Spider Raider

Spiders are effectively crippled in 1v1's due to their (ultralight)raiders being made of wet tissue paper, even 1 llt can effectively stop infinite fleas (or so close to that it just doesn't matter). fleas themselves get emp'd by the radius of your venoms (the rather expensive riot which can't hurt things) so that makes it incredibly hard to fight raiders like glaives with spiders at 1v1 or team games, one solution to this which i've seen used most frequently is to porc everywhere which is repugnant to me especially that players should be forced to do this to cover a glaring flaw, so glaring that a noob who'd been playing maybe three days picked this up the instant he started playing spiderfac.

one of the changes that could be implemented to solve this would be the introduction of some kind of fast melee raider with a little more health and speed then a glaive, but more expensive this would sit in between the 65metal for glaive and the 160metal for a cudgel which is the spiderfacs next cheapest unit, this would allow spiders to fight llt's and MT's more efficiently on a wider scale then they are currently able. There is also a model currently available for this unit which captain benz created but hasn't been used for anything afaik.

The other solution was one i heard a few days ago, would be splitting the firepower of the cudgel between the plasma weapons and some sort of beam weapon from the great Eye however this is an assault so it would be unorthodox and a little fiddly to get right.

Have you considered what an all terrain raider with the capacity to take on LLT's would do to the game? It's already a total pain to have to defend every single cliff from both fleas (Which require llt/defender) and cudgel/reclues (which require nothing less than HLT). The only thing that stops this from being devestating is the lack of mobility and the vulnerability to AoE of cudgel/recluse.

P.S. spider is very viable as a 1v1 start factory, even on flatter maps, if just for flea. On hillier maps you get flea vs flea which is just the most obscene thing to play ever.

Floris: okay i admit it, i would like it to be viable as it is my favourite factory but i've caught on to complaints from others about this as well.

Saktoth: funnily enough i had considered the implications, just makes it a little more difficult to get right, one of the aspects that makes that easier is its melee purposed so still suffers and will die to llts singly or in pairs like glaives but supersedes the need to shove multiple cudgels or venoms and cudgels into a side area which in few numbers are horifically easy to counter.
also, if its so viable, why did this happen: http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/96530

Pxtl: the equivalant from those other factories don't die to being sneezed on. even a single glaive or bandit can kill many, many fleas easily above their own cost

A nice fast riot/raider crawling bomb would be good for Spiders. It would be worthless for attacking a base, but good against raiders. Adding a lighter tick-like unit (but designed specifically for fighting raiders - lower cost, lower power) would have synergy with fleas, for example - you can't use Venoms alongside Fleas because they team-stun the Fleas. But having two riot-stunners in one lab would feel very redundant, plus this unit would be kind of stealing Tick's thunder (no pun intended).

If you wanted to make a massable riot-raider kamikaze, you could make it explode with the Outlaw's weapon.

In general, something specifically designed for fighting enemy raiders but would fail hard against enemy buildings would be nice. A kamikaze riot raider seems like the best option, but other possibilities like an impulse-based unit or something that can perma-kite raiders (but that'd have to be another paper unit by necessity, and the Spider lab doesn't need a second paper raider).

hermit buf? zomg.

your right knorke, cloakies, shieldbots and light vehicles do play exactly the same

Oh no wait - they dont! Good thing that post of yours has a delete button!

Praetor, you missed sarcasm.

The point is that the labs that all have the complete set of roles play completely differently. Adding some kind of regular raider to the Spider lab wouldn't cause that. But either way, I don't think the Spider-lab should have a regular raider, but rather some kind of riot-raider.

Why would it need another nerfing? It's already got a weakish AA unit and is very vulnerable to high-weight riot attacks like the Phoenix bomber.

spiders wouldn't need another nerf, they are already vulnerable in many many ways,
the phoenix for instance annihilates them, and the tarantula isn't worth the metal you invest in it until theres 3 onwards (1200m+ such sillyness) which gives air and gunshits almost free rein (smaller gunshits can fall prey to the venom though which is nice). firewalker also obliterates spider balls, as does artillery like the pillager or hammer(if its ai worked admittedly) for which they have no response(outside possbly spam fleas, oh look 1 llt or glaive lolnope not killing that anytime soon). Assault units like mass ravager or reaper will rip through them able to tank the high damage spiders deal and then smash the fragile spiderlings. etc etc

oh yeah, and if it comes to raider wars esp early spider player cannot throw up a defence or a challenge to glaive/bandit/scorcher mass (apart from godde and even he struggles)

Venom is a fine riot, although it's strongest as anti-assault. The hard part with using venoms as riot is that you have to make sure they spread out their fire and avoid redundant stunning. Using then in tandem with Hermits instead of Recluses works well if you're looking for pure riot-power, since the hermits are less prone to getting team-stunned and less vulnerable to the raiders if the raiders get too close.