New update destroys spider farms

[Kacpert25]

Due to yesterday's changes, the spider farm using bunnymen has become useless.
When spiders die, Crystal-Cressted Buzzards fly in and eat their corpses. And when they eat them, other nearby creatures cause the Crystal-Cressted Buzzards to attack them performing a fire-breathing attack, effectively killing all the bunnymen and spiders, leaving only shattered spiders. 
In other words, the farm has now stopped working.

And this isn't a problem unique to spider farms. If you have bee farms in a desert with an oasis, sometimes buzzards can be killed by the bees.
And when a buzzard is killed, its lunar counterpart will come again, breathing fire and destroying fences and walls.

In fact, any location with any creatures is vulnerable to destruction by lunar buzzards.
Because all it takes is for a bird's corpse to fall near a creature during a lunar hail, or for it to approach that corpse, and the lunar buzzards will be able to aggro on that creature, breathing fire and destroying all walls, fences, and gates.

As you can see, this is quite a big problem that would be worth solving quickly.
I have a few ideas on what could be done to remedy this.

•Gestalt Repellent - Item/Structure that would prevent Brightshades from attacking plants and Crystal-Cressted Buzzards from flying down to eat corpses,
•Crystal-Cressted Buzzards would not aggro from other creatures - I think this idea would be quite good as a permanent/temporary solution. The problem with Crystal-Cressted Buzzards is that they aggro when other creatures stand near them while they're eating a corpse. So, if they only aggro when a player is nearby, and not a creature, the chance of destroying structures with their fire would be much lower,
•Crystal-Cressted Buzzards' fire does not damage fences and walls - Here, maybe not as a permanent solution, but as something temporary it wouldn't be the worst either. Spider farms still wouldn't work, but at least Crystal-Cressed Buzzards wouldn't be destroying bases so much, 

Besides the lunar buzzard problem, spider farms have another one. Smaller compared to the buzzards, but still.
Since the Spider Queen transforms into a shattered spider hole after death, spider farms become overcrowded with them. Although I think Terramite could work here somehow, slowly mining up the spiders hole. Still, a slight change could be made.
For example, if there is already a spider den near two turfs from the Spider Queen corpse, it will not turn into a shattered spiders hole.

 

I recommend checking out my other post about another issue stemming from the last update.
Less so than those mentioned above. But still quite irritating.

Spoiler

Edited November 1, 2025 by Kacpert25

[SilverSpoon]

Volt Goats would also go extinct. If you discovered that “If you reduce a herd of Volt Goats to one and slowly move it instead of chasing it normally, you can move their spawn point,” or “Chasing Suspicious Dirt Piles in the Oasis Desert during Spring rains will spawn a Volt Goat,” without the internet, you are definitely a real GigaChad Gamer of Don't Starve Together.

Edited October 28, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[gaymime]

i've been keeping my spider farms in caves for years, those still work just fine. i am sure people will figure out a way to make above-ground farms viable. i trust the community to be resourceful

[Bumber64]

I suppose we should be used to lunar side screwing things up by now.

At least shadow's masques don't spawn everywhere.

[Dingle]

1 hour ago, Kacpert25 said:

Due to yesterday's changes, the spider farm using bunnymen has become useless.
When spiders die, Crystal-Cressted Buzzards fly in and eat their corpses. And when they eat them, other nearby creatures cause the Crystal-Cressted Buzzards to attack them performing a fire-breathing attack, effectively killing all the bunnymen and spiders, leaving only shattered spiders. 
In other words, the farm has now stopped working.

And this isn't a problem unique to spider farms. If you have bee farms in a desert with an oasis, sometimes buzzards can be killed by the bees.
And when a buzzard is killed, its lunar counterpart will come again, breathing fire and destroying fences and walls.

As you can see, this is quite a big problem that would be worth solving quickly.
I have a few ideas on what could be done to remedy this.

•Gestalt Repellent - Item/Structure that would prevent Brightshades from attacking plants and Crystal-Cressted Buzzards from flying down to eat corpses,
•Crystal-Cressted Buzzards would not aggro from other creatures - I think this idea would be quite good as a permanent/temporary solution. The problem with Crystal-Cressted Buzzards is that they aggro when other creatures stand near them while they're eating a corpse. So, if they only aggro when a player is nearby, and not a creature, the chance of destroying structures with their fire would be much lower,
•Crystal-Cressted Buzzards' fire does not damage fences and walls - Here, maybe not as a permanent solution, but as something temporary it wouldn't be the worst either. Spider farms still wouldn't work, but at least Crystal-Cressed Buzzards wouldn't be destroying bases so much, 

Besides the lunar buzzard problem, spider farms have another one. Smaller compared to the buzzards, but still.
Since the Spider Queen transforms into a shattered spider hole after death, spider farms become overcrowded with them. Although I think Terramite could work here somehow, slowly mining up the spiders hole. Still, a slight change could be made.
For example, if there is already a spider den near two turfs from the Spider Queen corpse, it will not turn into a shattered spiders hole.

