Space should be deadly, not just make you bouncey.
If you step on a space tile, or are in a space area as denoted by the mapping, and aren’t wearing a proper space suit (and limited oxygen supply) - you should be punished. Ideally, the person is both burned and chilled, causing a quickly unrecoverable situation. Additionally, the revive timer on someone who dies from the “space” effect, should be reduced by half to recreate the trauma of gamma rays or whatever bullshit you want to imagine. Really, this is to deincentivize unga behavior. Naturally, xenos are immune to the damage.
Basically, this would allow mappers to get more creative with maps like Science Annex, or other maps based around space. Opening up flanks, special loot, etc. This would mean unprotected marines (the vast majority) are incapable of launching a long range surprise flank, and if anything, could only go a few tiles to reach either another opening for safety, or a brave short distance flank. This would also open opportunities for harasser castes to exploit the space-born environment better, and make it feel like you’re fighting an actual alien.
I think that this idea would provide unique gameplay opportunities, and make players think about their environment more. Due to the limited nature of space suits, the space marines can never mount a truly overwhelming force against the xenos on their own due to the inability to reinforce these guys. Additionally, due to the lack of the xeno’s ability of self propulsion in space, their flanking is limited to hugging the sides of objects, which means a major xeno flank would be a conga line of death for them. This means that space now becomes relevant, but cannot on its own completely determine the course of a round.
Geeves was working on something like this a year ago, would be cool to see it picked back up.