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I think this is really promising, to start in a phase of the game where the alien invasion is still secret. This plays into the whole X-Files style "black helicopter men" mythology that makes the concept of playing as the usual "bad guys" covering up the alien invasion so interesting. And without some kind of DEFCON or other potential conflict between the superpowers, I don't see the point of having the Soviet Union in the setting. It was really underused in the first one and I was hoping that would be rectified here. I really hope some form of this makes it in!

Haha that’s essentially my strategy when playing these kinds of games as well. As I usually want to store all equipment in one base for easy management. Keeping the features of mission restriction can integrate with the added mission types that @Ogilvy the Astronomer suggested. Maybe because you keep shooting down their ships. They instead try to change tactics to better fight your own strategy. Instead of building bases, they started doing vip assassinations using shapeshifters (vip protection), preventing tech sharing (convoy protection), throwing caesan psychics down on Earth using drop pods to mind control civilians in large cities or military bases (killing alien VIP), setting up teleportation stations to directly beam down aliens (destroy their teleportation device to stop their infinite spawning), and directly working with factions or regions that have bad relations to starve Xenonauts of funds (alien meeting assault),... In that case how well you play will directly influence the missions that you can partake in. In addition, I can suggest adding to the game a tech tree of non-lethal weapons to take out human enemies and crazy civilians (who keeps running into reapers and get themselves killed). Maybe an expansion of the shock baton/shock grenade/gas grenade research to give you things like stun guns, psychic powers for your troops, to MIB like Neuralyzers that can suppress the aliens and control the civilians,...

I'd still like it to be a feature where if you shot down UFOs fast enough they can't do certain missions. I for one needed that because I liked to have a lot of fighter bases scattered throughout the world and 1 single large base for storing soldiers. Those other bases NEEDED to be able to shoot down attacking UFOs or else they would be destroyed by base raids. Im very OK with simply making those other two missions you mentioned not require a UFO to start. As long as base assault always needs a UFO and its always somewhat obvious that a UFO is approaching, I'll be fine.

@Comrade I respectfully disagree. I think the integration of geopolitical situations of the Cold War would serve a multitude of purposes. Firstly it will break up the monotony that plague the first game halfway point especially when the player is good enough to shoot down most UFOs and a reason to make more varied mission types. But I do agree that if implemented randomly it can cause the problem of you fighting your “supposed” allies than the aliens. But this can easily be fixed by making the mechanic more rigid with certain factional missions only spawned when some conditions are met. For instance you’ll only have to do them when a region reaches a certain level of “panic”/DEFCON or making them completely optional but will give you huge boosts in income and support from that faction. That would insure those missions only taking up 10% of the total game. Second is the aesthetic and lore purposes. I personally think that a game’s aesthetics contribute greatly to a game. It creates a clear art direction for the environmental storytelling and differentiates your game to others in the same genre. And it can make or break a game. The reason some sci-fi settings gets more love than others is also due to having a unique art direction (Star Wars, Bladerunner and 40k are the more notable examples). One of the things that caught my eyes in the first game was the 70s Cold War aesthetic and the lore behind the Icelandic incident which contrasted to the generic sci-fi of the recent X-Com reboot and Phoenix point. Due to this I hope it can expand this further than just being background noises in the sequel. This is also why I always prefer playing openXCOM mods like War of the worlds and 40k because they have clear distinct art directions. Also why would the game even have backdrop of the Cold War with all that entails when you’re not even going to fully utilize it at all to distinguish the game from its competitors? Thirdly, I think the point of the sequel especially expressed by @Chris is taking and enhancing what’s work in the first game to be more in-depth and interesting while fixing some major drawbacks (the inability to rotate the map, fully destructible ships for ease breaching, better research mechanics and a better geoscape). My suggestion might serve this goal well in the matter of better utilization of the setting while adding some needed flavor to the mission variety.

Depends on the mission of course, and balancing, but some initial ideas include: Improving relations with a particular country. Cash bonus. Stash of equipment (e.g. 10 packs of C4 or equivalent). New Xenonaut recruit (could be a high rank). Unique weapon (maybe just an existing one but with improved stats to avoid new artwork). Armour. Revealing location of alien base. Research boost. Instant research on a particular alien species. Temporary manufacturing time reduction. Preventing a country from defecting for x days (buying you time to reduce panic). Temporarily stopping UFOs flying over a particular region. Gaining more AI allies in ground / air combat in a particular region. New scientist. New engineer. etc.

Actually this was the one part that I hope would change with Xenonauts 2. The dynamic of the Cold War was something woefully underused in the first game and I hope would be more emphasized. The whole MIB aspect could lend to a multitude of ways to deal with civilians on a map like just non lethally taking them down so that they wouldn’t run around like headless chickens and get turned into zombies by the Reapers or standing in the middle of a firefight blocking your shots. Not to mention the tech sharing possibilities. Maybe each bloc of the Cold War can offer different pros and cons for you to choose a side to tech share so that the war against the aliens will not only change the fate of humanity but the course of the Cold War as well. For instance gaining the favor of the Soviet Union by ruining a coup perpetrated by the US with some help of the aliens in exchange for a missile scientist. Or stealing cargo from a GDR convoy for the FDR to gain a some funds and a communications scientist. This will force the player to either play a game of tight rope balancing the power of two sides to avoid nuclear Armageddon or go all out to support one faction to eventually create a united world against the aliens. At the end there could be three different outcome. 1. You help the capitalist side win and collapse the Warsaw Pact 2. You help the communist win and establish a world government 3. You prolong the Cold War further into space