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Thanks - appreciate your thoughts, I'll go through them today / tomorrow as I work on the balance pass for Milestone 4!

I am veteran of X-com style games and I have played tons of old UFO, X1 and X2. I have played X2 on Commander difficulty (3.0 version) and been enjoying game so far but I think this game has a lot more potential. Gameplay Pretty solid and classic. I like new UI and every small QoL features. I would prefer smaller group of soldiers (maybe 8-10-12). It´s easier to handle them. Having 16 in Pegasus seems a bit too much ... but ok:) Music / Sound I know you are working on those for 4.0 so will comment on it later. Graphics and performance Longer loading times are quite annoying but I see you are working on it. I haven´t seen any major bugs or freezes wich is really good for EA phase. I have to say I loved maps in X1 much more (especially with CE map pack). Specific art style and all little details were lovely. The current maps are rather small (which is not the biggest issue) but little dull and boring. I miss all little details, objects and more detailed textures. Progress / game pacing I would prefer a bit slower pacing and more UFO activities overall (but different mission I see UFO´s are coming in waves and it´s not a bad thing but I would prefer more randomness here. There are many days without any activity and the opposite. I would also love more variety in enemies and their ranks with possibility to interrogate them and gain access to specific tech (their pilot could know how to fight them effectively, their engineer should have access to their main tech, ... ) X-div did great job here. Research could be more tied to interrogating specific aliens (their engineer, medic, leader, ... ) or you could research smth faster etc. You could also get specific parts from their UFO´s (not just alenium and alloy) and use them to build more advanced crafts / gear etc. Economy I have no problem with game being hard on this difficulty but having all the time tight budget without possibility of making just researched things is quite annoying. I would prefer UFO invasion being more intensive but without $ limiting. I can accept lower starting budget but I think that every successful action (shooted down UFO, completed mission,... ) should have positive effect on monthly funding. (bigger threat eliminated = higher fundings - small UFO - 10k, Bomber 50k, ... etc and same would go with panic level). It would also work on terror missions too (XDIV did great job here). You would earn higher funding (from region) for each rescued civil / military unit (let say each rescued one 20k ). Also all changes in funding should be visible on global map (like in X1, x-division etc ) and pls remove funding cap (it´s quite frustrating doing well but getting nothing as reward) Diminishing returns on funding would be better than just capping it. Aircombat I can see some improvements over X1 (customization of aircrafts, UI ) but i would prefer more variety in UFO´s, their weapons and tactics. Also balance seems OFF (in favour of players). You just need to load enough torpedos / missiles and destroy UFO from a far without much problem.ove implementation made in X-division. It´s close to perfect. Real UFO invasion with great variability (you need different tactics, aircrafts there to succeed) In short UFO´s should have higher ranges, more hp, antimeasure systems. It would be cool to fight more advanced versions of crafts you have met before (aliens should improve their ships / tactics too ). I know some players don´t like this aspect of the game but you can make an easier combat for them (in settings). I would also prefer new tech having some drawbacks to force players make a decisions. f.e. Fusion torpedo would have higher damage but less range or ROF etc. Phantom x Gemini - Phantom being faster and more agile but Gemini being stronger with more hp and being able to equip more weapons and things like that. I think this principle should work across different tech. Weapons / Equip I would prefer more variety in weapons and their stats and new tech not just being better version of the old. I see you have changed reaction modifiers on weapons (all weapons have 1.0 now) but I am not fun of this change. It makes machine guns too strong while defending lines. The weapons are also too strong to remove cover (especially against UFO´s door, ... ) Basic weapons I miss classic rocket launcher (with different rockets) New "multi rocket launcher" would need some love. It should cost lower TU for such low damage. Laser weapons Removes cover / armor too easy Other Mars / Ares is cool and all but I still miss old tank and other vehicles Pls bring more variety (cars, tanks, mechs, .. ) Maybe the best ship could carry them? (instead of 16 troops) I think grenade´s power should be based on distance (closer to impact higher damage) Aliens / Enemies could also use grenades more often (except androns) and different ones (Sebillians explosive, Psyon/sectons stun/chemical based etc. ... ) AI improvements AI seems improved but the civilians are still doing strange things. I would imagine most of the civils would crouch in the corner inside the current building and wait for rescue (if they know the truth) I think civils and military forces and police should crouch and hide behind obstacles / near corners etc. I also think police and especially special forces (soldiers, ... ) should be well equiped (tactical suit, balistic shields, good guns ) and not be just chicken flying around .... I think the reward for dealing with enemy forces (especially in the Terror missions) could be based on rescued people but it needs better AI. Missions I would add more variety in missions in general. Btw I had three VIP missions in a row and not a single transport. Also more UFO related missions other than just Base attack, Terror mission / crashed UFO and elimination What kind of missions? - What about infiltrating and stealing data from an alien base / centrum - Searching for specific UFO based on radar transmission (would need upgraded radars) -- > shoot it down or wait for UFO landing and capture their leader / important scientist then who we can interogate for more techs etc. Extract VIP missions: Good small changes but general reward is meh I know it will give information leading to HQ but smth extra would be cool. Maybe some info leading to special tech or smth Eliminate VIP mission: There´s also no extra reward. What about some 200k $ cash or smth There could be also side quest / missions that would lead to special reward (extra $, special tech, ...] Maybe capturing specific alien (higher rank of Sebillian´s pilot, ... ) and interrogate him to discover his secrets (leading to .. ? ) Others I have no problem with soldiers getting XP slower but I don´t think such super secret organisation wouldn´t afford better soldiers. At least give us option to hire more experienced soldiers for higher price (maybe later) I also think that starting soldiers shouldn´t be all novices (maybe 50% of them). Thank you for reading:)

