nerf spiders for the love of god

[NikoTheGuyDude]

I really, really, really hate how strong spiders are. With the nerf to laser weapons, and them being bulky, its a lot harder to kill them conventionally. Sure, you could just space all of maint, but I really don't think that should be the solution. They just keep fucking COMING.

Also, I know my argument is weak, but this thread is just another in my series of threads I make so people actually fucking speak up for once. A lotta people over on manuel complain about spiders, so I thought, hey, why not give them a place to actually talk about this?

If spiders work well on other servers and NOT manuel, maybe its time for a policy thread instead, but for now, I'll post this here.

[cacogen]

Yes they have always been bullshit

[BrianBackslide]

Shotgun nerf really makes spiders/dragons unbearable. That and because you can only carry one laser with you, the spiders will probably repopulate by the time you're done recharging your gun. I mean, I don't mind spiders being a round-ender when played well, but I don't like the idea of depressurizing all of maint becoming the go-to whenever someone calls it out.

[thehogshotgun]

Shotgun nerf really makes spiders/dragons unbearable. That and because you can only carry one laser with you, the spiders will probably repopulate by the time you're done recharging your gun. I mean, I don't mind spiders being a round-ender when played well, but I don't like the idea of depressurizing all of maint becoming the go-to whenever someone calls it out.

Sorry friend, coders got killed as anteg so they needed to nerf

[oranges]

I'll merge a nerf to spiders sure

[Man_Shroom]

i think the recent spider change PRs were steps in the right direction, with the concept of broodmothers being able to lay normal egs, and elite eggs, as well as give directives/telepathically communicate. however, i think that there are too many caste types of spiders currently. there should only be 3, maybe 4 castes. first the broodmother (who also shouldnt be able to ventcrawl around, like the xenomorph queen), then a basic drone/healer/webber class, then only one type of elite, maybe 2. eliminating the broodmothers ability to crawl away from danger and the sheer number of different spider roles, when it should be a simpler antag than xenos by comparison, would be good bunga

thank you for coming to my ted talk

[pugie]

The issue with spiders before was that they would not snowball as much as they'd start off as an avalanche with an infinite amount of food from xenobio for broodmothers leading to about 10000 spiders by my estimates, literally unbeatable.
Currently spiders still have numbers, variation between the types which make them all a threat to be aware off but have much lower health (with the exception of tarantula, the tanking spider) and are slowed to a crawl by one disabler beam.

That latter thing is why no nerf is needed. They're already a fair fight, you're just losing fights because you were less robust than the spiders or got unlucky or overwhelmed which is how spiders should work. They aren't an insurmountable force now though, on Terry using just disabler/baton with laser rifle/autorifle and a couple other guys we've utterly wiped out spiders, it's balanced now. Don't even get me started on t1 ripley with plasma cutter fighting spiders that's outright unfair and dirt cheap.

Change your approach to fighting antags instead of calling for even more nerfs, if you're just shooting lasers at them like you're fighting a static threat like blob of course you're gonna lose.

(who also shouldnt be able to ventcrawl around

Spiders lost their ventcrawl ability last year.

[stewydeadmike]

snip

I agree with this tbh, I think spiders in their new form are actually quite enjoyable and being a powerful threat that can't be solved by conventional methods of just shooting them forces you to think outside of the box to try and overcome them. Not to say there aren't things that could use tweaking of course. At the moment they're much too common, they roll like every other round. That and maybe only have the event create one broodmother egg cluster because one can already spam out more than enough eggs and two just seems like overkill.

[Ayy Lemoh]

I've seen some incredibly fast spiders, and spiders obviously still have poison in their bites whenever they attack. Both of those at once is literally just fucking hell to deal with and not fun.

[cacogen]

When I said they've always been bullshit I wasn't aware of the changes pugie mentioned but I did have in mind multiple times over the years getting bitten (I know, it's my fault — I'm sorry) and my health nosediving as I limp to the medbay, go into crit and die if I'm not helped. I guess I wish there was further recourse to being bitten.

[iwishforducks]

Spiders either get nipped in the bud by being spotted mere seconds after the broodmothers hatch, or they're hidden for a mere 6 minutes and are suddenly an unstoppable force. There is no in-between. Make broodmother actually able to fend for themselves, and instead of making broodmothers lay eggs 24/7 I want to see a similar mechanic to plasma that xenos have. Maybe the broodmother should even be able to decide what kind of eggs to lay, and "better" spiders cost more nutrients or some shit. Right now spider success 100% depends on whether or not that the broodmother just knows to keep laying eggs.

[Nabski]

Better eggs already require you to get a mob.

[iwishforducks]

Better eggs already require you to get a mob.

If you're able to get a humanoid mob then that usually means spiders are already winning. Again, terrible snowball effect here.

[Naloac]

words.

you could quite literally apply this to alot of the things people whinge and cry about. Alot of players arent willing to change tactics and die as a result.

[NecromancerAnne]

words.

you could quite literally apply this to alot of the things people whinge and cry about. Alot of players arent willingly to change tactics and die as a result.

Kinda but I blame it on a lack of knowledge developed from years of things being contrary to what pugie has said, and rational thinking (my disabler/taser will protect me from threats) being punished by lazy mob code decisions (the security officer who just joined last week arriving late to a gorilla infestation shooting gorillas with a disabler. Because gorillas are stun immune mobs with hands, the gorilla shotguns them. He had as much of a chance as an assistant with the toolbox since none of his tools do anything on non-humans. Apply this to basically almost all threats other than humans, borgs and xenos included)

I didn't actually know the new spiders are vulnerable to stamina damage because for the longest time, not a single simple mob has been. Only raw damage ever actually had impact in these kinds of fights and spiders with their speed often will outpace some schmuck with a toolbox, and that's the position of most of the people on the station. Not everyone has a gun and designing stuff with it only being answered by the biggest gun you can get is bad.

The fact security can, on the spot, engage spiders with their spawn weapon is fucking liberating. More simple mobs need to be like this.

[Super Aggro Crag]

words.

you could quite literally apply this to alot of the things people whinge and cry about. Alot of players arent willing to change tactics and die as a result.

changing tactics right after a balance shift is a retard move, the coders are still looking at it and if they see you adapt they will kick the legs out from under you out of spite

u gotta wait a few months for them to get distracted by something else THEN change tactics

[Owegno]

The fact spiders do not need any resource to reproduce means that the optimal strategy is to just hide in some corner of maint, produce babies for 15 minutes, then suicidally swarm the station with nigh infinite numbers. The times I've seen spiders lose after pulling off this strat is when someone brings a bomb to them and uses it to instantly win.

Spiders should need to acquire something to be able to reproduce beyond a number of starting spiders. Be it corpses like they used to need or something else. If this makes spiders too weak to be a potentially station ending threat like they are now, who the hell cares. Not all side antags need to be station ending threats like xenomorphs (who I see fail more than spiders at this point) and frankly coming back to playing after a few year break and seeing that a minor threat has been buffed to be more dangerous than xenomorphs is hilarious.

[cacogen]

words.

you could quite literally apply this to alot of the things people whinge and cry about. Alot of players arent willing to change tactics and die as a result.

changing tactics right after a balance shift is a retard move, the coders are still looking at it and if they see you adapt they will kick the legs out from under you out of spite

u gotta wait a few months for them to get distracted by something else THEN change tactics

This isn't true but it makes sense.

One of the things I miss about spiders is coming back to a world you left running after testing and seeing the station overrun with webs, cocoons and spiders. Disgusting. But also artful.

[Super Aggro Crag]

botany pest spray should cause spiders to gib