/tg/Station 13

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.

Yes they have always been bullshit

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.

BrianBackslide wrote: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

I'll merge a nerf to spiders sure

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

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.

Man_Shroom wrote:(who also shouldnt be able to ventcrawl around

Spiders lost their ventcrawl ability last year.

pugie wrote: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.

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.

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.

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.

Better eggs already require you to get a mob.

Nabski wrote: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.

pugie wrote: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.

Naloac wrote:

pugie wrote: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.

Naloac wrote:

pugie wrote: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

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.

Super Aggro Crag wrote:

Naloac wrote:

pugie wrote: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 com

botany pest spray should cause spiders to gib

Owegno wrote: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.

This is honestly the real issue here, combined with the fact that playing broodmother is possibly the most boring task you can do. You LITTERALLY wait for a cooldown and try to remain unseen.

Yeah, WTF spider reworker, you removed the cost of creating new spiders?? What crack was smoked that day

I mean it's still an improvement but cmon

It's really not as bad as it sounds because spiders are weak now the constant eggs mean there is still a threat if you don't round up crew to properly clear out spiders.

Only real complaint is, like webs, clearing out eggs is boring

i think spiders will become slightly more managable once the gamers learn that atmos completely destroys them

every single time someone has suggested that an antagonist must be dealt with using atmospherics and plasma fires, I just shake my head and look towards all those bans people got for flooding a department with plasma and killing more crew than xenos/blob/spiders.

NecromancerAnne wrote:every single time someone has suggested that an antagonist must be dealt with using atmospherics and plasma fires, I just shake my head and look towards all those bans people got for flooding a department with plasma and killing more crew than xenos/blob/spiders.

BZ gas, and I say this without exaggeration, instantly deletes spider webs AND eggs

NecromancerAnne wrote:every single time someone has suggested that an antagonist must be dealt with using atmospherics and plasma fires, I just shake my head and look towards all those bans people got for flooding a department with plasma and killing more crew than xenos/blob/spiders.

not even plasma fires, as mentioned bz actually literally hard deletes webs/eggs/cocoons and broodmothers die to two ticks of space exposure

blow a single tile hole in the nest or bz flood them and they become turbofucked

Togopal wrote:

NecromancerAnne wrote:every single time someone has suggested that an antagonist must be dealt with using atmospherics and plasma fires, I just shake my head and look towards all those bans people got for flooding a department with plasma and killing more crew than xenos/blob/spiders.

BZ gas, and I say this without exaggeration, instantly deletes spider webs AND eggs

does it at least leave a green splotch or something? how lazy

Spiders seem to be a new victim of an antagonist's only truly reliable counter being locked behind a certain job. All but a small, small handful of the crew can get access to a BZ canister, and within that small handful, only one guy is gonna get it. If no one picks up the slack there and does it, it becomes a useless counter; this is common, since I'm betting most players are unaware that BZ does anything to spiders, including many science mains. Spacing maint works but is such a silly thing to ask crew to do and isn't fun design, which should be the focus of the game. Spiders attacked, it's suicide to fight them normally considering the average crewmember's equipment, so the best choice is just poke a hole and hope for the best. Not fun and not engaging, and same goes for the BZ counter. Limiting the reproduction rate for spiders would go a long way, removing the BZ and atmos counters to compensate. Antags like these should be a combat experience for the crew, not a situation where they are punished for not doing something as lame as the no pressure or BZ counters.

EDIT: Also yes I know cargo can order BZ canisters but the issue isn't that they're scarce, it's that most crewmembers don't have a good way of getting them. Either science or cargo's gotta do it, and they typically don't.

