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[Kagus]

It's probably just their natural fur coat.  These are genetically engineered/modified monstrosities, after all.

Clothes aren't genetic, unless you're modifying the textiles before stitching all them suits together. *Alien Suit Stitching Division*

Normally not genetic, no, but considering all the other junk they've bio-manufactured?  Hell, why couldn't they design a species that grows a navy blue business suit once they reach maturity?

Also. Remember those green metal pods from the intro? What do they actually do? It was fairly ambiguous IMO.

Pretty much the only use I saw was for goobering civvies and making them easy for pickup (and for Thins to stick needles into, for some reason).  Which, really, is a hysterically inefficient method of doing things.

But in all honesty...  How much of the background and atmosphere was particularly well fleshed-out in this title?

[USEC_OFFICER]

It might just be a kind of uniform, seeing as they're all identically equipped with the same outfit. Alternatively it's so that they look more like civilians, which would give them some more tactical options that wouldn't appear in the game.

Perhaps the Aliens could mistake business attire for having more meaning than, "I sit in an office and type all day," but its doubtful. Making themselves appear to be human civilians offers zero tactical options on a battlefield while fighting against XCOM operatives and presumably normal soldiers, which they know they're going to end up doing when assaulting cities. Maybe early on we might have mistaken them for humans and been punished for it in a token engagement or two, but midway into the battle for Earth's survival, when we've been killing these losers for months? Yeah, right. And its not like they're trying to fake it in the first place either, what with diving around and jumping and crap whenever you see them. Another thing, if they all look exactly the same (which is to say, they do), how hard would it honestly be to simply hunt their asses down when they try to infiltrate our cities? If they were only infiltrating our cities before and during the beginning of the invasion, having realised that their disguises no longer work, why do they still wear the suits into normal engagements? Do the Aliens have a thing for Men's Wearhouse or something?

The engagements in XCOM take place in very close quarters, where it's easy to identify who's friend and who's foe. But at longer ranges it'd be harder to tell the apart from actual civilians, especially if they aren't jumping and vaulting all over the place, but instead are cautiously making their way through the city. At the very least it'd buy a few precious seconds of time as the soldier wonders if that's an civilian or a Thin Man. Plus imagine the hysteria that would be caused if XCOM intentionally killed an innocent civilian? Given how easily the people in this game get scared (1 terror from an abduction mission, really?) it would be a lot.

Given the Thin Men's ability to jump down from the sky, I imagine that hunting them all down would take too much time and effort. You can't check every single person each day to find out whether they're an alien or not. Takes up too much manpower, especially given how acrobatic the Thinmen are (though obviously only in areas where they can't be seen).

I could continue arguing about the fashion choices of the Thin men, but we both know the real reason: They're modelled heavily off of Slenderman, and Slenderman wears a goddamn suit.

[GlyphGryph]

Maybe they just honestly like the suits?

In game, at least, we know the Ethereals let the sub-races keep several examples of creative expression. Take the mutons and their tattoos and elaborate armor decorations, for example.

[EnigmaticHat]

Alright, so I failed my little self imposed challenge.  But not for the reasons you guys suggested.

The bottleneck was not alloys.  If there's anything I'm good at, its working with very little; I only manufactured 6 suits of skeleton armor and 5 laser rifles.  The remainder of our arsenal was made up of minor equipment like medikits as well as gear captured from the aliens.  Maybe this would have been a bad idea in the long term, but we were facing down cyberdisks and berserkers without casualties (well, usually.  None of the important soldiers died, although many were wounded).  The remaining enemies would have either have no more health than a cyberdisk or be vulnerable to HEAT ammo, so I think we could have gone to the end of the game provided we kept the experienced soldiers alive.  Especially our ONE psychic soldier, a support colonel.  Losing her would have been the end.

The main bottleneck was actually research time.  I beat the alien base with good gear and a relatively safe world, but then found myself facing down 3 months of research.  I needed the three techs required to build a firestorm, the hyperwave beacon, and I really wanted LPRs (I'd stolen 6 of them) and plasma cannons for the firestorm.  And of course firestorms take two weeks to build.  While I did fail a terror mission, I ALSO managed to get lucky and catch an abduction craft, and I only ever failed that one terror mission.  This is definitely doable; if I try this again I'll go Europe and build multiple laboratories and workshops in the place of the satellites I usually build.  I don't need instant autopsies and interogations, because all I really need from is a little research credit from sectoid, floater, and maybe muton interrogations.  I might trim some more fat off my army; maybe I'll skip lasers or something.  Or I could go normal mode.  I do have one vital question: does taking down the Overseer UFO give panic reduction the way the alien base does?  Because that would be WONDERFUL.

