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Just a thought, but something that might be kinda interesting to implement would be something of a "friendship" meter for units that progressively increase over time as the soldiers fight together on numerous missions and have minor affects on things such as morale, accuracy, and possibly even affect certain actions that units could take in desperate situations. For example, if a certain soldier consistently is on missions with another soldier and tends to be within close proximity of each other during combat (say for example a shotgun wielder and a grenadier who provides cover with smoke or stuns during infiltrations), they would acquire a "friendship" bonus on future missions that they continue to partake in together. This bonus could be an increase in morale or a reduction in lost morale when within a certain range of each other. And inversely, morale loss could be increased when the soldier that they have a higher friendship with falls in combat (and this loss could be lingering for some time after the mission as well, especially if a soldier's friend were to fall in a mission that they did not partake in, as one would assume would be the case in any war where a friend is lost in battle). If implemented, this system could even further advance the friendship concept by adding something of a free "inspiration" action that could occur when two units with high friendship perform a certain action within range of each other. Such things could be a coordinated attack option if two infiltrators are advancing simultaneously which would increase both units' accuracy and damage output when moving together, or even possibly inspire a free action if one of the soldier's friends is under fire and in a bad position such as covering fire to help their friend escape from a pinned position or even throwing a smoke/stun grenade at the attacker to inhibit their barrage. And a step further still, this friendship bonus could potentially be implemented in a way that when a soldier falls in combat while on a mission with a friendly unit, the fallen soldier has a higher chance to be revived after the mission is complete as if through some gushy bond of friendship that inspired the fallen soldier to give life one last chance so as not to leave his comrade behind. Just food for thought, I'm sure there are many other ways this system could be implemented to further add to the realism affect of a war simulation game and add some more relatable human traits to the otherwise seemingly robotic soldiers.

Right now, does any rank and title have any usefulness in the game ? I guess not but i may be wrong. Ramk could: Improve post mission permanent stat boost. Give temporary combat stat boost during combat whena lower rank is near (adjacent tile)a higher ranked. IE if a simple soldier is near its seargeant (proximity to be tweaked) it gain some boost. Not only because his sarge is a good guy, but because he receive direct orders and "know better" what to do. Right now my team consist of a bunch of majors and one commander and it stroke me how i had no inclination to switch anyone to a rook at the possible cost of one of my elite... i prefer to risk all my elites then to tag rookies along for "future damage mitigation". Such switch already happens with wounds occurs, or even a death. But if i did have a chain of command that boosted my lower buddies i would risk more. I dont know, like the cool medal system, make the rank sistem usefull in some way.

here's my idea, a little something just to make the higher difficulties even worse. Add a line of to code or two to the ai scripting that does the following: If (non-supressed, visible hostile forces within sight radius of this unit - non-supressed Friendly forces in same range) x panic modifier > Bravery, unit panics and either freezes up or tries to flee, regardless of what you or the AI tell them to do. each race would have a base modifier, that the game tracks. Armor would reduce the panic modifier, better the armor better the reduction. riding around in a tank reducing it to 0. bleeding wounds, low HP, or Critical HP could increase it. suppression level influences whether you run or freeze up. Run away? blow all your ap moving in the direction with the least hostiles, regardless of what the player/ai told you to do. Freeze up? reduced to half ap. normal reaction. Freeze up while suppressed? reduced to one quarter ap. suppressed reaction. Freeze up while suppressed repeatedly? reduced to one quarter ap. suppressed reaction. cumulative 5% chance of being removed from active duty after mission due to PTSD therapy. Because when outnumbered, cowards rarely keep calm and stick around, even those who consider them self brave start to get a bit shaky.

So I just reacted to my first terror mission in the campaign, and it didn't go so well. I lost several squaddies trying to leave the chopper, as there's seven reptilian aliens hunkered down around it pouring fire on us. I managed to kill a few on the first turn, so there was still a strong chance I'd be able to make it through this. Second turn starts, every single one of my soldiers but one panics. He takes a shot at one of the aliens, misses, okay. Just had to hope for better luck next turn. Aliens kill another soldier. Third turn starts. Every single one of my troops is now panicked or fleeing. I lose another troop on the third alien turn. My fourth turn starts. Every one of my troops is still panicking or fleeing. Fifth turn, sixth turn, etc, etc .. (I'm posting this here on the general discussion forum and not on the bug forum because this is clearly just a balancing issue, and we're not in the balancing phase right now. Just thought it funny and wanted to share my experience )

I don't know if this is already a part of the game, but I would like to suggest that higher rank soldiers should have an "aura" that boosts the bravery score and decreases morale loss within a certain range. This effect would not start until a certain rank The range and power of this effect would increase as rank increases Optional: if a high ranking soldier is killed, the soldiers in their usual range suffer an increased loss of morale due to a leadership vacuum EDIT: just read the Frequent Requests post and realized this is already a feature. Yay! Sorry about the redundancy