Disablers and lethal guns aren't in short supply try those

I was going to describe a round on Terry I experienced earlier today where the crew got steamrolled by spiders and I brought up this thread in OOC but just have these OOC logs from after the round instead. Featuring special guest pugie by total coincidence after he posted here defending the current state of spiders a couple of hours ago.

https://scrubby.melonmesa.com/round/155 ... GAME-14181 (if the page seems frozen that means it's working)

01:13:27 OOC Doctor Brutality/(viper spider (937)) "i love my cute tarantula metafriend waltermelondron" (210, 81, 1) Emergency Shuttle
01:13:39 OOC Livrah/(tarantula (357)) "add more spiders" (208, 72, 1) Emergency Shuttle
01:13:49 OOC Doctor Brutality/(viper spider (937)) "implement cap on special types of spiders" (200, 88, 1) CentCom Recovery Ship
01:13:52 OOC Aktidre/(Anthony Burns) "spiders - 10 threat" (198, 83, 1) CentCom Recovery Ship
01:13:55 OOC Doctor Brutality/(viper spider (937)) "so there isnt just everyone as vipers" (200, 88, 1) CentCom Recovery Ship
01:14:00 OOC Doctor Brutality/(viper spider (937)) "also nurse spiders were the real mvps" (200, 88, 1) CentCom Recovery Ship
01:14:02 OOC Doctor Brutality/(viper spider (937)) "they were healing so much" (200, 88, 1) CentCom Recovery Ship
01:14:03 OOC Livrah/(tarantula (357)) "blob 10 threat" (208, 72, 1) Emergency Shuttle
01:14:08 OOC Gabrielbernuss/(giant spider (576)) "true" (86, 114, 2) Supermatter Engine
01:14:35 OOC Cacogen/(Arnie Tireman) "someone made a thread complaining about the threat value of spiders but it was overrun by people saying if you do everything right they're easily beaten" (210, 87, 1) Emergency Shuttle
01:14:44 OOC Doctor Brutality/(viper spider (937)) "yes" (192, 79, 1) CentCom Recovery Ship
01:14:49 OOC Doctor Brutality/(viper spider (937)) "they used to be ass" (216, 81, 1) Emergency Shuttle
01:14:50 OOC Doctor Brutality/(viper spider (937)) "now they are ok" (216, 81, 1) Emergency Shuttle
01:15:02 OOC Livrah/(tarantula (357)) "now they like.. midround antag" (208, 72, 1) Emergency Shuttle
01:15:15 OOC Doctor Brutality/(viper spider (937)) "did i kill the agent" (198, 81, 1) CentCom Recovery Ship
01:15:23 OOC Sealed101/(viper spider (37)) "agent spidered" (169, 99, 1) CentCom Docks
01:15:27 OOC Doctor Brutality/(viper spider (937)) "yes" (195, 81, 1) CentCom Recovery Ship
01:15:28 OOC Doctor Brutality/(viper spider (937)) "i bit agent" (195, 81, 1) CentCom Recovery Ship
01:15:28 OOC Sealed101/(viper spider (37)) "in the middle of abduction" (169, 99, 1) CentCom Docks
01:15:30 OOC Doctor Brutality/(viper spider (937)) "i was viper" (195, 81, 1) CentCom Recovery Ship

Just as you hardly connect to Terry I hardly play spider. Like ever. This was first time in at least a month, and only like my second round playing as spider post rework. Could be exaggeration on my part, you're free to go and dive through my rounds some more if you want.

On the same day as this happened I played as crew, I used disabler and autorifle to repel spiders safely and effectively, I use disablers to slow down even vipers as if they get hit once their round is basically over. This is easily the cheapest and most effective way to kill lots of spiders as an individual crew member. I killed the last broodmother I think by doing this and I stopped seeing spiders after that guess crew won huh.

Another funny is ripley mk1 which is fast and cheap and the heavy plasma cutter actually makes short work of spiders, just metal glass and plasma to make that...

Anyways, when I took viper on this shift I only get affected by stamina damage by one person who uses a stun baton which forces me to retreat, that was the only time someone fought spiders properly that whole round. If crew don't know what they're doing damn right they should be losing to spiders. This game isn't designed to be a hugbox where the humies fear rp but of course will never lose : )))

If I say cult is balanced for crew and then kill people as cultist successfully then summon does that make me a hypocrite? No, that just makes me a better player than the people I'm fighting, or just lucky, which I can assure you is what happened on this round you cite. I play both as nonantag and as all antags (except heretic which I have yet to play), I know how to play as crew and antag properly, and you can continue to use this as a scapegoat for sucking at the game all you like but me playing a single round as spider doesn't make me biased.

