Currently you have one option to get vision, bring a shinobi...and don't use them, or use them once.
This is the core of the problem for the lack of 5-6 man missions. Ready I am going to read minds:
- You see a mission pop up with 5-6 days left on the timer it is the baseline strength is somewhere between light and moderate. You already know you can't bring a large squad, simply not enough time. If it is light you could bring a stealth squad, over infiltrate like crazy and it should be extremely light. Maybe you can try a medium sized squad though, because that would be fun, a few guys infiltrate maybe boost it kill some advent. "I'll check it out"
- You build a squad with a shinobi you look at your squad and you go "if there is a pod of 4 or more this squad is going to struggle...there could possibly a squad of 8, nope not possible I can't bring the damage or the control."
- But you want to do the mission so you remove the soldier not bringing damage or control and you look at your squad, your shinobi, and you go "I can't safely move anywhere because I have no vision, which means I have a good chance of getting these soldiers in serious trouble and if that happens I risk my entire campaign."
- Then you remove all your soldiers except a shinobi and one other and consider if you can stealth it, and if you can't then you convince yourself you don't need the mission or don't want to do the mission because you CAN'T do the mission.
It isn't that people don't want to do mid sized missions, it is that they feel they CAN'T do these missions and that is a serious SERIOUS problem. In some way there needs to be an alternative to getting vision besides a walking battle scanner.
Currently things like scanning protocol work, but they are really close range, their biggest use is making sure you don't stumble into a civilian when hopping off a roof AND they don't provide you vision of the landscape, which is as important as knowing what advent are in the area.
Suggestion to fix this: bring back battlescanners in the EU/EW/LW1 form If you are concerned about the power they bring, then have it be a baseline officer perk that starts with one charge the higher rank the officer the more charges you get. It is not like shinobi's will never be used. They don't even need to reveal faceless or burrowed chryssis, just provide vision of an area.
- Shinobis are still going to be the king of stealth missions due to phantom.
- Shinobis are still going to be invaluable on larger squad missions where you have 7-9 other soldiers and feel you can go toe to toe with any pod or even two pods, but you really want vision through the entire mission.
- Mid sized missions where you just need a little bit of vision, battle scanners can cover that.
This opens up options for mid sized missions AND indirectly nerfs stealth shinobis because suddenly there are missions you don't feel they are mandatory on.
tl;dr: Give us a legitimate alternative to stealth shinobis for vision, it will make medium sized missions doable, it will make stealth focused shinobis feel less mandatory on EVERY mission. A possible solution is to give officers old school vision granting battle scanners as one of their base perks (don't need even need to reveal hidden enemies), this would limit the number you have on a mission AND stealth shinobis will still be highly desirable for stealth missions and large squad missions.