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Arachnophobes beware, for the Mongolarachne is here! Coming from the Middle Jurassic time period, the Mongolarachne has gone through many classifications since its first discovery in 2013 as only two fossils of the animal have been discovered. The general consensus though is that the “Mongo” could be a stem-orbicularian meaning that the webs it would weave are closely resembling the orb webs certain modern spiders can weave. They have been noted on having a cribellum which would have allowed them to weave silk that is, although fine, could be relatively weak when slack but when prey is caught it could harden and stick to any prey caught in the webs as modern spiders with a cribellum operate. One of the more fascinating theories about the Mongo is that it could potentially also be a Deinopidae or a “net casting spider” also meaning that it is the latest Deinopidae ever discovered! Net casting spiders will weave a net out of their silk and after securing the net to their front legs, will launch themselves at prey before chowing down. (I cannot draw, just as a heads up) TLDR: Big spider with inspiration drawn from many spider species, found in both green and blue zones that pounces on prey with a web woven between its front legs. It can climb on surfaces to give it more verticality and can also leave web traps akin to bear traps or plant Y. Tamed by stunning it with a plant z fruit then hitting its underbelly with narcotic weapons. When tamed it can hold things down to make taming easier and scares off creatures that are hostile if smaller than the Mongo. It can have symbiotic relationships with other tames giving more use to the Mongo's diverse skill set. Can pry open locked gates and can spray a quick blast of webbing that slows and reduces stamina to give even more PvP use. The Mongo is resistant to all damage and is immune to fall damage and most debuffs unless stunned with a Z fruit. Dossier: Wild: Today I witnessed a truly horrifying sight. The Mongolarachne. As part of an exploratory party to survey parts of the Bio-Lum area of this Ark, one of the scouts we had flying ahead was brought out of the sky by one of these monsters and he was swiftly incapacitated, with even his suit having difficulty breaking the webbing. Before he was about to become lunch, I was able to stun the creature with one of the fruits of the strange plants dotted throughout the Ark. I noticed that unlike most creatures affected by the stunning effects of the fruit, the Mongolarachne was especially susceptible, being stunned for a considerable amount of time and even exposing its soft underbelly in its dazed state. We were able to deal enough damage to the spider and the webbing to free the scout before it was able to gather itself again. Just enough time for me to get tangled in the trap it had set in the direction we were retreating in. I am used to the obvious genetic and physical changes of the many species I’ve already catalogued, but I must admit this one will take some getting used to. Domesticated: Our group currently has no Mongolarachne in its ranks, but I do believe that taming is possible as it shows heightened levels of intelligence. I suspect that with a combination of the fruits of the plants here as well as the direct puncture of the underbelly with any number of narcotic weaponries, the rapid assault on its nervous system should send it in a shock in which it could then be nursed back to health. When tamed I suspect the Mongolarachne could be extremely useful for the taming of many of the creatures around the ark as well as a safe alternative to help bring down some of the more dangerous ones. Concept: While the real-world Mongo is only a few inches in length, Ark is not afraid to upscale creatures, so I say why not go all out and have the Ark Mongo be a bit bigger than the Spino and Karkinos, making it an apex predator in the Fertile and Bio-Luminescent areas of the map with them being rarer in the Fertile. Its appearance would take from a mix of real-world spiders including Tarantulas, Orb Weavers and others, while also retaining the elongated front legs from their fossils. (Wikipedia) Their main form of attack would be to weave a web net around their two front legs before doing a pounce not unlike that of the Raptor where it would then wrap the prey up before starting to attack. The Mongo would be a very high health, high damage creature with a large stamina pool but slow movement speed. To add a bit more utility and to help its lack of speed, the Mongo would be able to set web traps on the ground, acting like a bear trap or a Plant Y trap. In the wild it could leave a few in the area it is spawned in, and if a creature steps in the web, it is stuck but has the ability to attack out of the web such as players are able to break out of a Bloodstalker string before the web hardens. While tamed the Mongo could also passively generate spider webbing in its inventory which could be used as a replacement for fiber, but at certain thresholds it could craft and place the web traps with a player also being able to take it out of the Mongo’s inventory and place it themselves. For the web net, it could weave different sizes depending on how long the action key for the weaving is held going from small, medium, large, and extra-large, with the small web net