Now its possible to make aircraft a crafting material
!, my suggestion is to use interceptor to build raven but lessening a lot the cost, but increasing the Alien Alloys cost in order to balance.
I have found that money its not a problem after march-april , i have three bases and im swimming in money after selling a lot of stuffs from missions and crafting a few stuff in order to inject cash to my pockets, so i suggest increasing a little the cost int early tier projects, for example the alloy vest cost the same as personal suit, i would suggest increasing the cost of the later, im okay with the fact they cost the same AA (because personal suit is unlocked after the advanced cutting thingy so its logical that after they found a better way to cut AA they found more efficient ways to use it) , but they cost the same cash price and that feels kind of dull, there should be some kind of "decision punishment" stuff deciding if you want to standarize the suits over the vest, just think about the "BATSUIT"...is not worth to make all infantry use 200 k clothes..but maybe officials or key soldiers!, because money its not a problem its not so HARD decision, but increasing the cost will make the alloy vest find a niche use in your troops, a cheaper alternative to better protection because the personal suit is already superio in every single way.
I found the HMG being completely useless, in my mind, they are suposed to be used mostly in base defense, sitting down inmobile in bottle necks, spitting tons of bullets against enemies, but instead they are way to heavy to even shoot no matter what you try, i suggest reduccing their wheight, so soldier could just carry them across the map and settle down in some point and then wait until the next turn to shoot (imagine they have to arm the tripod and stuff), i had guys with 70+ str and still being unable to shoot it because they require way too much TUs and because they are too heavy, it ends eating a lot of TUs from soldiers, also if the tu cost is enough to cut half the TUs aviable from a soldier in half it should ever feel a lot more "LOGICAL", i hope you understand what i mean.
Also there is a new feature to allow starting units to being edited...i suggest increasing their stats...why? because just starting the game you have to face your first question...ignore all the early ufos landings until you get more troops, or risk your more precious soldiers for money but having the possibility of get them wipped out of your ranks...also because there is the "first to serve" medal , i feel there should be some additional need to protect them other that a "flashy unique medal" you know?,
they are the first to serve because they are the most fitting soldiers they found sounds very fitting and logical.
also as just veeeeeeery veeeeeery personal taste...i hate the "recruit" and "squaddie" terms, i always edit it to being called RECRUITS and PRIVATE because it feels way more militar-ish and also its pretty normal that most of your troops its compossed from privates(they are the backbone of any army anyway).