The metarush problem

[DerFlammenwerfer]

Meta means "most efficient tactic available." Marines are strong in defensive scenarios, yes, but in most cases they are not as strong on the defensive as Aliens are whilst on the offensive. Holding out in the FOB and forcing the Aliens into a war of attrition is actually the WORST tactic marines can employ, because nearly if not all of their supplies; manpower, medical equipment, ammunition, supply points, contruction materials; are all limited. Xenos have only THREE resources to spend in a battle, and those are numbers, hitpoints, and plasma. Only one of those resources is limited: Numbers.

Aliens' numbers are finite and reliant upon capturing marines alive (way easier now than it has ever been before with permanesting; a good change, actually) to recover their losses and recycling captures they do get as spawning pool fodder after they've bursted. HOWEVER, in order to reduce their numbers, marines have to first fully deplete the aliens' hitpoints. They cannot effectively do this by turtling unless a T1 or T2 misplays, because the only thing an alien has to to is *run away* to one of a fucking bajillion tiles that has weeds on it and/or a recovery phero near it and wait, while the boiler gasses them out and blocks vision, which is actually what keeps marines pinned down more than the potential damage output from the gas. Marines have to expend medical supplies, which while technically unlimited requires an uninterrupted supply chain, and risking additional lives, matierials, and ammunition recovering the wounded, dead, and dying to maintain the numbers they already have or, realistically, minimize the losses they are guaranteed to take.

Crushers aren't the most efficient tactic available anymore, but that doesn't mean that they aren't good. The meta is actually ravager spam due to how tanky they are (armored, with respectable HP, explosive resistance, hedgehog, and being fireproof), and I cannot actually recall a round in this half of the year where a hive that has 4 ravagers has lost the round. Like jesus fucking christ with T3 armor being basically permanent do Ravs even have a real weakness anymore or are they literally the best t3 to have in most situations? Maybe remove fireproof in favor of resistance to fire damage or give flechettes the ability to actually shear off t3 armor in exchange for doing sub-par HP damage or something. They seem a little TOO strong when spammed without the tank as a deterrent.

Marines are at their strongest when on the offensive, but their strongest offensive tools (CAS, Mortars, and OB) can be negated in hive clusters through the use of the hive core and pylons, the latter of which don't negate OB. Technically speaking, Aliens are weaker on static defense than marines on offense, but they are stronger on mobile defense than the marine offense because they can retreat with minimal to no losses when the core is destroyed to a Pylon if they know OB is imminent on the core's location, and they'll be safe from Mortar and CAS plenty long enough to get another core up before they have to rotate out again, thanks to OB cooldown. All the while, they can bleed the marines' numbers and supplies if the marines put all their eggs in one basket.

As for survivors, well, they more or less exist at this point to feed extra aliens to the hive so they can get the 4th ravager more easily. >:V