I really like the ideas, but who will implement them in game?
We already have different species of spiders implemented. It is just the case that they are all largely the same as are thier mega variants.
Idk, someone will be able to bring these ideas to life someday
Sadly, without someone who is ready to spend time coding all this wall of text into a game, you will not get anywhere. So finding someone willing to do this is a nececcary next step.
So many great ideas are deadborn for this reason.
Ifor the most part, there is a lot of work here because of the variability, but in fact there is nothing super complicated here. I have a friend who is a programmer and I can persuade him to start working on a mod, but he is quite lazy, although a good person. if a lot of people are interested in this idea, he can start working, but if we talk about such a fashion for only 2 people, its development will take a lot of time.
if someone likes this idea and would like to see it implemented, you can write it here
I just ‘wrapped’ up a project, and I could implement a few of these ideas into the game for you.
If you want to try this yourself, I would recommend reading the Guide To Adding New Content For First Time Modders, quite the trove of information. While the JSON or code might be sticky at first, and difficult to navigate the web of information, it gets easier with experience. In short, you’ll catch on to it quickly.
implement these ideas in the game?
it sounds great, but the full implementation will require the creation of a mod, so I’ll have to persuade my friend to create a whole mod on this topic. Although it will depend on the impact of the community, because he is not the biggest fan of mutations and likes to create a lot of small and convenient mods more (the ability to lock doors, make glass showcases, he likes a lot of possibilities)
I am not a programmer myself, I am good at creating ideas, methods of their implementation (if I am well acquainted with what needs to be heard/changed)
Mod content aside, keep in mind that huge spider web structures are going to have huge biomass and energy costs. Spider webs work because they’re incredibly efficient at what they do, consuming an incredibly small amount of material relative to the area covered. If you tried to build a house or even clothes out of silk, that’s not a sustainable biomass load, and it would take an extremely long time to produce.
Rather than palette swapping spider silk in for some other material, think about what kind of uniquely web-like structures you could build with silk out of extremely limited amounts of very strong material.
A hammock is the first I can think of. Covering one side of the web with debris such as leaves or grass mats could result in a tent or lean-to.
The way to get the most silk even for a spider mutant would be to just clear our spider basements and nests. If you harvest the silk from these locations you should definitely get enough silk to make clothing. Otherwise you would probably still have enough to make some extemely stong nets, thread, ropes or even cables out of it. I even remember reading that they where looking into spidersilk as a bulletresistant material so collecting a large amout of it would be worth it for that purpose alone.
that is why spiders are able to eat someone else’s/their own web for recycling and use. This feature will give spider nests more meaning and value. As I said above, it would be correct to place 1 individual in the nests, the main female, whose location is sought by other male spiders. in this way, it will be possible to introduce pheromones for the female variation of the mutation that will allow you to kill only the main enemy of the hive-and not get a knife in the back from “working” spiders.
but this does not mean that spider nests will become too simple. it would be more correct to say that spiders weave a continuous layer of cobwebs ONLY their burrows-nests (funnel spiders, and they are LONERS) and eggs (the clutch of spiders is huge, so there is an opportunity to increase the number of eggs), so for a big reward you will need to go to the heart of the nest anyway
small use of the web? highly effective repair of many types of clothing, a small amount of cobwebs can be used to temporarily barricade the passage (as strong as a wooden door, zombies will not be difficult to pull out a small amount of cobwebs attached to the wall, even if it slows them down, but the player will be able to pass through them if they are not), a small amount of cobwebs can use to create durable fishing nets.
it can also be said that the amount of web created by the player can be increased / decreased with the necessary mutations, with their own problems (more belly-much more difficult to handle transport and more stiffness, as an example)
Spiders can dig well (funnel spiders that live in tunnels with a closed spider lid (quite dangerous guys) and spiders in desert that can disguise themselves under the sand (quite interesting videos by the way)), so I don’t see any problems in allowing a player with a mutation giving + 4 limbs to dig the ground at the speed of a regular shovel.
if all this is too complicated, then I think it would be nice… at least add strong legs like a spider jumper so that a parkour player can jump at least 3 or 4 cells. it will simplify life a lot.
I’m not saying that the player can now only eat cobwebs, oh no, I think it would be more correct to link the balance of the web with the number of calcium in the player-this will allow the player to replenish the reserves of a precious resource, and at the same time will not make him capable of full web nutrition (although this is quite a difficult task).
I want to say that the silk collected from the nests already used by spiders can be called dirty. it is worse because for the most part it was used only to hold tunnels, and it is dirty. only a little bit of pure silk will be found in the room with the queen and the eggs.
this will not allow a player with weak mutations or a non-spider to easily obtain such rare material, but a mutant spider will be able to eat a dirty silk and recreate it. of course, with a large cost coefficient. if you remember that the abdomen of a spider is 40~ 70% of the weight of the whole body, it will be difficult for a spider to move normally, so you can give some bonuses from life for a spider
The current problem with harvesting cobwebs is the fact that they are listed as fields, while the current construction code can’t interact with them.
Maybe they should be made into traps? Normal spider threads being only 0,003 millimeters I could imagine even the giant spiders might have threads only the thickness of actual thread. Spotting a web of something like that would be fairly difficult. Would also make it possible to collect some relatively clean spider silk (might have to wash the glue off of it though). Other source of spider silk that could be harvested would be spider egg sacks (already present), their tunnels/burrows (looking at trapdoor spiders) and ofcourse their cocooned victims. The silk from these sources would be dirty and would have to be properly washed before it would be of use.
spider threads are smaller than a human hair, but a spider web is the size of a thread? such a web is capable of holding animals the size of a dog in a death grip. if we consider that spiders are able to change their size, then there is nothing strange in catching zombies and humans. in general, you wrote everything the same as I did in the comments above xd
I tried that earlier, it didn’t work in the regards of spider mutants walking over it without triggering, or spawning in with Web Weaver.
I don’t think the actual adhesive properties would scale that way - Chemical adhesives in general don’t arbitrarily scale up in size while maintaining their effectiveness. And if its a mechanical adhesion (microscopic barbs and other such physical catches) those don’t scale at all, either becoming big enough that its actually just barbed at that point, or maintaining their microscopic size and lack of effectiveness on larger targets, not really benefiting from extra surface area. Zombies themselves probably wouldn’t be safe though, they’re stupid enough to get tangled in a web of fibers by their own awkward movement if nothing else.
in fact, because of the similar size of the threads, it is not so easy to pass through them without tearing them off / getting entangled in them. in addition, these are mutant spiders, why not, we have aliens and mushrooms with a collective mind, spiders can have a web that can hold at least simple zombies
I have a rudimentary set of data on silk, if anyone would like to test it. It’s packaged as a mod right now.
That problem could be solved by the spiders by just decreasing the spacing between the threads. Although this would result in them having to use more fiber and the webs being more visable, it would also increase the surface area for the adhesive and increases the amount of fiders that a creature would get tangled/sticked in.