And for Eurosyndicate missions: are you supposed to lose score on the order of ~1000 no matter if you capture everyone, kill everyone, or a mix?
What are the consequences of "not complying" with the mission assignment in the first place? Does the Syndicate attack your base? Stop selling you their guns? Actually cut your funding (since all funding changes by country normally seem to be random)?
You'll always take a hit on a syndicate mission but if you capture as many as possible that reduces it quite alot (neural whips are awesome and even destroy terrain because the 70 plasma damage doesnt have a 0.0 Tile modifier). Even govt forces you get +10 points per capture instead of -20 to -30, or whatever it normally is.
Most of my ES missions hit me for -650 points. Story wise you're taking a hit because everyone knows you're the Syndicate's hitmen on call and nobody likes that, thats a bad reputation because it means you can be called up to go kill anyone, including government people.
Since they're also giving you 250,000 per hit they take that negative score and apply it to your funding - since they're already paying you for actual contracts every month (in my experience most of the ES missions take place in the ES or around it, which means that negative score hits you right in the ES territory).
If you dont take the mission you take a bigger hit, and you dont have those 10 briefcases full of cash to compensate for it.
In a way it could be considered a boon to take these missions even because of the hit, if you're doing enough research and hitting other places then your score is still going to be 5000+ at the end of the month. Because of that 250 grand payoff which is pretty much guaranteed every month. However access to the laser weapons does balance this out.
The only downside is these missions are
bretty tough for midgame. Unless you're willing to dump baby nukes, or you're willing to take the time to use mortars, this is about the same toughness as an alien base attack. I receive wounded every time - even though I blow away the main building as soon as I find it. And when you get military police involved, they roll at least one Tank at you. Thankfully ive got Plasma Rockets and grenade launcher plasma now so I dont have to waste my baby nukes.
