Was the mission spawned a month after the termination?
Well, I went and quickly went through another in-game month to test this (cheating a bit with CTR+K though to speed up the test) and yeah, it happens during April a few times. I managed to finish the relevant "Terminate the 'X'" research topics during the last days of the previous month except for the Black Lotus, as they refuse to spawn a Cult Base mission. The EXALT had at least 2 Cult Outpost missions, plus one more during the first days of the following month, but I stopped testing at that point.
Too bad though, I believe I missed an unique pistol that sometimes EXALT Masters have during Cult Base missions and above nor I was able to fight (and research) that Armored Car they have, but nothing game-changing.
Also, Reapers, in spite of being obviously aliens, are treated as animals, letting me access "Alien Origins" and thus Promotion 3 early. Is that intentional? Just to know.
It was Dioxine.
I see, I suppose that explains it.
Also, I saw that not-really-subtle cameo of Meridian. It was funny.
Ouch. Fixed.
Note that I didn't try if Alloy vests with shields count, I guess they do. It would help if said missions explained what is considered "civilian" (the "NONE" and "LEATHER" outfits namely), as right now it merely says "unknown").
Well, they're still a bit too obvious... And I wanted to force some missions in nice suits.
I see. Still, I think something that could help a little the player are research-able bigger weapons that can be concealed. I mean, IRL there's stuff like sniper rifles inside totally non-suspicious bags. Or perhaps XCOM agents could carry around violin cases to hide Tommy Guns here.
If you want, you can at least pursue the Syndicate arc, which is finished.
I don't know which one is this though, so far I finished the Hybrid Network research and thus they should start appearing, as well as the Osiron ones, but I haven't found anything about these yet. As for aliens, outside of the occasional UFO with Sectoids, little so far, to the point that I'm not sure if I should bother getting Interceptors when they're available until 1999 arrives.
Can you force a Base Attack mission if you somehow shoot down these minor UFOs?
Maybe, if hw fell. I have never seen this.
Thankfully the mission was able to be completed without issues, the few remaining survivors surrendered.
Funnily enough I found that the Cultists of Dagon tend to fight to the last man in several cases, but that's intentional I guess.
It just provides artificial light, just like flares or streetlamps in cities. It has nothing to do with night vision as such - sufficient light simply dispels darkness.
But does the unit carrying the flashlight a priority target for the enemy units? Or make he/she easier to see (and thus attack) by the enemy as well? That's what I wished to know.
It's actually smaller during the day, but bigger at night.
Figures, it's more or less what I had expected. Thanks for your answers!