Remove the limit of 80 items?

[Mr. Quiet]

Aliens not too far from the Skyranger will be facing you with plasma weapons aimed at the doors. Aliens further away will ignore the Skyranger and continue on with the mission.

I like the random TU idea to balance things out. I'm also as gung-ho about this as Blacklibrary is, so give us options, I want to experience both ways. As the Xenonauts creator said, Aliens are tougher and better than your operatives, but you outnumber the aliens in every mission, so you can lose a couple of men and women but still win by the numbers. So I also want D-Day scenarios in my X-COM with 100% TUs, once in awhile.

[BlackLibrary]

Would be interesting if the TUs were tied to the total rank of officers present.  Beat the aliens value (Soliders, leaders, and commanders count) and you get vantage.  Miss it, and they get vantage. 

Alien vantage:  Full TUs. 
XCOM vantage:  Randomized TUs in order of magnitude to the difference between Alien command rank value and XCOM command rank value.

Adds an interesting layer to the game as an -option-.  Makes having ranks on a skyranger matter other than a morale risk if killed.  More over, if you pull of a XCOM Basij (i.e. an officer and 10 rookies), you cede vantage to the enemy.  A dead rookie barely scratches morale though like seeing the XCOM commander go down in round 1 of battlescape.

(Basij is the milia army of the Iranians.  They were known during their early days to be used as fodder to throw down the enemies mouth to keep him occupied.  Boys and old men sent out to find mines or take out enemy positions by hurling themselves at the objective till they ran out of bullets and time...each wearing a plastic key to "heaven".  But I digress.)