Allfd

One small problem is that no other screams exist as audio assets. If someone were willing to put the time into getting the audio together the change would be an easy one.

Some thought would probably have to go into objectives to make this distinct from Nuke Ops, did the code that resulted in failure if the Vox killed some number of crew ever work? If the crew's first response is going to be to kill the Vox then the Vox players will always try to preempt the killing and this round type will become Vox Ops, I won't even pretend to have an idea on how to fix that. {Appended below as it was not clear I support bringing back the round type} +1 for bringing it back.

I like the idea of something that needs to be contently monitored perhaps with the trade off of not being unrecoverable with a lapse of supervision. The set it and forget it nature of the singularity is boring, you never have an emergency with the singularity that an engineer can fix or in many cases could have prevented after it is setup and working properly. Once things go wrong they just sort of have gone wrong. I like the idea of a complex engine with a bunch of interaction and the shiny control room that would go with it, with bright flashing lights and radiation hazard signs everywhere. In a low population round without a dedicated engineering team perhaps falling back to solars could be an acceptable solution. As an engineer I want to feel like I exist to do more than replace broken windows, I need buttons, I need dials, and I need levers. Also those first buttons must have other buttons inside them. I can dream can’t I?

I hope to go through each point and give some of my own thoughts, in the interest of disclosure I play Vox frequently. It would be my hope that we could have a discussion about these changes and perhaps reach some sort of consensus. Before it’s lost in the wall of text, I am more than willing to spend my time coding up fixes for these things if the community and management is amicable. That said, I can't resist a good bullet list! Arguably with the changes made to the codebase such as support for Vox as Nuke Ops, introduction of the Vox Embassy, the nerfing of leap, and most obviously being whitelisted. I would instead say "Vox were not originally made for normal play" I can't speak for the reasons behind the balance changes and I don't have a fully formed opinion about how the Vox compare stat wise to other species on the station I agree that the Vox have lost considerable amounts of positive attributes while not shedding any of the disadvantages they were given to offset those advantages. While this was warranted in the case of Leap as the Vox were originally intended as an antagonist species, other changes don’t seem to have been for specific balance issues or even intentional. This fix for this was brought in from the baystation code on Jul 1st, and only effects crew Vox, however since bay no longer supports Vox as crew I would not expect a change in this code from them. Instead of reversing it I would suggest just removing the src.weaken line, no grab is initiated and the Vox can then run. The return statement would stay where it is preventing the grab. This if statement may need to change anyways as it can prevent even antagonist Vox from leaping as originally intended. This does work, if you empty a small tank in an air pump and then fill it with Nitrogen it should work. Purely as my own opinion I support the Vox not having use of the backpack slot unless they go to this length as it fits their character. I would not want to have Vox weaknesses nerfed in addition to strengths. The Hostile Environment change introduced a number of balancing issues. That however should probably be for another thread. This took me by surprise and I did not even thing to check for it until reading this post, but yes Vox have blood as of 2 days ago or so. It was done as part of a balance change although I cannot answer why this was changed. "| NO_BLOOD" was removed from a line of code. It makes it difficult, I have had this happen while playing as a Vox and trying to be discrete. Most of my concern comes from its effect on Role Playing, it tends to activate at the worst possible times and never when it would be effective. The player now has some more control over this as the *scream emote will not cause Vox to skree instead of giving off a human scream. If there was consensus the change would not be a difficult one to remove the random screeching. I have little problem with this, and even less of one should the Environmental issues be fixed. This makes sense from a lore perspective, no other species has been able to reverse engineer the process used to grow Vox or the cybernetic implants used to regulate body functions to the extent necessary to clone them. According to the Wiki attempts to even grow Vox skin have failed. From a gameplay perspective I was fine with that, the Vox could take slightly more damage than others due to not bleeding to death, were able to survive a good amount of time in space, and had an arguably overpowered leap. Now that all that has been taken away you are just as likely to die as a human, only you’re not going to be cloned. The first impulse of many players on seeing a cloning machine rejection is to shove you in the morgue with no hope of retrieval even when the morgue lights illuminate green. I flatly refuse to use LOOC for any hints to medical staff and as such spend a lot of time browsing the internet waiting for the round to end. As it should, although perhaps cyanide should not. I have been killed by many a helpful doctor, at the time I believed this an appropriate counter for any strengths. This was a major strength before the environmental change, now however I agree that it has been reduced in value significantly. - Vox cannot be named. This is up with the recent blood change as things that I would like to see changed. I of course don't mean something like John Smith, however if Vox could retain any name, even one set by an Admin that would go a long ways. The random name puts a significant damper on RP. Final Thoughts I can understand where Rumiluntti is coming from in this, it was a long time to save up the karma needed to unlock Vox, and I can't speak for him but as for myself I knew where I was heading from when the counter read 0 after my first karma unlock. Nobody wants to see something they worked hard for devalued without explanation and that's something I understand. With that all said it does leave somewhat of a bad taste. Vox are nowhere near the most robust or "overpowered' of the species since the leap nerf put their martial strength in line with the Tajaran, one could even argue that they are worse off in a practical matter as the Nitrogen tank can be quickly removed by an adversary to ensure a kill and its existence greatly reduces the amount of equipment a Vox is likely to have. The population of Vox players is very low even compared to slime people, any adjustment to balance must have a commensurately low effect on the balance of the round while having a disproportionately large effect on the Vox players themselves. Sorry for the wall of text.

And then this happens. Every round. Agreed, that said I would be very happy to witness this a few times.

Sometimes reporting the position of the singularity requires risks.

These things happen as databases are fun adventures sometimes, thank you to the code team for your dedication. Karma loss is never fun but much of the value of Karma is the joy you get from seeing it increment as you somebody somewhere thought you did a good job, 11 Karma is a small price to pay for being free of the fear of the character setup button. The loss of forum and wiki data is a hard hit to many who’s contributions were lost.

Instead of tools you could use flight fluff items, such as a kneeboard or perhaps a few charts and station approach plates. A power cell charger would be nice, but I don’t think you would want any other pod maintenance parts as you would not want to steal work from the mechanic. As far as weapons and red alert, currently while I don’t know if it works or not the pod is outfitted with a taser, it can be replaced by the mechanic if needed and a more lethal equipment module could be housed in the armory to unlock with the rest of the red alert gear. How about an addition to space law making it a crime to operate a space pod while not properly licensed or while medically unfit? The Brig Physician could then also have the role of flight surgeon for security.