I'm with you on the lack of motion scanners, not that it's a good strategy to not use them, but I'm terrible at using them and always forget about them
I would be careful with using a UFO strategy for Tftd, on my playthrough I went in with that idea (TFTD is just a reskin right?) but I quickly found out that it is a very different game.
I think it's probably best (and more entertaining) to let you figure this out on your own, but I will say... don't be so harsh on your beginning weapons, the dart weapons are trash but the gas cannons & escpecially the torpedo launcher are quite nice and can be used for quite a while.
One more, don't get too excited about the blasta rifle, lobsters are coming...