Cheers Will, that's exactly the look I was going for.. human looking aliens. Hopefully to allow the player to relate to the characters but being different enough for the player to realise they're playing an Alien. I didn't want to go down the dripping green slime alien route though, I don't think people would relate as much.

I've had an idea that may solve the strategic placement problem.

On the team management screen, i put a tactics tab. These are the team orders.
So a team member could be told to be
Defensive
Aggressive

and there could be up to 4 waves of tanks and you choose which wave you want the team member to be part of.. and how long between the waves.

So you tell TM1 and TM2 to be part of the 1st wave, they are flying light tanks, their job is to scout and soften up the enemy ready for the 2nd Wave which is TM3 in a heavy tank with a missile launcher. His job is to distract the remaining tanks for the 3rd wave which is TM4 in a super heavy tank with a beam gun.

Or the player could choose to put all TMs in the 1st wave.

or any combination.

Also each wave would have an entry protocol.
Smooth entry (current, gradual entry where descent is controlled by brief thrusts of the jets)
Violent entry (tanks freefall until just above the ground and then hard burn the jets to slow down)
Shielded entry (tank freefall and crash into the ground, protected by shields)

They could also choose where the tanks arrive..
Left, Middle

So it would be possible to have all tanks arriving at once, but using different entry protocols in different positions on the map.

The AI would have the same options. so you wouldn't know immediately when or where the next AI tank was coming from... this would add to the unpredictability of each mission and extend the mission time.

What do you think?