Talk:Spiderdemon

Model

I know we already got two pics of Spideydemon up, but what would you guys think about a pic of the Punchatz latex model? I know of two different ones: there's the Wikipedia pic and the romero.smugmug.com pic. I'm sure you guys are already aware of these pics, just wanted to post the links for convenience. Kendricken 05:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Including a pic like that would be great, but we'd have to ensure any such pic was included as per the Doom Wiki:Copyrights. -- 128.240.229.65 09:02, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

If it's on Wikipedia, it'll be allowed here. -- TheDarkArchon 14:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily.  IIRC there has been a lot of debate there recently about questionable image copyrights.  Wikipedia is so large that even after they make a decision, it takes eight months or so for all the "bad" images to be deleted.    Ryan W 23:25, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The second one is already linked in Models.  Unless we're concerned that these links will break someday, we could avoid the copyright issue by just not hosting the images ourselves.    Ryan W 23:25, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Spidey vs Cyber

In the reference of the Gotcha! map, it says that the "Cyberdemon almost inevitably wins" when you lure the two into fighting each other. I disagree. In my experience, anytime a Cyberdemon and Spiderdemon are made to fight each other, the Spider always wins despite its lower health. I think it's because, even though they both have low pain chances, the Spider's rapid fire attack gets the Cyber in pain a lot more than the rockets do to the Spider. I'd change the article, but I wanted to make sure first that this wasn't just some random coincidence that always just happens to me and no one else... 128.2.148.25 08:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The last time I tried it, the Cyberdemon won again. Ducon 11:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

In my experience, the spider almost always wins in a large arena (e.g. MAP26 of NJDOOM2.WAD) for exactly the reasons given by 128.2.148.25.  The platform in Gotcha!, however, is not a large arena, and the constant bumping into the edges is far more distracting to the spider than to the cyberdemon, since the spider has a substantially larger radius.  So the cyberdemon does tend to win in that case.

None of these assertions can really be "proven" without being able to single-step through the battle and watch the RNG, I suppose.    Ryan W 21:11, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I was the one who put that in, quite some time ago as an anonymous user. I was referring to that case alone (hence my specific reference to that level), in which as has been stated above the Spider Mastermind barely has any room to move, and therefore the Cyberdemon stands a much better chance of winning. Makron1n 18:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

In my own experience, the spider won only once, and that was when she managed to make the cyberdemon fall from his platform. (This happened in ZDoom.) From this point on, the cyberdemon's rockets never hit the spider anymore, thanks to the height difference, while the spider's hitscans weren't affected most of the time. This happened only once -- every other time, she didn't make the cybie fall, and he was thus able to destroy her without too much difficulty, being often not weakened enough for a single direct BFG hit to finish him. --82.224.148.118 13:31, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

"Usually" should do, as it sounds less extreme or certain, and may account for factors like how the player approaches the situation (since we are talking about the Map20 situation specifically). Who is like God? 05:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I can explain this. The match is more or less fixed. In Gotcha, the Cyberdemon and the Spider Mastermind are trapped on platforms and forced to fight with some distance between them. In these circumstances, the Cyberdemon has the advantage, because the Spider Mastermind lands less hits (dealing less damage and causing less flinching). However, whenever a Spider Mastermind and Cyberdemon fight and there is not some sort of obstruction, the Cyberdemon will stupidly walk right up to the Spider Mastermind (where it is most dangerous) and get killed nearly every time. I first noticed this phenomenon when I was making a map which ended up being a limited version of Hate Arena (which I didn't know existed). I found that by placing obstructions the Cyberdemon wins, and by leaving them out Cybergenius spends half the fight flinching and gets killed. In another map (with a similiar purpose), I've actually seen two Spider Masterminds fight, and the victor go on to defeat a Cyberdemon, and then go on to defeat every monster in the game, one right after the other. But you can try the CyberVSpider theory easily: Make a big arena with a Spider Mastermind and Cyberdemon set to hate each other and make sure there's nothing between them. The Spider Mastermind will win (nearly) every time. --Reaper with no name 04:12, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Curious about this question, I did some tests. Watching the duel many times, I noticed that both had winning streaks - spiderdemon could get lucky and win 2 or 3 in a row, as could the cyberdemon, explaining the conflicting opinions on the outcome of the contest mentioned above. I can also confirm that the spiderdemon did better when it was closer, so the suggestion above that it almost always wins when there is unconstrained movement and the two are allowed to meet does seem plausible.

