What? When?
The threat of war or an ongoing war are things that really drive technological advancement fast forward, if anything. A lot of the stuff we use today was developed for the military first.
Some weapons were developed and flourished during this period and others have been almost exactly the same since the first world war. Obviously the kinds that would be used in this game would be the stagnant ones.
Weapons in use by the military during the Cold War have totally changed since world war 1. Also, there's a difference between a weapon being developed and a weapon being popular.
What are you talking about? "Their alien nature working against them"? Elaborate, cause that doesn't make sense.
The blob monsters being weak to fire for example... or the robot monsters that are weak to electricity. Both are creatures with weaknesses that stem from their alien nature.
Both weaknesses shared by humanity, hence no advantage to either side.
Also, I guess the electric gun would be totally useless in X-Com 1. If only electricity helped
stun things. Then a ranged weapon that did that would be totally more useful than the stunrod. But alas.
Imagine a spacefaring race that HASN'T mastered faster than light travel, and is just disposed to being very very patient. They send off ships in hundreds of directions, hoping to get lucky, and the passengers deal with what they find when they arrive, but mostly plan on being settlers. Like the military outpost in Pandora, they lose because they aren't prepared for a war, and their best effort still isn't enough.
Like District 9, but the aliens are hostile albeit under equipped and with generally incompatible technology that isn't far beyond what we have now (since we could, in fact, do this same exact thing ourselves now with the technology we have, if we had the desire).
That is perfectly sensible. Even if they HAD sent a scout first, he would have reported a planet with no civilization to get in the way of colonization when he returned! Why would you bother giving a bunch of civilians tons of advanced weaponry when they'd just end up killing each other with it? It's a colony run, after they get fabbers set up they can make their own if needed, but even that would take dozens of years...
And all of this is moot, because the aliens didn't cross a ton of anywhere, they were supposed to be extradimensionals like the Apocolypse kind, and the "attack" could simply be a probing attack to determine "is this area worth invading" (and your job in game is to convince them its not worth the cost)
None of these are really all that far out there for scenarios, and none require the overwhelming force or supertech the other aliens earth would encounter later have.
No. We couldn't do that now. We have troubles sending shuttles to and back from space. Imagine sending out something large enough to sustain itself and the people on board for light years of travel. Just imagine the heating bill to keep people warm when they're out of reach of any sun. And the way we manufacture things right now it couldn't hope to last a hundred years, let alone light years. It'd critically malfunction before it got a hundredth of the way there. And imagine the resources and finances it'd take to make more than one of these. There's just so many things that simply wouldn't work with this plan.
Also, considering the events of X-Com 1 and Interceptor, it'd be a really crappy investment. Like a couple decades later, we've got fast and reliable space travel. Whoever they sent out into a deep space voyage for thousands of years would be easily caught up with.
Alright, so they know how to travel through dimensions. That's actually worse for your argument, cause it suggests they can send more shit without the agonizing wait.
The two of you mention being under-equipped and not having the technology to surpass 50s America. But as far as the gameplay videos have shown, they have advanced beam weaponry, vehicles that alter their own geometry and force fields that'd make the Apocalypse aliens gurgle with envy.
How is 50s USA a match for this shit to the extent where they could contain and cover this up? The very same USA that later couldn't win a war against a bunch of commies hiding around in tunnels with crappy weaponry.