Ever since spider rework spiders have been manageable, hell even defeatable by crew, on paper that sounds really impressive considering the event spawns 3 broodmothers in seperate locations who spawn metagaming spiders ad infinitum

Basically I play both but I play and prefer playing as crew more than spider, and you are unrobust as fuck.

Last time I fought spiders I only survived because I shoved a clown into the spider den and ran as they tore them up.

Then we ordered a bajillion lasers and everything was fine.

Well, for me at least. I had a pipegun full of rubbershot. Everyone else died to spiders and bad air.

they need a nerf to breeding so I'll merge any reduction there

I'm go

u mean nerfing that meele antag taht cant ventcrawl and barely withstands 3 lasers, cant dmg mechs at all very much, sucks against borgos and is apparently vulnerable to any fart atmos and chemists can set loose.

the kind of antag where i can casually RCD a floor in maint and have their entire team die within a minute u mean nerfing that

u mean nerfing that because its too much for you? :donut:w

aww thew teeny tienwy woowzy spwiders two mwuwch fuw uw? :donut2:w

What faka here wants to say is that we need ranked matchmaking

I want to delete his eyes

oranges wrote:they need a nerf to breeding so I'll merge any reduction there

Can there be a commeasurate increase in spider health to balance them out

oranges wrote:they need a nerf to breeding so I'll merge any reduction there

Trace amounts of bz instantly delete eggs, are you sure?

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:

oranges wrote:they need a nerf to breeding so I'll merge any reduction there

Can there be a commeasurate increase in spider health to balance them out

no

pugie wrote:

oranges wrote:they need a nerf to breeding so I'll merge any reduction there

Trace amounts of bz instantly delete eggs, are you sure?

yes

Proposed Changes:
- Increase egg laying timer for broodmothers
- Give broodmothers a poison projectile to let them somewhat defend themselves (maybe something for nurses too)

Overall I've been pretty happy with how spiders have turned out, considering they were straight-up unstoppable before. However, I'm down to make some small adjustments to make them not so much overwhelming as they are right now. People are only now figuring out that stuns work on them (unfortunately I have no real way to spread this info better, maybe I can add a roundstart tip about it?), and as that knowledge spreads I feel that spiders will become more and more manageable. However, I feel these changes can serve to balance out the surprise nature of spiders, with a slight change to broodmothers to let them slightly defend themselves and make themselves a tad more interesting.

Indie-ana Jones wrote:

Proposed Changes:
- Increase egg laying timer for broodmothers
- Give broodmothers a poison projectile to let them somewhat defend themselves (maybe something for nurses too)

Overall I've been pretty happy with how spiders have turned out, considering they were straight-up unstoppable before. However, I'm down to make some small adjustments to make them not so much overwhelming as they are right now. People are only now figuring out that stuns work on them (unfortunately I have no real way to spread this info better, maybe I can add a roundstart tip about it?), and as that knowledge spreads I feel that spiders will become more and more manageable. However, I feel these changes can serve to balance out the surprise nature of spiders, with a slight change to broodmothers to let them slightly defend themselves and make themselves a tad more interesting.

Have you considered editing the wiki? Most players only source of information?

cybersaber101 wrote: Have you considered editing the wiki? Most players only source of information?

Yeah probably, but its not something usually attached to the coding job and I thought someone already did in this case. I'll check it out.

Indie-ana Jones wrote:

cybersaber101 wrote: Have you considered editing the wiki? Most players only source of information?

Yeah probably, but its not something usually attached to the coding job and I thought someone already did in this case. I'll check it out.

In the case of large code contributions (such as game modes) its considered polite to accompany your work with respective wiki pages.
Regardless, the wiki is just as much of a community effort as the codebase, and while Angust is based he's only one guy.

It's fantastic to see people coding awesome new features, but if you don't add info on it to the wiki, it'll remain obscure and unknown to the majority of players. Documentation is what helps ease new players into the true depth of the game and keeps the server alive.