Strategic advice - cave missions

[TheCurse]

so i really struggle with cave missions, no matter what i try.
is there an advisable strategy / loadout that does not lead to heavy losses if you can't keep the enemy at distance?

My current equipment (miniguns all the way) is seriously at a disadvantage there, yet still the best results i have.
Tried going melee, UAC rifles, sonic pistols, CAWS and some others. Basically if stuff gets to close i keep loosing a bunch of veterans. every time. except if its just a few syndicate guys, thats easy as cake 
but the monsters or certain zombie types really get me.
(Armor is heavy tritanium and some cyber atm)

[X-Man]

I can tell you how I manage such mess usually.
Firstly, throw light to all potential entrances to your positions. Secondly, place your soldiers to the farthest walls opposite entrances, then sit and wait for reaction shoots (I'm always train reaction on 'strange life form' missions, so I never have any serious problems with reaction shoots).
Use a couple of drones for scouting (keep in mind that drones can also spend their stamina for sprint moving). Scanners are also could be of some use. The main weapon is Trasher shotgun (one shoot on short dist kills/stuns any zombie, except guardians and knights; for common monsters CAWS will be enough). Use mines and sensor grenades. You can also  use dogs to grab activated mine or SG and put it farther from your positions, deeper into the cave. If you have enough time you can use pickaxes to enlarge your initial area for more comfortable positioning of your soldiers (if you don't have enough space there). Such preparations should be enough. The other part depends on how well your soldiers trained and, of course, how l(f)ucky random is

[TheCurse]

I see, thx.
Well reaction is out of the play with my usual play style.
Sensor grenades and mines make sense.
But in the end it seems to come down to not letting any enemies come to melee range it seems.
I'd pay 60% TUs for a heavy shield that takes one hand just to have like double armor in front...
Unfortunately that'd be severly exploitable everwhere else since AI pretty sure won't bother walking around you to attack from the back.

[X-Man]

Well reaction is out of the play with my usual play style.

Vanilla-style, where most of enemy troops killed from squadsight shoots 
That isn't good. This mod contains many close-quarter missions, where could be a lot of surprising situations where you can count only for appropriate reaction shots. And one more thing... I'm not sure, but I think that the value of our soldier's reaction decrease chance for enemy's reaction shoots. This is vital for superhuman difficulty, especially with fighting against aliens.

[JustTheDude/CABSHEP]

Vanilla-style, where most of enemy troops killed from squadsight shoots 
That isn't good. This mod contains many close-quarter missions, where could be a lot of surprising situations where you can count only for appropriate reaction shots. And one more thing... I'm not sure, but I think that the value of our soldier's reaction decrease chance for enemy's reaction shoots. This is vital for superhuman difficulty, especially with fighting against aliens.

Reaction Shoots are not part of RNG. It directly depends on reactions of both sides and TU's they have remaining.

[X-Man]

It directly depends on reactions of both sides...

Thanks. As I suspected...

...and TU's they have remaining

Oh, really? 

[TheCurse]

Vanilla-style, where most of enemy troops killed from squadsight shoots 
That isn't good. This mod contains many close-quarter missions, where could be a lot of surprising situations where you can count only for appropriate reaction shots. And one more thing... I'm not sure, but I think that the value of our soldier's reaction decrease chance for enemy's reaction shoots. This is vital for superhuman difficulty, especially with fighting against aliens.

Ironically its quite the opposite for me.
In vanilla i was counting more on reaction fire and usage of nades/rockets, since the first enemies were vanilla sectiods and snakemen. and the maps had a lot less cover that could not be easily destroyed.
Now you may start a mission in sight range of 10+ enemies in various range, they don't just go down with 1-2 rifle shots, so i rather take them down by the masses asap.
if i don't have some really beefy guns, reaction fire won't even do for zombies. yet alone chupas, non-vanilla sectiods or even those how-to-goddamn-kill-them gazers...