Taking the Vox Raiders from OOR (Out of Rotation) Game mode and turning it into a mid round event.

[Drakeven]

Basic Summary:

After participating in my first real round of the Vox Raider game mode (I got to wear the fancy leader hat, yaya) I have come to the realization that the game mode would be much improved by having it as a mid round event, rather than a complete game mode in of itself. 

Why this change?:

The Vox game mode can be quite enjoyable, they are a mix between Sol traders and traitors, but are encouraged to keep things as non-lethal as possible via the inviolate. It can be quite an enjoyable role-play experience, however this experience is usually limited to the Vox and command, unless things go wrong, or people make a great effort to become involved.

The main problem is that this game mode is basically an ‘Extended Round’ for all those not involved in trading, which would be fine if the round continued after the Vox have completed their objectives. As it stands at the moment however, once the Skipjack crew is back, they are able to end the round suddenly and without much input from crew. Unless the Vox have especially difficult/combative objectives (Nuke, Borgs, AI, I’m not sure what objectives are actually in their pool.), one of them is taken and they have to mount a rescue, or they come up with objectives of their own (Such as taking a hat from every head of department… which is what I was aiming towards. They were good hats.) the round usually ends anticlimactically with a small ‘skree’ of success.

It’s a shame, because I see a lot of potential in an event that features such morally ambiguous event characters. 

What do I propose?:

Making the Vox Raider game mode a mid round event instead of a game mode would drastically improve the game play, and allow it to be brought into actual rotation. It would also alleviate the lack of ‘trading’ events that are blocked when the station is on red alert, which is common. A Sol trader being blocked from coming into the station because command forgot to go back to Blue/Green is quite a regular occurrence.

 

What changes would have to be made?:

Certainly changing The game mode into an event would be the main thing that would need to be done, however there is some ballencing that would also need to be undergone to account from the reduced focus on the new Vox arrivals. Here are some of my own ideas, however I should state that I am far from the best game balancer:

1. Reducing the amount of Vox in the crew from 5~ to 3~

2. Changing their objective pool to focus on less dangerous items, or at least, reduce the chance that they will show up.
-Giving the pool more innocuous items (Such as hats, Borgs, Shiny coins) that aren’t high risk, but also unique.

3. Dock the Vox Skipjack at arrivals
-The fact that Vox are not spaceproof anymore makes it an enormous hassle to go from ship to arrivals. You usually park next  to arrivals anyway. If they could dock at the bottom of arrivals, with a small re-design of the ship, the ship would be a lot more viable, in my opinion.
-This does have Lore problems, as I’m sure the Cyberiad would not give docking permission for the Vox traders. So perhaps this is not the best balance.
-This might come with a removal of the ‘custom location’ option of the ship, which is usually reserved for more impactful round charaters.

4. Give Vox Raiders smaller Nitrogen tanks.
-It’s very hard to do any trading when you don’t have any backpack to put the things you trade with in. The small Vox nitrogen tanks that the Cyberiad’s Vox wear are wonderfully convenient, and I’m sure Vox raiders would have snagged some somewhere.

5. Make Vox guns pattable
-They’re PETS DARNIT
(This is a joke)

Potential benefits:

I see a few good things that can result with this change. These event characters are a lot more role play centric as stated before, on account of the Inviolate, and it would allow the crew to show off their hard work for trading. Unlike Sol traders, Vox want more than only money or plasma (Though shinies are always welcome) which means departments that have done well might be able to cash in on that success with some new Vox technology.

If the station is under great threat, the Vox may be able to offer their help in exchange for the items they need. If the station is not under great threat, Sec is probably itching for something to do, and guarding small troublesome birds is certainly something that can spice up a round.

Likewise, the Skipjack does not have any loyalty to NT in particular, meaning antags would be able to trade for more items if they have what the Vox need. Their moral ambiguity lends a lot of flexibility to how they interact with others in the round, and unlike sol traders, they will be venturing throughout the station

Conclusion:

I’ve had little experience of coding in the game, it has mainly been spriting and casual investigation of the way it works. Difficulty wise, I am unsure how hard this would be to achieve, but would love to help out with this change in any way possible, as I feel it would add a game mode with a lot of potential into something many can enjoy. I hope this explanation was acceptable enough.

