Combine breath masks with vocal translators

[CalliopeSoups]

Communicating as a monkey is already a bit difficult as a lot of monkey players like to put on voices for the role, so I think things can get a bit too frustrating when you also have to deal with swapping your breath mask and vocal translator about when you need internals. I do think it has benefits, I like the challange of turning into a mime for a bit, but I've also noticed it can lead to silent kill scenarios where the antag didn't even mean for that to happen. So I think there's an argument for both ideas, but personally I'd like it cause to me the annoyance it's caused hasn't outweighed any good. Interested in hearing thoughts on it though.

[Mrprogamer96]

I can understand both sides of this.
on one hand it would be neat if they had that function but as is, monkeys are the most powerful mutant race in the game, so its a bit of a balancing problem I would guess.

[CalliopeSoups]

I think maybe some sort of monkey nerf could be an idea too. Something a bit more fun instead of something like this that's more of a minor annoyance at the end of the day.

[Nihisohel]

honestly, i dont see too much of an issue with making the vocal translator similar to how the voice changer works.

its pretty much just removing one step of talking and thats waaay favorable than just going into your bag, into your box, pulling out your translator and then talking rather than just talking

[Hard Boiled]

Just have vocal translators act as an internals masks, done.

Not a issue, unless you really thing not having to switch between an internals and vocal translator is too powergamey.

Sounds very nice.

[Lady Birb]

so I guess we are just removing every single downside from monkeys until they are just humans that can climb over tables huh

[zjdtmkhzt]

Yeah, tbh, this seems like it'd be a bit strong.
This seems kind of on the level of giving auditory headsets department channel access, it barely leaves any downside that I am aware of?
Do monkeys get less stamina or health or something atm? Even if they do, trading that for tablepass seems pretty powerful.

[Mouse]

Monkey maximum stamina base is 150 instead of 200.

I was opposed to vocal translators in the first place so I'm not in favor of letting them be used as internals.

[kyle2143]

Yeah, monkeys are supposed to have trouble communicating with humans. That's like been a big part of what being a player monkey has been about until the translator thing came around. Making it even better than it is the wrong direction to go I think.

[UrsulaMejor]

On the one hand, monkeys having a hard time communicating with humans is one way that the role is balanced.

On the other hand, communication feels like one of the worst feeling ways to balance a role in this game.

I think that, for round start monkey roles, their balance is from the extremely low levels of access that these roles get as well as being at the bottom of the chain of command (literally test subjects, not even assistants), and making communication hard for them doesn't need to be added on top of that.

I think it'd be fine if the translator could be added to the inside of gas masks just like voice changers can.

[Hauntmachine]

Note: This is mainly from an RP perspective.

I agree with Emily. Communication is such a huge part of this game, and in general, I do not think that playable races should be balanced around making it difficult to communicate. Especially for the RP server - where we currently have more players than ever playing monkey characters - I think it would only be a positive to have vocal translator's work on gas masks.

[Lady Birb]

I think that, for round start monkey roles, their balance is from the extremely low levels of access that these roles get as well as being at the bottom of the chain of command (literally test subjects, not even assistants), and making communication hard for them doesn't need to be added on top of that.

when have you ever seen anyone respect the chain of command outside of the hos on the non-rp servers?
and even if they do, this does not account for players who pick captain or hop and speedrun monkeyfying themselves every single round

[Mouse]

I mean we could always bring back the "monkeys are explicitly not human for borg laws" thing and let the AI immediately laser said monkeys to death on default laws.

[Cal]

I mean we could always bring back the "monkeys are explicitly not human for borg laws" thing and let the AI immediately laser said monkeys to death on default laws.

monkeys are already not human

https://wiki.ss13.co/Human

[Kotlol]

I mean we could always bring back the "monkeys are explicitly not human for borg laws" thing and let the AI immediately laser said monkeys to death on default laws.

monkeys are already not human

https://wiki.ss13.co/Human

So does Roach People, Cow People, Skeleton People, Lizard and Pug People who are SELECTABLE STARTING RACES.
The reason why it gets ignored is cause we use the "Sentience" silent rule.
But essentially AI and Borgs can just ignore these races. (and I am a roach main)

The thing with these races they all have ups and downs. Monkeys are considered unevolved and is locked by Genetics for a major reason.
"They can mail themselves and jump over tables" Also pretending to be a random monkey and such.

The whole putting a vocal translate in is ment to be a disadvantage indeed. We could add it to a mask. I see no problem with it, but...
While other races can be higher ranks (for some reasons), monkeys are suppose to be seen as bottom of the barrel. Thus if I see a monkey captain I will play a questionable charater on it as acordance to lore and what we know monkeys do. I also always feel like Monkeys in high roles are kind of silly cause Genetics tests on monkeys, Science tests on monkeys and the kitchen can serve monkey food.... so yea...