Reworking of planetary meteor storms

Problem:

My friend and I have playing on the same world for a while now, and we've spent the vast majority of time at either of the two planetary bases we've constructed. We've been playing with meteor storms on because we enjoy the extra challenge of building and maintaining defenses. The consequence is that both of our bases are littered with potholes that can never go away (see image below).

Furthermore, whenever we fly out of the base, we always see this strange sight where our base has been severely targeted by meteors -- while the surrounding Earth remains untouched. It's a sight that really looks out of place and breaks the immersion of the game (in my opinion).

Suggestions:

We would like to keep the game mechanic of base defense while not sacrificing the presentation and immersion of the game. I'll admit that I don't know much about programming, so please forgive me if I suggest something naive.

1. Meteor storms are spread out across the whole planet

This would stop the occurrence of the strange scene pictured above, but meteors would either become very sparse across the entire planet (hurting the survival aspect of meteor storms) or would be very computationally taxing should meteor storms keep their density for the whole planet (I assume). Also, the whole planet would start to look irreparably ugly over time.

2. Meteor craters "heal" over time

This could solve both the increasingly-ugly and unnaturally-targeted appearance of meteor craters so long as the craters heal quickly enough between storms. However, I don't know if it is possible for craters to be differentiated from man-made holes. This could be an issue as man-made tunnels would get filled up over time.

3. Meteor craters can be manually repaired

This suggestion goes hand-in-hand with other terraforming suggestions (which have other reasons for their inclusion as well). In our world (pictured above), the craters have made rover travel much more difficult. Currently, we just have to pray that we will continue to have a clean route to drive out of our base. If we could smoothen out the potholes, this problem could be solved. Also, with some extra work, we could make the area around our base look nicer, though terraforming alone wouldn't stop the feeling that the universe is actively trying to snipe our base with meteors.

4. Scrap planetary meteor storms entirely (as a game option)

Realistically speaking, the atmosphere should help out with incoming meteor storms on an Earth-like planet. Having lived on the real Earth myself, I can confidently say that meteor storms aren't a matter of concern on a daily basis. Without planetary meteors storms, there would be no ugly craters nor a sense of being targeted. Space meteor storms, on the other hand, don't have the same problem. Asteroids are lumpy enough that they don't appear to be riddled with craters when struck (in comparison to planets, at least). Also, they are small and far apart, so your asteroid wouldn't appear to be "targeted" in the same way as on a planet.

Of course, this option is not ideal because we would also lose the defense aspect of the game (not to mention the rare chance of finding valuable ores in meteor craters). Maybe these aspects of the game can be better provided by other environmental hazards (e.g. planetary weather storms, dangerous fauna, space invaders). Maybe there is no better solution and I've been foolish to complain this whole time.

I apologize for the long post. Thanks for reading. I'm happy to discuss this suggestion further and I look forward to more criticisms/suggestions from other people.