Spidertron speed buff

[NotRexButCaesar]

You can modify spidertron speed
I'm the author of Tarantulator and I was able to make it slower than Spidertron
All you need to do is increase the initial_movement_speed and movement_acceleration properties for the spidertron leg prototypes

spidertron's strength is in numbers and the fact they are remote controllable.

make a group of them, outfit a few with lasers, some with rockets, some energy shields, roboports and repair packs. send them out. they don't even need exoskeletons, because they'll make it there eventually.

saying that end-game people won't use it is kinda weird because there's a whole military tech tree that is basically ignored by most megabase builders. a lot of people don't use combat robots, spidertron will probably be another one of those.

Why exactly does anyone want it slow? How is making it faster bad exactly?

[Serenity]

I agree that it could be faster. It's fine for walking around in the base and remote controlled maybe, but it's painful to manually walk to more distant enemy bases

[Hannu]

this sounds like a perfect solution for the mods that you don't have a problem with. you should try TagToTeleport mod, and just stop walking around the map altogether.

Thanks for the tip, maybe I try it.

I have no problems with mods but there is clearly many players who have. Therefore it would be better to have more options for combat, multiplayer competition and megabase building oriented players. They will always be contradicting playstyles and there will not be single agreement which is best balance for all groups.

[Hannu]

spidertron's strength is in numbers and the fact they are remote controllable.

make a group of them, outfit a few with lasers, some with rockets, some energy shields, roboports and repair packs. send them out. they don't even need exoskeletons, because they'll make it there eventually.

What I have seen in videos remote control is not practical. You have to command every move to every unit by yourself which needs continuous concentration. I would understand remote control better if there were some kind of clever automation. At least I should be able to define a route which spidertron would follow and set commands for different parts of route, like kill all enemy units you see, activate construction bots, train like wait commands so that spidertron could come to base, leave wood, stone and other scrap and fill inventory with building material, and go automatically back to construction work. I hope that devs have some ideas like this to get spidertron really interesting and useful endgame tool.

[NotRexButCaesar]

it's not a problem to me, i like the balance how it is. if you like to play vanilla, play vanilla. don't come here to complain about balancing decisions you can take care with a mod?

The balancing subforum is not a place for mod suggestions.

[EnerJi]

+1 on speed increase for spidertron.

[ssilk]

Nothing is more lame in a game than an almighty weapon.

Perfect task for mods.

Looks stupid if running that fast.

If your base is that big use other mods. Like teleportation. Or just use trains.

Use concrete to run faster.

... many more reasons ...

[NotRexButCaesar]

Nothing is more lame in a game than an almighty weapon.

Perfect task for mods.

Looks stupid if running that fast.

If your base is that big use other mods. Like teleportation. Or just use trains.

Use concrete to run faster.

... many more reasons ...

We don’t want an almighty weapon. We just want it to have the ability to go at least as fast as the player can. How can you know that it would look stupid if it went fast? Isn’t that a matter of opinion anyway?
The problem isn’t that moving around the base is too hard, the problem is one of the intended uses of the spidertron: riding in it as a vehicle, is not able to be used because there is a balancing issue. If I just wanted a way to move faster, I would have put this in the ideas and suggestions forum. This is an issue with game balance, so I put it in the balancing subforum.

[NotRexButCaesar]

I would just like to reiterate that the spidertron is slower than both the car and the player, even with the maximum possible number of exoskeletons.

[IronCartographer]

I like the idea of player armor exoskeletons being able to augment the spidertron's movement, considering PLDs are not obstructed by riding a vehicle. In similar fashion, it would be nice if the spidertron could redirect its built-in reactor power to its grid when idle (not using energy by moving), or even share energy between the player's grid and the vehicle's.

This is all within the realm of possibility for modding, though never as cleanly as the base game would handle it, of course.

[floydwalker]

Spidertron has become my new home, I build from it, oh how I love not getting stuck in between beacons and pipes and not getting run over by trains. I carry bulk stuff in it. I attend my outposts when needed. For long walks I use the path function and use the map view to look around my base checking how things are going, most of the time I'm already at my destination before I'm done.