I watched 24 spidey vs cyber duels, 12 in which the duel is provoked by spiderdemon's hitscan and 12 in which it is provoked by cyberdemon's rockets. In both sets of tests, the cyberdemon won 7-5 so it doesn't make much difference which of the two draws first blood (but to be fair, I think any sample should contain equal numbers of rocket-provoked and hitscan-provoked duels). Combining the samples: from all 24 duels, the cyberdemon is on top 14-10.

So at face value, the cyberdemon wins about 60% of the time. Based on this result, to say that the cyberdemon usually wins conveys the wrong impression. More accurate would be something like `wins more often than not' or `has a slight advantage'. But even this is not statistically clear from my observations, because these 24 duels are not a sufficiently large sample, as I demonstrate below.

Now as a researcher I've analysed a fair bit of data in my time and the next step is to do the statistics. Suppose we want a confidence interval on P, the probability of cyberdemon victory. With a sample of 24 we have (for 1 sigma uncertainty): p=14/24;q=1-p;err=(p*q/24)^(1/2);[p-err,p+err]=[0.48270,0.68397]. We can say with 68% confidence that the cyberdemon wins between 48% and 68% of the time, and since 50% is still in that range, I cannot conclude from these data that the cyberdemon has any advantage. Statistically, it's still indistinguishable from a coin toss, which is intuitive: if you flip a coin 24 times and get 14 heads, you won't conclude that your coin must be unbalanced. Certainly, it is more likely than not that more data would reveal an edge for the cyberdemon, but probably not a large one.

TL;DR: the cyberdemon wins this duel about 60% of the time, or between 50% and 70% of the time. I suspect that Romero ``fixed" this duel to depict the two as evenly matched (possibly by fiddling with the separation between the platforms) and to leave the survivor as a pushover for the player, which makes sense. To say the cyberdemon `usually wins' is misleading and saying that the cyberdemon wins `about 60% of the time' may be the best rewording. --Mesprylum 03:28, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Mesprylum, welcome to the wiki.

It's good to see more quantification being introduced here; this debate has been recurring at least since the source release.  :>   What someone ought to do, IMO, is either (a) create a bot to play the level a huge number of times in -nodraw mode and dump the HP memory locations when one reaches zero; or (b) compute the movements and resulting health losses stochastically based on the frame table and how many other actors are making RNG calls in between.  I've been trying to figure the latter out for years, but without sucess.    Ryan W 20:52, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Gender

Why is the Spider Mastermind called a female anyway? It's more sexless then anything else. -guest —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.146.176.79 (talk • contribs) .

Presumably because it says so in the instruction manual...    Ryan W 17:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

no offense but-how the hell do yu call that darned beast female!!!!Danuis.4 20:53, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

The Doom 2 manual refers to the Spider Mastermind as the Arachnotrons' "mother." Arguably it could have been a joke and not meant as an official detail, which means the Spiderdemon would be an "it" just like most (or all?) other enemies in Doom 2. Zack 19:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't have my manual here but I think the chaingunner is referred to as a "dude".  (He is definitely called that in the credits, although some people have argued that in-game text isn't 100% canon).    Ryan W 19:24, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Let's keep in mind that while mentioning a monster in most contexts of the wiki we are talking about a game entity, thus "it" is often best way to call any monster, and even the player, as long as we are talking about the in-game entity and not the actual person behind it, which is best called "user" unless distinguishing them is irrelevant. Who is like God? 05:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

