KamPa

No, you just launch interceptors manually through menu option and not by targetting ufos. I've seen that bug and it doesn't seem to be connected solely to this particular weapon. At least I've seen it happen with other stuff, can't really remember what it was though. Somewhat annoying as it doesn't give you any warnings that ufo's have spawned (or construction was finished etc.), some menus/shortcuts aren't working. It seems to fix itself after several ingame hours and spams you with all the missed messages and warnings. Unless that's something entirely different.

In my case it was hotfix 3. And it wasn't really "no research", but tons of different topics that didn't really introduce any new gear. I mean, yes, some new kind of grenades and similar things, but main weapons remained the same for quite a while. After all was researched, there was nothing for couple months and now there are plasma weapons for some reason.

It certainly doesn't work like that for me, it's one core per hangar in my game. Maybe it's a different version of non-modded game, like 1.5 or something? There does to be a research gap of some sort. I have "finished" all of my research and had nothing higher than second tier ballistic/basic lasers, with nothing to research for couple months. All of sudden, Plasma research has appeared for some reason. Don't know if that leads anywhere yet, but even if it does, it's a lather large pause between tiers. Or maybe it takes too long for aliens with researchable weapons to show up.

The problem with fighter dissasembly is that you need separate hangar slots for each one. Unless you have a base specifically dedicated for that purpose, with multiple spare hangars, you have to work on one fighter, wait until it's finished, queue another one. Well, unless there's something I'm missing here.

Grenades are extremely uneven. The ones that produce red smoke (whatever they're called) barely do anything. I mean, sure, if you forget to move your guys away, they start to hurt, but otherwise, they do less damage than getting shot at. Higher ranking enemies carry actual explosives and these are legitimately dangerous, like grenades should be, but this red smoke... nah.

So, what's the deal with green reapers? They keep running around doing absolutely nothing. I have seen them stun civilians couple times, but they don't touch the actual soldiers at all. They can be surrounded and shot at point blank range without much risk... which I suppose is a good thing, because damn, they take a lot of effort to kill. Nearly anything early-mid game seems to be resisted and once you actually start to punch through that armor, they regenerate. It's easier to melee them with stun batons than trying to shoot them. Still, if they actually attacked and were a real threat, they'd be nearly impossible to take down without major casualties. Would need some defensive nerfs, as "normal" reapers go down easily, but these bastards are a nuisance. Also, is it just me or is there never enough Alenium for... well, anything? Building weapons for even a single base worth of aircraft takes dozens of ground missions (and that's not counting what you spend on building the airacrafts themselves). It does seem to get a bit better with bigger ufo's, but still, fighting medium/early heavies with basic weapons is just weird. In contrast, money is trivial. Dissasembling UFOs gives huge amounts of cash, in addition to normal monthly income. It feels like I'm too rich - and that's with airstriking quite a few missions. I could easily cover the entire world with radars and still have tons of spare cash. Unless late game items get much more expensive... but then again, bigger ufo parts sell for more, so there's no difference. Weapon balance was already mentioned. It really does feel like half the weapons are useless. Harridans can snipe you from the other side of the map, whereas your snipers are pretty much a joke. Machines guns do almost no damage while costing majority of TUs to fire. Shotguns... nah, just stick to rifles, longer range, similar damage, won't get you killed by return fire. Pistols are meh, but worth it for shields. Props for making vehicles useful, though. Really helps to have a tank as Harridan bait, being able to take all those nasty shots and fire back doing major damage. Still - is Saviour tank supposed to take more transport space than earlier vehicles? Had to bench one additional soldier to fit it in, which makes me doubt if it's worth it.