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I think you've hit the nail on the head when you say this would make the soldier progression boring / non-existent; I understand your argument but I think most players would prefer to watch their soldiers grow and develop rather than just being at full effectiveness right from the start of the game and therefore both interchangeable and expendable. This is something that would be very easy to mod if you'd like to play that way, by the way (I just suspect the gameplay experience that results won't be very enjoyable). There's also some problems with having aliens that take quite a few shots to kill, for example overwatch fire is basically pointless if the aliens can't be killed in one or two shots because then they can still burst through a door and kill one of your soldiers even if you have half your team facing the door with TU available. A lot of people complained that the late game in Xenonauts 1 was less interesting because the enemies were more bullet-spongey than at the start of the game and I think there was some merit in their argument; I have noticed recently that the original X-Com has much faster and deadlier combat. So, yeah, I get your point of view but I feel the artificiality is justified by the more interesting gameplay it generates.