being able to capture players and player sized tames. Like the Rhyniognatha, the size of the web woven could affect creatures of different drag weights with the extra-large webs being able to hold down Spinos and Reapers and other similar drag weight creatures. While pounced on a creature the Mongo is immobile and will not attack the webbed creature unless manually done by the rider or set on aggressive. The saddle of the Mongo will hold three players with the driver set on the top of the head and the other two along the sides of the torso so that they are able to attack webbed entities from range. It can also climb walls. Appearance: Male Mongos will be slimmer than female Mongos but the same size. The Mongo will be based mostly off a Tarantula with it being a bigger, thicker build than the other spiders of Ark. It will have a fuzzy coat like a Tarantula. It will have patterning and spikes like many Orb Weavers have and these will have the distinct Aberration bioluminescence that most creatures have. Its eyes will resemble that of a jumping spider but still have the Chelicerae(jaws) of a Tarantula. Its front two(2) legs will be elongated like the fossil and Deinopidae arachnids have but will be slightly slimmer than its other six(6) legs but still retain the fuzzy look. While weaving a web net before a pounce you can see a noticeable change in the Mongos movement where the start of the charge will be a slow movement of the front legs and as the size of the web net increases the faster the legs will move to help players visualize what stage the net is in. While in the web trap laying mode the spines at the back of the abdomen around the Cribellum will flash the color that they are to indicate to players that the Mongo is about to lay traps in the area. The idea: As both a PvP and PvE player and mostly PvE, one of the staple aspects of progressing through the game is the taming of new dinos. In PvP we are able to pick up creatures and drop them into traps in order to make the taming process easier. In PvE however the ability to move a creature into a trap in such a way is disabled, so my main focus was to create a perfect taming companion tame to help offset the inability of PvE players to easily trap dinos to tame, while also adding enough utility as to not have it be outclassed by other tames in PvP and to bring something unique to Ark. Another reason is that Aberration happens to be my favorite map out of the whole bunch, and I recognize that experienced players are able to reliably skip most of the progression a new player would have to experience while going through the Bio-Lum area, making the whole zone almost pointless besides the artifact and nameless spawns for rock drake raising. In bringing in the Mongo, it gives more of a reason for exploration and time within the Bio-Lum area to acquire such a useful utility tame. For PvP, there are so many really good offensive tames where there are little to no counters to them, with the skill set that comes with the Mongo, it is a high skill counter to many of Ark’s more annoying metas while not being an outright steamroller as with its many strengths it also has many weaknesses that can be exploited. Taming: You will be able to flashbang the Mongo with a Z fruit where it will be affected for a longer duration as many Deinopidae spiders are very susceptible to light and the Mongo will rear back exposing its underbelly where tranqs can be shot at into it to start knocking it out. In a lore sense most spiders have a large amount of their nervous system along their underbellies, so by flashbanging it, it overloads the nervous system allowing it to then be affected by narcotics. This will take several Z fruits to pull off as well as lots of tranqs as they will have a high torpor drain when not stunned, akin to a Giga’s torpor drain and it will have a very large torpor pool. Hunting: A wild Mongo will lay down traps surrounding the area as it wanders, waiting for something to trip the web where it will then aggro onto the trapped entity and weave a web to then pounce on it. Wild wandering Mongos will lay up to three(3) web traps on the ground. If flying or gliding in the vicinity of one it will attempt to launch itself into the air, where quick reactions to dodge the incoming giant will determine whether you are caught or not. It will also attempt the pounce on gliding tames but their speed should take you out of range before they are able to pounce on you but be careful not to land near it. It will always try to trap its prey first as being an intelligent being it knows its chances of a meal are higher when the odds are in its favor but if anything happens to escape it will chase and bite at entities until it is ready to weave another net. They can also be found on redwood trees in Fertile, and along the giant tree branches and walls of Bio-Lum, with them having one(1) web trap directly under the surface they are on. Maneuverability: The Mongo would be about the same speed as a Theri and much in the same aspect as a Theri, it will be able to outlast other large tames in a race but can still be run down if caution is not taken. The Mongo is able to climb as well as jump very high like a Karkinos giving it very good maneuverability throughout Aberration. Radiation: The Mongo WILL be hurt by radiation, and it will NOT spawn around the area between