Countering Spitter

[Swagile]

You can't just add more marines, because there's positioning/space restrictions. If 1 xeno is worth 3-5 marines, but the gamespace only allows ~5 entitites to fight reasonably, then the aliens have a massive advantage.

To put this another way: 4 marines in a 2-tile wide corridor is barely better than 2 marines in a 2-tile wide corridor. If an alien shows up and starts slashing one of the marines up front, that xeno is fully effective, while 1/2 of the marines can't do anything at all to help. So what should be a xeno outnumbered and quickly dispatched by 4 marines is actually 1 xeno vs 2 marines at a time and not a struggle for it at all. This is part of the reason why PB buckshot reigns supreme right now (And has for ages).

And this is a long-standing problem I have with the balance on marine damage output. Damage output feels """Balanced""" around 3-6+ marines shooting weaksauce M41's/L42's at a single xeno. In reality you get 1-2 marines engaging a xeno 90% of the time - especially bad when it comes to T3's which are unkillable by your average marine; there just isn't enough space and view range for marines to threaten xenos with "teamwork". (not to mention that as the quantity of marines increases, the spacing required to help each other increases which subsequently increases the distances involved which lowers marine damage further thanks to misses and damage fall-off - NEVERMIND the increase in FF)

Marine damage needs to be balanced with the assumption that only 1-2 (and sometimes 3) marines can effectively engage a xeno, instead of being balanced around entire squads. (Or rather, xeno HP needs to be balanced around this. Instead of them all being the walking tanks; lower shotgun damage, lower xeno HP, let the other marine weapons start being effective)

The better buff would be to keep these aspects HOWEVER give Marines better ways to make flanks.

Aka make Rock(s) destructible again, either with heavy explosives (CAS, C4, etc) or a time intensive task (pickaxes). That way xenos can't turtle behind choke points guarded by undestructible bullshit that fully empowers them and them only due to how xenos and marines work.

That'd make gameplay a lot better.

[Grubstank]

Why doesn't the gas mask work against it. It would be fair in that I would be immune to neuro.. but the spitter is also outside my sight range.

Plenty of chemical weapons absorb through skin and clothes. There are plenty of chemicals which basically can't be handled by protective clothing -- dimethyl mercury for instance. Chemists are regularly killed by a single drop absorbing through several layers of latex+specialized protective gloves and contacting their skin.