New update destroys spider farms

[Dingle]

15 minutes ago, BalkanCockroach said:

Metas change

"NO OUTSIDE FARMS" is a pretty bold new "meta".

Should any farm be possible above ground? If so, which ones? If not, why not?

Did the devs want to do this, or was it unintentional?

42 minutes ago, Tigris Nano said:

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.

So don't load your farms 75% of the time? That would sound more doable if the rift cycle was much shorter. It's about 15 days on, 5 days off. Use your farms about 40 minutes, avoid them for 120 minutes.

Do they not descend during dusk? That's something to work with, if true.

Edited October 29, 2025 by Dingle

[Kacpert25]

1 minute ago, Dingle said:

"NO OUTSIDE FARMS" is a pretty bold new "meta".

Should any farm be possible above ground? If so, which ones? If not, why not?

Did the devs want to do this, or was it unintentional?

It definitely wasn't intentional. The devs simply didn't consider the consequences of lunar buzzards.

[Bumber64]

Feels like above-average trees could possibly protect from buzzards?

[Tigris Nano]

11 minutes ago, Dingle said:

So don't load your farms 75% of the time? That would sound more doable if the rift cycle was much shorter. It's about 15 days on, 5 days off. Use your farms about 40 minutes, avoid them for 120 minutes.

Well this is only solution we have at the moment.

12 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Do they not descend during dusk? That's something to work with, if true.

They do descend 24/7 while rift is up. Judging by farm design above it utilizes bunnymen to do all work. And those spawn during dusks and wander during dusk and night. Hence why you should avoid loading them during this time period otherwise bunnymen will start killing spiders and buzzards will mess anything up.

[Dingle]

1 minute ago, Tigris Nano said:

Well this is only solution we have at the moment.

They do descend 24/7 while rift is up. Judging by farm design above it utilizes bunnymen to do all work. And those spawn during dusks and wander during dusk and night. Hence why you should avoid loading them during this time period otherwise bunnymen will start killing spiders and buzzards will mess anything up.

Oh, I understand what you meant now.

That's awful. I'll check for other solutions when I can, maybe there's something workable.

Any "solution" I've seen presented is a worse solution than "don't play until they fix it in an update". Or something like the old disease, where everyone just turned it off.

[Tigris Nano]

4 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Feels like above-average trees could possibly protect from buzzards?

I think it kinda doesnt make sense. How would tree protect from them?  Logically buzzards could even sit on its branches to watch over their prey without losing energy on flying.

[Bumber64]

8 minutes ago, Tigris Nano said:

I think it kinda doesnt make sense. How would tree protect from them?  Logically buzzards could even sit on its branches to watch over their prey without losing energy on flying.

The canopy is extremely leafy, and would obstruct view. (I assume they don't use smell, since they themselves are falling apart.)

[reddocc]

It's really just the fire that needs tweaking.

 

[BalkanCockroach]

49 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Should any farm be possible above ground? If so, which ones? If not, why not?

You make whatever works with the curent meta. Don't think devs make the game with farms in mind. I just don't think devs should have to be scared of making any and every possible move. Every meta change brings new outcry. Criticism is good but it's a point where it kills game vision now.

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, Dingle said:

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.

Okay let me explain it a bit better: Deadly Brightshades are a Lunar entity that spawn from crops, gardens, weeds etc being infested (or haunted if you want to call it that..) by a Gashalt.

The other two lunar entities Crystal Buzzards & Shattered Spiders are mutated variants of Buzzard and Spiders who again are being reanimated back to life after dying to again become “possessed” by this same Gashalt entity that takes it over.

You can even watch it happening in real time when you kill say a Deerclops over dead and then you see the little spirit pop up on screen, float over to the corpse & “haunt” it bringing it back to life as Crystalized Deerclops.

It makes no sense at all that: Deadly Brightshades that are being possessed by Gashalts, would assist the player to kill Shattered Spiders who are also possessed by Gashalts. The Crystal Buzzards however: Would probably fly around napalm striking regular spider nests so that they become “corpses” to be haunted and reanimated into shattered spiders.

This is the Lunar Story Arch. But the gameplay… contradicts the lore.

[lowercase skye]

15 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

It makes no sense at all that: Deadly Brightshades that are being possessed by Gashalts, would assist the player to kill Shattered Spiders who are also possessed by Gashalts.