Bio-Lum and Molten Ele as I’m sure those who are Rock Drake egg hunting or Reaper Queen trapping will grow very aggravated by the Mongo coming out of nowhere and capturing you or the Queen you are leading away. Food Chain: The Mongo is an apex predator in the Fertile and Bio-Lum areas that prefer to lie in wait for prey to wander into web traps rather than outright pouncing on everything in sight, with the exception of flying and gliding entities. They will attack and pounce on everything caught in web traps even including Spinos, Karkinos, and Basilisks. Interaction with other creatures: The Mongo can utilize its webs differently depending on the drag weight of the creature with a drag weight of 600 being the largest a Mongo can successfully pounce and wrap up. Web Trap: Functioning similar to a small/large bear trap or Y plant trap, any creature that walks over the web trap will be stuck for a time with the ability to break out of the web with enough attack actions. If pounced while stuck in a web trap the Mongo will be able to wrap up a creature faster than it would if it was pounced on without a web trap. For creatures the Mongo cannot tie down in its grasp, creatures that walk on web traps have reduced movement speed for a short time period. As it is a spider web it will not have a decomposition timer like a Y plant trap does but a trap spotted before something is caught in it can be broken easily. Wild Mongos will approach the area of a broken web trap and will eventually re-lay more traps in the area as it wanders. The Pounce: When a wild Mongo senses a web trap has caught something or something in the air catches its eye it will weave a web net around its front elongated legs where it will create the right size net and then launch itself in the direction of the entity. An entity caught by the pounce will slowly be wrapped up by the Mongo where it will then start biting into whatever it caught dealing high damage as well as torpidity. Captured entities can still perform attacks for a time before the net hardens as most webs produced from a spider with a cribellum have the ability to harden and dry out after touching prey for a time. In this brief time a player can throw a Z fruit to instantly break out of any net/web trap they or any creature are stuck in, freeing them, and giving them time to escape while the Mongo pursues until outran. A mounted creature that is wrapped in a net before it hardens can be dismounted but if the creature is not dismounted before the net hardens the rider loses the ability to do any actions or be interacted with by any outside force. A mounted creature will be attacked first without the rider being attacked but if the mount is killed the rider will be freed to flee. A mounted creature that is in a net cannot do actions for a time that starts when the Mongo has fully webbed the tame, when the timer runs out the rider can then attack to try to break the web and rapidly decrease the Mongo’s stamina. When a Mongo’s stamina is depleted, any entity caught in the web net is freed. Mounted creatures will not be targeted by creatures that would aggro to it while caught in a Mongo web so as to not have a successful escape met by a group of Megalosaurus’ to immediately chow down on you and your tame. Players and creatures that escape the Mongo’s web are given the “Terrifying Presence” buff. A Mongo will raise its head slightly if it is pounced which can protect the rider from attacks from the front. Terrifying Presence (“Something horrible is near”): The buff given to any entity that is pounced on by a Mongo, a timer is started when an entity escapes the pounce webbing. Prevents creatures below drag weight 600 and NOT on the aggro list of the Mongo from being aggro’d to the entity. Knockout Taming Helper: A tamed Mongo can be manually made to start weaving a net with a crosshair indicating the direction the spider will pounce, no aim assist will be added like with raptors as the Mongo’s size will give it a large capturing radius. With the two seats on the side of the Mongo two passengers will be able to use ranged weaponry on whatever the Mongo has trapped in the net allowing for easy taming with the ability of the hardened net to prevent wild dino damage to be done to the captured creature as well as having smaller prey animals not be hunted by predators while caught in a Mongo’s net, preventing any reduction in taming effectiveness. As this is a tame and not a building, this living trap can help tame creatures in areas where other tribes’ structures are located. Structures: Cannot be placed in a small area around the front legs if an entity is pounced Frontline Disruptor: In tribe fights, a Mongo with enough silk in its inventory can produce a minefield of web traps that will stop anything that passes over it in its tracks, leaving things an easy target for attack. With its ability to fully capture a tame, it can force enemies to have to focus on freeing their comrade giving more opportunities to attack, with the Mongo able to retreat to the backlines to heal with its large jump. Backline Defender: If not on the frontlines trapping enemy tames, the Mongo could use its bulky defense to defend the flanks and rear of your tribe by setting traps around your friends and with its damage reduction it is able to stall out most high damage dealing dinos giving your friends