Arachne The Forgotten Infested Boss (Picking Up On An Old Idea)+New Art!

[Goatasty]

Here is my art for this idea so far. I will do a front view and a full colour pic too. Any good ideas on this are welcome.


Arachne was an idea posted by a user named NeverEatTheLemonsAlone almost two years ago and the page has since been moved to the Index here: Arachne As far as I am aware this hasn't been put into the game as yet. But do let me know if it has and I'm wasting my time!

There was never any art made for this beautifully thought out creature and I thought I might give it a go because it is one of the few ideas out there that really grabs my attention.

The boss attacks sound really great and would push Frames to their limits, however I don't know how hard this would be for DE to execute. I'm sure they would do a good job of it even if some things had to be cut. I do think this concept would add a lot to the infested and would make the faction a lot more engaging. Possibly if there are too many enemies already, this could replace Phorid as he is just a bigger doggy infested and lacks a bit of interest. (sorry to those who love Phorid)

Basically the boss is a spider based infested creature that spins webs and pops out eggs which hatch hordes of baby spiders. The webs slow down or capture players and the spiders inflict pure toxin damage unless chopped up. I have some great ideas for this and as a freelance artist I would find the challenge of this a lot of fun. I'm going to give this a good go and if anyone has any good ideas just post em!

Edited November 29, 2015 by Goatasty

[Goatasty]

Let me know what you think of this new art and the concept in general.

[Rehtael7]

The main problem is that technocyte doesn't really try to resemble creatures, it twists existing forms into a suitable shape to accomplish its means. So unless there are already giant spiders walking around, this design is a bit elegant for it. Mind you, it's basically space-Cordyceps on steroids. "Hey, I can make a quadruped out of this grineer-thing." I think the Juggernaut is about the most sophisticated thing that Technocyte can generate on its own.

 

Most Technocyte creatures are base structures that have been severely manipulated. Like the J3 and  Elephants  Lephantis.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Rehtael7

[Goatasty]

The main problem is that technocyte doesn't really try to resemble creatures, it twists existing forms into a suitable shape to accomplish its means. So unless there are already giant spiders walking around, this design is a bit elegant for it. Mind you, it's basically space-Cordyceps on steroids. "Hey, I can make a quadruped out of this grineer-thing." I think the Juggernaut is about the most sophisticated thing that Technocyte can generate on its own.

 

Most Technocyte creatures are base structures that have been severely manipulated. Like the J3 and  Elephants  Lephantis.

Fair enough. That was the main challenge when working on this, making it look more mutated than like an animal. But I still think something along these lines would be suitable for the infested. It adds an element of fear and creepyness that is a little bit missing from the battles with them. 

 

The other thing is that Lephantis, Ancient healers, boilers and broodmothers are all pretty original creatures, not really based on anything else in the game. So you could easily introduce a mutated spider-based thing. Plus it would help explain the strange webs found on infected maps.

[Rehtael7]

Fair enough. That was the main challenge when working on this, making it look more mutated than like an animal. But I still think something along these lines would be suitable for the infested. It adds an element of fear and creepyness that is a little bit missing from the battles with them. 

 

The other thing is that Lephantis, Ancient healers, boilers and broodmothers are all pretty original creatures, not really based on anything else in the game. So you could easily introduce a mutated spider-based thing. Plus it would help explain the strange webs found on infected maps.

That's the thing, they are original, and not based on ANYTHING other than the forms they had overtaken. They took shape to accomplish very specific tasks. A spider is a very complex form. Not that I'm saying the evolution of a spider-like creature is unlikely, but it would probably more resemble a mutated insect.

 

To create a spider shape, we need an appropriate base form. Something that would not take much effort to reshape. So we're looking for quadrupeds from which extra limbs can sprout. Lynx is a good foundation, plus it has innate weapons which could be modified for infested use. And its ability to spawn shield osprey and turrets could be used to create infested pods, OR specialized eggs. So structurally the Lynx is probably our best bet for a spider-like infested creature.

 

Now we need to ask what the purpose of multiple legs is. In this case, climbing and/ or stability. What else can they do? Well, the shockwave stomp of the Jackal could be performed by the extra legs, or the original legs since they have a heavy metallic structure beneath the technocyte. If it has Hyena-like climbing abilities, then that would be good as well.

 

So the Heavy Corpus Proxies would make an ideal foundation, possibly a very expensive prototype super-proxy. Let's say sAladface V-neck knew the location of this prototype and managed to steal it (Assuming his evil ! was lying about making amends as he probably was during the tubemen of Regor alert.) He mutalests it up and bam, you've got a nightmarish infested spider which spawns infested turrets and infested shield ospreys and is able to climb on walls AND trample your ! to death.

The added technocyte legs march forward while the overtaken metal legs slam ground with each step.

 

OH! And Tar Mutalist MOAs have already demonstrated the ability to spew web-like goop, so we know that in some capacity, mutalist corpus materials are capable of doing so.

 

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/warframe/images/4/47/JackalDE2.png/revision/latest?cb=20140331100156

As we can see, the midsection would make a great underbelly to a mutalist cephalothorax and could support a wholly mutalist abdomen on the back which would handle egg/ turret production as well as house the tar-web gun.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Rehtael7

[Rehtael7]

SO, talking boss-mechanics for a moment, let's say that this spider can lay eggs that hatch into a mutalist version of Lynx Osprey. To keep the boss-fight interesting, let's say that when those eggs hatch, the mutalist Lynx Osprey directly heals and prevents damage to the main spider boss. That means that at least one player is going to have to focus on preventing the eggs from hatching. As for the webs, if we accept that this is a corpus-component mutalist boss, then some power-gimping effects could be thrown in, maybe the webs could have a magnetic effect, or apply a Comba effect (Slo, Nul, Fog Sap) to inhibit how quickly the eggs can be killed.