They are not. Shattered spiders are spiders mutated and reanimated by lunar energy, they are not possessed by gestalts.

[Tigris Nano]

58 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

The canopy is extremely leafy, and would obstruct view. (I assume they don't use smell, since they themselves are falling apart.)

I think they still could go to lower branches to keep tracking their target. And they probably could filter out their smell to find corpses.

[Schneid_101]

They should add a lunar version of the scarecrow that keeps away all lunar mutated birds.

[Popian]

2 hours ago, Dingle said:

Did the devs want to do this, or was it unintentional?

It is very intentional, only took a few minutes of playing with them to accidentally discover how to

Spoiler

deal with the spawners (the source of the problem). Managing these if they were built near Buzzard spawners may become inconvenient, however.

You can also embrace them for their AOE potential a la Deerclops fighting the Tentacles.

[Dingle]

24 minutes ago, Popian said:

It is very intentional, only took a few minutes of playing with them to accidentally discover how to

  Hide contents

deal with the spawners (the source of the problem). Managing these if they were built near Buzzard spawners may become inconvenient, however.

You can also embrace them for their AOE potential a la Deerclops fighting the Tentacles.

I haven't figured out the spawning mechanics yet, the update hit on the tail end of a rift for me. I'll keep an eye out. It seemed like the spawners weren't related to the usual buzzard spawners, though? By that I mean you can't just avoid the deserts to have no problems, right?

I was hoping that was the case, but someone said it wasn't.

[Lovens]

On 10/28/2025 at 5:07 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

I have a few ideas on what could be done to remedy this. Wait, no, it's just one: 

I couldn't be bothered even trying to experience this untested and completely unbalanced addition to the game. Not a single developer took a minute to actually play the game with this garbage creature and notice how adding it breaks all possible existing farms and worsens game experience in general. I would like to see a dev take on a pack of these mutant vultures solo with your average midgame level gear and most likely fail miserably. The quality standards of this game dropped below all acceptable levels. How can this be added to prod as is without any prior beta testing and feedback is beyond my understanding.

[lowercase skye]

Generally it is a good thing for existing strategies to become less applicable when entering a harder later stage of a game, as new more powerful enemies and hazards appear that end up naturally countering those earlier strategies. You can't expect to just use peashooters the whole game, especially not once you click that opt-in button to make things more difficult on purpose.

In this specific case, I think you could solve the problem long-term by using shattered spider holes instead of regular spider dens. The shattered spiders won't leave corpses, so buzzards won't come down. It will be slightly less efficient since shattered spider holes have less capacity than a spider den, and the lack of queens, however you've got the entire pre-rift period of the game to stock up on silk using your regular farm before the production slows. You can also just expand it bigger to even out the numbers.

Alternatively, if you're okay with something a bit more active: you can set the farm up a small distance from your base, and carefully make sure to kill off all your circling buzzards before you visit the farm (they're a bit flighty, brightshade bombs work best). If there's no buzzards to land, then the farm will function exactly as before. In fact, if you were to set it up somewhere with enlightenment, you could even get extra drops from spiders transforming into shattered spiders and then dying a second time.

I implore everyone here to try to come up with solutions to new hazards when they're added, rather than immediately concluding there's no solution at all, that the new feature is the problem, and then berating the developers.

[hyoton123]

49 minutes ago, lowercase skye said:

lack of queens

I'm kind of interested in this part. Automatic farms seem much worse off but I can see something there for not having to deal with queens.

[DR.NTWF]

9 hours ago, Schneid_101 said:

他们应该添加月球版的稻草人，以驱赶所有月球变异的鸟类。

Your idea is very interesting! I thought about that too, but perhaps a shadow/nightmare scarecrow would make more sense, after all, in this game, shadows/nightmares are the opposite of the lunar.

6 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

Generally it is a good thing for existing strategies to become less applicable when entering a harder later stage of a game, as new more powerful enemies and hazards appear that end up naturally countering those earlier strategies. You can't expect to just use peashooters the whole game, especially not once you click that opt-in button to make things more difficult on purpose.

