Well, I just lost my meatgrinder game. It's a shame, since I had managed to get Titan Armor and two squaddies when it finally happened, courtesy of a TELEPORTING SECTOPOD. God, I wish they would fix the teleportation glitch already. I can't afford to fight teleporting Sectopods.
I still didn't get past capturing an Outsider.
You're not the only one facing teleporting sectopods. I had one today when raiding the alien base for the fourth time. It popped out of nowhere to the middle of my four remaining guys, causing me to flip out and start emotionally preparing for losing all my experienced soldiers AGAIN.
Then it shot itself with its own mortar. :|
The same mission also featured other interesting glitches. At one point, the game stopped updating a SHIV's position or something, leaving a single square where it had been (a fucking one-tile doorway because the game hates me) unwalkable, and making the shiv itself appear passable. It isolated the SHIV from the rest of my squad who had to find another way around, and it died. I didn't actually try moving any soldiers to the SHIV's tile, for fear things would break worse. Also, a sniper had a red alien indicator lit for most of the mission, even though no aliens were visible and she had no targets available. Maybe the sectoid commander was giving her hallucinations.
No they won't. Once you're up to Elite Mutons and Sectopods it is more or less impossible, and the terror missions will hike up the doom counter until you lose.
Depends on what your tech level is and how much alien loot you got stockpiled. without a pile of weapon fragments, you can't research shit, but if you get the high-tier weapons made, your squaddies will have a chance against sectopods. Not a very good chance, but in this game, the default setting is to NOT lose your weapons when the squad is wiped. Besides, sometimes the game gives you Council missions with nothing but Thin Men. Recovering from losing all your soldiers is nontrivial, but definitely possible, even on Classic difficulty.