For anyone who wants to try this, I have a few tips.  You're main problem is beating the game crazy fast, but I've already gone into that.  The other headache is income; you have a very fixed stream.  You only get one satellite and you better get at least 150 income out of it.  Watch your monthly expenses, although xcom can kind of be powered by selling stuff.  Do the alien base mission as soon as possible so you can go on to the next part of the game, and also use it like you would use a satellite (at the end of the month, and to stop 5 panic nations from leaving).  Heavies are your friends, as they can kill essentially anything with their default gear and their abilities increase their damage output.  This applies to snipers to a lesser degree, and maybe shotgun assaults, although revealing aliens is a good way to get yourself overwhelmed.  Your operation is going to be powered in a big way by abduction rewards, choose very very carefully because your decision will both determine your rewards (money and engineers are both a good bet) as well is which nations panic.  Choosing right is vital in this because abduction missions are the only way you can reliably influence panic.  Remember that each nation saved loses 2 panic, each not saved gains 2, and each on a continent not saved gains 1.  This means that larger continents should be saved more often.

One last funny story, the game gave me two female soldiers that looked identical except for slightly different hair color, with similar names, in the first mission.  Then shortly afterwards it gave me another UK woman that looked pretty similar.  So I changed two of their last names and the Hill sisters (Pixie, Wildchild, and Angel, all nicknames given by the game) became our most effective soldiers.  The fact that two of them were supports with 3 medikits is probably why we had so few deaths.  Pixie was our psychic, and almost certainly would have been the spoiler had we gotten that far.  They all survived, as did nearly everyone else.  Well, assuming the aliens didn't just kill off xcom, but given that

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Pixie is the end result of all their work, I imagine we have at least a minor bargaining chip.  Or one person that the aliens want to work with, at least.  I'm a little iffy about the alien's motives in general though.

[Mephansteras]

Interesting. I've never thought about it before but the scientists and engineers you get from putting satellites over a nation really add up, huh?

Makes the idea of building several labs adjacent to one another actually helpful instead of a marginal benefit.

[Sonlirain]

Honestly they BARELY keep up even pretending the Thin Men are actually for infultration.

They probably partially "fold up" their skeletal structure when not in combat to look more human.
It makes sense for them to "stretch out" when fighting to maximize their agility.

[Pnx]

Honestly, I think I prefer Beagle's take on the thinmen.

[Parsely]

I imagine that hunting them all down would take too much time and effort. You can't check every single person each day to find out whether they're an alien or not.

You don't need to check everyone when they all look the same. Same suit, same glasses, same skin, same combover. Thats not exactly hard to spot.    ._.

I agree with Beagle. Ha.

[USEC_OFFICER]

I imagine that hunting them all down would take too much time and effort. You can't check every single person each day to find out whether they're an alien or not.

You don't need to check everyone when they all look the same. Same suit, same glasses, same skin, same combover. Thats not exactly hard to spot.    ._.

I agree with Beagle. Ha.

Make-up and disguises exist. They just don't wear them because... it's a game and making that kind of stuff takes up time. I don't know, the aliens are a bit silly, truth be told.

[Sirus]

I imagine that hunting them all down would take too much time and effort. You can't check every single person each day to find out whether they're an alien or not.

You don't need to check everyone when they all look the same. Same suit, same glasses, same skin, same combover. Thats not exactly hard to spot.    ._.

I agree with Beagle. Ha.

That's due to gameplay-and-story-segregation and you know it <_<

[Parsely]

I imagine that hunting them all down would take too much time and effort. You can't check every single person each day to find out whether they're an alien or not.

You don't need to check everyone when they all look the same. Same suit, same glasses, same skin, same combover. Thats not exactly hard to spot.    ._.

I agree with Beagle. Ha.

That's due to gameplay-and-story-segregation and you know it <_<

I know. I tend to be a try-hard when it comes to getting people to acknowledge those kinds of things rather than rationalise them.

[Sergius]

Plus imagine the hysteria that would be caused if XCOM intentionally killed an innocent civilian?

The mind boggles. Inconceivable! I guess we'll never know what would happen!

[Sergius]

... double post.

[dogstile]

Mystery solved. Xcom gets punished for killing innocent civilians in the form of double posts.

[Grakelin]

XCOM gets an 'A' on the Council Report. No civilians means no civilian terror!