More missions where non-lethal weapons are required will bring more variety.
Exactly. And again, xcom starts as an INVESTIGATIVE BEURU, yet they very much perform like a hit squad for swat or something. Even with farmers, you can light up every person with a hail of lead, and face minimal consequences. A small town situation with xcom, saving hostile civilians from the aliens, and themselves, with JUST enough news coverage to look VERY nasty for xcom if they killed everyone, but not enough to put xcom under would be interesting, not to mention the pressure between not having your squad wiped from not shooting a young woman for stabbing your troop in the throat with a combat knife nor being shot with a plasma pistol totting sectoid, and trying not to gun down civilians on presumably live news coverage.
Around promotion 2, with Kevlar or armor, this would be a pheasable mission, with very high risk, very high reward early on (compared to promotion 3 and arial combat to shoot down UFO's)
It would also give the player a chance to use alternative tactics, like smoke screens to rush with tazers, using a tonfa and pistol together, and being calculated about overwatch / attacks
This was an element I really liked about piratez (a sharp guy with a 50 cal pistol? Do you try and capture him, risking a massive hole in you, or kill him and face the consequences of the government jumping down your throat for killing a CEO? Pick your poison) in that you really need to calculate between multiple risks and try to take the best course of action amid a shit show. Sure, you could indeed kill a few civilians, even all of them, but with camera crews watching, it would be very rough to explain, and xcom would be on trial for "police brutality" almost.
Even better if there was a brainwashed VIP there (a pastor, buisnessman, ect) who was the aliens target, and capturing / killing him would hold a very large stake in the outcome of the mission, with capturing giving xcom IMMENSE credit, and killing would make xcom out to look like a secret government hit squad, while aliens would look like benevolent protectors. I think it would be a superb mission that doesn't boil down to "more cultists, more guns, more daka!", like the current arch of most missions.
I'm not entirely sure how to make more discreet missions, but this was supposed to be inspired by the x-files right? I don't recall the x-files involving so many gun fights.
GRANTED, it IS your project solair, and I'm not trying to shit on it at all, its my favorite mod in a while! But I think a few missions that evolve past "shoot bad guys to win" would bring something good to the mod. Especially when capturing is mostly optional, beyond a 1 time capture per rank, it would be nice to get a more anal approach now and then for "alright, we NEED to capture this person alive, or there will be hell to pay".
Remember, just as police cannot go around shooting everyone who is a perceived threat, I think xcom in certain situations (at least outside cultists) should be held to the same standard : expected to use less than lethal means of force, to de-escalate, and solve problems with minimal destruction or loss of life.
...except for cultists, you know. Fuck those guys
. And farmers... Because they are very isolated anyway.
As for how the media would perceive it, perhaps they would see it as a "cult" in the town, speaking with strange creatures, unaware the "cult" is actually brainwashed townsfolk, and the strange creatures are nefarious aliens....they only have to go off of what they see happen, and if this is xcom killing off everyone, this will look very bad.