Needs new sfx: Units falling under suppression might also need sfx. Berserking needs some yelling I wouldn't mind a few more biome specific ambience sfx

Thanks Kouki. Did you register the other issue too, where at night (first image) the LOS doesn't update correctly under UFO hull? Tiles adjacent to the UFO are always darkened, as if nobody is looking at it. Also, the UFO hull illumination is inconsistent and doesn't follow any logic at night. As you can see, I have multiple units facing the UFO, but the front door area is dark, whereas the top part of the hull is brightly illuminated.

Sorry for the delayed response. Yeah, that is indeed a bug with how the shadows are setup on the UFO, what's happening is the UFO basically has its own drop shadow setup in it plus the shadow generated from the world overlapping with each other. We'll get it fixed

Just noticed that aliens that are just outside of my FoV don't have their black silhouettes visible like in the original XCom. Always thought it was a nice, mood improving detail.

Sounds is, for me, pretty significant. I used to play a fair amount of the original Mirror's Edge as that had really nice sound. The more non-combat areas of the game were pretty peaceful and enjoyable to be in. I look forward to the attention you're giving it. I thought the music in the original Xenonauts was pretty good. The original sound effects were fine but having them be excellent would be cool. I actually modded a lot of the combat sounds, even trying mixing/editing sounds in addition to straight replacing them with other ones I had access to. Thanks for the update

I can't even load your save game properly. You probably have way too many mods installed. For issues, all of those are probably because other mods and X-Division have issues together. You don't need anything else than X-Division mod and ones included with it.

hi, thanks for your time.... really nice mod, but i am having 1 issue only 1-fighers dont give me parts to create my own fighters, i only get alloys.... and yes i take them down on land ... i just need to know how to ADD the heavy fighters and fighters PARTS..... I am full-on phase 2 nothing else , needed THANKS IN ADVANCE!!!!!

Thanks for the feedback - always good to read people's thoughts on the game, and we'll be working hard to continue improving it during the rest of Early Access The balance in the later parts of the game is definitely a bit dubious at present and is something we'll hopefully be improving in the next major update - but it's an ongoing process, and we'll probably only have it nailed down shortly before final launch (as repeatedly playing into the late game is quite time consuming).

