Allow tarantulas and slimes to be free agents, mice are also critters and they’re free agents, rat king too, but somehow slimes and tarantulas can’t be?
Largely its an issue of “antagonist scope”
A mice is allowed to be a free agent because the most they can commit in “antagonist” style actions is being moderately annoying, but them being free agent also allows them to act entirely non-antagonistically.
If you gave the same allowance to a Giant Spider, they would stop being an actual station threat event, and instead become “murder if an AI is controlling them, stations bestfriend when a player is controlling them”.
I kinda get where OP is coming from. I’ve had multiple enjoyable moments where a spider player has acted more like a spider, where they setup a web and camp. I also remember having a ‘friend’ spider that I fed raw eggs at botany and it became my protector kinda like a killer tomato as long as i fed it and kept it watered.
The other day I saw a person take a blue slime and be friendly and it was a good time, given when these Antag’s spawn lots spawn I think having players have the choice to be friendly with them is fine.
over christmas there was also a bug (I think) that made normal spiders just sometimes spawn with their AI off, and that was neat. Maybe the game could give a chance for normally agressive critters spawning non-agressive?
For spiders and snakes you could also give them adaptive AI, where it starts just hunting things like mice, but if hunger gets too high they ‘get desperate’ and go for crew kinda like how some animals in the wild hunt more dangerous pray only if they cant get the food they need. this would allow interactions where you feed more wild animals as exotic pets (such as people in the real world who keep cobra’s and massive spiders despite them being wild animals still.)
I like the adaptive AI. makes the creatures feel alive.
and would lend players to making friendly spiders.
not slimes. slimes just have everything in general.
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