Hey guys, as I personally don't like the lore behind the fatigue system (which is a discussion for another thread if you please) but since I do like the mechanic of being forced to not only have one A-team, I've been wanting for something different. I'm not really deep into the Modding tools yet and unfortunately, my debug still doesn't work. However I'd like to have some assistance and/or input on this idea.

Note that the basic idea was not from me but alas, I don't remember where I read it first. I have been thinking about it a lot though and I think the below text will give you a pretty good outline how the final mod may look like.

The general idea

ADVENT has a list of most wanted criminals who's faces they are constantly displaying on billboards around their cities. You might have noticed mugshots of your top soldiers being displayed on holograms already. ADVENT uses advanced tech to capture biometric pictures and detect the bio-signatures of XCOM agents, and the higher the threat level of an individual soldier or a combined squad, the more likely it is that additional counter-measures will be initiated by the ADVENT administration.

The idea is that this notoriety has actual in-game consequences, e.g. revealing concealed soldiers/squads, ADVENT getting additional reinforcements, reducing the timer on timed missions and the aliens having higher detection radii. This will not affect certain missions that don't have advanced tech nearby like retaliation missions, UFO raids, the gate mission and the final missions.

If you don't take soldiers on multiple missions in a row, their heat/threat level will go down, so you can start taking them on missions again without further consequences.

The mechanics

There might actually be something in the game already that tracks some kind of notoriety, to choose the portraits of the soldiers that are displayed on the holo-billboards. If it is, I'm guessing it's based on missions completed and/or kill count and/or soldier rank.

Now let's get down to business:

• Certain missions like retaliation strikes are exempt from all heat mechanics. This needs to be communicated clearly to the player.
• There are multiple heat levels, akin to something like in GTA. As a starting point, all rookies start at "None" while later acquired soldiers will at least have some threat level.
• There should be around 7 heat levels, displayed as Heat: [heat level]
• Heat levels would be something like: 0 Unknown, 1 School Bully, 2 Small-time Crook, 3 Notorious Delinquent, 4 Confirmed Criminal, 5 Wanted Felon, 6 On Most Wanted List and 7 Maximum Heat, being displayed in the game from shades of green over yellow and orange to deep red. I'm all ears for better names. :)
• Gaining heat will be dependant on what your soldier does in a mission. Participating in a mission should up the heat level by one, then every kill by about approximately 0.2 (configurable). This should make it so that each mission a soldier goes on roughly gives a soldier 2 heat levels on average. Some specific mission objectives could increase the heat further, e.g. taking down a VIP or an alien relay. Fractions will always be displayed rounded up, so a heat level of 2.1 would display and act as 3.
• Heat level will decay over time but the decay time will be doubled if someone has 5 or more and quadrupled if someone hit 7 . The display and counter-measures stop at 7, but the mod should still track everything past it. If the heat level drops to 1 or below, the decay time needed should be quadrupled as it's very hard to be completely wiped from all databases.
• Regular decay time should be around 0.1 per in-game day on Legend (roughly doubled on lower difficulties), or maybe even slightly less. The goal is to balance it so that you get around 2-ish heat in a mission which should in most cases almost be decayed when the 2nd next mission comes around.
• The squad will always assume the heat level of the most notorious soldier. However, having 3 soldiers with the same heat level on a mission will make the overall heat level of them be one higher, recursive up to a maximum of 7. E.g. 6 soldiers with heat level 4 will count two soldiers with heat level 5. If you add a heat level 5 soldier, it will count overall as heat level 6.
• ADVENT will take counter-measures based on mission type and heat level of individual soldiers and total squad heat. It should pretty much start at heat level 5 with minor consequences, getting one additional reinforcement, subtracting one turn from the turn timer on timed missions and increase the detection radius of aliens AND civilians by one tile as they recognize XCOM's faces from the alien propaganda. Heat level 6 will multiply that by two and negate any squad concealment and individual concealment from any soldier with heat level 5 or greater on that mission. Heat level 7 will multiply that by 3, with one of the reinforcements being from a higher force level if possible, also revealing any individually concealed soldier with heat level 4 or more. This should make the mission almost impossible, practically forcing you to stay the heck away from a squad load-out like that.
• There needs to be a clear display that it's not a good idea to take a squad with high heat in the squad load-out. Something like Squad heat: [level] and below that "The aliens will likely employ [light/medium/heavy] countermeasures if you deploy the squad like this."
• 'Associating' (i.e. going on a mission with) a soldier or squad that has level 5 or 6 should give 50% extra heat for the mission. Heat level 7 increases this even more to 100% additional heat.
• If a soldier gets knocked out (hello, stunlancers!) during a mission, the heat level could be reduced by 1 immediately, as ADVENT thinks they're not capable anyway. If someone is evac'd while bleeding out, it could even be reduced by 3 as ADVENT might think they're dead. Adding these little details could lead to some fun decisions.
• Essentially, this system would in the early game allow the pushing of one or two soldiers to get to higher ranks in order to get some GTS upgrades but after that, it would work roughly like the fatigue system.
• There could be an additional mission type to go and hack an ADVENT database, reducing or removing heat for some or all soldiers. Maybe it could trigger randomly as a guerilla ops when having 3 soldiers above heat level 5 in your roster. This is just a rough idea and probably something for when the basic mod is already working.
• Maybe one or two additional dark events that increases heat for all your soldiers as an infiltrator steals data about your roster.

Balancing

Apart from coding the whole thing, finding a good balance is probably the most difficult part. If you have any input, please share! I roughly want it to be like the fatigue mod, so you can take a soldier on about every second mission without consequences.

I know this will probably be hard to do right and there are a lot of details that could be added and tweaked. Did a soldier get knocked out? Maybe reduce his heat a bit. Did you spend an exceptionally long time on a mission? Maybe there's additional time for cameras and scanners to pick up details about your squad. All input is appreciated!