Making acid spit an neurotoxin miss with an increasing chance at longer distances.

[Dyne]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):
Currently neurotoxin and acid spits are funnily more accurate then a rifle.
All things considered it seems a bit more fair to add a more significant miss chance.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):
Aliens would have to cooperate more, less reliant on a high hit chance.
Marines would get a bit of a respite.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):
Pretty straightforward- aliens will use hunting packs more, so less lone sentinels/Praets ravage the lands.
So + to alien needed interaction, less ramboism and lone ranger on their part.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it):
Code in a (more significant) miss chance, akin to a shotgun or rifle.

[Biolock]

+1

Currently we've seen praetorians able to successfully squad wipe a group of marines using the "spit> drag behind a corner> slash hands> repeat" method, which is currently neigh unbeatable short of rushing in with a group of marines (which means you're leaving it to RNG and praying that your hands don't get fractured) to flush it out of the corner/ using a grenade and then fast acting while it's stunned.

[Atpot]

+1
Spit more accurate than the Scoped M34C

[UNDUS]

Already 90% of people go runner, I don't think it's good to nerf praets again.

[K0NFL1QT]

It's not a Praet specific nerf, it's Sentinels, Spitters and Praets because Alien mechanics aren't balanced at all.

[cylian]

+1

Snipe-spitting more efficiently than guns shoot bullets is.. Yeah.

[Feweh]

This is a terrible idea.

Honestly think about it... all spitters/praes do is spit. They only have a range if about what? 10-12 tiles max?

Youre limiting a chaste to be absolutely useless. The whole point is for them to engage at range, not spit at somrthing 4 tiles away.

[Gentlefood]

This is a terrible idea.

Honestly think about it... all spitters/praes do is spit. They only have a range if about what? 10-12 tiles max?

Youre limiting a chaste to be absolutely useless. The whole point is for them to engage at range, not spit at somrthing 4 tiles away.

This. Additionally Sentinels, Spitters, and Praetorians are some of the slowest alien castes in the game. If they have to close to a target to knock them down it would never happen.

[cylian]

This. Additionally Sentinels, Spitters, and Praetorians are some of the slowest alien castes in the game. If they have to close to a target to knock them down it would never happen.

I was more leaning towards not making them hit the intended bodypart as much. Full misses are a bit too far, agreed.

[Gentlefood]

There already is a fairly high chance to not hit your intended target. I aim for the chest and hit arms, legs, and groins all the time.

[cylian]

There already is a fairly high chance to not hit your intended target. I aim for the chest and hit arms, legs, and groins all the time.

Maybe have partial hits at longer ranges then where there isn't as much damage, or amounts of the spit landing.

[Dyne]

There already is a fairly high chance to not hit your intended target. I aim for the chest and hit arms, legs, and groins all the time.

For neurotoxin it doesnt matter where you hit.
For acid, surprisingly, it doesnt matter much too, as you deal quite a lot of burn damage nevertheless.

[Dyne]

This is a terrible idea.

Honestly think about it... all spitters/praes do is spit. They only have a range if about what? 10-12 tiles max?

Youre limiting a chaste to be absolutely useless. The whole point is for them to engage at range, not spit at somrthing 4 tiles away.

10-12 tiles? The spit travels at the same speed as a bullet, and at the same roughly unlimited range till it hits something, so it can and will travel in a direct line up to a whole screen or more.

Using your logic we could say that all regular marines do is shoot rifles, the whole point is of them to engage at range, give them the same accuracy.

And, as other contributors have noted, all the spitter castes, especially Praetorians, can slash and use tails as well, to deadly effect, especially if they know the specifics of west/east firing while staying hidden behind an obstacle themselves.

Currently the spit is more accurate then ANY direct fire marine weapon, up to and including the smartgun. Marines try to compensate it with massed firepower.

My sincere belief is that the proposed change wont, as you so vividly paint, "limit a caste to be absolutely useless", but, rather, promote the so needed alien cooperation and joint hunting tactics, where a lone spitter wont feel confident any more.

[Feweh]

10-12 tiles? The spit travels at the same speed as a bullet, and at the same roughly unlimited range till it hits something, so it can and will travel in a direct line up to a whole screen or more.

Using your logic we could say that all regular marines do is shoot rifles, the whole point is of them to engage at range, give them the same accuracy.

And, as other contributors have noted, all the spitter castes, especially Praetorians, can slash and use tails as well, to deadly effect, especially if they know the specifics of west/east firing while staying hidden behind an obstacle themselves.

Currently the spit is more accurate then ANY direct fire marine weapon, up to and including the smartgun. Marines try to compensate it with massed firepower.

My sincere belief is that the proposed change wont, as you so vividly paint, "limit a caste to be absolutely useless", but, rather, promote the so needed alien cooperation and joint hunting tactics, where a lone spitter wont feel confident any more.

No they'll be useless.

Marine's can use various weapons, grenades, items and objects. Marine's don't have a cooldown on their firing, its a continuous fire-rate. (Aside for reload)

Spitters/Praes fucking spit thats it, they don't build and don't have any other cool abilities other than melting shit.

They arent fast and they aren't overly tanky, they fulfill one role and all their power and tactics come from that one ability, spitting. They already require cooperation and work with other aliens, you rarely see praes/spitters alone because more than one Marine fuck them over.

[Dyne]

I feel a strong -1 from you, Pink. So strong you use "fucking" and direct absolute predictions of a morbid future. "Terrible idea", "they'll be useless". You love your absolutely accurate spit, we got that much.

Just to give a final answer to your remark on the "it's only spit" before I give the floor to others I do feel obliged that the whole spitter caste has at least some more abilities then the spit and melt you talk about, if that wasn't enough. (And we are speaking about armor ignoring stun and melting through walls here)

Biolock has described in detail a currently employed tactics that the marines dont have a counter for at the moment. So, surprisingly, we find out that spitter castes can also slash and tail-maim, more so, they do it at downed victims.

All aliens, spitters included, can also use facehuggers, the most iconic and interesting weapon at the arsenal. They also are fully capable to seed their area of operations with huggers, and snipe at marines- luring them in, waiting for the living mines to just latch on as the poor slow spitter retreats.

As far as I'm aware spitters are also not limited on swallowing marines. Om-nom-nom.


Individual tactics aside- the key issue here, for me, is of world logic and some basic fairness.

Most if not all adult Aliens are bigger targets then marines. Yet shooting a 10mm round from a modern rifle into a bigger target at the same distance will make a marine miss much more often, when compared to an alien spitting. Moreover, the speed of the projectile will be the same.

The result of the impact, however, is far from equal. Three acid blops untreated- you are (nearly) out of action. One neurotoxin spit- you are downed.
Three bullets hitting a spitter caste alien is "Ok, sisters, I'll just pull back into the darkness a bit and continue spitting accurately as no marine can see me now".