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I've had a look through and no on has quite covered this precise mission, I apologies if this would be better fitted into another thread though. So I arrived at a terror mission to overwhelming Alien presence. I was able to kill a couple without loses, however my only option now is to try and rescue civvies by knocking them out and carrying them (don't know if this works as the rescue team got killed) which is when the thought hit me. Why not for terror missions only introduce a low AP cost command (or even simply proximity triggered retreat on easier difficulties) to tell civvies you've approached within a certain number of tiles to run to the chopper. That way you can grab the alien gear/corpses nearby and leg it while rescuing a small number of civvies. There is an issue of chopper weight but considering that they grab tonnes of loot each mission that would exceed a few civvies. Also, something has been bothering me about night terror mission and that is the lack of street and traffic lights at night, some buildings have mains power lights but all street lamps and other buildings have none. Perhaps low light (so no or even less effective than flares) emergency lighting in a super market or bank (maybe just the counter room?) since the bank I believe has the working lamps anyway. Some low ambient street lighting, or flickering lamps would add to polish and immersion of maps. Not sure how practical the second is, or of an easy way to implement beside remaking the maps. Unless it could be done through an updated tile-set to avoid remaking maps? Similar could be done for ambient sounds suggested elsewhere? Sorry if I'm not clued up on how the map maker works.

So, I saw a post that mentioned escort missions, and it got me thinking: How could there be a system to order civvies around? Get them out of your hair, save them from being cut down in a crossfire, etc. I thought of one, and instead of posting it all to that same thread (where it wasn't entirely on topic) I decided to post it here. So, the commands would all involve the civvies going "somewhere else", whether it be in a direction for a distance (think vectors, direction and magnitude), to a point (like our troops are controlled, by clicking the destination), to the chopper, or whatever. Once a command was issued, the civilian would have a % chance to follow the order, otherwise they would ignore it (if the % chance fails horribly, they could even become panicked or something). Morale would play a part in that % chance, so how you are doing in the match, what ranked officers are present, etc (normal morale stuff) would play a part in how cooperative they are. The system I had in mind for the soldiers actually issuing the commands could be put into/assigned to a "weapon/item," like a megaphone.(This would eliminate the need for the devs to add a new universal action that troops can do. I think it would be simpler.) The megaphone could be more effective the higher the rank of the user is, meaning that if a major issued a command, the % chance for them to follow the command would be better than if a rookie gave the order. Another bonus with giving orders requiring an item, is that not everyone could give orders whenever they wanted, making it more of a specialized role that really requires you to want/need to have the civilian move. This is because you would need to switch your weapon to the megaphone to use it. That way it could be somewhat auto-balencing, meaning you couldn't just issue orders willy nilly. As for the actual command system (like, what the orders consist of and how you give them), I have 2 ideas. The first (I'm calling it the Vector method) could be something like: use megaphone, click on civilian, pick a direction (north, NE, east, SE, south, etc.), then choose how many steps/squares to move (1 step, 5, 10, or all their TUs will allow.) So, "head north for 5 steps" would be the idea. If they ran into something/someone while moving they would just stop. Another way to issue orders (I'm calling this the "Pick a Destination" method) could be: use megaphone, click target, then click where you want them to go (basically just like how you would control your own troops). There would (obviously) be a limit to how far they can go, based on TUs. (They would probably have less TUs than Xenonauts, but now that I think about it civvies may already have TUs incorporated, seeing as they move around and do stuff.) Either way the orders work, there could (maybe should) also be a "Hide" button (stay away from enemies, find a corner out of the way and sit there) and a "Get to da choppa!" button, where they would head in the direction of the chinook, until they arrived (I haven't figured out where they would be in relation to the chopper once they arrived. Maybe they could just be "hiding underneath the belly", and simply vanish. Otherwise, they could block motion around the chinook, and that would be bad.) This could get them out of the way of the firefights, and maybe even allow them to be brought with you if decide to abort the mission and high tail it outta there (leading to less points lost for civilians killed. Maybe positive points even, for saving them.) Using the megaphone would use up TUs, like a regular item. There could be more TUs required for the more precise "Vector" or "Pick a Destination" commands, whereas the "Hide" or "Get to da choppa!" commands could require less TUs, as they would require less time to say. I really have no idea if this could even be implemented, and am not really expecting it. I just think that it could add a very interesting and potentially very useful facet to gameplay. Please comment on how good an idea you think it is, and please explain why you think so. Thanks!