Finding a role for the Spiderlight

spiders are weak at map control, since they generally have a choice between fleas (zero staying power on defence) or a spiderball (cant spread out to cover ground and still be effective).

A possible niche for the spiderlight would be as a specialised defender - somthing designed to be used in conjunction with venoms on defence but lacking the characteristics that make it a good attacker.

This might be a good oppourtunity to promote one of two characteristics. assuming it has a mid-ranged beam weapon, either of the following could work well:

vampirism - a unit that heals itself while attacking. like any regen, useful in low density combat (higher chance of surviving to heal) and a non-asset in high density combat (where heavies or focus fire are likely to insta-kill). defending vs raiders over a large area is likely to be low density.

gattling - a weapon that, like the gattling from Zero Hour, takes a while to spin up to its full DPS. This would be a good way to make the unit much less effective unless used with venoms (which delay attackers enough for it to spin up) and give a unit dangerous anti-heavy DPS without letting it use that DPS to hose raiders etc.

...and allowing it to only shooot while stationary? The setup time (as observed with slasher) would already work as "spinup" time well enough, and with low enough range you can give it enough dps to quickly dispose of stunned enemies, once in position.

It also needs to have low enough health and range to not simply be used as a turret. Mace-like weapon sounds fine to me (but again, only firing while stationary).
You could also maybe make it shoot discrete shots, but then you'd have to balance it for the different raider healths with respect to what it one-shots and two-shots... Well, aoe would fix that. A slightly faster leveler cannon would probably work.

quote: Either way I don't think these have synergy with the venom or really fill a hole in the Spider factory.

you dont think a companion unit speed/hp wise for the venom that focuses dealing direct damage fills a hole in the spider factory?

*reaches across the internet to clean sak's glasses*

quote: and allowing it to only shooot while stationary? The setup time (as observed with slasher) would already work as "spinup" time well enough, and with low enough range you can give it enough dps to quickly dispose of stunned enemies, once in position.

I actually think the spiderlight as somthing that must deploy to fire (eg the drone only pops out when not moving) would work really well, though I would lean towards giving it some range too.

quote: A spin-up mechanic would need to work with ammo/overheat (like the Archer tank) so you cannot just spam it. Though better would be more like a vampiric damage weapon, that gains DPS as it does damage (rather than just gaining DPS as it fires).

Cool I never thought of that.. so as the unit deals damage, an archer-like bar would fill up that causes it to deal more damage (and then quickly recedes when it stops doing damage)?

If the spin up is balanced to take quite a while to reach full damage, this could potentially provide some serious killing power for things stunned by spy. So long as the spin up falls off very fast when not attacking, it would be easy for non-stunned units to disengage and re-engage when the spiderlights start to reach critical.

The Slasher seems like a good model for this unit - not too high ROF, but low-weight and low-power so it can pick away at raiders. I do worry about deathballs of this thing, though - if it has decent DPS/cost and it's massable, we could be back to the CA days of massive Samson-beam armies, plus shooting over wrecks and teammates.

But that's not really a companion-unit for the Venom. High DPS/cost would be nightmarishly OP, and Venom already has lots of low DPS/Cost buddies.

Focusing on some kind of defensive anti-raider area control would be best (like the Slasher) imho, but the only synergy with a Venom would be that it might need a Venom to protect it from larger swarms or assaults, not that it's an ideal damage-dealer for the Venom.

A drone-carrier might work similarly - something that can cover a lot of ground defensively, but its weapon is nullified by light defenses or AA.

Why does it have to be a starlight type weapon? It will be annoying to use if it has short range due to spherical ranges. I think you are better off reroling the Hermit.

I agree with GoogleFrog - if you give the Hermit a hefty ROF/DPS buff (speed buff too?), then the Spiders have an executioner to work with the Venom and the Hermit develops a purpose beyond "cheap and weak assault".

This frees the SpiderLight to solve the Spider lab's other problem, poor area-control against raiders. A Samson-like unit would help with this, or an anti-raider-drone-carrier.

An artillery-ranged drone-carrier would have particularly spectacular synergy with fleas. Imagine a drone with a riot weapon that gets 1-shotted by defenders. Give it about 1200 "travel range" from the carrier. Fleas are fantastic spotters, and the drones could be used to draw fire from Defenders, but at the same time it would be piss-poor offensive artillery since a single LLT or Defender or Jethro shuts it down.

It's not a 1200-range weapon. It's a drone that can fly 1200 away from its base-station. By that logic a Phoenix is a riot weapon with unlimited range.

Not only that, but a Phoenix takes a lot more than a defender to stop.

quote: - requires the unit to be stationary while 'charging up', so it wouldn't be usable when the riot needs to move much (which is pretty much always)

You can use SetTarget to attack the ground while the unit is moving.

Another slasher sounds seductive, except for the point where it's just another slasher with spider legs.

And i hate slashers.

... My own take was that of a slow-aiming damage dealer, so a dedicated melter of heavy/static/paralyzed enemies.

It would have its aiming decoupled from movement. It would require 4-5 seconds to unpack its beam weapon by launching the satellite. Upon deployment, it would initially be aimed to where the attack order position was, and then slowly adjust if target moved.

It would pack the beam weapon satellite when not firing. It would take more than 5 seconds to move the beam more than 90 degrees, so keeping the beam always on would be detrimental if you're attacked from unexpected angle.

That, though, is decidedly not an anti-raider.

Maybe it could use a weapon similar to the HLT beam, in that the beam can't be moved once it starts firing. If it does its damage continuously over about 2 seconds, raiders will quickly get out of its path and only take a fraction of the full amount. Assaults will take a bit more, and structures, immobilized or stationary units will take full damage.

It would probably look best if the drone hangs in midair without moving even if the spider moves away. After the beam finishes it could return to the spider or just explode like it's designed to be single use, with the spider deploying a replacement.

3 or 4 of these could pick off raiders one by one, but would easily be mobbed by them without Venom support. Trying to make a deathball out of them would become increasingly inefficient against light units, since they could tend to focus fire a lot and waste most of their damage potential. They would make great support for the inaccurate Recluse, however.

The role type would probably be described as "Skirmish / Anti-Heavy".