In this specific case, I think you could solve the problem long-term by using shattered spider holes instead of regular spider dens. The shattered spiders won't leave corpses, so buzzards won't come down. It will be slightly less efficient since shattered spider holes have less capacity than a spider den, and the lack of queens, however you've got the entire pre-rift period of the game to stock up on silk using your regular farm before the production slows. You can also just expand it bigger to even out the numbers.

Alternatively, if you're okay with something a bit more active: you can set the farm up a small distance from your base, and carefully make sure to kill off all your circling buzzards before you visit the farm (they're a bit flighty, brightshade bombs work best). If there's no buzzards to land, then the farm will function exactly as before. In fact, if you were to set it up somewhere with enlightenment, you could even get extra drops from spiders transforming into shattered spiders and then dying a second time.

I implore everyone here to try to come up with solutions to new hazards when they're added, rather than immediately concluding there's no solution at all, that the new feature is the problem, and then berating the developers.

In reality, adding such a restriction posed a challenge for me without providing any truly useful benefits, and the moon fragments dropped by the Moon Vulture are almost useless for relatively late-stage saves, or even if you really need moon shard, there are better ways to obtain them in large quantities. It is obvious to everyone that the Spider Farm can be used normally when not surrounded by crystal buzzards, but the main point is that the hostile intentions of the crystal buzzard are too pure and abrupt, and there are no unique rewards as positive feedback. 

Edited October 30, 2025 by DR.NTWF

[Kacpert25]

7 hours ago, Lovens said:

I have a few ideas on what could be done to remedy this. Wait, no, it's just one: 

I couldn't be bothered even trying to experience this untested and completely unbalanced addition to the game. Not a single developer took a minute to actually play the game with this garbage creature and notice how adding it breaks all possible existing farms and worsens game experience in general. I would like to see a dev take on a pack of these mutant vultures solo with your average midgame level gear and most likely fail miserably. The quality standards of this game dropped below all acceptable levels. How can this be added to prod as is without any prior beta testing and feedback is beyond my understanding.

This is some solution...
I'm not a fan of disabling game mechanics. But since I'm already deprived of content from the fumarole biome, I might as well deprive myself of content with lunar buzzards, considering how problematic they are currently.

By the way, basically any creature farm or any place containing a creature is vulnerable to destruction by lunar buzzards.
Because during the hailstorm, bird corpses fall. That's enough to cause chaos. If one corpse falls near the creature, or if it approaches it, the buzzard will grab the aggro and start destroying everything with its fire.
Of course, I don't think the chances of something like this happening are particularly high. But it certainly shows how many problems the addition of lunar buzzards poses.

[Dingle]

11 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

Generally it is a good thing for existing strategies to become less applicable when entering a harder later stage of a game, as new more powerful enemies and hazards appear that end up naturally countering those earlier strategies. You can't expect to just use peashooters the whole game, especially not once you click that opt-in button to make things more difficult on purpose.

In this specific case, I think you could solve the problem long-term by using shattered spider holes instead of regular spider dens. The shattered spiders won't leave corpses, so buzzards won't come down. It will be slightly less efficient since shattered spider holes have less capacity than a spider den, and the lack of queens, however you've got the entire pre-rift period of the game to stock up on silk using your regular farm before the production slows. You can also just expand it bigger to even out the numbers.

Alternatively, if you're okay with something a bit more active: you can set the farm up a small distance from your base, and carefully make sure to kill off all your circling buzzards before you visit the farm (they're a bit flighty, brightshade bombs work best). If there's no buzzards to land, then the farm will function exactly as before. In fact, if you were to set it up somewhere with enlightenment, you could even get extra drops from spiders transforming into shattered spiders and then dying a second time.

I implore everyone here to try to come up with solutions to new hazards when they're added, rather than immediately concluding there's no solution at all, that the new feature is the problem, and then berating the developers.

I found a good solution!

 

[Mike23Ua]

8 hours ago, Kacpert25 said:

This is some solution...
I'm not a fan of disabling game mechanics. But since I'm already deprived of content from the fumarole biome, I might as well deprive myself of content with lunar buzzards, considering how problematic they are currently.

By the way, basically any creature farm or any place containing a creature is vulnerable to destruction by lunar buzzards.
Because during the hailstorm, bird corpses fall. That's enough to cause chaos. If one corpse falls near the creature, or if it approaches it, the buzzard will grab the aggro and start destroying everything with its fire.
Of course, I don't think the chances of something like this happening are particularly high. But it certainly shows how many problems the addition of lunar buzzards poses.

