Spider Walkers belong to a class of powerful, sophisticated enemies, appearing as six-legged walkers and each armed with a dangerous armament.
Appearance[]
Spider Walkers have a turret mounted on top of a mechanical multi-legged walker with six long legs, which leave cracked imprints on the ground as they move. When stationary, the walker periodically shifts its body from side to side. Each of the three types possess a distinct armament, directly tracking and aiming at the player's Plane during attacks.
Below are the detailed descriptions of each of these walkers' appearances.
Spider Railgun[]
Has a blue railgun turret featuring two long barrels with recoil buffering after each shot; the barrels slide backward to absorb the shells' recoil. Two bright white headlamps and a long red laser light beam makes it visibly distinctive, even in Stages with dark environments.
Laser Spider[]
Has a long barrel for discharging laser beams, two bright red headlamps and a gray disc mounted atop its rear. This resembles a smaller version of the powerful Beam Cannon on board The Scarlet Heart boss.
Energized Spider Railgun[]
Has a small gray turret body featuring two long barrels with recoil buffering after each shot, along with a large black disc mounted at its rear, which has blue lights on top forming a ring divided into twelve segments. Similar to the conventional Spider Railgun, two bright white headlamps and a long red laser pointer makes it visibly distinctive.
Behavior[]
General[]
Spider Walkers are usually mobile enemies, which move around the Stage making brief stops periodically until either a specific point is reached or the turret is destroyed.
Spider Walkers attack with their armament directed at the player's Plane, discharging different types of projectiles of each variant as described below. The Spider Walker becomes disarmed and will stop attacking if its turret weapon is destroyed, though it is not fully destroyed and no Stars are dropped. As well-armored enemies, they possess a high amount of hit points, which can be problematic for early amateurs that have low firepower upgrades. As mentioned, the player must disarm the walker and then finish off the rest of the body to fully destroy the walker; leaving a just-disarmed one makes it detected as still functional and a Chain Loss results once off the screen. As a powerful enemy, when damaged, a red health bar appears above the turret displaying the remaining health, which disappears after the armament is left intact for a while.
Spider Walkers cannot be collided with; the Plane simply flies past them.
Stage 4[]
The Spider Railgun appears as a mini-boss halfway through the Stage in lieu of a full scale Boss at the end, mainly supported by two Mantis Cannon Turrets and a swarm of orange Prop Planes. Uniquely, the Spider Railgun is not active immediately after coming into view and does so once about one third of the screen has passed, during which it stays stationary and faces directly forward, providing a brief opportunity for safe point-blank attacks. Unless its turret is destroyed, the Spider Railgun attempts to move with the Plane's perspective, passing from one side of the screen to the other. It eventually rests in front of the two destructible towers near the end of the Stage.
Stage 7[]
The mini-boss near the end is the Laser Spider, aided by a Mantis Cannon Turret and two Dual Railgun Turrets shortly after. Unlike the Spider Walker on Stage 4, the Laser Walker only moves a modest distance and therefore provides less time to destroy it.
Stage 13, B1, B2[]
In these Stages, the Energized Spider Railgun is the type that appears throughout, and tracks the Plane similar to the other two. They move continuously as they attack, eventually resting once in front of an obstacle.
Armaments[]
Spider Walkers target the player directly, each variant using a different type of weaponry system. Like most tracking enemies, the Spider Walkers can be easily distracted by the Holo Granny Technician, wasting time to shoot at any active decoys. Their health, fire rate and damage increase with the levels of difficulty, but strangely the damage of the Laser Spider remains the same across every level.
Their projectiles only damage the Plane (and phase through other enemies) and cannot be dissipated by other projectiles and the Laser power-up. However, it can be absorbed by Energy Shields which only works once for the Energized Railgun, destroyed by Mega Bombs and Iron Clad's Main Weapon Supercharge shockwaves, and slowed by Slo Mo Chan.
Spider Railgun[]
A Spider Railgun fires a pair of high-velocity railgun shells, which leave behind a bright yellow trail. The shells/projectiles cause serious damage and can destroy players' Planes in one or two hits depending on the health and defense of the Planes themselves (Refer to Loadout). The walker fires two pairs of railgun shells in Stage 4 and three in Stage B2.
Laser Spider[]
A Laser Spider discharges long streams of a bright blue laser made up of many miniscule particles, in the similar fashion to a Flamethrower Turret rather than in a fixed direction like type I Laser Turrets. The laser beam travels slowly across the screen and has limited range, and Planes can be easily destroyed if the whole beam sears through them.
In Stage 7, the walker discharges two successive streams before pausing for a recharge. In Stage B2, it discharges shorter streams that results in lower total damage albeit at a constant rate, with cross-shaped particles instead.
Energized Spider Railgun[]
An Energized Spider Railgun fires a pair of Energized Railgun shells, which travel faster than conventional railguns. They deal greater damage and penetrate any active Energy Shields. The shells leave behind a gradient ring light trail, of color transitioning from pale blue to violet. It fires twice in succession before pausing to reload.
As per a special trait, the Energized Spider Railgun discharges a radial swarm of bullets upon destruction at high speed, with 80 in total spread out in clusters of five in 16 directions (shown in video below). The bullets eventually rest for a moment, acting as a brief mine before dissipating. This trait mirrors the behavior of a Radial Cannon as well as the Stage 13 variant of Supercharged Mantis Cannon Turrets and Volatile Drones, and a similar one is seen in the Experimental Heavy Gunships in Stage B2.
Strategy[]
- Be sure to always avoid railgun rounds from Spider Railguns and Energized Spider Railguns, as the player is likely hit with both rounds at once and on Nightmare difficulty would even be able to destroy the Iron Clad Plane. Memorize their firing patterns and make swift but short movements to quickly and conveniently evade their shots. Slow Mo Chan's perk can help by slowing down the rounds and providing reacting time.
- Move the Plane only slightly to avoid Laser Spider's lasers, otherwise the turret would spray the streams everywhere in an attempt to follow the Plane's movements, resulting in limited spaces for movement.
- Spider Walkers' high hit points make it difficult to achieve 100% enemy destruction, especially on Stage B2 where they are abundant. Therefore, utilize many tools that grant high damage, including:
- Either Laser power-up for high damage or Energy Shields for reducing time loss in dodging shots (not against Energized Spider Railguns though). Mega Bombs help deal damage, but is not as effective against their high health.
- Planes with superior firepower, such as Gladius, The Classic with Laser Whip upgrade or Octopus on the widescreen versions of the game.
- Make full use of the Main Weapon Supercharge module, especially during the Spider Walker reloading duration.
- Successfully landing Wing Cannon shots, which deal high damage by themselves.
- Energized Spider Railguns fire shortly after coming into view, whose very fast projectiles can often catch the player off-guard and destroy the Plane in one hit. To counter this, study their appearing locations throughout the Stage to dodge shots in time and quickly burst them down with Main Weapon Supercharge as they appear.
- Bear in mind about the radial swarm discharged by Energized Spider Railguns on their destruction. Keep distance so that the Plane is not hit with many high-damaging and high-speed projectiles and navigate through the spaces created by the swarm at far distance.
Trivia[]
- Spider Railgun is the earliest enemy to utilize railgun rounds on Stage 4, with the proper Dual Railgun Turret only being introduced in Stage 7 later.
- On Stage 13 on mobile version of the game, Energized Spider Railguns which are slightly off-screen will fail to discharge radial swarm on destruction.
Images[]