As @Chris told us in his latest monthly update: "Sound Design: Last month we brought an experienced sound designer onto the team to work on the game audio, as earlier in development we hadn't had the time and funds to give it the attention it deserved. Audio is sometimes an unappreciated part of game development, as the benefits of good sound effects can be quite subtle but are nonetheless very important." So Goldhawk is going to revamp some (all?) existing sound effects and also add some new ones while they are at it. This is of course very exciting, so let's make a list of sounds we want added or improved. Remember that UI and alien units sounds are already on the list. Needs better sfx: Human injury and death sounds Weapon sounds Needs new sfx: UFO ambiance (low frequency humming around and inside UFO's) Alien base ambiance (low frequency humming or something eerie and alien) Panicing units' screaming and crying Alien machinery proximity sfx (like abduction tubes, teleports, terror bombs etc.) Psionic effect sounds (mesmerize, psionic triangluation etc.)

Thank you for polishing the audio! It is an often neglected aspect that has a huge impact not just on the presentation, but also on gameplay. A particular example comes to my mind from the old days playing the 1st X-Com: an alien (and other combatants) would "scream" if being killed. If the alien was going down without a scream the player knew: it only became unconscious and might get up again after some time. This (and other sounds made it important for a player to be observant and oneself himself into the game. It is one of the many details that made X-Com such an atmospheric "immersive sim". I am glad that Xenonauts follows this approach! Also love the brooding ambient music in night missions. Would love the other battlescape ambient music being more subtle, creepy and "low-key" too.

Hi all - Long, long time player of the og XCOM games here (specifically UFO Defense and TFTD), going back into the 90s. Loved those games. Haven't played the newer XCOM games or Xenonauts 1, but I decided to go out on a lark and pick up Xenonauts 2, as it looks great. Turns out, it's a great game! Just made it to the endgame message and really enjoyed my time playing, and as a result, I figured I'd stop by and leave some feedback. Gameplay Overall really solid. Really harkens back to the old school games, with some really great quality of life upgrades such as being able to see at a glance how many TUs your guys will have left after a shot, or knowing the percent chance to hit after a movement before you even move. That system felt really natural and user friendly. Geoscape is really cool, though it did tend to skip a little bit when dragging the focal point between hemispheres. Tactical combat is excellent. Even tactical air combat felt really nice. Overall, I'd give it an 8/10. Sounds Really enjoyed the soundwork as well. Could always be better, but I didn't notice anything really lacking. 8/10 Music Music felt great. Atmospheric. 9/10. UI Especially for experienced gamers, the UI feels natural and all makes sense. 10/10. Technical performance I only encountered a single noticeable bug through my playthrough, and that was when one of my agents was stuck in an "Airborne state" while healing and I could never get access to him again. He was good too, so it was a bummer. Not super impactful though. There were some other stuff that's clearly not fleshed out yet due to the next milestone not having been hit yet - missing images, missing descriptions, etc. 7/10. Timeline and Progress This is the area that really messed me up. I decided to play on a normal start to dip my feet in, and I found the timeline to suffer from some of the same challenges as earlier versions. First, research progress combined with limited capital doesn't really allow for advanced interceptors by the time you start encountering better UFOs. Same thing with upgrading to Gemini fighters. By the time I hit about six months in game, I already had 3 bases up, but not nearly enough alienum to provide me with enough materials to build more than a small handful of advanced fighters, and certainly not enough to equip the fighters, my troopers, get base upgrades, etc. That felt pretty rough. By the time I hit the endscreen, most of my fighters were still Angels, and they simply had no chance of competing against the waves of 1 large cruise w/ 2 interceptors. Every UFO spotted was either that make up, or a bomber, or some other equally large UFO flanked by two interceptors. In short, I got to a point where I had to start making my own alienum just to be able to get enough to get adequate weapons on my fighters or to build more fighters. This was after I was already taking every possible crash site and mission, and scrimping what little alienum I managed to salvage. In addition, the endgame started seeing waves of UFO's similar to the above. I'd have 4 UFO groupings all hit at once all around the planet. They'd buzz around between my bases pinging my radar, but I wouldn't have the ability to down them. Then after a few days of this, they'd leave, and I'd have a window where zero UFOs would appear. Something felt very programmatic about this and it took away from the gameplay. Four waves of 3 UFOs each for a few days, then like 8 days without a single sighting. Over and over again. This pattern should be tweaked so that singular UFOs or other UFO groups still appear, even into the endgame. Regarding researching, it felt great overall, but I couldn't help but wonder if it could use some editing. Normal weapons felt good. Even advanced weapons felt good. Same with Laser weapons. But I couldn't afford the materials to be able to upgrade to Gauss. And by the time I did I already had researched Fusion, but couldn't afford that either. I believe a lot of that came down to base expenses and funding - by endgame I had 4 bases to ensure adequate world coverage, but the costs to maintain them would leave me with only an extra million per month. I'm no expert, but I felt like I was defending the earth and my rewards for doing so actually felt as though they got worse the longer I played. Something felt off about that. 5/10 Overall 8/10 Overall I really enjoyed the game, and can't wait for it to make it to v1.0. Some really compelling gameplay here that's a ton of fun. I do wish there would be a lot of tweaks made to timeline and progress, but outside of that I was having a blast. I realize that a lot of the more hardcore gamers here will probably tell me I need to git gud and I clearly didn't know what I was doing. Maybe they're right - maybe I'm just old and don't have the skills I used to. But I have beaten the old school XCOM games so I feel like I at least understand the basics of what's supposed to done. And I'd argue that this makes me closer to the "average" gamer when it comes to being able to review the game, rather than someone who's already a die hard fan of Xenonauts 2 and knows all of the minor tips and tricks. Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading this. Again, I can't tell the team enough how much fun I had playing the game. I wish you all the best in your quest toward full release!