I remember talking with Kyet about new forms of trading shuttles (Such as an IPC shuttle that aims to free the stations AI for advanced tech, or a Diona shuttle that seeks blood) and I’m hoping they are still up for changes. I think the implementation of mid round Vox would be a good step in implementing potential new trading mechanics.

Others who may be in support this idea:

Discord
Inflectrum#8242
Portyble #0825
Captain Game#0578
Cazdon#5556

Edited September 25, 2019 by Drakeven
The others MIGHT be in support, though possibly not exactly with my proposition. Changes made.

[Carthusia]

I like, ever since i found out that it was not in rotation and all those lovely vox items never get used i've wanted it to be brought back in some form.

 

The big Nitro tank feels like it may be a holdover from times when vox did not have the smaller tanks and the whole ship feels like it could use a rework to bring it up to speed.

mmmmmmmmmmm, my skipjack trade shack may one day become an actual skipjack heh

Edited September 25, 2019 by BlackDog

[Calecute]

20 minutes ago, Drakeven said:

This does have Lore problems, as I’m sure the Cyberiad would not give docking permission for the Vox traders

You don't really need dock permission to dock with a ship. A mobile ship could easily do some maneuvers to prevent docking if they wanted, but it doesn’t look like cyberiad has any forms of attitude control so I don’t think it could prevent docking. They can however keep the docking port closed and bolted. 

[Drakeven]

I must admit another issue I can see about the ship docking is it interfering with the docking of the admin medical ship which uses the same place.

[Carthusia]

If the ship has its own EVA lockers onboard then the need for it to dock is removed.

 

Not 100% sure but does it have this already or no?

[Drakeven]

5 hours ago, BlackDog said:

If the ship has its own EVA lockers onboard then the need for it to dock is removed.

 

Not 100% sure but does it have this already or no?

Not lockers, but wracks that hold Vox suits. I certainly think some small re-designing would be needed if they were going to remain without docking.

Also, sometimes the Vox raiders don't have access to their own ship, this happened in my game. We had to get our engineer to hack in.

[Eler00]

The main issue with vox raiders was, iirc, that every vox on station begins self-antagging and it's basically rev but all the revs are thieving space birds, and I'm not sure how you'd rework it to remove that.

[Leanfrog]

I wouldn't say that's an issue with the role more just an issue with the players that needs to be cracked down on

[Drakeven]

2 hours ago, Eler00 said:

The main issue with vox raiders was, iirc, that every vox on station begins self-antagging and it's basically rev but all the revs are thieving space birds, and I'm not sure how you'd rework it to remove that.

When I played, pretty much every member of the crew was well aware of themselves, and not to go against the Involate. It was part of our objectives.

[Carthusia]

19 hours ago, Eler00 said:

The main issue with vox raiders was, iirc, that every vox on station begins self-antagging and it's basically rev but all the revs are thieving space birds, and I'm not sure how you'd rework it to remove that.

I dono, i feel that's just how Vox ARE, and you can't rework that without destroying their entire background. I wouldn't call it "Self-Antagging" as that is such a broad term it can be applied as a cudgel to stop something someone may not like. People should not be punished on server for following their races background and lore, because that lore was written and approved by the server itself.

 

If a vox raiding party boarded, and followed to inviolate, more or less every vox in some way if asked, would pitch in assistance where they could, an unlocked door here, some medical supplies there, a key "accidentally" dropped, a long boring talk with the HoS by the detective to keep him busy, etc etc.

That's how Vox are, they are VERY agreeable to assisting fellow Vox so long as it's not going to violate their Inviolate and that the vox in question has not either. Doesnt matter what Ark they hail from, what ship, what criminal past as the laws broken, are not THEIR laws.

I got to interact with a small raider group once, and this happened, they weren't hurting people, they followed the inviolate, so what happened? Me, the Medical Vox helped them out, and the security vox? Did the same where he could, and in the end me and the sec vox joined their merry crew and escaped on a "borrowed" Sol trader shuttle that was once filled with xenos.

