. Might even give the system owner an event warning regarding the abundance of tiyanki in that system.

@crymson: That sounds interesting. How much time do you think has to pass before they spawn a wraith?

Yeah difficulty wise it seems ok, my main concern was cpu loading with many many tiyankis.
A thought in that regard, perhaps if you laeave the space cows alone in a system eventually they spawn a wraith right there, kinda give the player a reason not to let them congregate and instead thin the herd down periodically.

The difficulty this mod adds it what makes it interesting. I generally have the spawn chances low early on then increase as the game goes on. Its alot harder now than it used to be though due to bigger fleets. Personally I would like to see tiyankis as the rarest monster maxing out at like 10 total fleets to save cpu. They really dont add anything anyway, but this is probably something I can change myself.
@✶ ΔŁǤØŁ ✶ NSC mod does indeed offer a space monsters shipset.

Well I just wanna say, that all animals move around them staying in one spot then invading is extremly unlrealistic.

I've modified the spawn chance to be the same for each of the monster types. This will reduce the amount of Tiyankis that spawn when on the lowest setting considerably. Also lowered the maximum amount of monsters allowed to exist.

I would like to point out that this mod was developed as a companion mod for Novio Magnum in which even research and mining stations are powerful enough to defend against the normal monster fleets in the late game. When this mod is used without another mod to improve the stations I imagine it would indeed be hard.

It would be real better when the Monsters are an Endgame or Midgame Desaster, which come in Big Packs or stay at some important Locations to protect them.

Right now they are like Guerilla Fighters, which get really really annoying and are strong early on.

Non-moving and then acting as a big Invasion would be much better!

I would agree with MINOS the mod is a very interesting idea and is fun but even on the maximum time setting the spawns are out of hand. The Tiyanki are especially too numerous, After about 50 years I have about 20 groups orbiting a gas giant in my home system. Not a major issue with them being neutral and all, except I have mass swarms of Ameobas swarming into my space. Also I think such high numbers of monsters must be by nature taxing on the CPU, I am playing a small galaxy but when I enter my home system there is a detectable FPS loss.

Behold, a use for navies during peacetime.

@Wellopello I don't believe new ship classes and more has Space Monsters. It has the Swarm, AI and Extradimensional Invaders but not Space Monsters

Wooh, this Mod is hard - would advise to enable it only when you have at Least 10k Strength Army.
But i think the Spawns are much too often, although i have enable 100 Years...
It just gets annoying after some Time and the AI gets wrecked sometimes.

@Bones: Monsters will always spawn a completely random planet in the galaxy. They don't care about borders or countries. They will however always spawn at a planet type they're attracted too.

@✶ ΔŁǤØŁ ✶: Try using (-New Ship Classes & More v5.0-)

Have you ever tried making a shipset mod using the Space Monsters?

Great idea! Will the "monsters" spawn in colonized or owned systems? Is there a limit to where they can spawn or is it completely random?

Oh I see, that is strange.

@tolaburke: Yes, they will attack anyone not belonging to their country.

The real question is 'will these thing harass the AI as well as you'? It's very important.

@Cybruiser57Peter [RLM],(HUN): The Crystal Core should drop debris when destroyed that will give you the option to research Crystal Forged Plating. I haven't tested it, but it should. This also goes for the Dragonscale Armor from the Dragon. The Ether Cloud might give you research for Arc Emitter while the Carrier drone might give you research for the Particle Lance.

@Sceprax can we still get the crystal forged plating from the crystal waves whit out visiting the Crystal Nidus system? (i never get it because the AI always destroys it)

@Shaxx: I use the country type default check because of issues that otherwise occur in automated tests in which no one is actually a player. I also need to be sure that a choosen country has access to the policy settings, to which only default countries have access. So "is_ai = no" does actually fail when I'm testing with "human_ai" enabled, but the trigger that contains it does not. Kind of weird but this way works.

So I just wanted to say, here I am doing good for a start, then all of a sudden I have these monsters attackingmy stations and ports. Then, I recover, and JUST when I was thinking about sending out a colonizer... BAM, another wave of monsters invades my system... I actually have reasons to use caution and stations! Thank you, fun times in this game!

Forgot to mention that the mod is great. The threat is needed, it keeps peace interesting while playing tall.

I notice you use "is_country_type = default" a lot with "is_ai = no" in the same trigger, does it not make the country type check redundant? Considering I imagine the player always flags as default, unless they are using a mod to allow to play as primitives or a fallen empire. And even they might still flag as default.

@Wysaw: I've updated the Novio Magnum 3 mod to add the spaceport level 6 modifier to the Enclave stations. That should give them enough military power to have a chance against the largest pirate fleet and the Monstrosities of this mod. Not sure if I'm going to add that function to this mod though as some players might want the challenge to defend the Enclave stations.

Cool, easy fix then.
I really appreciate this mod alot, honestly all 4x games need a dynamic and constant threat like this to keep things interesting.

@Wysaw: I already knew of this problem but have yet to think of a proper solution. For now I think what you mentioned might indeed be the proper action to take.

I gotta say Im really looking forward to playing this.
However I had to turn off the pirates mod because they quickly start to kill the curators/artisans etc before you get a chance to respond or build enough defense stations in curator systems.
Im guessing that this mod may have the same problem, once the leviathans start to appear.
how does this play out with novio magnum?
is there a way to protect the curators/artisans/traders or should I disable monstrosities until I have them protected?

@Caellach: It works fine with existing saves.

yes.... Curious question.. im using the first monster wave.. but do i have to start a new game to upgrade to version 2?