The Spider-Lair: Evolved - Sandbox Update

The latest version of this update is now available in The Spider-Lair VRChat group (Dev Build Group+ Instance) and is public for everyone to join. Very soon it will replace the main Public version of the world once everything is ready to go.

This patch introduces new customization options, balancing changes, menu improvements, combat adjustments, NPC fixes, and several new Lair Shop items. Patrons can also check out the expanded Sandbox features, and casual players can jump in and enjoy the latest gameplay, balancing, and item changes.

World and Menu Changes

• Added Dark Mode for the Lair HQ (Special thanks to Bee for aiding in the design of the new HQ Dark Mode - Couldn't have done it without her!)

• Reworked the World Menu with a new layout and additional performance options for all platforms.

• Reorganized several menus for easier navigation.

• Added an option to disable upside-down auto rotation.

• Changed NPC and danger indicators from circles to diamonds for better visibility.

• Added directional damage indicators to show where incoming damage is coming from, in combat or pvp.

• Fixed thumbstick navigation across menus.

Sandbox and Cinema Options

• Added a completely new Sandbox Spawning Menu, giving patrons much more direct control over combat encounters and world experimentation.

• Players can manually spawn every major NPC type, including melee enemies, riot units, handgun enemies, snipers, SMGs, rocketeers, drone operators, and zombies.

• All four drone types can be spawned individually, including Laser, Taser, Razer, and Blazer Drones.

• Bosses can be spawned manually, including AH-01 Hunter, AV-02 Cavalry, and AW-03 Longstep.

• Environmental objects can also be spawned manually, including crates, manhole covers, trash cans, fire hydrants, news boxes, explosive barrels, and electrical transformers.

• The Spawn Menu includes an undo system for quickly removing recently spawned enemies and objects.

• NPCs can be heavily customized, including their size, health, knockout threshold, accuracy, view distance, detection speed, damage, fire rate, attack timing, overshield health, collision damage, and more.

• Enemy behavior can also be customized, including parachutes, grapple hooks, teleportation, detection, hearing, voices, icons, ragdoll gravity, despawning, breakout behavior, grenade throwing, drone spawning, and tripwire placement.

• Drone and boss difficulty can be manually adjusted independently from normal combat progression.

• Sandbox player settings have also been greatly expanded, with control over movement speed, gravity, jump force, web length, zip strength, glide speed, glide lift, throw strength, explosive force, punch damage, kick damage, ranged damage, time scale, fall damage, and Sonic Blast force.

• Additional Sandbox modifiers include Immortality, Infinite Stamina, Infinite Ammo, Infinite Ability Energy, Full Auto, Ground Pound controls, momentum retention, damage indicators, automatic Slow Motion, unbreakable objects, a speedometer, and No Limits mode.

• No Limits removes normal speed and distance restrictions, allowing much more extreme Sandbox experimentation.

• Pose Chair Updates - The Pose Chair now supports NPCs, allowing you to place enemies into poses and have them maintain those poses after leaving the chair. This makes it much easier to set up scenes with multiple posed NPCs at once for screenshots, filming, or other creative uses. A new Feminine Base has also been added to the Pose Chair as well, expanding the available posing options and making the tool more flexible for different avatars and scene setups.

Web Swinging and Movement

• Rebalanced Web Zipping to be less restrictive at high speeds.

• Moving at very high velocity now consumes more stamina while zipping.

• Added an option to disable upside-down automatic rotation.

• Rockets can now be Web Yanked back to sender, as well as the current way of aiming and releasing.

Drone Difficulty Overhaul

Drone difficulty now scales much more aggressively with your Combat Level.

• Drone Operators can spawn multiple drones at higher difficulty levels.

• At Combat Level 1, Operators can maintain one drone.

• At maximum Combat Level, Operators can deploy up to five drones.

• All drones except Razer Drones can spawn with an energy shield.

• The chance of a shielded drone appearing increases with Combat Level.

• Webbing onto a shielded drone will electrocute the player.

• Drone damage, movement speed, health, and fire rate now scale more heavily with Combat Level.

• Drones emit sparks as they take damage.

• Webbed drones resume operating immediately unless they are moving beyond their normal operating speed.

• Ranged damage modifiers now apply to drones.

• Laser Drone range now starts at 25 meters and increases up to 55 meters at maximum Combat Level.

New Lair Shop Items

Integrated Webshooter

Your webshooters now require ammunition, but you earn 2x Combat Score.

Magnetic Webshooter

Take 75% less Shock Damage, but take 25% more Burn Damage.

Kevlar Mask

Take 75% less Burn Damage, but take 25% more Shock Damage.

Chao Garden

Sonic Blast becomes 2x more powerful, but your ranged attacks deal 2x less damage.

Speeding Ticket

Adds a live speedometer to your HUD. (The speedometer can also be enabled separately through Sandbox Mode.)

Existing Item Balance

Polarized Lenses

Polarized Lenses no longer completely negate explosive damage.

• Previously: 100% explosive damage resistance

• Now: 75% explosive damage resistance

• You now receive 25% of normal explosive damage.

Additional Changes

• Fixed Organic Webs item behavior.

• Several Sandbox settings and gameplay modifiers have been corrected and expanded.

Thank You

A huge thank you to everyone who has been playing and enjoying The Spider-Lair: Evolved, especially our patrons who have supported the project throughout development. I would like to personally thank my lovely partner Bee for always making the Spider-Lair look and feel like a place I want to be. She aided in the design for much of the Spider-Lair HQ and now the new Dark Mode, which looks absolutely stellar. Thank you Bee!

Seeing people make videos, share clips, leave comments, talk about the update, and send in feedback has been rewarding. I really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to report issues, suggest improvements, share ideas, or spend time in the world, because a lot of the changes throughout Evolved have come directly from watching how people play and using that feedback to continue refining the experience.

I am looking forward to finally being able to call this update complete. After that, McMatterz (The Lair Shop creator) and I will be shifting our focus toward a new standalone project that I am very excited about. I will have more to share about that somewhere down the line (shortly).

-Bronx