With two exoskeletons the speed is fine, any faster and building from it would get difficult.

Also there's this mod https://mods.factorio.com/mod/spidertron-extended. Faster spidertrons, bigger grids for more exoskeletons. Good solution for those who want bigger faster harder better?

[NotRexButCaesar]

With two exoskeletons the speed is fine, any faster and building from it would get difficult.

You aren’t forced to add exoskeletons if you are happy with the speed, we just think there should be an option to add more if you want to.

Also there's this mod https://mods.factorio.com/mod/spidertron-extended. Faster spidertrons, bigger grids for more exoskeletons. Good solution for those who want bigger faster harder better?

I am aware of the mod. I use Spidetron Enhancements, which allows the spidertron to ride in a train. The point of this post is not to solve a specific problem I have, it is a discussion about whether increasing spidertron speed would make the game more fun to play or not.

[Qon]

Also there's this mod https://mods.factorio.com/mod/spidertron-extended. Faster spidertrons, bigger grids for more exoskeletons. Good solution for those who want bigger faster harder better?

Addressing everyone negative to increasing the base speed:

I don't want a bigger grid. I don't want to make it OP in every way. A bigger grid would make it faster, yes, but it would also have higher DPS and better defence while also being much better builder. Having multiple spidertrons following a leader seems like a fair solution if you need more power in the war. That is the already available solution and doesn't need a lot of buffing by making the grid fit twice as many fusion reactors and legs as now and by that also making it pretty crazy (maybe? most likely not actually but anyways) if you add everything else.

I want the base speed increased. Maybe the speed doesn't matter that much if you don't actually ride it, or just ride it when building. But you could double the speed and take out the exoskeletons to get something that is slow enough for that if that's what you want.

The spidertron is an endgame tech which can't compete with "car" and "just walk there lol". It's like a legendary pokemon with the speed stat of a slowpoke. It's looks obviously wrong.

Don't make it OP. But why does it need to be slow and bad? The base speed is so low. Those who disagree: almost all of you are not using the base speed spidertron anyways, you have at least one exoskeleton in the grid of all your spiders in actual use no matter what you use them. Don't lie to me.

It feels like the people in this thread arguing for the spidertron to keep the same speed would say the same regardless of what the speed was, even if it was like half what it is now. Whatever initial value it had on release is perfect, not because of any reason, but because not changing things is good and original values are always perfect, always.

"Just mod it"

Well I thought Wube was going to make the speed moddable, but apparently no.

Also, this is a balancing thread. And while most balancing threads should just be modding requests, this one has comparisons to other items in the game which are lower tech which somehow have much better base stats. (Not the whole argument, this is a summary of an example).

If I asked for the stack inserter to have its swing speed nerfed to half that of the fast inserter then none of who are arguing for the current speed could argue against it because I'd use your arguments against it. "But it would still be better in some specific cases, it doesn't have to be that good at inserting things just because it's the highest tech inserter" or "you can just mod it so it swings as fast as a fast inserter if that's what you want".

Can we try to discuss the topic, what should be the base speed be? What fits best, comparing it to other techs of different tech levels and costs and capabilities and features? What base speed value is something that isn't too slow for the most expensive and high tech thing you can build besides the rocket but also not too OP taking in all diverse capabilities of the spidertron? It lacks the schedules and stations and manager of trains. It lacks inserter interactions which train wagons have (and logistics requests are static so it can request at one station and trash at another either) so it can't be used for logistics. Is the argument that it would be OP in combat really the argument against this? Regardless of speed it is manually controlled, artillery is vastly superior to spidertron for scrubbing the surface of Nauvis clean from the natives.

What is spidertron actually best at and what other tech would no longer be necessary because you could completely replace it with spidertrons instead if the base speed was doubled?

[JimBarracus]

It would be really cool if the spidertron could sit on a train for faster transport to the border.
Maybe a special car with a docking port or even a locomotive that runs on the power from the spidertron.

[netmand]

The spidertron has an advantage over any other vehicle in the fact that you can control it remotely and that it can fire weapons without needing for a player to be sitting in it.