 

 In the end: Has the raider group seriously harmed/killed any kin or more than a few non-kin? Have they followed the inviolate? If No and Yes, then guarantee vox kin assistance of some kind, some where, If Yes and No, expect SERIOUS Vox kin RESISTANCE in every conceivable way.

 

You can expect some help if you follow the Inviolate.

You can GUARANTEE mass resistance if you don't.

 

Such are the vox.

[Machofish]

This would be an interesting mid/late round event, I'd be onboard so long as it's implemented as a 'major event' along the vein of terrors, swarmers, blob, xenos, etc.

I'm pretty sure this idea's been thrown around before. I haven't seen too many major issues regarding vox traders myself but some of the repeated concerns I've heard from server staff include:

Back when vox had much tighter lore cohesion, vox raiders would often get unusual breaks from vox amongst the crew, regardless of their actions. Eler00 touched on this above. Given the server environment these days, I find only a select few players bother referencing the lore, and our lore is already structured in such a way that it conforms to the gameplay as opposed to vice versa. There aren't as many cases of Vox unreasonably sheltering or giving free breaks to one another, and I think I've seen the "Vox Inviolate" referenced about two or three times across my past two years of playing here, so I think there won't be as many players leveraging it into an excuse to help "their kins." Though I might be severely underestimating the degree to which vox players would willingly toe the line on self-antag rules as soon as the excuse presents itself.

There's also problems with how the non-vox crew behaved as well. Storytime:

Spoiler

Due to varying past experiences with Vox Raiders, their lack of 'crew' status, and the meta understanding that they always had at least one objective that would be unacceptable to command/cc (either "abduct "xyz" crewman" or "steal the nuke/supermatter shard/singularity core/station AI"), sometimes elements of the crew would greet them with lethal force. I'm talking overwhelming validsalad. In one experience as a vox raider quill, I remember the AI appeared to let us board peacefully via one of the solars arrays, only to intentionally wait until we were cycling through the solars airlock, before repeatedly doorslamming the raiding party using the airlock with the intent to kill. The AI had an engineering borg on-hand intentionally pushing the vox over the airlocks to make them less able to escape the doorslamming, and the only reason the entire party didn't die on the spot was that the Captain (also Vox at the time) expressly ordered the AI to cease and provide medical treatment to the thoroughly-robusted raiders. In another match (observing, not playing) the pod pilot encountered the vox raiders in space and -- without being ordered to -- proceeded to murder as many of the raiders as he could by stunning them, cuffing them, ripping their nitrogen tanks off then throwing them into space -- basically killing them and making the bodies so difficult to recover they might as well have been gibbed and removed from the round. A THIRD round I remember involved two of the initial vox raiders getting immediately killed and forcefully turned into cyborgs. Since part of the Vox inviolate (and one of the raiders' objectives) is always "Never leave a teammate behind" the crew were basically doing this just to be shitty and deny the vox their greentext.

And, this is just me errantly kvetching for a moment, but it didn't help that Central Command seemed to suffer from a crippling case of split-personality disorder whenever they got faxed about Vox traders/raiders: In one raiders round where CC was faxed for orders, CC sent a return fax basically declaring open season on all Shoal-Vox, demanding that all shoal vox be immediately executed and their skipjack destroyed with toxins bombs. During a completely different trader/raiders round, the vox used their hacked AI lawboard on the AI, the subverted AI began using borderline-lethal force to distract the crew (siphoning, shocking doors, turning off Beepsky's safety measures, etc.), and when Sec began using lethal force on the raider vox in retaliation, Central Command sent an announcement threatening to BSA everyone unless they got an appropriate explanation for why the vox had been attacked (Central Command still BSA'd the shuttle seconds after it landed at CC because they declared something along the lines of using the Cyberiad's crew as a scapegoat to avoid political backlash with the Shoal.)

