I got my first disruptor rifle. It's April the 9th 1999
I still need to research it.
But at this time I already have Blaster rifle, Blackops smartgun with tritabium ammo one of the best LMG, many psychic weapons (flame glove, storm rose, dagon staff, heart crasher staff, psiclones, some skull jacks, psi amps in research) Blackops minigun woth tritanium even scatter blaster and because some guy still need a bit of natural bravery for the tactical neural implant some vibro blade and EMP grenades for pure mechanical targets!. And my main guys are helix knights. (I'm late with hybrids unlucky with captures, with apocalypse (twice they killrd the leaders I have captured), Psychics only after capturing one sectoid leader, I should have waited for an alpha werewolf). I'm a bit late in underwater too because I haven't realized that researching the Deep One communocator was needed.
And collecting money for my first advanced lab.
So when you say you can have them early I wonder what I did wrong