So, we all know that Webber is next on the rework chopping block. He is the one that so desperately needs it the most out of the rest of the cast. However, his spider friends have been just as neglected. Instead of ragging on their almost decade-old AI, I instead want to point everyones' eyes towards QoL cosmetic changes for spiders. If they have more animations and simply interact with the environment more, they can finally reclaim their role as "creepy crawlies" instead of "black circle with legs that roars at you". Im bringing this up now because we got a QoL update coming for us next month, so hopefully Klei may throw some of these ideas into that.
* Crawling on Structures
When a spider is idle near a structure, it may choose to climb onto that structure. This is purely for visual effect. This can give a nice "overrun" effect when spider eggs are planted within a base (Webber) or large forest/quarry area.
In order to not make Klei Animators want to eat dirt, of course the number of entities spiders can climb on should be limited. I propose this list:
- Rocks (Normal, Gold, Flint-less.)
- Trees (Small, Med, Large, includes lunar variants)
- Science Machine, Alch. Engine, Prestihatitator, Shadow Manipulator)
- Chests, Ice boxes, Crock Pots
When a spider climbs on a structure, it will tend to stay on that structure for a bit before climbing off. If aggro'd, it will climb off and then roar. If attacked, it will fall off onto it's back with it's legs dangling in the air.
If the entity a spider is on is being interacted with (mined, chopped, used, etc), then the spider will play the same animation as if it was attacked. They won't aggro on Webber, obviously.
As a little technical note, prototyping stations wont play their "idle" animation when a player is nearby if a spider is on it. If the prototyping station is used to prototype something, it will still play the animation and the spider will be knocked off.
* Proper animations for spiders crawling into and out of dens
Right now, Spiders use their generic "roar" animation when they exit a den, and their "eat" animation when they enter one.
When Spiders exit a den, they could have several animations each depicting a different angle they crawl towards(right, left, and center). The game chooses which animation to use at random. All animations would start with the spider appearing from behind the den. When multiple spiders come out of the den at a time (most likely a spider or the den itself was attacked), then the game will prioritize occupying all 3 "angle" options. If there are more than 3 spiders in the den, it will send out more half a second after the last 3 spiders, to prevent them from layering on top of each other and confusing the player on how many spiders there are in a den.
A similar method could be used for entering a den. Spiders climb onto the den, go above it, and then disappear behind it. If there are no angles for a spider to climb up (ex: there are already 3 spiders climbing), it will wait outside the den for an opportunity.
* Idle Animations
Spiders are motionless when they are idle. A simple animation like them looking around could put a little life into them.
* Interactions with other spiders
Perhaps when an idle spider finds itself in range of another idle spider, they can play a "face-off" animation where they hiss at each other. If one of them is a Spider Warrior whilst the other is not, the non-warrior will be intimidated.
Those are all of the ideas that I got. Having all of these intricate animations would most likely take a considerable amount of time to produce, so I don't expect everything. If I had to choose one, I'd choose the spider den enter/exit animations.
If anyone else has ideas for QoL animations for spiders, dump 'em here.