Storms as a defense?

[AMF]

Hmmm...I thought for sure I was the offending player TT was referring to. I am using storms as a defense in two games, on e of which I used them without knowing of the bug mentioned above and before it was fixed (a DevNull game). So, actually, I have a Temple World that has 527 storms around it. It's an RP thing. But it's also quite defensible now, obviously.

There are at least three bummers with storms:

1) Ships only take damage when they move into them. Not very sensical to me. And allows massive fleet defense given enough time

2) Not realistic: I have an empire with storms around ringworlds. I can concievably keep building up storms and facilities on my ringworlds, lose all my other planets, and yet, somehow, the trading of goods and services continues in my empire. Storms that cause damage should also blockade anything in their sector.

3) Are unbalancing: the above empire, if left unchecked, will eventually be undefeatable: If I have, say, twenty or more turns storms over my richest ten planets, then odds are I will be a hard nut to crack. Give me another twenty turns, and its even harder, and so on until I have ten planets with 100 storms over each, and as long as I have some weapons on those planets, any fleets that try and come in will get devastated by the storms and then shot like fish in a barrel. Using storms as WP defense is just as nasty.

I don't like storms anymore, for these reasons. Although, I am still using them in two games. And approaching problem #3 above in one of them.

Tks,

Alarik