Chris

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! A few more fixes for bugs, including the "bald soldiers" bug that reappeared in the previous experimental build. This is hopefully now the final update needed for Milestone 3! Bugfixes: Fixed some soldiers being bald in combat missions. This bug has reoccured several times now due to Unity shenanigans, so we've entirely rewritten the system responsible to ensure it stays fixed - but please let us know if this has caused any further bugs! Fixed an issue where the three "On Mission" soldiers would get permanently stuck in the dropship after returning to base if you flew to a Soldier Extraction mission site, then aborted the mission and returned to base. Fixed pressing Esc on the Transfer Items screen not returning to the Geoscape like it does on other strategy UI screens.

Hey Gam - so the official translations are now under the control of our publisher, unfortunately. I don't think they're planning to do an Italian one. If you wanted to do another volunteer translation then that should be possible once our mod tools are out; all the text strings are in one .csv file and it could be distributed via a mod / Steam workshop.

We've now released our Milestone 3.8.0 patch onto our standard Steam / GOG / Epic branches, which fixes several more stability and gameplay issues. Although our primary focus is working on the next major update (Milestone 4) we will continue to fix and patch Milestone 3, so please do report any bugs or issues you encounter. Gameplay Changes: Selling an aircraft now returns any equipped items on that aircraft to the base stores, rather than just deleting them. Secton eyes now glow when Psionic Triangulation is active. Fixed large amounts of text not appearing correctly in Chinese languages. Fixed a large number of text lines being vertically misaligned in non-English languages. Bugfixes: Fixed a situation where players could interrupt alien reaction fire, causing them to gain control of the alien unit that had been trying to attack them. Fixed another way in which the blast doors in the ATLAS base mission could get out of sync, and appear visually open when actually being closed (or vice versa). Fixed planned soldier loadouts (on unassigned soldiers) not reflecting changes to soldier stats that will be caused by equipped items. Fixed double-clicking on a soldier in the list on the Soldier Equip screen not allowing you to replace them with a different soldier. Fixed the "custom" button on the campaign settings menu remaining selected if you change back to a different difficulty setting. Fixed some display issues users could experience if using multiple monitors while mirroring one of them to different screen. Attempted to fix panning the camera in the air combat being broken if users were using mouse and keyboard while also having a touchscreen or touch peripheral plugged in.

Thanks. I've been able to reproduce the issue of the soldiers remaining in the dropship once it returns to base if you abort the mission once you reach the mission site, which is probably the cause of this bug. We'll get it fixed. The posts Koki linked above would be useful for any further bug reports though!

Thanks for the offer. Unfortunately there's not really much you can do to help besides making sure your bug reports have all the required info when necessary (logs / saves) so we have all the info we need to fix the issues as quickly as possible. I didn't need any more info in this case, but I'm sure as a dev you know what's needed to make your life easier!

One of our junior coders investigated it a few weeks back and it's not a straightforward fix, so it'll require our tech director to sit down for at least a couple of hours and figure out what the issue is - and his time is usually spent on the highest priority issues we have on any given day. This bug is only classed as medium priority; how long ago you reported the bug doesn't really factor into that. It's likely to be addressed once all the game content is in place.

Ugh, so they have. Thanks. Guess we'll be releasing a 3.10.0 on Monday then!

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! This update just contains a few more minor fixes, and we'll likely be releasing this onto the main branch on Monday if it proves stable (or releasing 3.8.0 if not). Bugfixes: Fixed being able to heal alien units (this allowed players to get into a few situations that could allow crashes). Prevented the player from healing an unconscious unit if there is another unit stood on their tile, as that would lead to two units occupying the same tile. Fixed the Western Town restaurant interior walls appearing black on some systems. Fixed the soldier HP bar that is shown on hover on the Dropship soldier arrangement screen showing inconsistent values when you switch between soldiers. Fixed some ladders on some of the new Polar maps not being climbable.

It's not something that Xenonauts 2 has done. For some reason your PC will have removed the files from the save directory, which is in My Documents/My Games/Xenonauts2/. Some other users had an issue with this a while back and it turned out to be a setting on their computer. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I think it was maybe OneDrive syncing options? Or maybe some kind of antivirus software has quarantined them because it thinks it is dangerous?

Yeah, it shows soldier health. Sounds like it's bugged though - if you figure out anything consistently wrong then just post it up here! I'll take a look at it myself later today if I get a chance and see if I can see anything wrong.