So yeah, since the crew would receive contradictory messages about how to treat the vox from round-to-round, whenever Shoal Vox showed up, some security/AI/command would always follow "Policy-A" who would aggressively and relentlessly try to murder all the vox based on what CC had done in the past, then there would be the other half following "Policy-B" who would freak the fuck out and accuse "A" of being murdering validhunters because that's how CC treated them in the past. The argument would boil down to both of them saying "Well it's what CentComm wants!" while having equally justified yet diametrically opposed understandings of what CC actually wants. I know it's important to point out that vox crew tended to 'volunteer' themselves for the Vox Raiders whenever they could, but the other side of the coin was that sometimes command/ai/sec would be so obsessed with their valids that they wouldn't give the vox a chance to even go "Hihis!" before mercilessly wiping them out as if they were nukeops. This was particularly annoying for the vox raiders since the inviolate explicitly, painstakingly instructs them to avoid excessive damage and avoid inflicting fatalities above all else.

Again, I'd personally be interested in seeing Shoal Vox trading/raiding parties as a midround: In terms of potential damage and de-railing the round they couldn't be any more disastrous than terrorspiders or swarmers appearing instead, they can shake up the round without derailing the round through excessive killing/destruction, and they offer a very wide variety of RP opportunities depending on whatever's going on at the time they show up. I'd go more into why I like them as an idea but Drakeven's already covered most of what made them fun in the original post.

 

I have a wishlist of things that I'd like to see accounted for regarding shoal vox if they're re-implemented, but probably couldn't be budgeted within the focus and time investment of our coding team:

Spoiler

Vox should have a contingency in the inviolate that they can use much stronger force against any crew who trespass on their Skipjack unless they were expressly and clearly, insistently invited aboard. So many times, engineers or casual civilians with EVA will just break into the Skipjack, loot it, destroy the Skipjack control console or kill the vox in-residence just because they can, and sometimes the shoal vox just sat there and watched it happen because they were terrified of breaching the inviolate. No: If specific members of the crew decide to independently go out of their way to try and fuck with the dangerous, unpredictable spacegulls with harpoon guns who care very little about NT's corporate regulations and Space Law, the specific crew choosing to try shitting in their sundaes should prepare to either robust or get robusted, full stop.

Concurrently, lore about the inviolate should encourage crew vox to be slightly more cagey and suspicious of 'outsider' vox: Obviously the inviolate is a near-sacred set of rules, but they cannot always be adhered to perfectly, and NT-employed vox should be reluctant to offer their help to vox originating from off-station, as NT-vox don't personally know the Shoal-vox well enough to trust that they'll show restraint as-necessary. Similarly, vox in general should be encouraged to aggressively, vindictively self-police if they hear that traders/raiders are breaching inviolate. I'm thinking something like this, just with a lot more *aflap.

If I could code, what I'd want to see is an 'all or nothing' approach to integrating the inviolate lore with Vox gameplay: As a unique gimmick, I'd say that all vox players should get "the inviolate" as a fluff objective -- being exempted if they've simultaneously got antag status, of course. The end-of-round report is already able to detect how much of the station is intact and how many of the crew died, so Inviolate could be a collective pass/fail that all vox would see based on what percentage of the station is intact and alive -- perhaps something above 70% station integrity and a 60% survival rate among the general crew would be necessary for a 'pass', and of course reported as a single entry in the end-of-round report rather than as a separate entry for each and every vox. Just to make this feel more like a special vox thing, the inviolate success/fail report would only appear for vox players in most cases, and only be viewable for the rest of the server if trader/raiders appear.

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by Machofish

[Drakeven]

3 hours ago, Machofish said:

This would be an interesting mid/late round event, I'd be onboard so long as it's implemented as a 'major event' along the vein of terrors, swarmers, blob, xenos, etc.

I'm pretty sure this idea's been thrown around before. I haven't seen too many major issues regarding vox traders myself but some of the repeated concerns I've heard from server staff include:

Back when vox had much tighter lore cohesion, vox raiders would often get unusual breaks from vox amongst the crew, regardless of their actions. Eler00 touched on this above. Given the server environment these days, I find only a select few players bother referencing the lore, and our lore is already structured in such a way that it conforms to the gameplay as opposed to vice versa. There aren't as many cases of Vox unreasonably sheltering or giving free breaks to one another, and I think I've seen the "Vox Inviolate" referenced about two or three times across my past two years of playing here, so I think there won't be as many players leveraging it into an excuse to help "their kins." Though I might be severely underestimating the degree to which vox players would willingly toe the line on self-antag rules as soon as the excuse presents itself.

