Arachnid Liquid Diet

Development Feature Requests
1

Spiders, in real life, gain sustenance by trapping their prey and “vomit” digestive fluid on them, ingesting them in liquid form.

It could be interesting if Arachnids in ss14 operated similarly, requiring their nutrients to be in liquid form before ingesting. If we wanted to go even further, maybe arachnids could produce a digestive chemical that can dissolve items of food (or more antagonistically, organic body parts?) allowing them to consume it.

2

The most obvious gameplay consequence of this would be that they would be unable to ingest pills, which is currently considered an annoyance for mothpeople, with a pending PR to make it possible. The same workaround that one would suggest for arachnids, “just dissolve the pill in a glass of water” is apparently too inconvenient. So either arachnids would get the same problem, or they would get an exception, and be unable to eat anything except pills - which would be rather strange

3

Well if they can produce their own acid to dissolve the pill in, it might work.

4

I can see several options that could counter-act this annoyance.

  • Pills and other powder-based foods are considered dietary exceptions due to being “liquid enough”.
  • As RisingPhoenix said, if we used the digestive acid idea, these pills could be dissolved into an ingestible form. If the arachnid is crit and cant do it themselves, then pray that the medbay has one on their medical staff to do it for you.
5

This sounds like it would make the process of eating annoyingly complex for Arachnids, without much in the way of interesting gameplay/RP potential to make up for it.

6

I think it being different is enough of a niche, at least for me imo. Having to seek out alternative food options would be an interesting mix-up for those rounds where antags dont go loud and nothing really happens until the end.

Do note, I am still relatively new to ss14, having about 50 hours. Im just a really big spider lover and would think it would be really neat if arachnids felt more like non-human weirdos. :slight_smile:

7

Give arachnids caustic damage with their unarmed attack as a buff for this :slightly_smiling_face:

8

Following on RisingPhoenix’s suggestion of letting them vomit on stuff to consume it. Just give them a longer do after to ingest consumables. Popup a text saying “you start to acidify and slurp it”
I assume that just increasing do-afters in general is way easier to do and scale compared to a new mechanic. And it is both largely inconsequential and fun.

9

This could be a fun way to do it, just add a funny little sound effect and get a few drops of unique arachnid-specific reagent on the floor if you’re feeling fruity.

10

janitor meta :weh:

11

This is a TERRIBLE idea. Caustic damage is hard to heal and nukies rarely make caustic meds. Caustic is a very powerful damage type. It seems too overpowered to me.

1 Like
12

Regenerative mesh… :slightly_smiling_face: actually heals caustic. Any self respecting Julie team is gonna bring some combat medkits, and unarmed damage would be relatively low.