I guess I'll remove the permanent ban rule then. I would have thought that 2 weeks is enough for someone to recover from all kinds of real life stuff, but I guess I'm wrong.

Anyway, yes, in the beginning, your character begins with gear transported to base with him/her, but if his/her parent organisation decides not to do that, well, tough luck, s/he's going to have to use those dusty surplus gear provided by the African nations.

As for new aliens other than those found in the XCOM games.... Let's just say that there's going to be alot of them :)