There's also problems with how the non-vox crew behaved as well. Storytime:

  Hide contents

Due to varying past experiences with Vox Raiders, their lack of 'crew' status, and the meta understanding that they always had at least one objective that would be unacceptable to command/cc (either "abduct "xyz" crewman" or "steal the nuke/supermatter shard/singularity core/station AI"), sometimes elements of the crew would greet them with lethal force. I'm talking overwhelming validsalad. In one experience as a vox raider quill, I remember the AI appeared to let us board peacefully via one of the solars arrays, only to intentionally wait until we were cycling through the solars airlock, before repeatedly doorslamming the raiding party using the airlock with the intent to kill. The AI had an engineering borg on-hand intentionally pushing the vox over the airlocks to make them less able to escape the doorslamming, and the only reason the entire party didn't die on the spot was that the Captain (also Vox at the time) expressly ordered the AI to cease and provide medical treatment to the thoroughly-robusted raiders. In another match (observing, not playing) the pod pilot encountered the vox raiders in space and -- without being ordered to -- proceeded to murder as many of the raiders as he could by stunning them, cuffing them, ripping their nitrogen tanks off then throwing them into space -- basically killing them and making the bodies so difficult to recover they might as well have been gibbed and removed from the round. A THIRD round I remember involved two of the initial vox raiders getting immediately killed and forcefully turned into cyborgs. Since part of the Vox inviolate (and one of the raiders' objectives) is always "Never leave a teammate behind" the crew were basically doing this just to be shitty and deny the vox their greentext.

And, this is just me errantly kvetching for a moment, but it didn't help that Central Command seemed to suffer from a crippling case of split-personality disorder whenever they got faxed about Vox traders/raiders: In one raiders round where CC was faxed for orders, CC sent a return fax basically declaring open season on all Shoal-Vox, demanding that all shoal vox be immediately executed and their skipjack destroyed with toxins bombs. During a completely different trader/raiders round, the vox used their hacked AI lawboard on the AI, the subverted AI began using borderline-lethal force to distract the crew (siphoning, shocking doors, turning off Beepsky's safety measures, etc.), and when Sec began using lethal force on the raider vox in retaliation, Central Command sent an announcement threatening to BSA everyone unless they got an appropriate explanation for why the vox had been attacked (Central Command still BSA'd the shuttle seconds after it landed at CC because they declared something along the lines of using the Cyberiad's crew as a scapegoat to avoid political backlash with the Shoal.)

So yeah, since the crew would receive contradictory messages about how to treat the vox from round-to-round, whenever Shoal Vox showed up, some security/AI/command would always follow "Policy-A" who would aggressively and relentlessly try to murder all the vox based on what CC had done in the past, then there would be the other half following "Policy-B" who would freak the fuck out and accuse "A" of being murdering validhunters because that's how CC treated them in the past. The argument would boil down to both of them saying "Well it's what CentComm wants!" while having equally justified yet diametrically opposed understandings of what CC actually wants. I know it's important to point out that vox crew tended to 'volunteer' themselves for the Vox Raiders whenever they could, but the other side of the coin was that sometimes command/ai/sec would be so obsessed with their valids that they wouldn't give the vox a chance to even go "Hihis!" before mercilessly wiping them out as if they were nukeops. This was particularly annoying for the vox raiders since the inviolate explicitly, painstakingly instructs them to avoid excessive damage and avoid inflicting fatalities above all else.

Again, I'd personally be interested in seeing Shoal Vox trading/raiding parties as a midround: In terms of potential damage and de-railing the round they couldn't be any more disastrous than terrorspiders or swarmers appearing instead, they can shake up the round without derailing the round through excessive killing/destruction, and they offer a very wide variety of RP opportunities depending on whatever's going on at the time they show up. I'd go more into why I like them as an idea but Drakeven's already covered most of what made them fun in the original post.