time to react to the surprise threat. Weight Tame: With its high maneuverability and size the Mongo has excellent weight capacity for gathered resources and with only a few dinos being directly aggro towards it, you can travel in relative safety. Interactions with Reapers and Reaper Queens: Reapers can be fully tied down by Mongos but when damaged the Reaper’s acid blood can damage the web even when hardened, allowing for an easier but not free kill. A “Melting” bar will appear and fill as the trapped Reaper takes damage, when full the Reaper escapes. Reaper Queens cannot be fully tied down and are the one of the biggest creatures a Mongo can web down, they are able to bite, shoot from the tail and impregnate when health is low enough. Reaper Queens cannot move or tail spin while in webs. Reaper Queens can be damaged without risk of breaking the webs, but in return Reaper Queens acid blood will damage the Mongo in order to not give a free impregnation. “Dissolving” debuff will be shown when Reaper Queen is caught and damaged, Mongo will take damage over time not affected by the high armor. Perks: · High health pool · VERY high defense similar to Stego defense boost · Large stamina pool · High weight capacity · Far jumps · Can climb · Takes reduced damage from all sources when not stunned and not hit in the underbelly · No fall damage · Has tough plated chitin to reduce fire/megatherium bug bonus damage to normal · Immune to bleed when not attacking underbelly · Immune to Shadowmane poison, Cnidaria and Electrophorus shock · Immune to Freeze, both Mana AND Snow Owl (its fuzzy) Countermeasures: · Z plant: The fruit stun Mongos for an increased time, with them exposing their underbellies so that extra damage and torpidity can be done. Damage to the underbelly can only be done by projectiles, players with melee weapons, small to medium sized tames, bleed can be applied to underbelly. · Charge Pets/Charge Lanterns: As most Deinopidae spiders are sensitive to light, lit charge pets are a good choice to ward off wild Mongos from attacking, but if provoked they will still attack you even with the light pet lit. If a player or mounted tame with a charge pet active on the rider’s shoulder are caught in a web trap the Mongo will still be aggro to it and attempt to pounce. Set down charge lanterns will dissuade Mongos from approaching the area around it. · Immobile while pounced: While pounced on prey the Mongo cannot move and will not be able to until the net is broken, the Mongo releases the net, or the prey is eaten · Stamina drain while pounced: In order to keep something captured both immobile and defended a constant stream of fresh webbing is required to keep the net in top shape. The Mongo constantly produces a stream of fresh webbing and gets tired over time doing so if the prey is awake. Knocked out creatures will not constantly drain stamina as they are no longer fighting against the webbing. · Web Net cooldown: A Mongo both tame and wild will have a cooldown before it can weave another web net onto its front legs so as to not allow consecutive pounce attempts. · Slow speed: The Mongo is slow moving in both walking and sprinting with its main form of movement being large jumps allowing for quick getaways as long as you watch where the Mongo is launching itself · Very slow swim speed, can be attacked from below for extra damage in water · Affected by Large Bear Traps Breeding: Mongos are able to breed naturally and will produce an egg akin to the Araneo and Mantis eggs. Unlike most spiders the females will NOT eat the male after breeding. After the egg is hatched the baby Mongo will have the option to sit on a mother spider to rest on the abdomen with a maximum of three baby Mongos being able to be sat like a Maewing and fed until Juvenile where they are separated. Baby Mongos while on a mother’s back will have increased imprint done to it. Incubation and Maturation: An infant Mongo’s life cycle will take around over three(3) days on 1x including incubation and maturation Imprint: On 1x, imprints will count for 20% of the bar, with a baby on a mother’s back gaining 40% for an imprint. Baby Mongos on a mother’s back will only ask to be fed raw and cooked prime, raw and cooked mutton, cooked prime meat jerky, Superior kibble, nameless venom, narcotic, or biotoxin. If a baby Mongo is removed from the back of the mother, the extra buff will not be applied upon the feeding of the baby as to not allow rerolls for easier to obtain items. Button input (Console, can be swapped to appropriate key input for PC): · Right Trigger: Bite (High damage) · Hold Right Trigger: Narcotic Bite (Torpor attack, decent damage, good for a last-minute torp, will not be a free knockout on creatures as the torp/damage ratio will result in the creature dying before knocking out if only attacked with the Narcotic Bite) · Left Trigger: Quick pounce where camera is facing with small sized net. Pounce cooldown is shown in the bottom left of screen · Hold Left Trigger: Crosshair appears, and Mongo starts to increase the size of the web net over time with the size of the net displayed in the bottom left of screen with S, M, L, XL indicating the changes, release to pounce. · Hold Left Trigger after creature is Pounced: Cut webbing to set the creature free. Pounce cooldown is shown in bottom left of screen · A Button: Jump · Hold