You could probably write a short essay on this topic. The Spider Mastermind is a hideous blob of pure hatred that stomps around on spindly metallic legs; its most distinctive physical characteristic is a puckered slit lined with teeth; it symbolises ultimate evil. From the point of view of a typical teenage boy these are all feminine characteristics. Presumably all of these thoughts were going through the minds of the men at id when they designed the creature (and the later Vagary, which is far more explicitly female). -Ashley Pomeroy 22:12, June 24, 2010 (UTC)

Screenshot

I've got two problems with the second screenshot, the one on MAP06. For one, it isn't exactly specific enough in the description. It should at least say that the only skills where you encounter the Spider Mastermind on this map are Ulta-Violence and NightMare!. Also, Isn't there a rule that all of the screenshots have to be taken with Vanilla Doom or at least something close? The fact that there is no face on there pretty much tells me it is from ZdoomGL. -Wagi 69.51.157.227 14:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no rule, although I agree it's convenient to use something that looks normal, and think it's better to say something about any evident changes, as some odd things (such as the missing face here) may seem odd to a reader. Who is like God? 20:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I've thought of making a table like this for each monster (the introductory paragraphs tend to get cluttered), but I haven't gotten to it yet.  And yes, actually there is a guideline about that, although you wouldn't know it from reading our PWAD walkthroughs.    Ryan W 21:16, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm planning on taking some screenshots that closely resemble the ones all over this wiki except I will do it with Chocolate Doom. Seeing the Boom hud on half of these screenshots sort of annoyed me anyway. Later I will replace this screenshot with a Chocolate Doom one, so that way that explanation won't have to be there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.51.157.227 (talk • contribs) .

Exact rate of fire

You would think that, in the 11 years since the source release, someone else besides TheDarkArchon would have calculated this number in public.  You would think that.  I'll be darned if I can find one, though.

From info.c:

   {SPR_SPID,0,10,{A_Look},S_SPID_STND2,0,0},	// S_SPID_STND
   {SPR_SPID,1,10,{A_Look},S_SPID_STND,0,0},	// S_SPID_STND2
   {SPR_SPID,0,3,{A_Metal},S_SPID_RUN2,0,0},	// S_SPID_RUN1
   {SPR_SPID,0,3,{A_Chase},S_SPID_RUN3,0,0},	// S_SPID_RUN2
   {SPR_SPID,1,3,{A_Chase},S_SPID_RUN4,0,0},	// S_SPID_RUN3
   {SPR_SPID,1,3,{A_Chase},S_SPID_RUN5,0,0},	// S_SPID_RUN4
   {SPR_SPID,2,3,{A_Metal},S_SPID_RUN6,0,0},	// S_SPID_RUN5
   {SPR_SPID,2,3,{A_Chase},S_SPID_RUN7,0,0},	// S_SPID_RUN6
   {SPR_SPID,3,3,{A_Chase},S_SPID_RUN8,0,0},	// S_SPID_RUN7
   {SPR_SPID,3,3,{A_Chase},S_SPID_RUN9,0,0},	// S_SPID_RUN8
   {SPR_SPID,4,3,{A_Metal},S_SPID_RUN10,0,0},	// S_SPID_RUN9
   {SPR_SPID,4,3,{A_Chase},S_SPID_RUN11,0,0},	// S_SPID_RUN10
   {SPR_SPID,5,3,{A_Chase},S_SPID_RUN12,0,0},	// S_SPID_RUN11
   {SPR_SPID,5,3,{A_Chase},S_SPID_RUN1,0,0},	// S_SPID_RUN12
   {SPR_SPID,32768,20,{A_FaceTarget},S_SPID_ATK2,0,0},	// S_SPID_ATK1
   {SPR_SPID,32774,4,{A_SPosAttack},S_SPID_ATK3,0,0},	// S_SPID_ATK2
   {SPR_SPID,32775,4,{A_SPosAttack},S_SPID_ATK4,0,0},	// S_SPID_ATK3
   {SPR_SPID,32775,1,{A_SpidRefire},S_SPID_ATK2,0,0},	// S_SPID_ATK4
   {SPR_SPID,8,3,{NULL},S_SPID_PAIN2,0,0},	// S_SPID_PAIN
   {SPR_SPID,8,3,{A_Pain},S_SPID_RUN1,0,0},	// S_SPID_PAIN2
   {SPR_SPID,9,20,{A_Scream},S_SPID_DIE2,0,0},	// S_SPID_DIE1
   {SPR_SPID,10,10,{A_Fall},S_SPID_DIE3,0,0},	// S_SPID_DIE2
   {SPR_SPID,11,10,{NULL},S_SPID_DIE4,0,0},	// S_SPID_DIE3
   {SPR_SPID,12,10,{NULL},S_SPID_DIE5,0,0},	// S_SPID_DIE4
   {SPR_SPID,13,10,{NULL},S_SPID_DIE6,0,0},	// S_SPID_DIE5
   {SPR_SPID,14,10,{NULL},S_SPID_DIE7,0,0},	// S_SPID_DIE6
   {SPR_SPID,15,10,{NULL},S_SPID_DIE8,0,0},	// S_SPID_DIE7
   {SPR_SPID,16,10,{NULL},S_SPID_DIE9,0,0},	// S_SPID_DIE8
   {SPR_SPID,17,10,{NULL},S_SPID_DIE10,0,0},	// S_SPID_DIE9
   {SPR_SPID,18,30,{NULL},S_SPID_DIE11,0,0},	// S_SPID_DIE10
   {SPR_SPID,18,-1,{A_BossDeath},S_NULL,0,0},	// S_SPID_DIE11