 

I have a wishlist of things that I'd like to see accounted for regarding shoal vox if they're re-implemented, but probably couldn't be budgeted within the focus and time investment of our coding team:

  Hide contents

Vox should have a contingency in the inviolate that they can use much stronger force against any crew who trespass on their Skipjack unless they were expressly and clearly, insistently invited aboard. So many times, engineers or casual civilians with EVA will just break into the Skipjack, loot it, destroy the Skipjack control console or kill the vox in-residence just because they can, and sometimes the shoal vox just sat there and watched it happen because they were terrified of breaching the inviolate. No: If specific members of the crew decide to independently go out of their way to try and fuck with the dangerous, unpredictable spacegulls with harpoon guns who care very little about NT's corporate regulations and Space Law, the specific crew choosing to try shitting in their sundaes should prepare to either robust or get robusted, full stop.

Concurrently, lore about the inviolate should encourage crew vox to be slightly more cagey and suspicious of 'outsider' vox: Obviously the inviolate is a near-sacred set of rules, but they cannot always be adhered to perfectly, and NT-employed vox should be reluctant to offer their help to vox originating from off-station, as NT-vox don't personally know the Shoal-vox well enough to trust that they'll show restraint as-necessary. Similarly, vox in general should be encouraged to aggressively, vindictively self-police if they hear that traders/raiders are breaching inviolate. I'm thinking something like this, just with a lot more *aflap.

If I could code, what I'd want to see is an 'all or nothing' approach to integrating the inviolate lore with Vox gameplay: As a unique gimmick, I'd say that all vox players should get "the inviolate" as a fluff objective, regardless of their antag status -- being exempted if they've simultaneously got antag status, of course. The end-of-round report is already able to detect how much of the station is intact and how many of the crew died, so Inviolate could be a collective pass/fail that all vox would see based on what percentage of the station is intact and alive -- perhaps something above 70% station integrity and a 60% survival rate among the general crew would be necessary for a 'pass', and of course reported as a single entry in the end-of-round report rather than as a separate entry for each and every vox. Just to make this feel more like a special vox thing, the inviolate success/fail report would only appear for vox players in most cases, and only be viewable for the rest of the server if trader/raiders appear.

 

A really detailed and well put together response, I like it, and agree with pretty much everything you've said.

[Kyet]

Vox raiders just walk up to command, trade for what they want, and leave.

They only require one person to deal with them (often the Captain or HoP).

They're not engaging for anyone outside of Command, and they don't make a good event, let alone a good game mode.

[Carthusia]

What if their presence was in fact a crime? I mean they are not authorized visitors, thus by spacelaw them being onboard is a crime. 

They gotta use stealth suits to make them invisible, be all sneaky like, and STEAL what they need.

Vox raiders are known for their raids, and most of the time people don't even know they have been hit until long after and they go to check stock.

We once had a Space Ninja doing something similar to this, except they we're replacing all the vending machines with Mr.Chang's machines, but they were invisible until you got to close and had to be all sneaky to prevent capture.

 

Makes them less of a Vox Trader/Merchant and an actual Vox Raider

Edited September 27, 2019 by BlackDog

[Drakeven]

I'm pretty sure that would just make things worse on the side of validhunting and antaging.

I address the issue that you cite, Kyet, and I realize that it's one of the main reasons why the game mode is bad. However I think it is certainly salvageable. Interacting with departments rather than the captain. Though it is slightly disheartening to have a few pages of text dismissed in three lines, I realize that you've probably thought about this more than I have, and appreciate your response.

[Eler00]

On 9/25/2019 at 5:48 PM, Drakeven said:

3. Dock the Vox Skipjack at arrivals
-The fact that Vox are not spaceproof anymore makes it an enormous hassle to go from ship to arrivals. You usually park next  to arrivals anyway. If they could dock at the bottom of arrivals, with a small re-design of the ship, the ship would be a lot more viable, in my opinion.

You could make a vox variant that's spaceproof pretty easily, or use the big vox caste for this. No reason that the vox can't make their raiders spaceproof with their skills in cybernetics and stuff.

 

On the 'only trade with command' thing, maybe they should be made more like...smugglers. Make the things they sell explicitly contraband, encourage crew to meet with them in remote parts of maint for their neat loot, maybe even give them some surplus syndicate stuff they've 'acquired' somewhere else, then put it in space law/SOP that command must not deal with smugglers like that. Instead of one person just sitting in a meeting room with them they'd have to be.