Hey actually, hate to start suggesting stuff and put weight on your already probably strained shoulders, but I'm going to give a list of suggestions I like the sound of or really like for the game
(Remember, these are only suggestions, not a list of orders, these do not have to be made)
Mainly just mechanics and stuff
1 longer day night cycle
Kind of explains itself.
2 Martian building
This will be a thing where the Martians will spend the day after the cylinder landing putting together the first tripods, this is also kind of why longer days and nights would be better, there should also be a light coming from the cylinders at night, the Martians will start to emerge a few minutes before day 2
3 Faster red weed growth rate
In the musical, the main character states that the red weed grew so fast it looked like it was crawling along the ground, it would make it quicker to cover the map.
4 Handling machine sounds
Please give the handlers sounds, I almost had a heart attack when I saw one chasing me down silently
Events
1 The "House Search" event
This'll of course need houses to be bigger, furniture possibly have rooms, a backdoor and have windows, so I saw a comment suggesting this exact thing but I want to add on to it, so during or after day 4. if a Tripod (Or flying and handling machine) is outside a house and sees you looking through a window at it, it will immediately forget it's previous focus and turn to the house, the machine will crouch down (Tripod only) and check the windows again to be sure it saw you, and if it actually finds out you are indeed there, it will begin blindly searching the house with it's tentacle, if it grabs you, it will drag you out and shove you into the cage fixed upon it's back, however if it doesn't grab anything, it will stand back up and walk into the house, breaking it, and then grab you from the wreckage if you even survive it stomping on the house (Again, tripod only, the other 2 machines will probably just give up), and this is where the backdoor comes in, if the tripod is searching, then you can run to the backdoor and exit the house, now the since the machine is too focused on the house, you are able to leave freely and run as far as you can go.
2 the "House Landing" event, this one may be a bit hard to make
So this is going to be exactly like what happens in both the Novel and Musical, this won't need it but it would be nice if the Martians would build their machines as it would make it scarier to go out during this time if you survive the crash, so what would happen is that in any random point during or after day 4 and before day 8, a random chance would occur where out of any of the houses in the map would be randomly chosen to get a suspension pod launched at it and crush it, this could kill you or not, depends where you are in the building, so this cylinder would be a bit bigger than the others, not anything too important, anyway so the Martians will set up a camp, this'll act as a main hub for the Martians, here they will actually feed on captured people's blood, storing ones they aren't eating yet in a large cage set up right next to the Cylinder, and if you add them having a thing where they build their machines, handling machines will circle around the camp, putting together fighting and flying machines, and possibly even other handling machines, though eventually at about day 6 or 7, the Martians will abandon the camp, making it safe to leave the area and possibly find food if you had eaten it all.
3 The "Common Cordon" Event
This one won't be too big, so the biggest thing that will happen here is that NPC soldiers will form a cordon around the first Cylinder, they will fire at it mercilessly and non-stop until the few minutes before day 2 where the cannons will fall silent after being Heat Rayed by the first emerging tripod.
4 The "Humanities last stand" event
On day 3, what's left of the military will spawn and wait by a town where the most Martians are lingering, the soldiers will fire rapidly and desperately, they will eventually fail in ending any the Martians, each one cannon and soldier getting taken out easily.