Asteroid strikes: Ouch, that really hurts!

[Skanderbeg]

In my current game, playing a custom faction
(with + 2 morale, -2 growth and -2 economy), all went well until 2300. I was leading in tech, had made Aki my Pet, and Domai was the only opponent worth to speak of.
But then, an asteroid strikes into the center of my empire .
It destroyed my headquarter and several more bases in the heart of my empire, with all seven secret projects! I lost the HGP (ouch!), the Virtual World (ouch!), the Empath Guild (ouch!), the HSA (ouch!), Planetary transit (ouch!), the Marine Control Center (ouch!) and the Supercollider (ouch!). My tech rate went down to 28 turns per tech!
Luckily, all my good troops were far away at the borders to the drones. Nethertheless, it took 30 turns to repair most of the damage. But now, it looks better again . A new headquarter is established in the best remaining base and currently building the Theory of Everything, bases have been founded in the new Garland Crater, tech rate has increased to a reasonable 6 turns per tech (and I still have the tech lead), and vanguard of my forces is approaching the heart of Domais empire
Looks like this game can still be won.

[Solver]

I've always hated when the random events are on. Another reason to turn them off.

[Ned]

I had a game where I had three asteroid strikes: Two took out my satellites. One hit my most productive base. However, only one SP was lost.

Long ago I learned to distribute my SP's around to avoid disasters and PB. The only exception is my science base, which typically is my HQ.

[Clear Skies]

Ouch indeed!
I've had asteroid strikes on Nessus Prime, and solar storms destroying all energy collection satellites, but never an asteroid strike on Planet itself, not even on maps not containing the Garland Crater.

[Darkstar]

I've SEEN Asteroid Strikes on AI in my games. But I've never lost one.

If you don't like the NASTIEST of the random events, but like the rest, play Pirates. There are only a few events that can actually affect a water base.

[Ned]

Just after I wrote the above post, I got an Asteroid strike. It took out three of my bases and the Maritime Control. Suddenly, I am back in the pack on the power meter. Sven calls a council meeting and I am voted out!

Such is life.

[Basil]

Just out of curiousity, were you guys running much eco-damage when these asteroid strikes occurred? I ask because neither kind of strike has ever happened to me over many games (I rarely run any ecodamage), while one of my friends got several hits on Nessus Prime over the course of one game (he was causing so much ecodamage the world was flooding).

[Ned]

Basil, I don't recall whether at the time of the strike I was running ED; however, it is my pattern to keep all my bases in low ED to have an occasional pop until I get Tree Farms. This is a method of increasing clean minerals, one per pop.

But this is one hell of a way to get rid of the top mineral base on Planet.

Ned

[DilithiumDad]

I have never seen an asteroid strike a base, either mine or the AI's or in multiplayer. I wonder if eavy eco-damage is triggering this for some people.

[johndmuller]

It was probably the magnetic attraction of all those extra minerals Ned was producing.

[ACOLKitty]

Damn!

I have had a base hit but nothing like that.

Spreading out SPs is a good idea either way.

[Ned]

Johnd, I think you have a point there. The bases that were hit at the time were my highest producing mineral bases. They were probably also running positive ED.

The next time this happens, I will compare before and after and report back.

I have had the Volcano go off a lot as well. However, in contrast with the Asteroid Strike, it does not seem to produce ten years of dust clouds. Maybe I haven't seen the really big volcano.

I also have not see the seaborne disasters mentioned. This could be because I typically do not play the Pirates. However, whenever I do play the Pirates, I typically am not the leading faction for much of the game.

Ned

[Jokka das Trevas]

Never been hit by asteroid too...

Had one on my sats, once. But never seen one get to the planet's surface...

[Iskandar Reza]

I've never had asteroid strikes, nor have I had solar flares or hailstorms. What I frequently get is bumper crops, which are bad in that I'm unprepared for a pop boom, and drones are yelling all over the place.

[Ned]

Guys, If the reason you are not getting strikes is because you are controlling ED, you may be controlling it too much. It is critical to have at least one pop before you begin building Tree Farms etc. Otherwise, you do not get their "clean mineral" benefit. As well, pops by themselves add to clean minerals and generate worms which you can harvest for money. You just have to keep ED down enough so that you do not trigger Global Warming.

[Deimos]

Ned:

I'm not convinced that the asteroid strike is tied to ED. From my own personal experience and the other discussions that I have read, it appears to be just a random event, albeit a horribly vexing one, aimed solely at the power chart leader.

The only time I have personally experienced an asteroid strike, taking out 3 bases and about 7 SP's , I wasn't running any ED in the vast majority of my empire. I had 2 or 3 bases w/ED, but they were only 1 or 2 mins over the current clean limit. I had suffered a couple of pops, but they were widely separated by both distance and time.

Another vexing issue with asteroid strikes is that once the game determines that you are going to get one in MY X, you get one in that year, reloading old saves notwithstanding. In the game mentioned above, I went and reloaded previous saves, back as far as ten years before the strike, to get around it. No luck. At that point, I gave up trying to get around it and just sucked up the damage and moved on.

Unfortunately, proving this theory would be quite the time consuming task. Since this is a random event, one could go through a very large number of games before it shows up, if it ever did.