During a spider's attack, the bolded frames (DeHackEd # 616, 617, and 618) are used in a repeating cycle; the function A_SPosAttack is called to damage the target.  Enjay's tutorials tell me that the refire frame counts toward the total duration of an attack for monsters (though not for players), so the net result is that a sergeant shotgun attack (3 pellets) occurs 2 times every 9 tics, for a total of 1400 pellets per minute.

As everyone probably knows, I don't do this a lot, so any corrections are greatly appreciated.    Ryan W 10:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah; this behavior (the fact such monsters spend 1 tic to check if the target is still in sight) is what makes the heavy weapon dude fire at a slightly slower rate than the player (9 tics per two shots, instead of 8). Who is like God? 15:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Spiderdemon in manuals

I used to own the SNES version of Doom, and the Spiderdemon (and Cyberdemon) are both mentioned in there. If someone has a copy of that manual, maybe they could copy the descriptions onto the page or something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.150.36.186 (talk)

Attack frequency

The spiderdemon (along with a few other monsters) has a special check in the code which makes her fire more often than normal: [1].    Ryan W 23:08, June 10, 2010 (UTC)

Article name

Why is this article STILL called "Spiderdemon" even though every manual and post-game monster list calls it the Spider Mastermind? 169.233.49.103 10:40, January 6, 2011 (UTC)

While "Spiderdemon" is used before, the estabilished name for the monster is Spider Mastermind.

Thus I believe the article should stay with "Spider Mastermind" Ilovefoxes 08:12, January 24, 2011 (UTC)

I believe the rationale for preferring "spiderdemon" stems from the fact that the original (pre-Ultimate) release of Doom referred to the monster as "spiderdemon" in the endgame text screen, which is also the only textual reference to the creature in the game. Canon-wise we have usually preferred the original game over the subsequent releases, which is why naming conventions used in, for example, the Doom II cast sequence aren't preferred. Also, Romero calls the monster "spiderdemon" (for example, here). -- Janizdreg 16:52, January 29, 2011 (UTC)

Should we update the "Of the maps covered on the Doom Wiki" section?

The highest number in statistics is 23, but Plutonia 4 MAP12 statistics says that the map has 87 spiderdemon. This one came from a joke wad so that's why I'm asking -Lokbustam257 (talk) 02:57, 6 October 2021 (CDT)

Looks like with World Orifice and other slaughter map additions, it's time to re-run all those stats again. Thanks for the reminder. --Xymph (talk) 03:09, 6 October 2021 (CDT)