I would like the ability to send agents to recon a potential mission location before sending in a full team to handle it.
I have a feeling this idea will be very difficult to implement, but I thought it might be worth discussing at least.
First let me explain why this idea came about. I had my first cult manor in X-com files which was rough to say the least particularly with where the starting location was. It would have been nice to have a layout of the compound ahead of time. This thematically seems like a normal thing for military/espionage organizations to be able to accomplish since they have been doing it for decades (pre-1997). I could have at least planned a better angle of attack tactically speaking.
So what if on the intercept menu for certain missions like alien bases (i.e. manors) there was a "recon" option where you could click it instead of intercept that pops up a menu to assign agents/soldiers to a "reconnaissance mission"? It would give you estimate of how long the mission will take to complete with odds of success based on who you assign the mission. Success rate could be dependent on the stats of the soldier (TU, STR, STA, FA). Failure could randomly result in either wounded soldiers or dead soldiers. This is not a mission you actually execute but the game handles behind the scenes kind of like a research project that pops up later with the results when the mission is completed.
Success could be that the tiles are revealed at the start of the mission at a minimum. Additionally a few enemies could be revealed at the start of the mission (percentage based on success) or just a tally of possible enemies at the mission complete screen. Again, that number may not be accurate.
The cost is you at least tie up some soldiers and/or a vehicle for a while that can't be deployed on other missions and at worst is you may lose them. That's the risk reward. If the capability was added to other missions that timeout, then the risk is that the mission despawns before you get your recon team back and deploy your assault team.
I figured that the default behavior that this is off, but a modder could add a flag to the mission that enables recon capability if the player would like to try it. For instance, I would not expect a real alien base to be capable of recon since it's underground and good luck sneaking in. However, a cult manor is above ground with mostly humans which could have closer scrutiny applied to it before sending in strike team.
