The standard and most common interpretation by admins is that Ash Walkers should not be invading the station unless their nest has been destroyed (presumably by the crew). But that's really more of a "read between the lines" stance, since the whole reason the flavor text was changed was to prevent them from invading the station. Taken literally, the text could imply that simply walling off the tendril is enough (defended, it would be) and then you're free to just do whatever and go murder as much as you can with your pointy stick. I myself have enforced the "standard" interpretation for the sake of consistency across the admin team, but not everyone on the admin team knows or agrees with this stance.You are an ash walker. Your tribe worships the Necropolis. The wastes are sacred ground, its monsters a blessed bounty. You have seen the lights in the distance... they foreshadow the arrival of outsiders that seek to tear apart the Necropolis and its domain. Fresh sacrifices for your nest. Drag the corpses of men and beasts to your nest. It will absorb them to create more of your kind. Don't leave your nest undefended, protect it with your life. Glory to the Necropolis!
I've been given permission by Cobby to, amidst the antag freeze, update the flavor text to be more concrete. As such, I'd like to compile opinions from as many people as I can to figure out what the community actually wants from Ash Walkers. I'll list my opinion below, but I'll go against it if the majority pushes in the other direction. It's worth noting that there were reasons that some deemed it necessary to confine the Walkers to Lavaland, and I'll address the ones I'm aware of.
--
The way I see it, Ash Walker invasions were fun for both sides of the conflict. Ash Walkers, once on station, got to try and do as much damage as they could, while the crew with their superior weapons (and glass-proof shoes) usually had an edge on defending. It gave security a target to shoot at, and was actually something the AI could support killing for once. I admit that I don't have a lot of experience in Cargo, who's back door was the usual primary location of the NT/Walker war. But as Miner and Robo I often joined in on the defense to some extent (and I wouldn't suspect a Gun Cargo to have a particularly hard time against Ash Walkers).
The two main issues that I recall people having with Ash Lizard invasions were the constant respawning and at least one incident of mechs being given to the Walkers. The former issue, where Ash Walkers can continuously respawn as long as there's a semi-regular supply of bodies to sacrifice, could be solved by limiting clients to a single egg per round. You get one Ash Walker spawn, and that's it. Alternatively, a cooldown between the last death and the next egg would at least slow things down, and it's also been suggested to make each egg cost more bodies than the last. The latter issue, in which a lizard robo allegedly gave a group of Ash Walkers a bunch of mechs to wage war with, could be solved by making the Walkers unable to use mechs. They're already unable to use most (if not all) firearms, so it wouldn't really be that drastic of a solution. That might be thinking too narrowly (the next incident could be chem grenades), but I don't know that it's really that deep of a problem anyway. There's precedent that knowing arming antags as a non-antag is against the rules, and if they are an antag, there are pre-existing ways to bring in ghosts to do your bidding (subverted AIs for mechs, golems for grenade throwing or other things).
Allowing Ash Walkers on the station also allowed for more gimmicky things. I often would try to hack and sneak my way into the morgue and steal bodies without being noticed, and I'm told at least one player thought it was fun to try and take the jobs of crew members without anyone noticing. These gimmicks are fun because Ash Walkers are valid for being antags, and so getting caught was often a death sentence.
