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[NUKE9.13]

I'm not sure we need more Plasma Rifles that badly. I mean, yes, giving all our troops rifles would be best, but I think other improvements would have a greater impact.
Upgrading our rifles with more attachments is something we should do at some point, although again, I think improved psionics or literally any armour would be better.

The Mental Feedback revision I posted would indeed use our psionic prisoner token. It's not like we can't get more. Unless you expect to be using it in a design in the near future, we might as well use it now, rather than waste it doing nothing.
Codices are definitely high-tier aliens, I'm not sure we can deploy them yet.

I don't think another base is a good idea. Entirely new bases are Very Hard- better to expand an existing base. I mean, our belt base got a four, so there's room for improvement there. Increasing the VP production by 1 point is definitely within the scope of a revision. As for UP, we can gain that by launching Harvest missions.

[Kashyyk]

I would back infantry armour. As previously stated, survivability is our issue currently.

[TopHat]

This ended up quite long so sorry about that. Re-reading the battle report I think most of the X-Com soldiers survived their Skyrangers crashing; it mentions that we quickly overwhelmed the squad that landed safely and were then beaten back by the others. It may well be that the power armour helped protect some of them on landing.

For night missions - remember X-Com have already deployed new sensors which are probably designed to detect skin crawlers and most likely will work at night as well. On the other hand, our sectoids would be unhindered and night vision for our other forces should be fairly easy (several revisions rolled into a design?). Plus those sensors probably have an EP cost.

The problem with oyr psionics if I remember correctly is that they lack range; more powers won't help here. We may be able to revise a Sectoid with a greater capacity for the gift using our token though, which may help alleviate this.

Infantry armour would be nice if we can get it for free; we'd need more EP to make full use of it otherwise. Remember that our aircraft will lose against Talons without AAA missiles and out ground will lose to power armour with no rifles; both require EP.

[NUKE9.13]

Hmm. We could design a Sectoid Commander at some point. But is the problem with our psionics a lack of range?

And yeah, infantry armour would need to cost 0EP, which is why I asked ebbor whether that is plausible. If it isn't, then we'd be better off doing something else- a revision to the Asteroid Belt Base to increase its production would be my preference.

[Shadowclaw777]

Just do what the Mutons do and have sub-dermal alloy plating or the integrated armor as it is referred; a buggy roll can hinder mobility of a unit or its skirmishing potential

Also that’s the point of like the Plasma Rifle Production Line; or maybe one for AAA Drones; to gain additional uses of them without spending points, or having a reduction like a 33% reduction would lead to getting three rifles/missile drones out of two points spent

[NUKE9.13]

And integrating sub-dermal plating into existing species is going to be as cheap and easy as slapping together some primitive light armour?

[TopHat]

Just re-read the thread and stopped to link all the turns in case it proves useful for anyone. Our designs are listed, with the rolls in brackets beside them.

Spoiler: turn index (click to show/hide)

Turn 1:
- Design: Dark Side of Moon base (6), Scout Drone (6)
- Deployment: Base fleshed out.
- Battle: Reversable Mind Merge. (8+1)

Turn 2:
- Design:Light Fighter (4)
- Deployment
- Battle: Sectoid Strengthening (5)

Turn 3:
- Design: Major Fighter Improvements (Medium Fighter) (5), Recruit Collaborators (7)
- Deployment:
- Battle: ECM (3). X-Com deploy railguns.

Turn 4:
- Design: Skin Crawlers (6-1)
- Deployment:
- Battle: ECM fix (4+1). Start of unusual psionic activity.

Aside: Contest victory, fluff snippet.

Turn 5:
- Design: Lesser Muton (3-1)
-Deployment:
- Battle: Elder's Scorn (5). First contact with EXALT. Psionic Signal in Egypt, Missile Base in France.

Turn 6:
- Design: Medium Scout (7-1).
-Deployment:
- Battle: Defensive Plasma Wave (5).

Turn 7:
- Design: Alien Air-to-air missile (4)
- Deployment:
- Battle: Plasma Rifle (7-1). First appearance of the Talon.

Turn 8:
- Design: Asteroid Belt Base (6-2)
- Deployment:
- Battle: AAAv2 (3)

Turn 9:
- Design: Muton (6-1)
- Deployment:
- Battle: AAAv2.2 (7+1). First appearance of power armour.

r.e. psionics - I think it was mentioned somewhere that our sectoids can't use the gift if they're picked off at range. So survivability or range shortening would help.
r.e. armour: thinking it over, whilst Cheap armour could probably be made to stop bullets I doubt it would help much against railguns. Integrated armour for Sectoids may be better than external armour; it'd likely use UP rather than EP and sectoids are the unit we're most likely to field it on anyway. This would come at the cost of versatility however.

[NUKE9.13]

For armour, I figure it works the same as in the XCOM videogame- armour increases health, so even 'bad' armour will still increase survivability. I'm not sure if that's actually how things work here, though.

Speaking of psionics, I wrote up an idea that might get around the range issue:

Psimine: We are continually beset by XCOM operatives, who we are forced to concede are incredibly talented soldiers, equipped by remarkably ingenious engineers. Our forces regularly find themselves outgunned by the Earthlings and their primitive but effective weapons. One area where our superiority is unmatched, however, is psionics. Yet we are under-utilising this advantage, using only relatively simple intelligence-gathering and ally-boosting abilities. It is high time we upgraded our arsenal.
What are a psion's weaknesses? Well, getting shot is a major one. So avoiding that would be great. Unfortunately, most psi-abilities require line of sight, meaning a risk of getting shot is inherent. Not so with the psimine, an ability capable of crippling foes without having to lay eyes on them.
A Gift-user imbues an object with psionic energy, then leaves it somewhere enemies are likely to stumble across it. When they do, the interference of their own psionic field destabilises the pent up energy, resulting in a burst of randomised psionic waves, which depending on strength (of both the psimine and the target's mental defences) will cause anything from a headache, through major confusion/panic, up to total psionic overload resulting in serious intracranial damage (in turn rendering the target unconscious, comatose, or even dead if they are especially weak).
A user may create a number of psimines at once, determined by their psionic potential (as each active mine creates a small drain on psionic energy). Any object may be turned into a psimine- rocks, corpses, doors, etc. Tying the psimine to an object this way makes it harder to detect (should XCOM ever develop psions of their own), and allows for makeshift 'psi-grenades'.
We have tested psimines on our psionic prisoner in order to maximise the damage they cause- using the unusually strong feedback they provide to tweak the creation method so that even a standard Sectoid is capable of creating psimines that can easily cripple an untrained human.