Wait, so this means snakemen could be set to spawn eggs every turn as there UFOpedia entry indicates? Then maybe hatch little unarmed snakemen with low health and only a melee attack after maybe 10 turns? That is interesting.
I like the idea of the aliens having a stun drone for "abduction missions" however I don't really like the idea of the alien turret or of the humans having the ability to get ether. I think the remotes would be better as Drones like the new game than turrets and to me turrets sound more.... deadly since they don't scout they would be primarily gun in placements that would be point less unless they were equal to or stronger then the weapons the alien deploying is using. It makes since that Xcom soldiers would not be able to take control of enemy drones but a turret will operate for who ever has the control. Also stun, drones would make live alien capture too easy for humans and I think it would take away from the game.
I would like maybe fusion grenades for a higher yield weapon so you do more destruction but have a greater chance of killing your guys too and maybe an EMP grenade that reduces TU for human tanks to 0, flight suites and floaters turn off and fall to the ground for a turn and maybe causes laser and plasma weapons to not fire for a turn. That could make starting weapons more useful since they are mechanical however you have to weight that with the lose of firepower and added weight. So instead of just having a heavy plasma you might also carry a standard pistil in case you get EMPed, but that could work for ether race and it would cause them to need to hid for a turn. But in small areas you would all lose good weapons and melee aliens would still have some possible strength end game.
The idea of turret is not that its some ultimate killing machine , its a low energy weapon that would be thrown near enemy combatants ( humans) and it only lives as long as it has energy ( every turn energy is depleted by scanning for enemies and every shot reduced energy also), the idea is this could be a new tactic for the aliens to deploy, not every alien would have one of these hidden within its back pocket , i pictured these mostly reserved for Mutons ( as even in the miniature ( non-deployed) stasis, they would still require some strength to throw). Mutons need some cool toys, they are the Footsoilders of the aliens.
Imagine your a xcom operative , your trying to flank this last alien hiding in a house when he throws one of these babies out the front door, whilst your dealing with the new threat , he steps out behind you and flanks you instead
Also , assuming you would want to allow Humans to develop this tech later, you could force human to only build there own bulky-low energy versions or just make it UN-buildable , its Openxcom people , you can have it how ever you want
Yes floating devices would be more useful in Harvest mission and for any alien who enjoys there meals eaten live
I also want SNakeman Young , i was goign to ask , is it possible to use a similar snakeman sprite and just scale it down LIVE to use as snake man young, that would make it easy as we could just MOD the existing snakeman sprite to have no clothing and you just spawn them smaller