[DRAFT] Vulpkanin Species #430
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Gimme feedback, im shit at writing. And I honestly really badly want them in the game :death: |
I don’t really write design docs but it was easy to read/understand. |
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i liked someones suggestion i s aw earlier maybe milon to tie some of their stuff to forensics |
This in my eyes is a hard no, we dont want them to be a secoff species. Also exposing forensics to client might be troublesome (if they arent already) |
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I think the only thing that feels weird from literally all the downstream projects that I think should be mentioned is the sounds. For some reason, most downstreams and as well as the april fools one had no unique scream sounds, it was just human and feels very weird. I feel like if this was to be fully added, we'd need to find a scream sound that's canine like or something. |
Goob uses a fox screaming sound. I'm all up for having one like that |
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I think vulps should be able to tell what reagents are in maints pills and food items as well. It would be a very useful niche to have for any spessman. Now you can sniff out those maints hyperzine pills. Also the species needs a sfx and sprite cleaning. A lot of the hardsuit sprites don't really fit the artstyle and the sfx are goofy or just missing (as in the case of screams). |
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All that is to be fixed when we have it merged and allow people to actually work on the species. I just want some design down so we can have vulps to begin with |
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About whether to give heat resistance or vulnerability to vulps because of fur, they should instead have slower thermal regulation at higher temperatures because they can't sweat (the same could probably be done to moths tbh) |
Thermal regulation is absolutely a mess right now, just recently we only fixed hardsuits not killing people with heat damage |
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Kyo Scar will come back Also add leaping ability for vulpkanin |
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I was thinking of maybe they could get a tempory speed boost after howling (speed boost limited but howl not) and the howl replacing the scream for other races. This would be useful for antag and crew alike, allowing you to get to where you wanna go a little faster, weather your cargo droping a bounty or sci on the prowl for anoms, or a nukie declaring your going in for blood. This would set them apart from other races and is more easily commincated to the player than acute smell. but as ScarKy0 points out they was popular even without any modifcations so I would suggest putting them back in and adding their abilites as its devloped. though they do need a surival box. as during the event they lacked it. |
That was just a bug
IIRC anything combat for species is greatly frowned upon, other than resistances I guess. Its hard to tell |
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Their unique abilities sound great, really a fan of the budget chemgoggles as a concept (Harmony's vulp PR has the same concept which is such a brilliant one) |
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unrelated to the doc but i think vulps look really ugly compared to every other species currently in upstream |
Heat insulation is a blessing and a curse. Sure you might survive a bit more when it gets cold, but when you get set on fire cooling you down will be extremely difficult. Theres also the possibility of taking more heat damage as ive mentioned. |
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I can imagine vulpakin would become a lot like lizards in the regard that they would become an almost 100% upgrade to humans and not really having to play around their downsides while benefiting from the upsides, what is there to combat this? this will be mentioned in the species design doc im fairly sure though so idk |
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I had an idea for another downside if you want one. real furred creatures when made wet struggle with the cold until dry. so you could make it so if attacked with water it drops their temp |
Remind me to chat with you about this once speciesdoc is in as I have some concepts to chat about |
Im not sure how doable this would be, but definitely neef to consider some more downsides |
I will happily listen to some downside ideas, as long as they are pretty simple for now. Ill probably need to update this after the species doc anyways |
I think it can be done, we get the water damages slime code and change the damage to an effect like they eat a chilly |
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Personally I prefer the races to feel more alien. Vox, Diona, and Slime people are a great example of this. I don't think we should add more races that are just "earth creature but anthropomorphic" we already have big bugs and lizards. I feel like vulp would need some really unique ability/downside if it were to be added, cosmetic options are good but races should definately have a solid gameplay aspect. At the very least the current races should be balanced (looking at you, vox and lizard) before adding more imo |
Vulps was very popular on the limited aprils fools event and very popular downstream too, people like dogs/foxes and thats baring in mind that april fool vulps didn't even come with a surival kit putting them at a disadvantage vs everyone else. im personally for returning Vulps as they was during the event and worrying about fleshing them out as we go~ |
Agreed, a species doc is in the works though, so that's something |
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Just a contrib but have taken on medcode atm: Just want to quickly flag "species" in terms of what people think about In SS14 even after likely additions we can say the following are the real "species" under-the-hood Human-like -> humans, dorfs, lizards, vulps, vox This is ignoring various fun SS13 species, all the cosmetic furry species on RMC et al, etc. Significant, meaningful mechanical differences that fundamentally alter how a species is played should be cross-group. I don't think it's a failure if a "human-like" species is a remixed human with a gimmick. I think that's Working As Intended for "human-like" species. We NEED most species to be human-like; every weird niche is horizontal design friction when adding new mechanics or trying to find a good balance. And that allows oddball "halo" species that add the fiction of "wow, cool weird alien!!" to shine better. If everyone is a scrungly over-designed mess of mechanics, nobody wins. What Wizden has flubbed due to the limited Body systems is the cross-species-type differences. Even Diona, probably the most unique SS14 species, is horrendously thin. This HAS to be rectified once Body is properly done. Otherwise every single species that is ever designed or inherited will cause this argument. I'm struggling to think of a single new species into 14 whilst I've been floating around the project that hasn't had to etiher fight violently to be added or caused issues after being added. Maybe spiders. EDIT: Just to further argue for "human-like" as a useful and meaningful category: with surgery we should support being able to swap organs between species. This is an obvious gameplay vector players would want to explore. If we want to do that, you need enough core species that behave broadly similarly to allow for "the Vox swapped their lungs for human onces" or "the mad tider created a Frankenstein monster from body parts". What matters to me for this PR is "does this species have an ID'able personality and identity that a player can understand innataely without needing to have it explained to them?" The most successful "added" species to me is Moth, because IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to play a round of SS14 without getting an idea of what Moths are kinda like. As soon as one *chitters and then *screams, eats a single burn stack and dies, is revived, shouts the words "I MUST EMBRACE THE LAMP" and runs off to burn again, you get the idea. You DO NOT NEED strong mechanics to encourage roleplaying and creating a meaningful character. |