 

I recommend checking out my other post about another issue stemming from the last update.
Less so than those mentioned above. But still quite irritating.

  Hide contents

What causes the buzzards to spawn? Can you avoid them by avoiding the deserts?

[Kacpert25]

56 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

I suppose we should be used to lunar side screwing things up by now.

At least shadow's masques don't spawn everywhere.

I would rather say that fact that every Hallowed Nights update with additional content brings chaos XD. Last year, when they added the void masques, it was also quite a mess at the very beginning.

10 minutes ago, Dingle said:

What causes the buzzards to spawn? Can you avoid them by avoiding the deserts?

Lunar Hail. They spawn all over the main island around players and disappear when the rift isn't active.

Edited October 28, 2025 by Kacpert25

[Dingle]

27 minutes ago, Kacpert25 said:

Lunar Hail. They spawn all over the main island around players and disappear when the rift isn't active.

That's really brutal. Not much you can do about that.

If it was more tied to the buzzard spawners, you could take precautions. I hope the devs change this.

[Waywarbler]

1 hour ago, Bumber64 said:

I suppose we should be used to lunar side screwing things up by now.

At least shadow's masques don't spawn everywhere.

Not like void masques had a smooth launch either. If anything this is just the lunar equivalent.

[yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy]

6 hours ago, gaymime said:

i've been keeping my spider farms in caves for years, those still work just fine. i am sure people will figure out a way to make above-ground farms viable. i trust the community to be resourceful

Figure out one yourself or stop imagining it really exists, please

[DR.NTWF]

9 hours ago, gaymime said:

i've been keeping my spider farms in caves for years, those still work just fine. i am sure people will figure out a way to make above-ground farms viable. i trust the community to be resourceful

So, you mean that as a bystander, you are persuading someone who is suffering serious harm to use their own intelligence to solve the problem, rather than acknowledging the designer's serious mistakes. Before this, you yourself haven't tried to explore any solutions, and now you're here making those easy-to-say comments. Do you think people come to complain without going through various tests? It's somewhat like a mutated, softened version of victim-blaming.

Edited October 29, 2025 by DR.NTWF

[Captain_Rage]

4 hours ago, DR.NTWF said:

So, you mean that as a bystander, you are persuading someone who is suffering serious harm to use their own intelligence to solve the problem, rather than acknowledging the designer's serious mistakes. Before this, you yourself haven't tried to explore any solutions, and now you're here making those easy-to-say comments. Do you think people come to complain without going through various tests? It's somewhat like a mutated, softened version of victim-blaming.

In what way do you consider this "suffering serious harm"? Spider Dens pile up in the world regardless if a "farm" gets destroyed. Most of the time roaming the world yields enough resources as it is. Can you elaborate on these "various tests"? In my ~4400 day solo world simply running to the forest biome nets two stacks of silk due to the constant destruction of spiders from giants and whatnot, which doesn't even require any setup. Talking about a solution is not meaningful when there are no problems.

[Mike23Ua]

Okay so someone correct me if I am wrong, but shouldn’t “End Game” Content break & completely redefine established Early Game Meta’s? I know I’m probably in the minority vote here: But I like it when a Survival game forces me to change up the way I’m surviving.

[DR.NTWF]

1 hour ago, Captain_Rage said:

In what way do you consider this "suffering serious harm"? Spider Dens pile up in the world regardless if a "farm" gets destroyed. Most of the time roaming the world yields enough resources as it is. Can you elaborate on these "various tests"? In my ~4400 day solo world simply running to the forest biome nets two stacks of silk due to the constant destruction of spiders from giants and whatnot, which doesn't even require any setup. Talking about a solution is not meaningful when there are no problems.

Please do not change the key point of the topic. You are just assuming the situation where no spider farm has been built, but in fact, if a factory is built and cannot be used, it forcibly invalidates the player's efforts in the save file. The solution I am discussing is about maintaining an already built spider farm, rather than discussing ways to obtain spider silk outside of the farm.

[DR.NTWF]

Unfortunately, the facts are not as you say, and it is not uncommon in games to adopt different strategies at different stages. For example, on the surface, players may need to replan or pre-plan planting areas to avoid interference from Bright Egg parasites; underground, players may be forced to use Support Pillar and Shadow Umbrella to deal with acid rain and giant-rock earthquakes that occur only after defeating the Ancient Fuel Weaver. If changes are made across the board to make all resources harder to obtain, requiring players to change strategies without providing any additional rewards or positive gameplay feedback, are such changes really positive?