The train is always going to be the choice method to traversing the map. When layouts start getting wide and spread-out maybe a choice can be made to construct local spidertrons to accomplish what only spidertrons can do. They can be supplied like any other outpost and you can dispatch them remotely to respond to any event.

With that being said, I have to agree that the speed of the spidertron is still a bit slow. Notice that even on flat terrain with minimal obstructions; the legs still get occansionally hung up on the terrain, making it stutter and walk slower than even a tank (or a player with enough exoskeletons) travelling at the same speed. Maybe that is intentional, I've accepted it myself; it's such a small thing in the realm of complexity that my games can get to be.

[Xoriun]

I'm quite surprised that nobody mentioned yet that the spidertron can walk over islands, cliffs, the base, trees etc. without any collisions and only minor speed penalty, which is a huge advantage over ALL other free transportation options. How many time have you died pushing biters bc you hit a tree or rock?
So you trade speed against more versatile movement and loadout and you therefore have a choice, even in the endgame. Buffing the spidertron's speed into oblivion takes away that choice.

It would be really cool if the spidertron could sit on a train for faster transport to the border.
Maybe a special car with a docking port or even a locomotive that runs on the power from the spidertron.

With this, you could combine the speed of your trains to quickly travel the map and continue from there without dismantling the spidertron. Imho, this would be really nice addition while targeting the spidertrons long travel time over long distances.

[netmand]

I'm quite surprised that nobody mentioned ...

that it can't get hit by a train,
can be set to walk a path with waypoints to get anywhere on the map,
etc.

The Spidertron is superior to the player in terms of mobility unless compared to a player that decided to make a exoskeleton-only suit and only then the player just traverses faster on short, straight/even, clean terrain. Put rocks, trees, cliffs, and water in the mix and spidertron will beat player even in speed because player can't walk over obstacles.

Plus, I dunno, complaining about the spidertron (or even making "a suggestion") seems like looking a gift horse in the mouth.

[Qon]

Buffing the spidertron's speed into oblivion takes away that choice.

Strawman. No one wants buffs to oblivion. Get out.

Plus, I dunno, complaining about the spidertron (or even making "a suggestion") seems like looking a gift horse in the mouth.

That's just an argument for removing the entire suggestions board of the forum. If you don't like players giving feedback on the game then maybe ask the devs to censor the players and delete this board? I don't understand why you are wasting your time trolling and derailing threads just to be a nuisance.

[Xoriun]

Buffing the spidertron's speed into oblivion takes away that choice.

Strawman. No one wants buffs to oblivion. Get out.

But you want the only big disadvantage of the spidertron compared to the player, car and tank to be removed, so it becomes better in any regard. That's was my point and it still stands.

[Qon]

But you want the only big disadvantage of the spidertron compared to the player, car and tank to be removed, so it becomes better in any regard. That's was my point and it still stands.

Get some perspective. Spidertron is the highest tech item in the game, it's not valid trying to make early game tech like cars and tanks be comparable in any regard. It should be superior in every way to those. Uranium ammo is superior to yellow ammo, that doesn't mean we should try to give green ammo some disadvantages so that yellow is better in some niche. Don't just ignore the tech and cost of spidertron compared to those other vehicles.

PAMKII is closer in tech to Spidertron. My goal isn't really to use Spidertron to become faster than a full exo-PAMKII, I just want the spider to not be so slow that it's mandatory to put some exoskeletons in it for it to be useful. But Spidertron is higher tech so if it ends up being slightly faster than PAMKII then I don't think that really changes much, except makes it slightly more convenient to use the Spider when you don't have to empty the inventory of your Spidertron, pick it up, run with your ultra-late game vehicle in your pocket and redeploy it when you have traveled a bit. If it's as fast as PAMKII (when the spider gets all the extra exo legs) then you will just not lose time clicking on map compared to running manually.

But I don't think it changes the game balance that much in terms of what can be done. Things get a bit less bothersome and a bit more fun, but no actual proper challenge that is worth preserving will be lost. It's not like the logistics or biters will suddenly be solved by this. It won't replace trains and artillery has by this point already eliminated the biter threat and spiders will be able to steamroll biters regardless.