Spiker

[Viech]

The Spiker is an alien defense structure that works like a regenerating proximity mine. It shows ten to twenty big spikes facing outwards in all directions. When a human approaches or the structure is hurt, all spikes are shot at once, causing severe damage at close distance. During a cooldown period, the spikes will grow back and a finishing animation will visualize that they are ready to be fired again.

Possible sources of inspiration include nature and existing alien buildable concepts (Barricade, Booster) and models (Gas Flower, Trapper). It would be desireable that the structure showed (remainders of) a six-eyed face. Other leftovers of an existence as a mobile life form such as arms or mandibles are possible, too.

The structure can be built on walls and ceiling and should have a roughly cubic bounding box.

[alexbo]

Here's a few drawings to get things brewing. I just tried out a few basic shapes.

[Viech]

First one is too flat (I have to admit I wasn't precise here: The body without the spikes should fit roughly into a cube, the spikes itself may stick out of it by any amount) and the spikes shouldn't have additional thorns on them since that would influence the flight characteristics. The feet remind me a bit too much of branches.

The second one is quite nice. I like the face, it looks adorable.¹ One of the limbs again looks too much like a branch but the idea of making one row differently is good and the mantis-like shape stresses how charged the little creature is. Could be used to scratch over the surface as a sign that the next blast of spikes is ready. The thorn-like limbs are fine but I guess having three or four rows of smaller ones would look even better. The length of the spikes varies a bit too much but the average length looks like a good one. The body looks like it could deflate a bit whenever shots are fired. I like this concept most.

The third one is too artificially shaped but the limbs (thorn/mantis-like legs) look better than those on number two.

The fourth one has similiar shape problems as the first. In addition to that the spikes are too directed, the Spiker is supposed to deal damage in every angle.

¹ »They said I could become whatever I wanted to be, so I became a proximity mine.« – Spiker

[kharnov]

Can we have the spikes fire realistically in a trajectory with appropriate physics?

[Viech]

For certain definitions of realistic, yes.

[kharnov]

[alexbo]

¹ »They said I could become whatever I wanted to be, so I became a proximity mine.« – Spiker

For some that footnote cracked me up so much. People around must have wondered why I burst out laughing in the middle of the night.

Great feedback though. I'll have the next sketches go in the direction of #2.

Don't I have to keep it to only 6 legs? If not I'll add more, no problem.

Congrats on your thousandth post!

[alexbo]

I sketched a new thing based on "#2". Is too far from the square footprint?

[Viech]

Sweet! Proportions/footprint are fine like this. Foot count isn't that important for buildables and those feet look quite fitting, so that's allright, too. The shell material looks a bit too sturdy, the creature is supposed to be rather sensitive and go off when looked at from a bad angle. If you have the spikes on the same layer just leave it like this (textures can be altered as easy as a sketch and we can tell the modeler to use a softer material). Otherwise you could also reduce the number of spikes a bit: For network performance reasons, I don't think more than 15 actual spike missiles will be shot in one blast, so there shouldn't be much more than 20 showing on the model. Apart from this the only thing I'd change is the eye size: The last (biggest) row of eyes has a good size, I'd increase the size of the frontal two rows to match it.

Congrats on your thousandth post!

[alexbo]

So the spikes actually shoot out of the body? They don't stay on like on a blowfish after exploding?