Incidentally, for curiosity's sake, can XCOM agents' corpses be set to appear as recovereable loot? I'm thinking of the possibilities of adding an "agent (cover-up) funeral" manufacturing and/or research project that give a few council points or something like that. It would also makes a difference points-wise regarding recovereable corpses and non-recovereable (acid, desintegration, etc).
I quite like this idea but wouldn't it bring quite some issues? Just brainstorming here:
I would assume such kind of job would be done by council cleaners that come afterwards and are the folks dealing with "after action" fixing, they probably would also be both the best equipped to dispose fallen agents corpses and the people behind them most fitting to cover the whole matter up. Cleaners could probably be dealt with or some special rule for agents introduced into fluff but that could stretch a bit believability and/or introduce need for X-Com to secure and then do away with every corpse if it is to look consistent. Which comes with its own issues.
Research project probably wouldn't work. Even if some repetitive research for each corpse could be provided it would probably have to be semi-mandatory (after all if you are tasked with making a decent cover-up story, it'd pay if you do it consistently and on time, no just when you feel like it), continuously siphoning some researchers. And it'd look weird, in a "why our xenobiologists, particle physicists and logistic officers play mortuary workers" way. Same issue if it'd be a workshop project requiring engineers. Not to mention that everyone would need a cover-up, living and dead alike, corpse recovered or unrecoverable. I am not sure if it'd be wise to open a can of worms adding whole intelligence and logistics layer to the game.
What could work without adding too much work is a very, very small, almost instantenously researched one-time "Effective body and evidence disposal" research project which could give one a few points in the council and would be triggered by whatever recovered body. You know, just for fluff.
I won't lie, I am also a bit iffy about inconsistency in what civilians drop corpses and how much they are worth. I'd rather have simply mission points loss adjusted to account for the dead without any corpses that later have to be clicked to be sold acquired (with all relevant research entries added to interrogation) - it would also include monetary loss that way automatically as less points means less pay.
