Arachnos Crab Spider 'Offduty' Toggle

[Sinfa]

Hello, I want to talk about the spider in the room. Specificity the 'crab spider backpack' that has been the bane (pun intended, sorry not sorry!) of many outfits since CoX's retail launch. The problem with the crab pack is once it's attached, it can 'never' be removed. Which makes sense in terms of the game never knowing what outfit you may or may not be wearing, and must ensure you always have the crab pack to prevent trying to crab attack without the pack to animate it. But there is simple an existing system in game to sidestep the issue altogether. I talk of, of all things, the rocket board prestige flight power.

 

When you activate the rocket board flight power it suppresses 'all' other powers, turns off all toggles, and makes you completely defenceless and unable to act or respond to combat.

 

What I am suggesting here is giving all crab spider speced arachnos soldiers a free new toggle to enter 'offduty' mode. Just like the rocket board it will suppress everything, making combat impossible, BUT will temporarily strip or hide the crab pack while in this toggled state. This prevents a player from activating any related ability or power that might make use of the pack, so there is never a risk of "ERROR! Crash to desktop!' for not having it equipped.

 

The purpose of this toggle is simply a quality of life request to like crab soldier's hang up their back pack when they want to lay low or relax in casual cloths. Not everyone wants to bring work home with them at the end of the night! I understand implementing this may not be as simple as it sounds, but I would be a simple and elegant solution to a long standing problem... and a huge boost in QoL to crab soldiers everywhere.

Dose anyone else agree? Would love to hear your thoughts!

Edited August 14, 2020 by Sinfa

[Bill Z Bubba]

Totally off topic... your avatar gif is freaking hypnotic.

[Lines]

I think this is a good idea please stop making so much eye contact.

[Sinfa]

You will agree with me... you will support me. *innocent hypnotic stare*

Also an addendum: Instead of 'off duty' how about 'incognito', where the pack is not physically removed, but instead cloaked (its there, but cloaked... for lore reasons).

[General Idiot]

As I understand it the reason the pack can't be disabled isn't strictly a problem of errors if you attack without it - the powers just animate from a default point, usually the character's feet. But removing the pack from a character that's supposed to have it causes the player model to do odd things, the part of the back it's meant to attach to deforms because the animations are expecting the pack and not having it.

 

In theory one could simply make a duplicate crab pack costume piece and just set all the textures on it to be 100% transparent, so it's there but invisible. And that would possibly stop it breaking anything, at which point it's more a conceptual issue of are they allowed to remove the pack and do the developers want to allow it. Which should be a yes on both counts if you ask me, but I'm not a developer and with how spaghetti this game's code is there's every chance it might be a whole lot more complicated than that.

[Sinfa]

Exactly Gengeral, the whole reason it can not be removed is the reason you stated. But that is why having an off-duty or incognito toggle that suppress's 'all' your powers and ability to use them is the perfect solution to the issue. You can not attack even if you wanted to, when the crab pack is 'gone' due to the toggle that would temporarily remove it. And yes, no telling how hard it would actually be to implement...

[Lines]

Yeah, I feel like this is the sort of idea that should be as easy as a line of code that says when the power is active, set the back slot to null. But then someone tests it and Kings Row gets turned upside down, all the NPCs are now Redcaps and Jimmy straight up explodes.

[Vanden]

So this is basically an RP request, yeah? But Crab Spiders have the backpack surgically implanted, and it can't just be taken off. So from an RP perspective, it doesn't really make sense to allow this.

[Patti]

If you can surgically implant it you can still remove it.   There's a lot of handwavium already in this game.   Just talk to Trina about it.

[Greycat]

I'm ... "kinda sorta" with this. I seem to recall the thing being grafted to them in some fashion, but I'm not invested enough to go searching (though it seems Vanden remembers that too.) 

 

I think I'd probably like an option that would also just hide the legs, or leave some sort of "connection" on the back. This is 100% a "just me" thing, but having it vanish without a trace would just be odd for some of my characters.

 

Though that would be more complex and (potentially) require adding geometry and "stuff."

 

(As a side note, if you're on DeviantArt - and have mature content selected, since, well, boob - and you check Bakart's "Cobriza," that's one of my characters. With pack removed for repair - as well as graft tech needing to be plugged in, etc. too.)

 

Hmmm. I wonder if there *could* be an "off duty" color piece, similar to the cybernetic spine, with other hookups on the back... (More work, I know. I'm just musing.)

[Ry]

To folks saying the crabpack was grafted/surgically implanted. I am pretty sure that's actually not the case, I was always led to believe the Crab Spider soldiers in Arachnos wore power armour, and the "Its surgically put on" was a reason created by the community to explain why you could never take it off in game. If I'm wrong by all means educate me, but I've never seen the original devs confirm the crabpack in the lore being a item you surgically attach to the spine. They're described as "SWAT team" in their bios so that gave me the implication of armour, but again, if I'm wrong throw me that link. I never saw official confirmation playing back in the day. I always found the crabpack being on 24/7 bothersome cus I LOVE playing a Crab but working it into every costume is such a pain, sometimes it works out, other times its a trainwreck. The overall concept is very solid but having it work as a toggle would be nicer, hard to implement, but nicer.

Edited August 15, 2020 by Ry

[Lisava]

I'm a little late to the party, but I would fully endorse and love a feature like this for Crab Spiders.

 

As far as the backpack being grafted, some roleplayers (like myself) aren't playing as an actual Crab Spider, but maybe some spider-themed hero/villain or anything else that you can creatively use the extra limbs for.

 

In my case it'd be a perfect fit for my spider demon, who I'd absolutely love to be able to turn into "spider form" with the legs, and return to "human form" using another costume.