First let me just say how much I am enjoying this mod - it's fantastic and you deserve a lot of praise for what you have achieved with this mod.
However last night I had a very odd mission start that meant I had to go back to a previous save (I'm not crazy enough to play Ironman on Long War, although I do try to play "Bronzeman". Not that I always succeed)
I'm in the process of liberating my first region having unlocked the Advent HQ. This is taking quite a while as I sent a squad of 10 without really paying attention to the infiltration timer (my fault) so I have been doing quite a few missions in the mean time while I'm waiting.
One of the missions that popped last night was the "Rescue your recruiters" mission for the region I am attempting to liberate, to which I took a squad of 8 as it's a non-infiltration mission. When I spawned (right at the start) my squad and the 3 resistance members I am trying to evac are grouped together as expected one one side of the map with the evac zone on the other. However, before I've even selected one of my soldiers, an Advent group (1 x trooper, 1 x engineer, 1 x sergeant and 1 x officer) wanders into my LoS, spots me, scatters and immediately opens fire as though they were on yellow alert. Despite restarting the mission from the menu button, the exact same thing happens again, leaving my heavy gunner with 2HP.
I assumed this was a bug, and grumbling a little, I proceed with the mission eliminating as many of the advent pod as I could (1 trooper left with 1hp) However the very next turn a reinforcement group (1 x Muton, 2 x snake and 1 x advent trooper) immediately warps in right inthe centre of my litte group, and 2 other pods on the map (1 advent group of 4, and 1 of 3 more snakes) rush in on yellow alert, open fire killing my heavy gunner and my assault who was flanked by the incoming pods.
The next turn I was murder death killed being hopelessly surrounded and out gunned. I never even stood a chance, and I'm only playing on Veteran.
So my question is - is this supposed to happen? Was this one of these "Trap missions" I've been reading about? I put it down to being a bug (The first pod activating before I'd moved having additional actions like they were on yellow alert, and the insta-reinforcements - I thought they only started after a couple of turns?) - I know the other 2 pods were just a case of unfortunate placement. I still probably would have been a bit shot up if it were just those pods but survived, it was the reinforcements that did for me.
Unfortunately I don't have the save - I never thought about it until after the mission, and I had a bit of a rage quit and went back to an earlier save and the mission hasn't spawned again. Just wanted to be sure that it wasn't typical behaviour - if so well I enjoy a challenge, but really pod activating before I've moved, and insta-reinforcements are a step too far for me personally
the Advent should only move after you do that whole look at your squad, look at your objectives, look at your squad, wait 5-10 seconds, then control. Advent should only move after you have ran around.