ranged attack, digestive acid for terror spider castes

[apneaman]

 

After playing this a few times and really enjoying both hunting spiders and hunting as one. What ive noticed though is its almost always a very drawn out but easy crew victory. The tide usually turns once the crew develops a solid firing line at their nest once all escapable vents are covered and its usually just a push back assault from their on in with little option for spiders but to death charge a wall of laser fire .Could maybe up the difficulty and quality of the round a bit by adding 2 options.

 

Silk shot:

Give the gray caste the ability for a ranged attack that has a knockdown effect similar to the webs themselves. For balance make sure it has a long cool down (30 seconds)

 

Digestive acid:

The ability for one of the castes to unweld a vent with stomach acid, also has a long cooldown timer

 

[Kyet]

 

Hi. I'm the guy coding Terror Spiders.

 

its almost always a very drawn out but easy crew victory.

 

There are several reasons for this:

1) Currently, Terror Spiders cannot reproduce. Once https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/6097 is merged, they will be able to.

2) Terror Spiders are new, and people don't know how to play them well yet. Originally, I had guides embedded into their verbs, which you could bring up in-game, but I had to remove that after an objection from a coder. You can look at the wiki to learn how to play them, but not everyone who plays them does this. Some of their mechanics are not instantly obvious. E.g: wrapping a human corpse gets you increased health regen, use the 'Status' tab to see your health %, etc. This problem will dissipate over time as people learn their mechanics.

3) Of the 10 types of Terror Spiders I have coded, only 4 of them are in the game right now: red, gray, black, and prince. Even those only have about half their coded added. Red and Gray are Tier 1 spiders (the lowest level of spider). Blacks are Tier 2, but spawned rarely. Princes are Tier 3, but rarely spawned, and are the subject of an extensive buff/rebalance in the upcoming Terror Spiders 2 PR. Once the current PR gets merged, you will start to see higher-level spiders appear - up to Tier 4. The higher level ones are FAR more dangerous than the lower level ones.

4) When I put Terror Spiders in a round, I generally do a "level 3 biohazzard" alert announcing them just after they're spawned. Sometimes with a siren, like meteors or nations get. This jump-starts the security/command response to them, and ensures they are immediately understood to be a serious threat. This is necessary because I want to see what the balance is like when security is actively trying to fight them. In future, they are not always guaranteed to be announced in a timely manner. If they happen, and command/security doesn't respond to them, rounds will go very differently.

 

In short: Terror Spiders are not at their full strength yet. They will get stronger as:

- more types are added

- they gain the ability to reproduce

- players learn how to play them

- command/security stops getting a loud heads-up the second they are spawned

 

The tide usually turns once the crew develops a solid firing line at their nest once all escapable vents are covered and its usually just a push back assault from their on in with little option for spiders but to death charge a wall of laser fire .Could maybe up the difficulty and quality of the round a bit by adding 2 options.

 

So, balance wise, the two issues are:

1) Spiders have no counter to all the vents being welded. I agree that they should have a counter, but it should be rare and expensive.

2) Spiders have no counter to crew armed with laser guns. I am less sure about this, but I have been experimenting with some options.

 

Silk shot:

Give the gray caste the ability for a ranged attack that has a knockdown effect similar to the webs themselves. For balance make sure it has a long cool down (30 seconds)

 

 

Gray Terror Spiders have a very powerful ability already: their bite silences their targets.

They are stealthy, assassin spiders.

They are intended for spinning webs across corridors, then hiding in a vent. Once someone runs into the web, you pop out of the vent, and kill them while they're stunned by the web. Due to the silencing poison, they can't even scream for help. Once they're dead, web them, and pop back in the vent to await the next victim.

This is how grays are meant to be played. They're meant to be ambush, stealth spiders. They are meant to take out weak targets (e.g: civilians) without anyone noticing. They're essentially the monster that sneaks up on you and murders you in the dark, before you can even scream.

They are not meant to be front-line spiders, or ranged spiders.

 

That said, there is a type, being merged in the next PR, which has a ranged attack. It is the Queen.

Its ranged attack causes poison damage and hallucinations. It will be very rare, however.

 

Digestive acid:

The ability for one of the castes to unweld a vent with stomach acid, also has a long cooldown timer

 

As of the next PR, the Prince of Terror will have the ability to smash (ie: unweld) vents and scrubbers, as well as be more robust in general.

 

 

In general, for laser-armed crew, spiders have several options:

- Make clever use of the terrain, such as by staying behind a corner, ambushing via vents, using space to their advantage, spinning webs to block shots, etc.

- Evading the laser-armed crew, and going after the soft, delicious, unarmed crew. Spiders drink blood. They are not picky about whose blood.

- Reproduction. Even the best gun runs out of ammo/charge eventually. Eventually, spiders allowed to reproduce unchecked will overwhelm the crew.

 

Edited January 10, 2017 by Guest

[apneaman]

Thanks for the info looking forward to the future of it. Also feel like im gonna love playing them even more now