Okay but… and hear me out because your really really REALLY not going to like what I’m about to say.

What if Klei’s plan from the very beginning when it comes to Rift Content (at least when it comes to Lunar Rifts..) was to change or Mutate every mob within the game? 

Sort of like a New Game+ Mode if you want to call it that… Where Mobs can take on new appearances & also new gameplay behaviors.

If this is correct (& I have absolutely no reason to suspect that it’s not…) then I’m going to go ahead predict that many many more types of “Farms” are about to be broken…

I wouldn’t hate so much on the Lunar Buzzards to the point that the get overly nerfed though: To ME it seems like a cool as hell way to make a relatively weak mob mutate into this new lunar variant who could then fly around and mutate other mobs into their variants.

And do not think for one second that Klei isn’t capable of doing this, the Shipwrecked & more particularly the Hamlet DLC… shows that they have experience in making the normally happy and peaceful mobs, turn ruthless & feral.

the PROBLEM that I suspect your running into is that it takes an awful long loooooonnnngggg time for them to go through all the games existing mobs & give them new mutated art-work and new behaviors & attacks.

And so that’s why Return of Them added the mutated Hounds & Spiders, followed up by whatever came after that (I lost track) and NOW we have Buzzards & Birds too.

does anyone have a list of Surface shard mobs that do not yet have Lunar Variants? I would be more interested in knowing that then whining about my farms being destroyed by buzzards when it’s far more likely: ALL the mobs are getting changed anyway.

[KvltBear]

Spider farms, hound farms, hound raid defenses like catapults, all will be destroyed. I don't really understand what aggros these things though, I saw Jazzy just leave them alone the other day and they flew away so. Does anyone know if the flingo will extinguish lunar flames? I'm guessing not but I'd rather just get a quick answer than try to set something up only to be disappointed. Also does anyone know if the flames destroy tooth traps? Before I go and build 50 of them...

[Kacpert25]

27 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Okay but… and hear me out because your really really REALLY not going to like what I’m about to say.

What if Klei’s plan from the very beginning when it comes to Rift Content (at least when it comes to Lunar Rifts..) was to change or Mutate every mob within the game? 

Sort of like a New Game+ Mode if you want to call it that… Where Mobs can take on new appearances & also new gameplay behaviors.

If this is correct (& I have absolutely no reason to suspect that it’s not…) then I’m going to go ahead predict that many many more types of “Farms” are about to be broken…

You're overestimating Klei in this regard XD. 
The idea to add more mutated creatures to the game could have occurred to them maybe a month or two ago or a few more. But they certainly didn't consider it when they first started adding lunar rifts.

29 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I wouldn’t hate so much on the Lunar Buzzards to the point that the get overly nerfed though: To ME it seems like a cool as hell way to make a relatively weak mob mutate into this new lunar variant who could then fly around and mutate other mobs into their variants.

I also think the concept of lunar buzzards is very cool. But the problems they cause are too great to ignore and just write about how great this mob is.
Besides, just because they're supposed to be a threat doesn't mean players shouldn't have some reasonably expensive method to defend against them.
After all, we have pillars, which allow us to protect ourselves from destroying structures boulders, or umbralla and slimy salves, which allow us to protect ourselves from acid.
So we should also have some methods of defense against lunar buzzards.
It's good that more endgame threats are being added, but with them, methods of defending against them should also be added.

6 minutes ago, KvltBear said:

Does anyone know if the flingo will extinguish lunar flames?

No, they don't extinguish it.

[BalkanCockroach]

On 10/29/2025 at 8:57 PM, Lovens said:

Not a single developer took a minute to actually play the game

I don't think they play the game at all. I realized this when I tuned into one of their streams a while back (Depths of Duplicity beta stream I think?) and one of them asked how much damage a dark sword dealt. I know it seems like a minor detail but it's a huge giveaway tbh. Not saying they have to be machines that remember every single detail of the game but the dark sword is Don't Starve: The Weapon. There were other sus things in the stream as well but I don't remember. I could definetly be wrong though.

They do listen to feedback very well though so I guess that's what saves the balance somewhat.