[Some thoughts on ground mission grind]

I'm all for careful movement and all that too. I tend to move carefully and still have the occasional what I'd consider to be lucky reaction shot and whatnot take someone out. I kind of just accept that in conflict there are going to be losses and it's unrealistic to expect otherwise, and don't overdo the caution to keep my mission lengths reasonable.

I think a big difference is map design and alien deployment. In new XCOM the maps are designed to be less about hide and seek (compared to say, Silent Storm at the opposite end of the spectrum where tediously looking for that last machine gun wielding dude in a closet can take forever). The "pod" thing and how aliens scatter to cover in XCOM means you usually deal with succinct battles of a tight scope - as someone else said, little tactical puzzles, where how you move on the large scale matters but the little battles are what really count and it's more about resolving those battles than meticulously scouring maps for that one straggler. You still have to move around the map carefully (mostly to avoid popping too many pods at once since that's very bad) but it's more about exposing the next battle area than it is to carefully avoid that one hidden mob from wrecking someone.

The pod thing in XCOM if you haven't played it enough is basically this. When you encounter aliens they are usually in groups that are just chilling, and as soon as you encounter them they scatter, usually into cover - THEN combat begins with your people acting first. So you almost never get the drop on them and they don't get the drop on you, and assuming you're moving your people from cover to cover and they scatter to cover, both sides basically start in decent locations and it's kind of a fair fight - which in some ways is cool, and in some ways it's kind of goofy, but it does do away with the "one dude in a closet with a machine gun" offing someone blindly thing.

In Xenonauts the aliens can seemingly be anywhere so there's always that chance of running in to one where you least expect it - which is very different from new XCOM.

Side note - Long War mod for XCOM makes the tactical much better IMO and shows how good that type of system can be (although the overall kick in the nuts difficulty of LW is a bit much for my tastes and other people I know who've tried it couldn't take it at all). LW still has the pod thing but mixes in more patrolling aliens and calls for help that can spice up battles into the realms of super nasty.

[is there an easy way to remove equipment from unassigned soldiers?]

I try to take gear off my people then remove them from squad, although I seem to get plenty of people injured enough to autoremove them from squad and they require their own cleanup.

I don't understand your problem at all. If I were you, I would go to equipment screen, select "Unassigned" group, click on the first soldier on the list and then go "Next" (there is a button for that or I believe you can use mouse wheel?) until I find the soldier with desired weapon. How long would it take? 30 seconds to minute max?

There are ways to deal, for sure, but that doesn't change the fact that the system could be better. That 30 to 60 seconds for every mission you run adds up to a lot of wasted time that could be eliminated with better design. One major element of computers is efficiency, eh? Maybe since I'm a programmer I expect more...could be. The game has the whole default loadout feature which is very cool and saves you a lot of time and hassle - it's not really asking for much more to have an equally slick way to deal with unequipping gear!

Play style is also possibly a factor. My troops get hurt and sit out and/or I rotate people doing missions so I'm having to juggle gear every time out.

Another simple solution would be to have any soldier in unassigned drop their limited supply gear (or make it an option for this to happen since some apparently enjoy pain).

[Suggestion for soldier loadout UI]

I don't know if it's the perfect idea but it would be nice if there was some easier way to get actual gear on people doing missions without having to go thru and strip gear off people not going on missions.

I either have people injured or I'm rotating people fairly often and it's something that could be less clunky (like I think the default loadout thing is a great addition so it's odd that there's no equally slick way to deal with the issues you get from limited quantity gear).

Even the sloppy "free up gear" button from XCOM would be helpful - more so than manually going thru unassigned to strip gear or creating new roles that feature no/older gear.

PS - I wish the "roster" was larger on the soldier screen too - it's goofy to be scrolling constantly and have the list take up maybe 30% of the screen with so much screen available. I'm on a PC, not a phone. It has a certain style but I'm more into function. Not to mention I wish that when I sorted lists they'd stay sorted. I'm surprised none of these bits have been modded.

[Our Next Big Game: Pathfinders (Working Title)]

Sounds interesting. I'm old school and love well done TU-based systems but I really like the "new" XCOM system too (after being against the idea of it on general principles before trying it). I think the system is very strategic with limited resources and the final results come out pretty much the same with how the movement and shooting go. I also like the RPG lite perk system that lets you develop your soldiers a bit more (than just stat increases). The perks can somewhat replace the snap/normal/aimed shot bit along with class setups. I also like how inventory and ammo are done. Limited inventory makes what you deploy with much more strategic and impactful (moreso than loading everyone down with everything) and lack of individual clips for guns really doesn't matter since the time spent and timing of reloading is what really matters strategically.

The Long War mod for "new" XCOM makes many parts of that game considerably better and show how powerful that kind of system can be (it just goes a bit beyond insane difficulty-wise for some of us - but that kind of thing can be tweaked).

I've been thinking for a while that it's shame that "new" XCOM is the only game using that engine - and that it'd be cool to see some other them visited with it (something along the lines of SS or JA or SOMETHING) so hearing the idea for this game sounds pretty cool to me (not using that engine per se but doing something similar).