Just built my first spider, couple questions

[That Fish Guy]

Playing At default settings.

If it only takes out a portion of a base outside of my pollution, will the enemies become aggro to my base, or will they chase the spider, or will they hang out like nothing happened?

Will it reload on it's own when in my network with missiles, or will they just go into the inventory?

Is it possible to set a loop or return on its routed path? I'd love to have one on patrol without too much micro.

Is it possible to load it up with construction bots, and landfill, and have it drop it's own path over waters while on automatic mode?

I noticed lasers quickly stopped working if I didn't have a portable nuclear plant in it's inventory, was that a bug? If not where are the electrical levels reported? How many lasers can one nuclear pack support on the spider? I assume batteries would make it a bit more capable as well.

When can I leave work and go back to playing with my new spider friend? I'm almost at space science for the first time in this game.

[Fel]

Originally posted by That Fish Guy:

Playing At default settings.

If it only takes out a portion of a base outside of my pollution, will the enemies become aggro to my base, or will they chase the spider, or will they hang out like nothing happened?

Enemies will agro to anything that threatens them.

If they come in range of a turrets, a player or a vehicle with weapons (which includes the spidertron) then they will focus on those first.
Any attack to a spawner will agro all of the defenders (enemies that are normally within the nest) to whatever damaged the spawner.
So in your proposed case, the enemies that are defending the nest would try to attack the spidertron and chase after it until they are killed or the spidertron gets too far ahead of them (by going above cliffs and such for example or just by going faster).

Will it reload on it's own when in my network with missiles, or will they just go into the inventory?

It should reload first but I don't use them frequently enough to be absolutely certain.

Is it possible to set a loop or return on its routed path? I'd love to have one on patrol without too much micro.

Pretty sure it is not possible without some weird stuff like telling it to follow a car that you put on a belt along the path you want the spidertron to follow, which is probably more work than you would want.

Is it possible to load it up with construction bots, and landfill, and have it drop it's own path over waters while on automatic mode?

If you mean automatically laying landfills to make a path without any input from you (ghosts or blueprint) then no.

I noticed lasers quickly stopped working if I didn't have a portable nuclear plant in it's inventory, was that a bug? If not where are the electrical levels reported? How many lasers can one nuclear pack support on the spider? I assume batteries would make it a bit more capable as well.

The equipment stuff is the same as the power armor's for the player.
They have a small battery charge of 220kJ and need 50kJ per shot so when charged they can shoot 4 times without batteries or a generator.
There is no set ratio of PLD to portable fusion reactor because the shooting speed is increased through research.
The initial stats of 1.5 shots per second mean a power requirement of 75kW, meaning that the 750kW of the portable fusion reactor can power 10 continuously (if nothing else uses power of course).
But at laser shooting speed 7, they will get a +220% to shooting speed, so 4.8 shots per second or 240 kW required and only 3 being supported by a fusion reactor.

Personal battery mk2 has a storage of 100MJ, so if fully charged they can allow your PLD to fire for a while even if your power generation is not able to keep up.
Usually you want some batteries if you are going to use PLDs.

When can I leave work and go back to playing with my new spider friend? I'm almost at space science for the first time in this game.

Depending on what you mean by that, either "any time you want" or "never".

Starting from when you unlock construction bots and assuming that you have a good radar coverage, you can leave building your factory to them with a bit of planning, through the use of blueprints (including the copy/cut/paste tools, upgrade planners and deconstruction planner).
This includes using spidertrons as remote-controlled portable roboports.
So you don't strictly need to be in a specific place to be expanding your factory.

On the other hand, you basically never stop building up your factory.

[Khagan]

Originally posted by That Fish Guy:

If it only takes out a portion of a base outside of my pollution, will the enemies become aggro to my base, or will they chase the spider, or will they hang out like nothing happened?

They will chase the spider in the same way as they would chase a pre-spider engineer attacking nests (e.g. in a tank).

Will it reload on it's own when in my network with missiles, or will they just go into the inventory?

If it has a logistic request for rockets, they will first be loaded into the launchers, and then any surplus into general inventory. Again, just like requesting ammo for the engineer.

Is it possible to set a loop or return on its routed path? I'd love to have one on patrol without too much micro.

