Recluse & Crabbe.

With recent advances jumpies, amphs and heavy tanks have all become relatively balanced 1v1 labs with a range of viable unit compositions.. just Spiders lagging behind now. Spider play is both kind of boring and - outside of Crabbe play - a bit ineffective, or at least predictable and one dimensional. You don't see the troll kings do much with the Spider lab besides Crabbe rush, and that's probably one of the less exciting strategies.

The keystone unit of the low weight spiderball - the Recluse - is a little underpowered, and yet balanced in such a way that it can deathball. Its fragile and expensive enough to make it really swingy to use, without being effective enough to merit that kind of risk. It isn't very good at skirmishing because it doesn't have much alpha/AoE/Accuracy - compared to Rogue or Scalpel, its not a unit you want to produce more than you have to. It cant operate unsupported without riots, and the riots that support it are of similar cost and fragile.

The other side of the coin is the Crabbe, which is basically the last generalist heavy unit - previously the Golly and Sumo were also capable of mincing low weight units just as well as heavies, but now its just the Crabbe that rocks high AoE, Range and DPS in one package. In a spider mirror, Crabbe counters all the other spider unit unless hit with 2x spy or used stupidly/without support. It is also capable of fighting just about all other unit types of weight lower than a reaper cost effectively and from long range. The spider lab has limped along for quite a long time off the back of the Crabbe - without the Crabbe, I wonder if people would make the lab at all.

It would be nice to change the recluse (better hp:cost, higher alpha:dps? Bigger missile salvo, longer reload? etc) and tighten the application for the Crabbe from 'counter all low weight units and lighter defences from a long range while being really hard to kill' to something more specific.

Spiders have trouble against porc without an artillery. Crabe has to take unarmored hits to get in range of the stinger, which kils the whole factory.
Either recluse or crabe needs to gain artillery range, since crabe already does everything else, why not buff recluse range to ~650, double missile volley, and move weight up to ~500?

Original Saktoth idea for "spider artillery which is not OP when climbing onto hills where bots can't reach it" was a drone launcher.

As a mainline drone unit, it required usability additions to the current drone system:
1) being able to retrieve the drone, e.g. when in holdfire mode and no attack order on unit.
2) being able to attack individual targets on choice rather than have drone run amok and around randomly

Drones being killable by return fire would then sufficiently nerf the unit's ability to rain unstoppable death onto terrain-challenged enemies.

Presumably, some new type of drone would have to be made, which would be less capable of just being all-purpose terror generalist plague. Meanwhile, having a drone with leash range greater than Crabe range would allow the drone carrier spider to more or less combat Crabes (especially given that being slow and largely static, crabes are a good target for artillery).

I liked the concept, so i made a sketch. The spider's belly would raise and open up to unleash the drone, or when building it if destroyed or when unit is otherwise "deployed".



(p.s. yes i do love making/proposing units with elaborate mechanical folding)

quote: A kamikaze drone with no AoE would fulfil that requirement.

Wouldn't that become the thing you use to kill Pyro? A Scalpel by any other name?

My own take would be a reasonably armored (heavier than all current ones) drone armed with a slow-reload slow projectile - for example, a Rocko missile.

The drone could be repaired in the spider's belly quickly, but replenishing it after death would be reasonably slow.

The Recluse's dedicated role, though, is that of a Skirmisher, e.g. something to kill assaults and riots.

I know, still keep it a skirm, but one more like the Rogue.

Getting deeper into neonstorm territory, I'm imagining 3 tweaks to units:

1) Add an antenna to the Weaver model, so its radar/sight point is extremely high up.

2) Dirtbag-spike-deaths for Hermits

3) Higher-trajectory Relcuse.

Those seem really random, but put them together: Hermits create cover for recluse, and the Weaver can spot for them from behind cover.

None of these are massive earth-shattering changes to the units, but they would give them a little bit of special power and they would give the lab more ability to assault defended positions by creating and exploiting cover. THat was originally intended to be the Dirtbag/Rogue mechanic, but you don't see it much.

The problem with spiders is not the recluse,not the crabe, and not even the lack of arty.

It's the complete lack of a proper raider.

On maps bigger than 8x8 it is absolutely essential to put a pressure on the opponent, and fleas are unfit for the task as they are cant trade with enemy raiders and get completely destroyed even by lightest defences.

I've been on kind of a spider kick the last few weeks, and Yog's point is the one I've felt most painfully. You can kind of kludge a raider force out of venom/hermit, but once the venom is sniped it's over. Raiding with fleas only works against 100% naked expand.

Venomback is ridiculously good at anti-raider control, but once the skirms come out you're forced into recluse, crabbe, or some sort of flea magic.

It also doesn't help that spiders are collectively so wide, slow, clumsy and fragile that pheonix, tbird, or firewalker all demolish it if you manage to make it into the midgame. So really crabe or fac switch is forced at that point.

Also, venom/hermit is probably under-explored. Having some raiders to mix in to the composition might encourage its use.

I'd really like spider to have a more conventional raider.

Edit: Worth adding that I have never felt compelled to make recluse in 1v1.

Defending your shit has never been a major problem with spiders. Venoms are surprisingly mobile and just a few fleas are enough to kill the stunlocked enemy raiders.
Not being able to pressure your opponent is the issue here. You need fast units that can quickly reach enemy expansion and wreck as much shit as possible before enemy forces arrive to defend. Just a threat of getting raided will force your opponent to expand more conservatively. Witout such threat, any competent player can out-expand the opponent.

I smell the return of the discussion of the ambush melee vampire spider raider thread.

(cloakable like flea, a bit heavy-ish, reasonable dps, very low range, regeneration based on damage dealt to targets, synergize with stunning to get healz, use ambush ability to combat other raiders while not really matching them in direct combat)