That's why I kinda miss slime people being able to turn into geras, it made them look more like a sapient shapeshifty slime being, as opposed to a strange neon-colored translucent human like what a lot of others have already compared them to. Too bad the implementation was plagued by a host of issues. |
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I see some problems with the reasons you give on why to add the species. This is a reason to allow more species, not a reason to add vulpkanin. There is Vulp fluff text followed by a reason to allow more species, not a reason to add vulpkanin. Because people liked them in testing. This is conjecture, poll it to show what kind of support the species has, e.g. minority, majority, supermajority. Using discord or github polls will give you small and biased sample sizes, a lobby poll would be a truer and larger player sample. While there is no official avenue to request a lobby poll, I checked with an admin and they agreed that the admin-questions channel on the discord server was an appropriate place to make the request. Ideally good poll outcomes should be a prerequisite to species merge, but that's just my personal opinion getting out of scope here, I'll probably open a discussion on that. Without Wizden providing a species design-doc, it's hard to tell what the maintainers are looking for and the freeze itself mentions that there is no consensus for what they want. To overcome this you should base your reasoning in foundational aspects of design. Unfortunately roleplay game species design is a bit specific to have it's own agreed upon foundation, so look at some generic design principles that make sense to use here. A good start is theme/style, you could base your reasoning on how the species matches and/or compliments the current prevalent themes because proper theming is vital to creating the feeling that something fits it's setting. For example, when you look at the vox, they're this scrunkly, poor postured, fed up looking carrion, this absolutely compliments the blue collar motif we see on station, they also match the threadbare look that much of the structure and equipment have. Theme is somewhat subjective, so avoid making tenuous links when possible as some people may disagree. You should probably also avoid giving blanket reasons to add more species, instead providing reasons as to why this species is the right one. |
Yeah and vulps are "more species". During april fools, during basically every game I participated in I ran an in-game pool about what people think are the best features from april fools. Which commonly resulted in things like vulps, scurrets or the leggy AI (game admin here, maintainer too). I base my reasoning on internal discussions as well as the public discussion we've had around the species doc which you can find here. They have also been extensively tested on several downstreams and have proven to be one of the most popular species. At this moment no maintainer is against adding vulps, at least not audibly, and we simply want to get the species doc in first as per the rules of the freeze. Personally I'm against every species needing to be very different from all the others, there is nothing wrong with mainly changing the looks(as long as that's not the only differance). Obviously some species like Vox or Plasmamen(or whatever they are called) are very welcome as well, however they are not something each species should strive to be as ultimately they are very complex.
I know my reasons for adding them aren't the best, however I am mainly driven by the lack of species currently, as well as wanting to express myself and my characters better. Ultimately there is nothing wrong with the species or anything against adding them, there is just a need for discussion/docs and a somewhat unique and interesting design, which I think vulps achieve rather well (maybe not on the doc part, I'll most likely update it once we have the species doc out). |
I noticed that you were a maintainer after commenting. I realise with that context, some of what i said would be condescending, sorry about that.
I feel like you do understand what I meant, but im going to give you the benefit of the doubt and try to explain it. People want more species to be in the game and people have standards for what is a good enough species. This means when in your doc, you explain why to add them, you reasoning doesnt have to address people wanting species, but instead address people having standards for what is good enough. If a point made only addresses the first thing and not the second, its irrelevant to what the doc is there to determine. So yea, by definition you are right, vulps are more species, but thats avoiding the actual critique.
This is a lot to justify anecdotal evidence. You dont need to justify it, anecdotal evidence is valid in the same way witness account is, its fine to use but not particularly strong. The problem is when 2 of the 3 reasons are outright irrelevant, you are relying on not only a single reason, but a weak one. Not only that, you have a clear path to reinforce it to a statistic.
Shouldnt maintainers be setting the standard that everyone else is to follow with their docs? The attitude of just getting it out there seems poor, why wouldnt you hold the doc to the standard of its intended purpose instead of just to tick off a box?
I didnt suggest otherwise, im fine what that too. Reasons to add species can absolutely exist outside of unique features. I think you get me wrong, I dont have any issue with vulpkanins being added if they fit well. I saw a species doc which is always an exciting thing, then its first comment was a request for feedback, then I see that the docs justification was really poor. Im sorry, I know my initial comment missed the fact you were a maintainer and addressed you like you were not part of your own social group, that would stop most people from engaging with criticism, I get it. But please do improve the reasoning on why to add vulps. |
Yeah I'm sorry. At the time I was in a pretty bad mindset and misunderstood few things you mean. I didn't mean to sound as if I was above criticism or if your feedback didn't matter.
I plan to definitely update the doc once I know what is meant to be in it. The general species doc is a big blocker for that, as I have no idea what needs or doesn't need to be included, but I definitely plan to try to expand on this and make more sense. I just needed a place to gather all my thoughts in for now. Again, I apologize for the misunderstanding. I really appreciate your feedback and will take it into account once I'm sure where I want to take this doc, but that needs to wait until the general species doc is done and accepted. |
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| ### Customizability | ||
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| Vulps, by design, aren't meant to only represent a single canid. Rather instead focusing on being able to fit into several canine-like races by selecting from many diffrent markings. This includes things like ear shapes, tails and fur patterns. |
This design document is meant to introduce the Vulpkanin species, which was lately tested during our april fools event. They are also a rather popular pick on several downstreams.
They are not meant to be an extremely unique species, but rather an interesting addition players can choose.