Edited October 29, 2025 by DR.NTWF

[DR.NTWF]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

Okay so someone correct me if I am wrong, but shouldn’t “End Game” Content break & completely redefine established Early Game Meta’s? I know I’m probably in the minority vote here: But I like it when a Survival game forces me to change up the way I’m surviving.

Dear, I completely understand your thoughts, but if we make adjustments more cautiously and based on suggestions from more players, our needs are not mutually exclusive. What I want to say is that this game is no longer just a survival game; a significant portion of players engage in long-term saves and pursue advanced gameplay, including decorative and productive construction. With such highly destructive creature designs, we should be extremely careful and not neglect one thing for another, especially concerning the intelligent achievements players have developed that are not based on bugs. This time, the vulture is more unpredictable, harder to control, and no less destructive than previous invasive creatures. Interesting creature design can also be reflected in environmental interactions, rather than constantly cluttering my mailbox like a harasser’s letters.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2025 by DR.NTWF

[gaymime]

6 hours ago, DR.NTWF said:

So, you mean that as a bystander, you are persuading someone who is suffering serious harm to use their own intelligence to solve the problem, rather than acknowledging the designer's serious mistakes. Before this, you yourself haven't tried to explore any solutions, and now you're here making those easy-to-say comments. Do you think people come to complain without going through various tests? It's somewhat like a mutated, softened version of victim-blaming.

not a bystander. i also farm spiders with bunnies and i am saying that the farm is not "useless" because it still works underground, only the upstairs version of the farm is no longer working the way it used to. i am also recognising that farms have changed a few times over the years and the community has always come up with clever and efficient means of making things work. this community is not so stupid and worthless that this change will stop them from finding a way to eventually make upstairs spider farming work and i think it is quite mean-spirited and rude of you to act like it is.

 

that being said it is NOT my job to resolve a problem that is already solvable by simply moving spider farms to the caves and it is a bit silly of you to try and gaslight me into assuming that the poster has tried all possible means of farming and been so stymied by it that the only conclusion is that the dev team has failed the whole community and saying anything to the contrary is abusive.

[DR.NTWF]

26 minutes ago, gaymime said:

not a bystander. i also farm spiders with bunnies and i am saying that the farm is not "useless" because it still works underground, only the upstairs version of the farm is no longer working the way it used to. i am also recognising that farms have changed a few times over the years and the community has always come up with clever and efficient means of making things work. this community is not so stupid and worthless that this change will stop them from finding a way to eventually make upstairs spider farming work and i think it is quite mean-spirited and rude of you to act like it is.

 

that being said it is NOT my job to resolve a problem that is already solvable by simply moving spider farms to the caves and it is a bit silly of you to try and gaslight me into assuming that the poster has tried all possible means of farming and been so stymied by it that the only conclusion is that the dev team has failed the whole community and saying anything to the contrary is abusive.

So the fact

Dear I definitely agree with your view that players' intelligence grows as the game changes, but what I mainly want to oppose is that such violent parasitism causes existing farms to become ineffective. Moreover, as such an extreme creature, the Lunar Buzzards does not provide any additional loot-like benefits; turning creatures into lunar creatures is more negative than positive (in the most cases...). I do not think that the community lacks the ability to develop multiple versions of spider farms. What I disagree with is that players are forced to make changes merely due to such completely negative design flaws. Maybe in the future there will be more gameplay involving lunar parasitic creatures, but it definitely shouldn't be so purely destructive to players.

[Dingle]

3 hours ago, gaymime said:

not a bystander. i also farm spiders with bunnies and i am saying that the farm is not "useless" because it still works underground, only the upstairs version of the farm is no longer working the way it used to. i am also recognising that farms have changed a few times over the years and the community has always come up with clever and efficient means of making things work. this community is not so stupid and worthless that this change will stop them from finding a way to eventually make upstairs spider farming work and i think it is quite mean-spirited and rude of you to act like it is.

 

that being said it is NOT my job to resolve a problem that is already solvable by simply moving spider farms to the caves and it is a bit silly of you to try and gaslight me into assuming that the poster has tried all possible means of farming and been so stymied by it that the only conclusion is that the dev team has failed the whole community and saying anything to the contrary is abusive.

The spider farms I use don't work in caves.

[gaymime]

18 minutes ago, Dingle said:

The spider farms I use don't work in caves.

what is your set-up?

[Dingle]

1 minute ago, gaymime said:

what is your set-up?

Long docks are my favorite by far, with decorated dens, and I also recently got into using deadly brightshades in combination with the docks. Occasionally I'll also set up the dragonfly magma pond spider farm, too.

I'm mostly using it for soul farming as Wortox. I need to experiment as to how bad my soul farms are now as him. I haven't gotten too many chances yet, but I hear even bees are pretty bad now. The buzzards come in and blow up hives.

