Editing v0.34:Giant cave spider

{{Quality|Exceptional|20:09, 5 July 2010 (UTC)}}

'''Giant cave spiders''' are far different from your regular [[cave spider]]s; those are just treats for your [[cat]]. Giant cave spiders are as big as [[grizzly bear]]s and will make treats ''of'' cats, dwarves and the occasional careless adventurer. You can find giant cave spiders in, obviously, caves, caverns and most underground areas.  They are extremely dangerous as they feel no pain and thus cannot be stunned, can [[syndrome|poison]] creatures and have the ability to shoot [[web]]bing to ensnare their prey.

Giant cave spiders are fortunately (depending on your point of view) not a rarity anymore and there are dozens present in the underground caverns, deep below the surface.  They can be extremely hard to kill. Due to the material changes, however, chitin is not as great as armour as it used to be, resulting in a few dwarves, on occasion, punching one to death within a few attacks by punching its skull into its brain, which can be a godsend on an unlucky cavern breaching excercise.

They are both a boon and a bane, the boon being their webs (whenever they aren't a part of the bane.) Giant cave spider [[silk]] is worth much more than ordinary [[cloth]] and given the proper setup and victims, they can produce endless amounts of it. Be aware that if they are tamed, Giant Cave Spiders will not spit webbing at enemies (or fight back at all) unless they are being attacked themselves.{{verify}}

If you see one in adventure mode, an announcement, "You've spotted a Giant Cave Spider!" will appear.

Giant cave spiders are NOT to be engaged in melee by a lone dwarf, especially if it's armor is lacking. If the attacked dwarf is fully armored, then it will eventually die of hunger or thirst. Even a legendary axedwarf will be unable to do anything., due to the immobilizing webs and subsequent deadly bite. You may attempt to flank a giant cave spider with two melee dwarves, one serving as bait and the other killing the giant cave spider, but it is not a foolproof tactic and you will probably lose one or two dwarves. Marksdwarves, cage traps and weapon traps are better.

Giant cave spider venom appears to be a neurotoxin which causes progressive [[syndrome|paralysis]] and is ultimately fatal due to suffocation as the victim's diaphragm succumbs and ceases to function. The poison's effects set in relatively quickly with complete paralysis at phase 5 (360 seconds) and death usually occurs at around 1300 seconds.

Due to the considerable value of giant cave spider silk, many players attempt to capture a live spider and set up a silk farm to boost their fortress's economy. While simply opening a path to the [[cavern]]s and lining it with cage traps may eventually work, a much more effective method is to take advantage of one peculiar behavior of [[building destroyer]]s - simply build a '''[[wood]]en''' [[door]] within the caverns and surround it with cage traps (to a distance of at least 2 tiles), and any giant cave spider (or [[giant toad]], [[giant olm]], [[cave crocodile]], etc.) that wanders relatively close enough to the door will immediately charge toward it and be captured. Or if you have enough mechanisms, cages and dwarfpower to spare, cage trap all of the cavern exits.

Several setups have been devised to harvest giant cave spider silk in large quantities. Working silk farms have a few traits in common:

# The spider must not be able to reach its bait - if it can, the bait (or spider) will die and no further silk will be generated. Spiders can destroy wooden doors but not stone or metal doors. They cannot pass through forbidden doors or doors that have been "tightly closed".

# The spider must be able to path to its bait - they can path through non-forbidden doors but not through raised bridges or fortifications.  If no path is available, the spider will only shoot webs very infrequently. Spiders '''will''' attempt to path through doors which are "tightly closed" but not forbidden, making them one of the key elements of an efficient silk farm.

# Web collection cannot occur in sight of wild animals or invaders; either the spider or its bait will interrupt collection.  Drawbridges work well to block line of sight in either case, as webs will not prevent them from raising.

{{diagram|spaces=yes|color=#888|\

# Dig out (and optionally smooth) a sufficiently large room (example shown is 11x11).

# [[Construction|Construct]] all of the light gray [[wall]]s and red [[fortification]]s.

# Build the 3 green [[bridge]]s, all raising lengthwise to form long walls.

# Construct a [[lever]] somewhere convenient in your fortress and link it to the 3 bridges.

# Build 2 '''non-wooden''' [[door]]s above and below the gray "S".  Mark both doors as pet-inaccessible but leave them unlocked.  This allows the spider to path to the bait (due to a long-standing pathfinding bug); without that path, the spider will only attempt to web it extremely infrequently.

# Build a restraint underneath the gray "g".  Assign a disarmed captured [[goblin]] soldier to the restraint (do '''not''' try to use a thief or a wild animal, as it will almost certainly escape before it reaches the restraint).

# Pull the lever to raise the bridges (and hide the goblin from your mason), then construct the blue wall to seal the chamber.

# Build the 2 [[floodgate]]s and link them to the lever, then pull the lever again.

# Using a pit/pond [[activity zone]] on the Z-level above, drop a '''tamed''' giant cave spider into the gray "S" square. Place a 1-tile meeting zone on this tile so the spider will be content to stand still while webs are being collected, reducing lag.

Silk can be farmed just as easily from a wild spider with a few changes.  Domesticated pets can be used in place of goblins for wild spider, but avoid grazers; other animals may need to be replaced when they die of old age.  It's recommended that you place a back up cage trap to reposition the spider if your first design doesn't meet your needs, but remember that should any webbing fall on the cage trap, it will trap your dwarves as easily as it will the spider.  Wild spiders can be placed via lever-controlled deconstructing cage. Be aware that deconstructing cages can fling components, wedging nearby doors open, so keep any doors adjacent to the cage forbidden.

==Training Armor Using==

Pit an entirely metal-armored dwarf against a wild giant cave spider. Enjoy as the dwarf gets webbed, then the GCS attempts to bite the dwarf, but fails due to armor.