Spider Queen: Midround Major Antagonist

[Shaddap1]

The Spider Queen

The Spider Queen is a mid-round major antagonist that focuses on stealth, territorial control, and resource management, feeding on creatures and cocooned crew to generate biomass used for webbing, venom, broodlings, and upgrades. Expands by laying eggs, building nests, and spawning AI-controlled or ghost-claimable broodlings. Has an upgrade tree similar to Wizard or Revenant such as venom mutations, web mutations, defensive mutations, and mobility mutations, culminating in the ability to lay an expensive Queen Egg for lineage succession.

Crew counterplay emphasizes Engineering, Security, and Medical coordination, using fire and teamwork to burn out nests, rescue victims, and hunt down broodlings and the queen.

Key Features:

• Mid-round event: 25% chance on spider infestation (or possibly called in by Spider-Clan ninjas)
• Biomass, Webbing, and Venom resource pools
• Hatch Broodlings as AI/ghost role allies
• Diverse upgrade options that suit different playstyles
• Cocooning downed crew for bonus biomass
• Stealthy, strategy-oriented gameplay that rewards resource management and decision making over robustness and ping.
• Becomes larger and slower as it accumulates upgrades
• Queen Egg ghost-role succession

Development Scope

Very few new mechanics needed. Relies heavily on existing content, but definitely a significant undertaking in regard to implementation and spriting. I believe this antag will breathe new life into the game and represents a fusion of the best antags that we already have while providing a novel experience to players.

First stage Spider Queen sprite from @Davyei

Feedback
Below I will list some anticipated feedback and criticism and give my responses. This isn't because I don't want feedback - I very much do. I just want to save everyone some time with at least giving my initial responses to what I expect to see.

Anticipated Feedback (click arrow to expand)

1. OVERLAP WITH EXISTING ANTAGONISTS (RAT KING / SPACE DRAGON / NINJA)

• The Spider Queen occupies a distinct gameplay niche.
• The Rat King is very short lived and poses no significant threat to security unless completely ignored.
• The Space Dragon functions as a large, overt, late-game crisis event meant to end the round.
• The Ninja doesn't have a focus on territory control, shouldn't be maints-slashing and is more of a targeted saboteur
• The Spider Queen emphasizes stealth, hunting, attrition, and territory control.
• Its unique resource economy (biomass, webbing, venom) creates a controlled progression loop rather than free growth.
• It escalates through deliberate player action rather than fixed timers (dragon) and random chance (revenant).

2. SNOWBALLING CONCERNS

• Expansion is limited by the biomass economy.
• The Queen must feed consistently to sustain webs, venom, and broodlings.
• Biomass depletion and the size scaling system both act as hard brakes on exponential swarm behavior.
• As the Queen grows, she becomes slower, louder, and easier to locate, ensuring natural escalation rather than runaway growth.

3. LACK OF FRICTION DUE TO STEALTH EMPHASIS

• Stealth defines the early phase, not the full loop.
• As biomass and territory increase, the Queen’s presence becomes evident through visible webs, sound cues, radio callouts, and missing personnel.
• This structure produces multiple stages of player interaction—detection, preparation, containment—each engaging different departments.

4. PERFORMANCE

• Performance has been accounted for in design planning..
• Broodling AI can reuse throttled servant logic from the Rat King.
• Servers seem able to tolerate high numbers of space carp
• A soft population cap or adaptive spawn timer can be implemented if required.
• The intent is to produce tension and environmental density without significant entity or network strain.

5. COMPLEXITY AND ACCESSIBILITY

• The Queen’s action bar and gameplay isn't beyond what we have with Wizard, Revenant, Rat King, and Dragon.
• Upgrades are handled through a simple uplink-style menu.
• The system is intuitive enough for new players but allows depth for skill expression.
• The individual upgrades don't add complexity, just modify existing actions and attributes.
• This maintains accessibility while offering long-term engagement for experienced players.

6. CREW COUNTERPLAY AND BALANCE FAIRNESS

• Counterplay is built into every major mechanic. Abilities will have cooldowns and costs.
• Webs are visible and still semi visibile when upgraded.
• Welders instantly clear webs
• Medical staff can rescue cocooned victims and prepare anti-venom.
• If the crew organizes early and coordinates inter-departmentally, containment is highly achievable.
• Balance tuning will focus on ensuring that awareness and preparation remain effective responses.
• Teamwork and safety in numbers are extremely effective against this antagonist.

7. GHOST ROLE OVERSIGHT AND POTENTIAL FOR GRIEFING

• Behavior expectations mirror existing mid-round roles such as Dragon and Ninja.
• To reduce risk of misuse:
• • A playtime threshold is recommended for raffle eligibility.
• • Successor Queen roles will statistically go to another player, preventing repeat control.
• • Antagonist policy applies, excessive destruction is not permitted per server rules.

9. COMPLEXITY OF THE BIOMASS SYSTEM

• The biomass system is a transparent and scalable replacement for arbitrary spawn timers.
• The sequence—feed, gain biomass, spend—follows an intuitive loop.
• This provides both a clear player objective and predictable balance levers for developers.
• Comparable systems already exist in Revenant and Changeling mechanics, ensuring player familiarity.

10. ROUND PACING

• The Spider Queen cannot indefinitely hide.
• Biomass passively drains over time, forcing movement and feeding.
• As upgrades accumulate, the Queen becomes slower, louder, and easier to detect and engage/avoid.
• This ensures organic escalation and prevents stalling issues
• If needed, CentComm announcements can support pacing during testing.

[EthanQix]

I really like how the spider starts small and nimble and becomes more bulky later. As a side note, I'd suggest switching the name to Broodmother.

[Shaddap1]

I really like how the spider starts small and nimble and becomes more bulky later. As a side note, I'd suggest switching the name to Broodmother.

That's a good idea. Maybe the in-game name of the antag can be randomly generated like Dragons and Rat Kings with a "Broodmother" prefix.
E.g.
Broodmother Velisthra
Broodmother Maelrith
Broodmother Yl’neth

and if they lay and hatch a Queen Egg, the successor queen is named Broodmother Yl’netht II

[K-Dynamic]

tbh I wish we could do xenomorphs (or exomorphs) rather than spiders, but the doc looks alright for a mid-round antag

[Mot2332]

At first when this was being described as a stealth antag, I was imagining it being in a corner of maints feeding and hunting to start with, but it seems night vision (essential for maints) is an upgrade, not part of the base kit, so how would the spider queen be a stealth antag while being in public, well-lit areas ? Kind of the same problem the rat king has too now that I think of it. Actually being similar to RK / Dragon might also make this antag share the same issues they have !

[Shaddap1]

At first when this was being described as a stealth antag, I was imagining it being in a corner of maints feeding and hunting to start with, but it seems night vision (essential for maints) is an upgrade, not part of the base kit, so how would the spider queen be a stealth antag while being in public, well-lit areas ? Kind of the same problem the rat king has too now that I think of it. Actually being similar to RK / Dragon might also make this antag share the same issues they have !

Very good point. I don't know if/when night vision will be added, but I am completely for having it as part of the base kit so players aren't overly dependent on map knowledge. As far as the stealth gameplay goes, using maintenance to traverse the station should be generally effective due to 1) lack of AI vision and 2) bottlenecks. A possible area for balance discussion is giving the weaker stage 1 small spider queen the ability to walk under doors like Rat King, but I am cognizant of how powerful that would be. Certain maps like Exo are generally very exposed in the center with few stealthy maints routes, whereas others are more generous in that regard.