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Hello everyone - it's time for our monthly development update on the progress we made in April. Gameplay Fixes: Over the past month our top priority was to release hotfixes for Milestone 5 when players encountered and reported bugs. This ended up being rather time consuming, because it turned out there were quite a lot of crashes related to rare occurrences in some of the new systems - but thankfully, the vast majority of these issues are now fixed (although we'll continue to hotfix any further bugs reported by the community!) As we're heading towards the end of our Early Access journey, we also took the opportunity to fix some long-standing visual bugs. The most obvious of these was the bug where the interior walls of restaurant buildings on Terror maps would always appear pure black, but there were more minor issues too - for example, dropships / UFOs having ugly solid shadows rather than a soft gradient like on other objects. These should all be fixed in Milestone 6. New Content: We've also added new assets to the project. Progress continues on the final cutscene, with the rough sketch for each illustration now complete and sent over to the animation team that will be putting the cinematic together. We've completed another couple of pieces of research art (there's now only a handful remaining), and we've also added brand new models for the Cyberdrone and Heavy Cyberdrone that look better, have proper animations, and make the two variants much easier to tell apart. Lots of new tiles have been added to the tactical combat, too. We've added the final environmental tiles for the ATLAS Base mission command room, and the Cleaner Base command room (including some updated tiles for the "Cleaner Device"). We've also added a lot of new tiles to the Soviet Town biome and we are in the process of creating our first proper test maps for that new environment, which we're hoping to include in Milestone 6 as an alternative tileset for Terror Site missions. We've also added a lot of new tiles to the Jungle biome so we can create dedicated Jungle abduction maps - previously this biome lacked the tiles required to make the urban / industrial setting of an abduction map (whereas a jungle wilderness environment worked perfectly well for Crash Sites). The first Jungle abduction map is now complete and we should have all four in place when Milestone 6 launches. Defender UFO: A new UFO will be arriving in Milestone 6 - the Defender, a dedicated escort fighter that appears some time after basic Fighter UFOs. While less agile than Fighter UFOs, it is tougher and is equipped with a medium-range weapon that can target both Xenonaut interceptors and incoming missiles. As it's an escort craft it doesn't produce crash sites and won't appear in the tactical combat, but it should add a bit more variety to interceptions on the strategic layer. Graphics Settings: Finally, we've been working on proper graphics settings for the game. There's now sliders that allow players to control brightness / contrast / gamma, and we've evaluated the various quality settings to ensure that only things that actually affect performance are changed - previously the lower graphics settings would disable a lot of things that didn't actually affect performance, but still made the game look worse. We're largely done with this task; all we have remaining is to finish updating the UI with the new options. That's everything we worked on last month. Thanks for reading, and I'll write another update at the end of this month!

Fair enough, we'll consider splitting ambient out into environmental too. If it's simple we'll probably do it quickly, if not then it'll be something we'll do if we have time for it at the end of development.

Description: Soldier cannot see into the blackness. What Happened: The righteous light of crusader Mjr. Laura Mason cannot penetrate the evil alien darkness. Alien cloaking tech? user_day_283_black_hole-518.json

Hopefully you'll use the new soviet town biome to add some additional variety to cleaner intel mission too, which is currently western town only. Now that you have 2 urban tilesets, it might be wise go utilize them in more mission types in general?

Standing soldiers can still shoot over the heads of adjacent crouched soldiers. The bug we fixed is that crouching soldiers were able to shoot over the heads of other crouched soldiers, which wasn't correct.

Continuing this idea of making panic rules more dynamic and intresting: Current region panic level should provide a negative multiplier for supporter bonuses. So for example a region that is on a brink of total collapse, supporters shouldn't act with 100% efficiency. Like this: (numbers from my ass) Panic 0-40: no negative effect Panic 41-55: -10% supporter efficiency Panic 56-65: -20% supporter efficiency Panic 66-75: -35% supporter efficiency Panic 76-85: -50% supporter efficiency Panic 86-94: -70% supporter efficiency Panic 95-100: Region supporters flee and provide no bonuses These events could have a small popup text for added flavor. Also, supporter status (isolated, guarded) should have a more random change cycle. Current 10 day cycle is too predictable.

Should alien base layouts/crew be persistent between tries? Currently if you abort the base assault and retry it, everything is randomized again. I'm not sure if this is intended behaviour or a bug (@Kouki?) , but the current system makes little sense realism wise. It would be interesting if the alien bases were really tough missions with so much resistance that you might need multiple asssults to destroy it. This would also make alien resuppy mission make more sense: the partly cleared alien base would only be repopulated if a resupply mission is succesful.