A Button: Charged Jump with crosshair · Click in Left Stick: Sprint, while sprinting can climb surfaces · Tap Left Bumper (Mine Laying Mode Toggle): Shows indication of how many web traps are in Mongo’s inventory, back spikes will start to pulse when active, tap again to toggle off and back spikes will no longer pulse · Right Trigger after Left Bumper (Mine Laying Mode is ACTIVE): will place a web trap directly behind the Mongo, if the Mongo is on a surface the web trap will fall as if a net projectile was shot downward but will become a web trap when it lands on a surface or if it collides with an entity, falling web trap will spawn relative to the rear end of the Mongo Taming Foods: · Favorite: Exceptional Kibble · Nameless Venom · Raw Mutton · Spoiled Meat · Raw Meat Drops when killed: · Spider Silk · Organic Polymer · Chitin · Pelt · Raw Meat Aggro’d creatures: · Basilisk · Karkinos · Spinos · Rock Drakes · Reapers, R-Reapers, Reaper Queens, R-Reaper Queens · Nameless · Rex · Gigas · Charcars · Rhyns · Wyverns (Not Crystal Wyverns) · All hostile water creatures · Deathworms · All bosses · Magmasaurs · Rock Golems, X-Rock Golems · Amargasaurus · Megatherium · Attack and Defense Drones · All Corrupted · Fasolasuchus? · Enraged Ferox · Giant Bees (if hive is broken) · Griffin · Insect Swarm · Lamprey · Leech · Seeker if charge pet is active · Summoner · Therizino · Voidwyrm Thank you for reviewing my creature submission! Sorry for the info dump but me and my friends brainstormed hard to think of mechanics that would make it unique while also finding ways to help balance the creature into a fun, fair, and useful tame, to be viable in both PvP and PvE as well as to help it stand out from the others currently in Ark. Any and all feedback is appreciated, and I will try to respond to comments whenever possible. Links: · https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolarachne, Mongolarachne description and history · https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cribellum, Cribellum description · https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinopidae, Deinopidae spider information · https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3889289/, speculation on Mongo traits UPDATED FOR SUGGESTIONS: Dossier: Domesticated: My thesis on it's intelligence seems to be correct based on its willingness to recruit other creatures of this ark as they can both mutually benefit from the relationship, mostly to make getting a meal easier. Symbiotic Relationships: Beelzebufo: Many tarantulas have been seen using frogs to guard their eggs from bugs that want a quick snack and in return protect the frog from its predators with its size. The Beelzebufo could sit on top of the back like the babies can and could obtain cementing paste at an increased rate. It could be a way for the Beel to get free food while protecting the main course the Mongo is trying to eat without any pesky Meganura getting at it first Araneo: Could help reduce the amount of time the spider silk produces in the Mongo's inventory for each araneo on the back and could possibly reduce the time the Mongo takes to weave bigger webs, but only SLIGHTLY less Bloodstalkers: Could help reduce the stamina drain per bloodstalker on prey a Mongo is holding down as they could help lighten the load, and help fight against the creature trying to escape Buffs would be shown with a percentage increase/decrease for the respective change Other Submissions: Maevia Eureka by Sovira: These cute critters seem to be one of the community favorites at the moment and I feel that a group of them on the Mongo's back could be great taming support with their tranq bolas as they could repeatedly increase torpidity of a trapped creature Phrynus operculatus by Er1c236: While this does seem similar to the Mongo, this is its own creature and unique in the fact that if paired together it could help the Mongo combat Nameless and Reapers with its light producing sprays and could help the Mongo navigate the map quicker using its grapple webs Rosamygale by RyuouShenron: Could be a more combat focused pairing with the charge light it produces as well as the blindness effect the spit of it has Arthrolycosa by oleg10000: Could send its torpor venom through the web, slowly and passively knocking the captured creature out but would be ineffective against tamed creatures to balance with pvp Wolf Spider by Zodie / Chimerarachne Yingi by Kage360 / Megarachne by JoPiMun077: Although too big to ride on the back of the Mongo these giant spiders could be great protectors against anything the Mongo doesn't scare away, helping protect the Mongo while its holding something down to tame. Please go support these fellow spider enthusiasts as well! We need some variety from the basic reptiles! RS (Right Stick, I'm on console) and could be held near doors to activate its ability to pry open enemy gates which would leave them open for a time so that enemies can't immediately close them after but they would gain the ability to close them after a time. Just pressing RS could do a quick spray of webbing that could be used as a last ditch effort to escape, draining stamina highly but slowing and draining stamina on anything hit, incorporating their other idea as well. Possible hold RS: send out a fishing net like web that could help with gathering more fish at once.