Hello everyone! April is now over and it's time for our monthly Xenonauts 2 progress update. Milestone 4: We've now done the bulk of the work on Milestone 4 and we've started internal testing on the updated campaign. Assuming there's no major issues we'll probably be releasing an early version of the build to the public early next week to get feedback - but initially this will be on our Protoype branches, as the build is currently too rough even for the Experimental branches. After a couple of weeks of polish the build should migrate to the Experimental branches, and hopefully into full public release on the normal Steam / GOG / Epic branches by the end of the month. Aside from the headline features for the build (Androns and the Harvester UFO for the aliens, the Colossus Battlesuit for the humans) we've got a long list of changes that should continue to improve the usability, balance, performance and stability of the game! Sound Design: Last month we brought an experienced sound designer onto the team to work on the game audio, as earlier in development we hadn't had the time and funds to give it the attention it deserved. Audio is sometimes an unappreciated part of game development, as the benefits of good sound effects can be quite subtle but are nonetheless very important. This month we've updated the strategy UI, creating nicer sounds for the standard click / hover / error actions and then adding new clips so give subtly different feedback for different actions a click can cause (like confirming an action, closing a window, opening a tooltip, etc). There's still a bit more work to be done on the UI sounds, but after that we'll be moving onto the tactical combat sounds and trying to give the different alien species a bit more character. As a side-effect of this process, we've also noticed various places the game didn't have sound but needed it. Some of these are already fixed in Milestone 4, e.g. now Medikits and the Automed Unit play a sound when healing a unit, and melee weapons play a sound if they miss the target. Levels & Environment Art: As Milestone 4 contains over thirty new maps, we've also brought on a fulltime freelance environment artist to help us improve the variety and quality of our tactical environments. We worked on an assortment of smaller tasks last month ranging from improving the ATLAS Base command room assets (wall screens and the command table) to fixing up some of the assets for the Alien Base maps, but once those were complete we began to focus on the Farm biome. Our plan is to add some new terrain objects and update some of the ground textures for the Farm to try and make the maps feel a bit more like a real agricultural environment, and then we'll be moving onto the Tropical biome to do the same thing (as there's not really enough tiles to do the inhabited areas of the Tropical maps properly right now). Once that's done, we'll be able to move onto our final biome - the Soviet Town terror maps! Alien Crews: This month we updated the crews for all the various UFOs / alien ground missions to ensure there was a steady escalation of new enemies throughout the campaign. The addition of Androns means we now have enough units to group the alien races together, so each species now has a dedicated secondary support unit and a terror unit. As part of this task we've added "heavy" variants of the Mentarch, Servitor and Cyberdrone that are tougher and have more powerful weapons, which start appearing towards the end of the campaign. We'll be adding new artwork and 3D models for these units in the next month or two. General Improvements: We've also made an assortment of improvements to other parts of the game. The air combat now supports weapons that are capable of shooting down missiles and we've added a new late-game escort UFO that provides an alternative to the alien Interceptor. We've added support for transferring scientists and engineers between bases. We've added a new soldier module that gives soldiers a 180-degree vision arc. We've made further improvements to the loading times, added many small usability features, and added various small new bits of content to the game. So overall it's been a busy month for us, with lots of good progress made. Thanks for reading and we'll hopefully have Milestone 4 in your hands soon!