Unfortunately not. This is a major limitation of the spider control interface.

Is it possible to load it up with construction bots, and landfill, and have it drop it's own path over waters while on automatic mode?

No, you would have to put down the landfill manually (or at least ghosts for it, which it could then construct)

I noticed lasers quickly stopped working if I didn't have a portable nuclear plant in it's inventory

Lasers need power. Exoskeletons need power. Roboports need power. Shields need power. So yes, the first thing you have to put in your equipment grid is a power plant.

where are the electrical levels reported? How many lasers can one nuclear pack support on the spider? I assume batteries would make it a bit more capable as well.

The wiki shows power production/consumption for each item. PDLs are (perhaps surprisingly) not particularly power hungry. One fusion plant (750 kW) can run 10 unupgraded lasers continuously (75 kW each, as 1.5 50kJ shots/s), plus each laser stores internally enough power for 4 shots. Shooting speed upgrades will increase the power consumption, but on the other hand you don't actually need continuous firing. If all you want the spider to do is fire lasers, then 1 power plant, 2 batteries and 10 PDLs will fill the grid.

I normally prefer my military spiders to have an exoskeleton or two and a mixture of shields and PDLs. Their primary offensive weapon is the rockets, not the lasers, and speed and shields make them more survivable.

[Hurkyl]

Incidentally, if I remember correctly, when in combat, Spidertrons will reload their ammo slots as necessary from their inventory.

[Khagan]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Incidentally, if I remember correctly, when in combat, Spidertrons will reload their ammo slots as necessary from their inventory.

Yes, they do. At the start of a military expedition I generally load my escort spider team with two full sets of ammo: the launchers are full and each has the same again in inventory. By the time we finish it's all (or almost all) gone, and I didn't need to do a manual reload.

[Nonotorious]

Don't waste time filling spidertron with lasers, fill it with legs and shields. If you are riding it yourself load your own armor with lasers because they can fire out
If you want to use it as a remote builder you can fill it with bots and set up your logistic request/trash slots in the spidertron menu.

[knighttemplar1960]

The only way to automate a spidertron for patrol is to make a loop of rails or a strip of rails and have a train run back and forth between 2 stations with the spider on follow. You have to use slow fuel for the train and balance exoskeletons for the spidertron so it can keep up. You also equip it with construction bots, repair packs, and spare rails and make sure taht it has a way to resupply it self.

If the train gets destroyed you'll have to manually set it up again.

[malogoss]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

The only way to automate a spidertron for patrol is to make a loop of rails or a strip of rails and have a train run back and forth between 2 stations with the spider on follow. You have to use slow fuel for the train and balance exoskeletons for the spidertron so it can keep up. You also equip it with construction bots, repair packs, and spare rails and make sure taht it has a way to resupply it self.

If the train gets destroyed you'll have to manually set it up again.

Nice idea. Never wanted to have spiders on patrol, but I'll keep that in mind. In Space Age, who knows, maybe I'll use that?

Tiny improvement on the concept, it doesn't really have to be a rail loop. I'd use a bidirectional train, a single track, one station at each end of it and "wait for X sec" conditions long enough that the spider has time to move. No exo or 3 exo, nuclear fuel or coal, anything would work.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by malogoss:

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

The only way to automate a spidertron for patrol is to make a loop of rails or a strip of rails and have a train run back and forth between 2 stations with the spider on follow. You have to use slow fuel for the train and balance exoskeletons for the spidertron so it can keep up. You also equip it with construction bots, repair packs, and spare rails and make sure taht it has a way to resupply it self.

If the train gets destroyed you'll have to manually set it up again.

Nice idea. Never wanted to have spiders on patrol, but I'll keep that in mind. In Space Age, who knows, maybe I'll use that?

Tiny improvement on the concept, it doesn't really have to be a rail loop. I'd use a bidirectional train, a single track, one station at each end of it and "wait for X sec" conditions long enough that the spider has time to move. No exo or 3 exo, nuclear fuel or coal, anything would work.

I've tried several non-typical set ups that aren't part of the "standard design model". Not as extensive as Chindraba does but the occasional here and there.

[Mike Garrison]

I think there are mods to allow spidertrons to patrol, but I've never used them.