Every weapon can do between 50% to 200% of their base damage. I guess we should add that to the tutorial

Thanks for the feedback. I think you've found a bug in the game there - if there's a string of adjacent cover with the same or less stopping chance than the original adjacent cover (i.e. the box), then it should all be ignored. In this case that means the wall should be ignored because it's adjacent to the box, which is correctly being ignored. However it doesn't seem to be working here for some reason, so we'll take a look at what's going on.

Hello everyone - hope you all had a good Easter! It's time for our monthly update on the progress we've made on Xenonauts 2. Milestone 3 Patches: A lot of our time has been spent fixing bugs in Milestone 3 recently, with five patches being released in the last month. Many of these issues were minor problems caused by our Unity 2022 upgrade, but there's also been fixes for various older bugs and some improvements made to the foreign language translations of the game too. These updates should have collectively improved player experience quite a bit. One highlight was finally finding a fix for a long-standing bug that turned the screen black whenever any unit fired a weapon. This bug only affected a small number of users and there was a workaround (disabling the "camera shake" setting), but it made the game basically unplayable for anyone who did not know that - so it's definitely a relief to have it fixed! New Maps & Environments: We've also been hard at work on the content for Milestone 4, and the new maps needed for the largest UFO crash sites are the biggest component of this. These are progressing well - we're aiming to have 3 large maps per biome when Milestone 4 comes out, and we're about 80% of the way there now. In addition to this, the update will also contain numerous new Alien Base maps that were made the previous month. Furthermore, a new environment artist contractor has joined the team to help us improve our existing environments and eventually finish off the Soviet Town biome that we plan to add to the game before final release. We've already updated the command room in the ATLAS Base map so it more closely resembles what we have in our artwork (with a command table and proper wall screens), and now we're working on some underground earth textures for use in the Alien Base maps. I'm planning on using these to address one of the gameplay issues with the Alien Base maps - that all the walls are indestructible (even the ones between rooms). Under this new setup all walls will be destructible, so it'll be possible to destroy both internal walls and the external ones around the edge of rooms. Doing this will reveal the earth tiles behind the walls, and these themselves will also be destructible. This should allow more realistic gameplay where powerful weapons and explosives will be able to gouge holes in the walls, and theoretically it would also allow players to dynamically "mine" through the earth and breach other rooms if they sufficiently powerful weapons. Be aware this idea is still at the testing phase so I can't promise it will definitely work as planned... but all our testing so far looks good! Alien Visual & Audio Improvements: Our updated Androns have now been finished and will be marching into battle against humanity in Milestone 4. We've also retextured the basic Sectons, as these are the first aliens that new players encounter but previously had fairly basic textures. We're currently retexturing the Wraiths so their basic non-combatants have a simple military uniform rather than being completely naked, and this month we'll be creating an additional Wraith variant with heavier armour that will appear towards the end of the game. We're also in the process of hiring a contract audio engineer to improve the game's sound design in general, which will include creating some new sounds for the aliens to try and give them a bit more character (like new injury / death sounds, or unique footsteps etc). Smaller Improvements: We've also completed several small features this month that were requested by the community. Firstly, the dropship screen (where you can position your soldiers within the dropship) now shows the soldier role icons on the green soldier tiles, making the process much more straightforward than it was previously. Secondly, we've finally got "destruction linking" working properly, which allows us to have walkable tiles placed on top of large multi-tile objects like shipping containers and have them remove themselves if the underlying object is destroyed. This means there's now a lot more objects in the game that allow you to land on top of them and walk around (shipping containers, caravans, buses, certain fuel tanks, etc), and fewer cases of aliens mysteriously standing in mid-air on invisible tiles. Work was also done on the end of turn camera, which now better shows regeneration healing and Bleeding Wounds damage on any visible units at end of turn. We also rewitten the item assignment logic that occurs after a completed mission, because players were getting some strange loadout problems when running a second mission with the same dropship (some weapons not starting with a clip loaded, etc), which was just down to the primitive way in which the game assigned items to your soldiers if there wasn't enough to equip the whole squad. Finally, a surprisingly popular request was an upgrade for the basic Combat Knife weapon that is available for your soldiers, so we've designed an upgraded Energy Knife that will unlock off Alien Electronics and should allow the weapon to remain relevant for much longer. Conclusion: That's everything for this month - lots of smaller tasks that together represent good progress on the project. Hopefully we'll have an early version of Milestone 4 out for testing on the Experimental branch later this month!