[gaymime]

1 minute ago, Dingle said:

Long docks are my favorite by far, with decorated dens, and I also recently got into using deadly brightshades in combination with the docks. Occasionally I'll also set up the dragonfly magma pond spider farm, too.

I'm mostly using it for soul farming as Wortox. I need to experiment as to how bad my soul farms are now as him. I haven't gotten too many chances yet, but I hear even bees are pretty bad now. The buzzards come in and blow up hives.

oh!! i saw a brightshade farm  few weeks ago, those are quite cool-looking but yeah that wont work in caves.

[Mike23Ua]

4 hours ago, Dingle said:

Long docks are my favorite by far, with decorated dens, and I also recently got into using deadly brightshades in combination with the docks. Occasionally I'll also set up the dragonfly magma pond spider farm, too.

I'm mostly using it for soul farming as Wortox. I need to experiment as to how bad my soul farms are now as him. I haven't gotten too many chances yet, but I hear even bees are pretty bad now. The buzzards come in and blow up hives.

Here’s my take: the game is advancing the Lunar & Shadow Storyline, things will change, evolve & get tougher over time.

And now that I have said that Brightshades are a Lunar mob, and Shattered Spiders are a Lunar mob.

Lunar mobs simply should not fight with other Lunar mobs because they are all being possessed/influenced by the same entity that wants the same outcome.

It would be like making the Ink Blight Trio be able to fight Shadow/Nightmare Creatures for absolutely no reason.

And when the regular spiders you had been farming using a lunar possessed mob transform into Lunar possessed variants, OF COURSE your farm should stop working.

[Dingle]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

Here’s my take: the game is advancing the Lunar & Shadow Storyline, things will change, evolve & get tougher over time.

And now that I have said that Brightshades are a Lunar mob, and Shattered Spiders are a Lunar mob.

Lunar mobs simply should not fight with other Lunar mobs because they are all being possessed/influenced by the same entity that wants the same outcome.

It would be like making the Ink Blight Trio be able to fight Shadow/Nightmare Creatures for absolutely no reason.

And when the regular spiders you had been farming using a lunar possessed mob transform into Lunar possessed variants, OF COURSE your farm should stop working.

Not following the logic, sorry. Did you read the rest of the thread? It's about the buzzards messing up farms above ground, and how some farms just can't be built underground.

[Tigris Nano]

On 10/28/2025 at 7:07 PM, Kacpert25 said:

Due to yesterday's changes, the spider farm using bunnymen has become useless.
When spiders die, Crystal-Cressted Buzzards fly in and eat their corpses. And when they eat them, other nearby creatures cause the Crystal-Cressted Buzzards to attack them performing a fire-breathing attack, effectively killing all the bunnymen and spiders, leaving only shattered spiders. 
In other words, the farm has now stopped working.

And this isn't a problem unique to spider farms. If you have bee farms in a desert with an oasis, sometimes buzzards can be killed by the bees.
And when a buzzard is killed, its lunar counterpart will come again, breathing fire and destroying fences and walls.

As you can see, this is quite a big problem that would be worth solving quickly.
I have a few ideas on what could be done to remedy this.

•Gestalt Repellent - Item/Structure that would prevent Brightshades from attacking plants and Crystal-Cressted Buzzards from flying down to eat corpses,
•Crystal-Cressted Buzzards would not aggro from other creatures - I think this idea would be quite good as a permanent/temporary solution. The problem with Crystal-Cressted Buzzards is that they aggro when other creatures stand near them while they're eating a corpse. So, if they only aggro when a player is nearby, and not a creature, the chance of destroying structures with their fire would be much lower,
•Crystal-Cressted Buzzards' fire does not damage fences and walls - Here, maybe not as a permanent solution, but as something temporary it wouldn't be the worst either. Spider farms still wouldn't work, but at least Crystal-Cressed Buzzards wouldn't be destroying bases so much, 

Besides the lunar buzzard problem, spider farms have another one. Smaller compared to the buzzards, but still.
Since the Spider Queen transforms into a shattered spider hole after death, spider farms become overcrowded with them. Although I think Terramite could work here somehow, slowly mining up the spiders hole. Still, a slight change could be made.
For example, if there is already a spider den near two turfs from the Spider Queen corpse, it will not turn into a shattered spiders hole.

 

I recommend checking out my other post about another issue stemming from the last update.
Less so than those mentioned above. But still quite irritating.

  Reveal hidden contents

If buzzards spawn only around player during rifts and disappear once rift is gone, I assume best solution would be not loading farm at all till rift is gone or during night/dusk. So you can do smth else while rift exists and actively farm spiders during 5 days cooldown.

[BalkanCockroach]

Metas change