Now that we have supporter system and regional bonuses, making the game over rules more dynamic would really improve the game in my opinion. Currently it's just a gamey "lose 2 regions and it's a game over". I would love to see situations where I lose multiple regions and their region bonuses to really make the last months of the game feel like a high stakes race against all odds to the victory in a desperate all or nothing situation. Chris probably wants the game to end when there's no hope left to cut the game short, but losing 2 regions really doesn't feel like a situation where humanity would surrender in such existential situation. Especially if Xenonauts had a solution and means to end the invasion planned in few weeks time. If we want to force the game end more quickly in a death spiral way, just multiply all panic damage by the number of lost regions. Orbital bombardment should also generate more global panic (Currently it's just +20 to targeted region) I'd say +15 to every region globally and +40 to target region. This is more in line with terror sites which cause +35 panic if the city is leveled. I understand many gamers prefer to stretch end game indefinitely and just hang there shooting UFOs down and min-maxing everything. That's fine and all, but catering this small segment of players really waters down the feeling of the end of the world when the humanity is on it's final hour, fighting for existence.

I have contemplated vision systems a bit, and I'd actually like a system that emulates that a) you can move your eyes and head around more easily than you can rotate your body, so within a certain angle it should be really cheap to explore. b) Humans have vision focused on the centre of their vision cone, so things on the peripheral are not really perceived well. c) different lifeforms see well in different lighting conditions. d) movement is more easily perceived than a static target, and areas different in texture or colour are more focused on than very uniform areas. In a Xenonauts-like system, simulating this to a reasonable degree could look like this: a) when the unit is static or moving slowly, a large portion of its forward area is explored, while when panicked, suppressed or sprinting only a small, specific area is perceived. b) towards the edges of the vision area, it is less likely (percentage-wise) to spot a threat. This could be extreme in e.g. the case of an unexperienced sniper just staring through his scope, but that would lead to all kinds of wonky extra rules, which I am not a fan of. c) the brightness of the surroundings play a role in how far you can see and where you most likely spot enemies. At the same time, it makes it less likely to spot targets in darker areas, because the light also draws your vision focus and "overshines" darker areas. Also, that could make cool use of light mechanisms and items like flares, night vision goggles, flashlights, if different aliens had different light levels at which they perceive vision cues well. d) That could give rise to ambush and hiding mechanisms. In the extreme, e.g. a Sebillian grunt may not even perceive your troops if they stand perfectly still and do not attack, and Psyons panicking your troops to run around or twitch could be even more devastating. At the same time, Ghillie suits and other camouflage (also for Aliens) could become a useful and cool thing.

Ok, I can reproduce LoS bug. 1. Load "user_day_316_harvester_reveal_test_2-609.json". 2. Move Duval to position indicated in screenshot and click inside building to rotate to look into building. 3. Rotate camera via 'e' to match screenshot. 4. Move Evans to position indicated in screenshot and throw fusion grenade targeting tile Sebillian leader is on. 5. Shoot Sebillian leader with Wright. 6. Try to move Knudsen to building corner to shoot Sebillian leader with a right mouse click, who sees another Sebillian and opposite end of map and Harvester is revealed. user_day_316_harvester_reveal_test_2-609.json

Thanks for the report, this is a known issue and we've made a fix for this but it won't be out until milestone 6

While fighting the Sebillians and Mantid in the shed, the other end of the map, UFO, and UFO interior became visible which were not visible at start of turn. Reloading the turn auto-save and repeating the same actions doesn't yield the same result. Maybe the bug report logging will show how the UFO became visible. It became visible a couple turns earlier as well and I couldn't get it to repeat that turn either. bug_report_2025-05-20-21h21_gc_5.32.0_user_f11_0.zip user_day_324_manual_save-605.json

It's fine - we've now found the bug for night missions. Please report it again if you see it for day missions, but the night missions should be fixed in Milestone 6.

Thanks. I've fixed the issue in #2 now, but there's no bug with issue #1 - there's also a 5 day bonus for winning the mission.

Thanks, we'll look into it.

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! Gameplay Changes: Alien Base missions will no longer re-randomise the map and aliens present if you abort a mission and return to that same particular base. On the Experimental branch, the game has now been set to crash immediately when the game UI gets into a corrupted state. Previously the game would not crash immediately, but the corrupted UI would sometimes lead to further problems that eventually do cause a crash (at which point it is very hard to identify the original source of the corruption). Hopefully this will allow us to find and fix those issues. Bugfixes: Fixed an AI turn crash that could occur if an evacuating civilian was mind controlled before they evacuated. Fixed pressing Space on the Geoscape not correctly centring the camera on the map like it used to. Attempted a fix for areas of the map and UFOs sometimes not revealing from the shroud when you move soldiers. Fixed a minor issue where partially visible multi-tile objects could sometimes be incorrectly hidden after loading a save.