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! Bugfixes: Selling an aircraft now returns any equipped items on that aircraft to the base stores, rather than just deleting them. Secton eyes now glow when Psionic Triangulation is active. Fixed a situation where players could interrupt alien reaction fire, causing them to gain control of the alien unit that had been trying to attack them. Fixed some display issues users could experience if using multiple monitors while mirroring one or them to different screen. Attempted to fix panning the camera in the air combat being broken if users were using mouse and keyboard while also having a touchscreen or touch peripheral plugged in.

We've now released our Milestone 3.6.0 patch onto our standard Steam / GOG / Epic branches, which fixes several stability issues that existed in 3.3.0. Although our primary focus is working on the next major update (Milestone 4) we will continue to fix and patch Milestone 3, so please do report any bugs or issues you encounter. Balance Changes & Gameplay Updates: Mentarch can now be suppressed again. However, it now has 80 Bravery instead of 50 Bravery so it is harder to suppress than it was in Milestone 2. Added correct white silhouette images for the MARS vehicle weapons (used in the unit minitabs at the top of the tactical UI). Wraith autopsy research project no longer incorrectly awards $100k on completion. Fixed soldiers being unable to crouch if another soldier was already moving. Updated the code so that if you press the Crouch button when a soldier is moving, they will try to crouch at the end of their move. We've now capped this to one attempted crouch action, so pressing the button multiple times will no longer waste TU by queueing up crouch / uncrouch actions. Bugfixes: Fixed the entire screen permanently going black when a unit fires a weapon in the tactical combat for some players. This bug was linked to the "camera shake" setting, and some users had disabled that setting as a workaround - if so, you should now be able to re-enable it. Fixed a crash that could occur when quickly switching between the aircraft screen and another strategy screen. Fixed a crash if you try to launch an aircraft that is already airborne (it now correctly redirects to the new destination). Fixed an AI hang that could occur during the enemy turn in the tactical combat. Fixed the exterior walls of the office on the Cleaner Data Raid missions displaying black on some systems. Fixed the player being able to hire more engineers / scientists than their workshop / lab capacity should allow if you have excess lab capacity free at a secondary base. Fixed the heal animation not displaying properly. Fixed the soldier portraits on the Soldier Equip screen sometimes disappearing. Fixed the aircraft transfer duration repeating a second time after completion, taking twice as long as intended. Fixed an issue when completing an engineering project on the 5th or 6th base, which would take you to the workshop screen for the 4th base instead. Fixed a bug where unassigned soldiers could display the incorrect armour name in the armour dropdown - e.g. be visually equipped with the Warden Armour, but the dropdown would read Tactical Armour. Fixed being unable to disable the air combat Afterburners / Retreat buttons during the initial aircraft deployment phase. Fixed movement / turning not being interrupted when sighting an enemy if you were doing it as part of a grenade throw action (it worked fine when firing a weapon). Fixed the visual flicker that would occur after finishing an air combat battle as the cities briefly appeared on the map and then hid themselves. Fixed the Cleaner HQ mission sometimes not revealing immediately when you reach 100% on the progress tracker. Fixed the soldier minitabs at the top of the tactical UI not showing the number of USB sticks on the tile of an unconscious soldier (like it does for dead soldiers). Fixed a Boreal log pile that had a graphical glitch with one of the logs.

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! Bugfixes: Fixed large amounts of text not appearing correctly in Chinese languages. Fixed a large number of text lines being vertically misaligned in non-English languages. Fixed another way in which the blast doors in the ATLAS base mission could get out of sync, and appear visually open when actually being closed (or vice versa). Fixed planned soldier loadouts (on unassigned soldiers) not reflecting changes to soldier stats that will be caused by equipped items. Fixed double-clicking on a soldier in the list on the Soldier Equip screen not allowing you to replace them with a different soldier. Fixed the "custom" button on the campaign settings menu remaining selected if you change back to a different difficulty setting.

The stats are low for gameplay reasons; it's important to have space to grow. If you start with skilled soldiers then it removes a large amount of progression from the game, and would make it less fun. However, the stats of starting soldiers will be something that can be modded when we get the mod tools done, so if you'd prefer to play the game a different way you will be able to do so.

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! Another few fixes for crashes and hangs identified by the community in 3.5.0. Bugfixes: Fixed a crash if you try to launch an aircraft that is already airborne (it now correctly redirects to the new destination). Fixed a crash that could occur at the end of turn in a tactical mission when a unit is killed by reaction fire with certain AI actions still queued. Fixed an AI hang that could occur during the enemy turn in the tactical combat. Wraith autopsy research project no longer incorrectly awards $100k on completion.

