Sleeves

I agree with OP; I turn storms off because they're really just a mild annoyance as of now. My solution would be to spawn a special sort of rift during the storms which can be destroyed by physical attacks, though preferably with a large health pool. This would encourage players to interact with the mechanic, lest their base be enveloped by an exponentially growing mob of rust creatures. The rifts would need to be "stunned" when attacked so that a shiver doesn't spawn on you from the very thing you're destroying.

I rewrote it that way after realizing I had been using the same terms to mean multiple things, which arguably made it even more confusing. The idea is just to have slots in a backpack which themselves hold pouches, holsters, etc. and give customizable traits to both.

Preface The current backpack system is a bit silly. We wear four containers, which makes managing them less intuitive. There is, however, a benefit to the current approach: it allows mixing typed containers, e.g. mining bags and regular bags. I propose a replacement for this system which is more intuitive but keeps the same benefit, and even elevates it: modular backpacks. Concept Backpack slots are reduced to one. Modules each have a number of slots and a type restriction. Compartments have a slot multiplier and a maximum capacity. Each compartment can hold one module whose slot count does not exceed capacity. For instance, a compartment with a maximum of 8 can't contain a 10 slot module. Once equipped, the module's slot number is multiplied as defined by the compartment; an 8 item slot module in a 2x compartment grants 16 item slots. Backpacks contain a number of these compartments corresponding to logical storage units on them. A leather backpack might have a large main compartment and several smaller compartments, whereas a basket likely has just one very large compartment. In this way, player choice and tiered progression co-exist. By pulling the quality and type of modules away from the backpacks themselves, the player is made to consider about what they want out of a backpack. Should I aim for few large compartments so that I can use a bigger herb pouch, or many small compartments so I can carry various types of items? Modules could even have their own 3D visuals, just to be fancy.