To start, a short synopsis or maybe even theory about how the game works in my eyes, I am a long time, perhaps jaded, one side player(I have probably 2 hours on Xeno over the past ten years), regardless. Before anyone comes to these ideas and says I am simply out to punish the Xenos, well yes, but actually, no. I really do want both sides to have the most fun as possible, so keep that in mind, and I do think a major part of that is keeping both sides in check, I will explain more later on in this post, as well as below.
Think of the average, humble private. He runs out, gets ganked by a warrior and another bug, tossed around like a ragdoll and abused, he losses a leg, an arm, quite literally permastunned. And you may say, but we have technology! But the tech we have, does very little to the Xenos, the humble private asks the UAAC now, what can I do?! What can I do to save the Corp? The greatest R&D minds have thought long and hard and have returned with perhaps, one of the finest ideas to ever grace mankind(Iām joking they suck). I bring to you, Part 6.
Part 1(The Hard Pill)
The hard pill to swallow, the medicine no one wants, is that the Xenos, truthfully, in one way or another, have it too easy. I want to change that, and I believe a somewhat simple and somewhat fair way to do that, would to look at Aliens media that has been presented to us for some thirty years now, and more recently, in Alien Dark Descent. I am talking about dismemberment, I believe this would be a major helping factor for the marines and balance in general(for example, Xenos just endlessly cycle charging the Marines ad nauseum with no real downside outside of their possible death), but would also provide some enriching lets say RP situations for the Xenomorphs, among other reasons to be considered.Picture this, a Xeno rushes forward (recklessly) and is focused by a handful of marines, say there is a 0.01% chance of dismemberment per bullet, and different weapons have a higher chance where it makes sense (sniper, shotgun, smartgun etc), but it will always be somewhat rare. The Xeno has its leg blown off, it screeches in pain and falls to the floor, trying to crawl away, boom, his xeno buddy, comes and scoops him up (with say, some help from a crusher or defender) and gets them back to the hive. There, they can begin to heal up, perhaps simply with a heal fruit (to begin to the process), or it just takes a set amount of time to regrow, (say a minute or two).
In a similar vein, I was thinking, there are very few things (canonically) that the Xenomorphs are genuinely afraid of, Explosives and fire are some of the most foremost, along that line of thinking, I thought, what if we made fire actually do damage to the Xenos? The case as is it now, most xenos will not go through the fire (the smaller, squishier xenos), but the others can and will just lolrun through it, which makes some sense for say the Crusher or Rav or Prae / Queen etc, they are the largest in the Hive, but the others shouldnāt be able to just ignore fire for the most part.
I think if fire did some more actual tick damage, and was a bit harder to put out for the Xenos, as well as possibly the Xenos not being able to pat out fire (on the ground or on other Xenos, after all, how do you pat out fire with a giant single sword arm?) its arguably extremely LRP and the Xeno should be screeching in terror that the one thing they fear, fire, is in front of them, but of course, this is a multiplayer game and that cannot ever be expected. In its place, I think making fire more deadly by doing more damage, and perhaps giving the flamer more utility uses (bouncing flamer, QTC super flames, etc). The flamer is one of the most important weapons in the USCM, hell, the US arsenal in Aliens, it would be nice if it truly felt that important, both in usability and killing potential, rather than simply a deterrent that it generally is now. Donāt worry Xenos, the pain wonāt only be coming for you today. If it did actual, true damage to the Xenos, they would naturally fear it, and it would therefore come full circle with the canon of Xenos being afraid of fire.
Part 2 (Tychon Tackle Part 2)
The title is entirely unrelated, I just thought it was funny, get trolled. Regardless, mentions of increasing marine attrition past what it already is in the discord nearly sent me into a spiral, but I gave it some true Confucian thought and came back to you now, I truly understand it now.Along that vein, I think one of the more accessible ways to deal with the apparent lack of attrition would to be one, reduce the defibs in the vendors by one, and then if needed, apply a possible boon to the defib itself, while it doesnāt make much sense,(it is the 2200s, weāve literally cured cancer by now), much of our lore doesnāt. This boon could be say, a 0.5-1% chance to blow someoneās heart up if you defib them too much, or other such limiting factors. That is likely too extreme, but something like that could be done. You could also theoretically have something like a med limit be a thing, where you cant just overload someone with a cocktail of 200u of meds, their kidney will just give out or something, idk, Iām not a doctor, but I think that could work at least as a starting point to jump off of. Maybe Stims will have to be designed carefully to not blow someoneās heart up, or drive them insane, etc.
Another thing I would LOVE to see an increase of is robot limbs, they should be available to enlisted, at least senior enlisted persons as they are canonically, no career military man is going to escape unscathed for ten years in warzones, and if they are, they will know someone who wasnāt as lucky. It makes no sense now that the officers get it, the ones fresh out of OCS? Oh okay, where did they lose their arm, pushing pencils?
As always, leave some feedback, Iām curious to see what you think about the general ideas Iāve presented here, they are a bit less focused than last time, at least in regards to the medical stuff for marines, but I did try and keep it fair and āupdateā both sides. If you have any fitting ideas, feel free to leave them here as well, I will likely come back and update this when/if more ideas come to me.
