This is bad game design, it should not work like this.
As alternative, maybe replace the whole idea with a dedicated project for STR_STAFF_009, which unlocks when both STR_ZSSR_GANGER and STR_CHIEF_ENGINEER_CONTACT are researched?
Because it's an item on a long getOneFree list you get from an enemy (in this case, STR_ZSSR_GANGER). It's not supposed to be researched in any orderly way. The STR_STAFF_XXX line are worthless, (supposedly) humorous articles that make it harder to get the important stuff and to give you a reason to interrogate low-level enemies. And every STR_STAFF_XXX is a report/gossip from a member of your staff, and some members are recruited later, so I can't make STR_STAFF_XXX with these people because they could appear before you even meet them.
By the way, can you elaborate why it's bad game design? I sort of feel the same, but I can't define it properly.
Probably not very hard. But...
1/ As I said above a topic should not disappear and then reappear, people would just keep selling STR_ZSSR_GANGER, because they know (at least to their best knowledge) it can't tell them anything new.
It shouldn't be a problem, because you can get these things from many enemies, including later ones. So it doesn't matter if you sell early game enemies, unless you research completely all the enemies in the game and then some new Ufopedia article appears. So, not an issue.
2/ As a modder you probably know that the whole research-related ruleset is really buggy (probably the last place in OpenXcom with serious known bugs). "Requires" doesn't work at all, "getOneFree" works only sometimes and "Dependencies" and "Unlocks" has some funny effects too. If I would touch it, I would probably rewrite it completely. And that would break all non-trivial mods, which use all sorts of workarounds and hacks to achieve desired functionality (because I would of course not support hacks and workarounds, or at least not in the same form). We are in a deadlock situation here...
Well, I understand... If the system can be rewritten better, then I personally think it's worth to update mods for it, but it's not a subject for now. So, if this doesn't happen, it's perfectly understendable, for many reasons. But I'm hoping for a hack here, too.
