@Hobbe - roles are fully customizable and oyu can make your own.
You can carry the follwing weapons in various combos: pistol, various grenades, assault rifle, sniper rifle, shotgun, heavy machinegun (and my added minigun), rocket launcher, stun batton, shield. Sadly, the flamethrower has been removed from the game.
So a Shield Scout is basicly shield+pistol and TONS of grenades (and stun battons). They are the first to soak up fire since they scout, but the shield gives them a good chance to survive. Also they are the ones who go after capturing live aliens the most often. Aside from that their duty is to throw a metric ton of glow sticks, frags, smokes, C4 or whatever.
HMG take a ton of TU's to use and are innacurate, but pack a mean punch and are great at surpressing.
Sniper rifles..also ton of TU requirements but they are actually accurate.
Shotties.., low TU cost, multiple pellets. Great choice for CC, not much elese to say.
Rocket launches can carry different types of missiles and pack a massive punch..but low ammo and high weight. alas, they destroy alien equipment.
There are aircraft in the game and they can be given callsigns and you can control them in air combat (meaning you have a high survival rate because I'm good at air combat). Also shot down aircraft are recovered and repaired...menaing that pilots technicly don't die.. so you are practicly unkillable.
There is a brash, snakry, sarcastic head scientist guy in the game that you can take Iron Beer.