Haha, well I'm glad you've figured the issue out! Well done for finding a hidden crash in the game, we'll get that fixed in the next patch so it doesn't affect anyone else

Hey - sorry you're having problems. This is a really strange crash. We've not seen it reported before and there's a lot of people playing the game, so it's a bit puzzling. A few quick questions: Are you playing on Steam? Are you playing the tutorial each time? Are you literally just fast forwarding time to the ATLAS Base mission and then clicking those two buttons? You get to the stage where you see the soldier equip screen, then it crashes immediately when you press the button to left click to launch the dropship? Also, the game should be capped at 300FPS - do you know how you're managing to get 784FPS? Have you got anything unusual set up there? Probably best to try a clean reinstall too, in case there's an issue with the game files or your settings files:

The XCOM2 comparison is also a bit misleading because it was actually pretty dull on release - they added most of the fun stuff you're talking about in the expansion or in DLCs. And as I said in the other thread, you can be a bit more creative in DLC content because players can opt-in to it rather than it being compulsory for everyone. I thought the Chosen (and to a lesser extent the alien leader) boss fights were a really cool addition to XCOM2, but personally I'm not a fan of the story expansions. To me they hurt replayability rather than help it - they were generally static maps, whereas other missions and the boss fights all played out differently on a second or third playthrough because so much of the game is randomly generated. I found story content fine for the first playthrough, then it became really repetitive - even cool missions like the Chryssalid mission in the XCOM1 expansion. To some extent the replayability of X2 is going to come down to how much you like the minute-to-minute gameplay, right? Story is only ever good for the first playthrough, and after that it's just down to how much you enjoy fighting tactical battles. Which is why we've been concentrating on adding many more types of tactical mission to the game, etc.

We're not planning on adding a traitor mechanic, no. I do have potential ideas for there being a traitorious funding region which I might explore in an expansion pack, because I think it'd make the second half of the game more interesting, but I'm not sure it's suitable for the base game. Something like the Nemesis system (or what XCOM 2 does with the alien leaders and Chosen) is also something I'd potentially consider. Having unique alien leaders that give unique equipment if killed is relatively simple (although it does require quite a few extra art assets); it might even be something we add to the base game once the rest of the content is in place.

These missions definitely do need more work, yes. However we've implemented new AI for the aliens on these missions where they'll be searching through your base for targets more aggressively and that'll be arriving in Milestone 4, so I think we'll see how that works before we make any further changes.

Hmmm - that's a bug, then. Basically the calculation should be that the grenade scatters a certain distance in a random direction and then tries to travel down the new path, checking whether it hits any objects along the way. Potentially what's happening is that it's scattering far enough to the left that the soldier is hitting the doorway / wall immediately in front of them (which has a 100% block chance and will look like the soldier dropped the grenade at their feet), but that certainly shouldn't always happen. And yes, you're probably right that the "misses" should be divided into a miss caused by a fundamental mis-throw by the soldier, and a miss that would have otherwise hit were it not for an intervening object. In the latter case then the grenade should impact on the intervening object. In the case above the hit chance without the intervening missiles would be about 95% so yeah, it would make sense for the vast majority of misses to hit the missiles instead. I'm happy to look at some save games if you have them where the throws aren't behaving sensibly. Just create a bug report and attach them.

Thanks. I think the reason why Skitso is coming across as defensive here is because people who haven't played the game often complain about it being the exact same thing as X1 with very minor changes, while people who have actually played the game generally tend to be happy with how significant the changes are. Honestly, I think you're probably smart to wait until the game comes out of Early Access to play it because that's when it'll give you the best experience, and I appreciate you showing your support for the team in the meantime by buying it anyway, so thanks for that. But just bear in mind that reading a list of changes really doesn't give much of a feel for the scope of the changes. As for your suggestions - we've got a few of them already (memorial screen and training center), and depending on what you mean by "more customisation" we may add that before launch too. However, while it's possible we'll lean more into the roleplaying aspect of the soldiers in future expansions, remember that classic X-Com games work on a much larger scale than moden XCOM games, and when the player is bringing squads of 12 or 16 soldiers into battle (rather than squads capping out at 6) and frequently taking heavy casualties it can rapidly get tiresome to have to manage traits and stress etc for each individual soldier as well as their stats. I know this because we actually had a basic Stress system in the game, but I disabled it for that reason. Potentially it's fine for a DLC because then players who want that level of detail can voluntarily opt into it. But forcing it on everyone seems like a bad idea; it runs the risk of making X2 a very hardcore game and limiting our audience.