Thank you so much for adding such options, Chris! The best approach for the UI would probably be to have separate options to customize the UI as much as possible, for example: - Enemy health numbers = enabled/disabled - Enemy damage and status messages (like "stun", "suppressed", "miss") = enabled/disabled - Flashing red circles below enemies = enabled/disabled (these are very immersion breaking). etc. Not seeing the enemy status at all was one of the best elements of the original X-Com. Not knowing the exact status of the enemy contributes to the "fear of the unknown" (and "horror") aspect that the original X-Com was so good at. One is fighting alien creatures in such a game, they should be frightening and not have health numbers or "suppressed" messages etc. floating above them. It also makes the player more "observant", which leads to more rewarding gameplay (Why all the graphics, like a projectile missing the target and hitting into an object behind, when there will be a "miss" popup anyway? Such UI messages are real immersion/atmosphere killers). Almost all successors of the old X-Com series seem to have forgotten about small details like these that made the original game so immersive and atmospheric: one had to be observant and had to carefully look at the "game world". The reason why it is often named as the best PC game of all time is not just because it was mechanically great, it is also because of what people felt when they played it, the "experience": it was an atmospheric, immersive and scary game. Being able to reduce the UI overlay would make Xenonauts much more immersive. The following expanded campaign option would be great: "Always night" If enabled, every tactical battle takes place at night (independently of the time of day on the operational map). Loved this for the old original X-Com too - it was so much more immersive to play. ---------------- Thank you very much for considering! In every mechanical aspect X2 is already much better than the "best PC game of all time", the original X-Com. The only thing that is still missing is the "atmosphere" (making it more immersive and scary) and this is probably crucial for being successful: it does not seem to matter that much if some single element is perfectly balanced or not (which might take a lot of development time too), it is much more about how the game feels as an "experience". It already feels like a "sober combat sim" exactly like the original X-Com and that is absolutely great - only the "horror"/"atmosphere" aspect is missing. Everyone that I ask about the original X-Com first tells me about that scary "barn and cornfield" night missions, seeing the silhouettes of creatures in the dark, hearing the footsteps in the dark, using the motion scanner (which had its own graphical representation that greatly enhanced the immersion) , etc. IF Xenonauts 2 would have all that it would be my new "best PC game of all time"...

Hello, I agree with pretty much everything from the OP. About air combats, i don’t like them, and i never liked them in any xcom-ish games. In X1 i used a mod to auto-win, so i could focus on everything else but air combat.

In the first image you can see how at night, the ground around the ufo is not illuminated correctly. The ufo hull is also partly in shadow and partly illuminated with no logic. In the second image you can see two shadows from the UFO hull. One nice, smooth drop shadow and another odd, darker one that looks like it shouldn't be there.

Add an option to disable the white 'miss' text popups whenever someone misses a shot

@Chris Revealing arrived enemy reinforcements in shroud looks odd and feels unrealistic in a mil-sim game. Add an option to disable it pls.

Throwables' icons should be darkened when the unit doesn't have enough TU's to use them the same way as hand weapons. Currently, only the green TU cost gets darkened / greyed out. It's odd to have two different UI visual logics side by side.

Night vision of aliens and those humans on the aliens side, seems pretty amazing - they can shoot me right across the board and i cant even see there location! Is there any plans to rebalance this, so you can actually hide in darkness, smoke grenades etc - and have night vision goggles as an extra?

Hey guys, im not sure what happened but I think my soldier got stuck again. Im sharing all my game files to see if it helps figure it out. The bug happened between 6:05 PM and 7:18 PM on 04/22/2024. saves.zip

Thanks. We weren't able to reproduce this at our end though - can you reproduce this reliably? Do you have more detailed reproduction steps we could follow? EDIT - actually, misunderstanding at our end. We've found the issue and we'll get it fixed!

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