Additional ground mission ideas

[FloridaBoy]

The list of mission types that are going to be in X2 sounds great, especially the DEFCON missions. Here some other style missions that might be fun to consider: 

Running the Gauntlet: Your squaddies would basically have to cross a map heavily populated with aliens to an extraction zone. I was thinking that certain landed ufos could be a trap for Xenonauts, and instead of focusing on elimination of the enemy, the goal is to reach safety. Maybe as they approach the crash site enemy reinforcements are sighted and the squaddies are ordered to abort the mission?

Show of Force: This came to mind thinking about the alien pyramids from terror from the deep, and the book starship troopers. With power armor, explosives, jump packs, aliens and destructible terrain, how about late game missions like the opening of starship troopers? Send in the squaddies to target either alien infrastructure or sympathizers with the goal of LEVELING everything. Not the tight corridor fights of the base assaults, but open surface maps. Show the aliens or their allies that the Xenonauts are a force to be reckoned with.

Survive and evade: If/when your transport gets shot down, instead of autoresolve there could be a mission where the surviving injuries squad has to reach a safe extraction point. Seems reasonable the aliens might send a squad to mop up survivors of a targeted attack, especially if they are looking for intelligence on the Xenonauts activity.

Search and Rescue: If/when your interceptors get shot down the Xenonauts could also have to secure crash sites for their interceptors that are destroyed.  Again the aliens could be trying to gather their own intelligence about the Xenonauts and have an interest securing the site. These could be similar to a base defense mission where you deploy in a defensive position, prevent the interceptor from being attacked. Failure could make replacement of the plane take longer, there could also be a few scientists and engineers on site to help with the recovery and they could be killed.

Other ideas?

[Ninothree]

I like the Show of Force idea - I couldn't say how it should be implemented but something along those lines where you get to arm your whole squad with fat explosives and the aim to bring down as many structures as possible. Physical object destruction and collapsing buildings look (to my incredibly untrained eye) like something the game engine can handle. Also, blowing stuff up is fun.  

That line of thinking should be the driver here. Designing different mission types as a variation/relief from the usual. Different objectives that would then you a reason to field an unbalanced squad make-up or play unorthodox tactics. Essentially, a few wildcard missions thrown into the game that are there for the entertainment value. Conversely, if something like the Survive and Evade mission were a ball-ache then you'd probably try quite hard never to have to do it. It would end up as unused game content.

[Rodmar18]

Something we never do in Xenonauts-1: starting a mission at two distant locations on the map. This could be the final stage of a covert exfiltration mission (VIP, sabotage, etc.), or the rescue mission of a crashed craft. The retrieval team would be in less numbers than as usual because of the room spared on board for the retrieved comrades and/or VIPs.

As for the ball-ache routine retrieval missions (after a transport or an interceptor crashed), they could play on very small maps, be fast and straightforward, like a mini-game: the wreckage and entrenched surviving and wounded comrades, an insecure area, and the landing/extraction zone (without the transport model?). You made it quite directly up to there, and you can see your fellow comrades from afar, but you suspect an ambush and have to pass between two clustered areas on both sides between you and them (rocks, trees, buildings). No way to turn around: a small corridor. If you are too slow, the survivors die: they are attacked a few turns after the beginning (presumably, you have to either trigger or draw fire to relieve them).