I must agree in general, this mission is sooo cool in theory and sooo uncool in practice.
The problem is IMHO that roleplay and gameplay aspects of the mission clash with one another, they are completely opposite.
Entering an ongoing battle and rushing to help is great, but your actual chances of saving anyone are minimal. AND its better not to even try.
In terms of roleplay you should rush to help the military, but in terms of gameplay you should hunker down while neutrals are being slaughtered and snipe the enemy while they are coming out once they have already slaughtered everybody you are supposedly here to help. The mission narrative encourage mobility, the map design and spawns havily penalise mobility. Story wants you to save the neutrals, while optimal way to play it is to sacrifice them on purpose.
The most "active" way of fighting on this map I found is hunkering down on the staircase one level above the main base, jumping down, shooting once and immediately retreating back to the level above. And that only with some of my units, others just stay with full movement to reaction fire at anything that manages to get close to the staircase.
You cannot act quickly on this map because:
-spawn placement, distance to the staircases, length of staircases, location of staircases, poor visibility and enemies jumping down from vents - every single one of those things punishes anything that is not camping or playing peek-a-boo and retreating back to safe corner after every shot.
Also, AFAIK this is the issue with how the engine works and it may be impossible to solve, but having enemies and neutrals spawn on top of each other everywhere around the map is good to simulate terror-type missions with aliens chasing down defenseless civilians chaotically running around seeking shelter, while it is a very poor way of presenting a battle between two organised sides. Battles just don't look like that, especially attacks on facilities. Ideally, you would have majority of the attacking enemies near the entrance of the base, while the defending neutrals would have retreated deep into the base. Just to provide a clear example, a mission like that on a simple map with 3 levels (ground, underground 1, underground 2) should IMHO ideally look like that:
- ground level: spawns your forces as they just arrived and a few enemies representing the rear guard of the enemy
- underground 1: spawns only or mainly enemy forces to represent that the attacking side has already conquered this floor
- underground 2: spawns only or mainly neutral forces to represent that the defending side retreated deeper into the base and / or the attacking side did not reach that level yet.
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What could help to improve this mission without any major overhaul:
- broader staircases that provide better visibility and less of a bottleneck.
- staircases ending IN THE CORNER of the base instead of THE VERY MIDDLE OF THE BASE. Right now, when you enter the base proper you are in open space in the middle of four corridors, practically guaranteeing being surrounded from all sides and in the crossfire, and even if you quickly kill everybody around on turn 1, you are still almost quaranteed that there are still enemies close enough to kill your guys first thing their turn if you try to end anybody's turn without retreating back up the staircase
- maybe some spawn points on the ground up top to provide some action earlier and make the neutrals and enemies not spawn so much on top of one another?
- more difficult to code if even possible, but maybe spawn some of the neutrals on turn 2-3 in a corner of the base? That would simulate them having some organised defense and actually improve your chanses of saving anyone. Right now the military and cyberweb seem to spawn randomly on top of each other, half of defenders die the 1st turn as they spawn in front of cyberweb who move first.
- also more difficult, but maybe change the vents so on the bottom level it would be clear where these vents end as without it enemies dropping down from vent exits basically look now like they spawn in a random place out of nowhere.
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EDIT: there is one very cool mission where you hunt exalt(?) together with a SWAT unit and that unit spawns around their car just as you do instead of appearing randomly anywhere. Really immersive stuff, makes it look like you actually storm the enemy hideout together. Using something like this to have at least some of the military spawn in one group away from the cyberweb would really improve how this mission feels.