At a solid mid-point on my campaign and going to slow down in playing due to work ramping up, so as a review for others and the Authors:

Alloys are super scarce. Possibly too scarce. I've researched Elerium, gotten my first Spark, am training my first Psi-Op... I'd say 90% of the time my squad has full magnetic weapons, and almost no-one has Alloy Armour, and I've been buying every Alloy drop from the Black Market.
That said, even with Podless WoTC, and the fact difficulty rapidly climbs to Very Difficult even on Veteran, I'm managing to get through missions with an average of 4 wounded, though 3 of those are often grave. Some of my mods buff Xcom, but the buff leans Advent/Alien direction, so things are probably acceptable.
As for how I'm surviving, Irridar's Vests and Reverse Engineered Armor mod, so everyone effectively has Alloy Armor. Without those two, I'd definately have to turn off Podless, and not having Podless ruins my immersion something fierce.

Your biggest opponent is probably going to be managing Will. I'm slightly over the first upgrades crew cap (+Workshop so effective crew cap of 44 and I have 47 soldiers, 4 engineers and 4 Scientists), and even before going over Will Recovery takes forever, and I'm running 37 Soldiers and Managing Will is far more painful than wounds, even with 20% faster recovery from a Order. Consider the Fatigue disabling mod, as with injuries and the sheer number of missions you'll still end up skipping missions. Note, this isn't a mod I'm running. As a side effect, Sparks will be your friends due to not having will, and seeming to not count towards the crew cap.

Get Civilian Clothes ASAP/Research Comms ASAP to unlock them. Ambushes are almost standard fare on Covert Ops that aren't training missions/breakthrough missions, and while it means your troops are garunteed to come back wounded even if you make it through undetected (Due to a bug), they're a very cheap way to actually come back given otherwise there's so much enemies even running podless your best bet to get through is to have a Templar and Reaper on the mission.

Don't bother with supply runs, at least for the early game. You'll be lucky to get 2 crates before running back to evac, and it'll put several soldiers out of commision due to will/wounds. I haven't tested it with Phantom soldiers yet though.

Expect to miss most scanning sites. They run 13 days on average in this mod, and you'll regularly get interruptions. Honestly, Covert Ops that grant Resistance Rumors (Extra Scanning Sites) are worth ignoring unless all your scanning sites are ♥♥♥♥, they have a good stat reward, or you have some rookies to spare.

For mission chains, be willing to forgo the ones that counter Dark Events. As far as I can tell, you can delay dark events perpetually with the first mission in the chain. That said, you do want to counter them where they can as they will pile up, meaning you'll have to delay more and more events until they start slipping through the cracks. So far, I managed to let only one through and am ecstatic.

Probably skip Predator Armor. The Advent Disguise unlocked with Alloy Armor offers one less hp, phantom, and reduces detection radius to 1 square. This is almost certain to be a bug though. Also it'll ruin overwatch ambushes if you use them as the armor will give everyone phantom.


When it comes to things I'd change about the mod, more sources of alloys (Or lower cost in Prototype Armory) and lower scanning times. That's it.