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[Game Hunter]

Currently the rewards for clearing Spider's Lair are quite poor: red armor, plasteel boots, and a nuke?  As cool as the guaranteed nuke is, swiping the nuclear BFG in the Mortuary is a lot easier for most players on UV/N! to get a full win.  You'll get a bunch of plasma, sure, but that's assuming you can even carry it around (not to mention half of runs that use plasma are MAc and therefore do not need it).  I suggest that clearing out the Spider's Lair makes it so that cave levels cannot spawn Arachnotrons, essentially turning the Lair into a gamble on whether or not you expect to see/have trouble with those hellish caves.  Either this would remove caves from the roster entirely, or force Cacodemons (and Pain Elementals for UV/N! on the really low floors) where Arachnotrons would normally spawn.

It has plenty of sensibility involved: Spider's Lair is where the Arachnotrons come from, so naturally destroying it would get rid of all their ilk.  If possible, the removal of all Arachnotrons entirely (that is, on all subsequent floors) is also an option, though that might be harder to work out.  If this reward is TOO good, we could make it so that Arachnotrons have a low chance of being added to the level (only one or two at a time) every minute, making it a semi-Mortuary.

[raekuul]

Guarantee a Spider Mastermind in Spider's Lair to kill me a couple thousand times and I'll support this idea.

[Game Hunter]

Guarantee a Spider Mastermind in Spider's Lair to kill me a couple thousand times and I'll support this idea.

And I could totally see this as a consideration, assuming it's not part of the to-do for DoomRL 2 that's left for that project.  However, a lot of people seem to complain about Spider's Lair, something I never really understood.  By the time you get down to the levels it spawns on, you should be more than ready for arach caves.  This means one of a few possibilities:
- You have a rapid-fire build, complete with a plasma rifle, accuracy, and speed (either because of A-mod or EE).  Arachnatrons should usually fall in two volleys, and two levels of Finesse should guarantee you get them off most of the time before they react.  Cateye will amplify this never-get-hit and still break even, Ammochain can stock up on BFG ammo.
- You have a shotgun build, complete with either MAD or MFa.
--- If MAD, hiding on a side of the wall can do wonders, and the rest is insanely-damaging scouting.  In general though, this isn't a build that should be considering Spider's Lair (it's much more suitable with the cover that hellish caves provide).
--- If MFa, you can dance all day, you can dance all day!  The only worry would be ammo, but using the double once the kill is guaranteed will alleviate this problem.
- You have a pistol build, complete with either high offense or MGK.
--- If high offense, there's a damn good chance the arachs will never even get the opportunity to shoot.  My UV run on AoMr (blaster notwithstanding) tells me that knockback on pistols is be fairly common once you max your damage traits, and you can fire two of them at about three bursts per second.  It doesn't take a mathematician to tell you they'll stay out of sight range as long as you're attacking them, and with proper Spider's Lair ettiquette you should only have to worry about one at a time.
--- If MGK, again, Dodgemaster puts it in the bag, and, again, the only worry would be ammo.  Might wanna skip it.
- You're using only rockets.  ...Erm, why are you using only rockets.  Go away, you're weird.  Although frankly, if we're not worrying about ammo (maybe you managed to collect like, 100 from a Vile/Rev pack or something) then Arachnotrons take tons of damage from rockets, and they tend to bunch up if you can get them away from the teleporters.

I only died once from Spider's Lair, and that was because I had the gajones to try it on AoB without zerk armor going into it.  The place could really use some buffing overall (both in difficulty and rewards...this is Phobos Hell we're talking about).  Spider Mastermind could drop a guaranteed Minigun or Laser Rifle?  Or just go with my original idea for the reward, that works too.