If it's easy to implement, the game should definitely save the remaining alien numbers. Cheesing could be avoided by aliens launching base resupply missions right after the aborted alien base mission. This would feel a lot more dynamic and player would be given a chance to prevent the base getting filled with new aliens.

To be clear, the alien crews don't re-randomise to have other races after a battle like was happening previously. However, casualties suffered by the aliens are still reset after a battle to prevent the missions being cheesed.

Sure. It's like you said. You have to reset the game to get everything back to normal.

Thanks for the bug report! We're aware of this bug and will fix this as soon as we can (we're currently blocked from fixing this by a separate issue and we're working through that first)

Thanks for the report! The missing roofs are all basically one painted parcel type, something must've happened to that. We'll give it a look and see what's going on

This is another hotfix for Milestone 5 that fixes a couple of gameplay issues. We're still tracking a small number of stability issues in Milestone 5 and will continue to release patches when we have fixes for them. Please do report any bugs you encounter on the bug reporting subforums and we'll do our best to look into them! Gameplay Changes: Quantum Teleportation research now correctly requires you to complete a Destroyer UFO (or more advanced UFO type) mission to unlock. Previously it was unlocking too early. Bugfixes: Fixed another crash that could occur in the AI turn during tactical combat. Fixed being able to see through some of the interior walls in the entry room of one of the Cruiser UFO variants,

Steps what happened. 1. Upgrading the guardian armor. 2. Putting it on a soldier, which made him practically disappear and only his head was visible and the inability to equip a module, e.g. healing or improved aiming. 3. the ability to equip the heavy armor variant multiple times by checking and unchecking the box, which increased the penalty to movement points. This seems to be a one-time problem after upgrading the armor in the next campaign, I will try to repeat it.

Yes, still using same machine. The turn auto-saves have been deleted but I have a hard save from the mission beginning. I'll play it from beginning again. I know the cruiser didn't render last time until a soldier approached from the front. Edit: Attached are saves approaching cruiser from side through the construction site. Using save LoS Test 2, if Balazova is run up to the left of the shipping container to the wooden fence the cruiser doesn't become visible. user_day_283_los_test_2-527.json user_day_283_los_test_1-526.json

Thanks for the report, we'll give it a look and see what's going on. The seed reset probably made it so that the AI didn't do the same action that led to the crash, good to know that you can continue playing on your campaign. For the meantime we'll look into the crash

I think the total strength stat a soldier can grow should be capped to 100, but equipment or armor can raise that above the cap.

Hi, Thanks for notifying us. Although Xenonauts 2 doesn't support Linux, we'll still try and help our Linux users if we can. When you say "the latest update" do you just mean Milestone 5 (rather than a specific hotfix for Milestone 5)? Did Milestone 4 work fine then? Is that error message common for people trying to play Unity games on Debian? I'm not that familiar with Linux gaming myself.

Just to be clear - we do appreciate all the bug reports you (and many others) make, and every bug report is read and most are discussed by the development team in our daily meetings. You’ll probably see us make some mistakes due to the volume of bug reports we get, but that doesn’t mean reports are being ignored or the company is in chaos. In an ideal world we’d have more staff to provide more fixes and transparency around bug reports, but sadly we have to do the best we can with the resources we have available (and I think we do pretty well with what we have).

ok so its not a bug thanx you and sorrry about that

Yeah, it should definitely work diagonally, we'll fix this bug. For the second one, yeah this is another bug that we'll have to fix (terror mission works like this, just have to make sure all missions work the same way). For the suggested fixes, I've added it to the board of suggestions we've made for all of the community feedback stuff we might implement post milestone 6.

Thanks as always for the bug fixes.

The intention is that the red area should just be overlaid on the stat bar, and shouldn't affect the length of it at all. We'll take a look.

So, I played through the milestone 5 on the unstable branch. Which in hindsight was probably unwise, as I lost my save just before I was about to do Operation Endgame. Needless to say, I'll probably be taking a break from Xenonauts for a while. But I wanted to leave some feedback, so here goes. The UFO delegation system: While the goal of letting people who don't want to clear as many downed UFOs is all right, punishing players who take too many UFOs probably wasn't the right way to go about it. I came up with two possible solutions. 1. Simply increase the rewards for delegating UFOs, possibly giving a choice for what rewards are given. Like, say, a choice between a cash award (default), part of the salvage (alloys, etc.), or operational favors (operations points). 2. Each UFO taken reduces the expiration timer of subsequent UFOs of that type (as the cumulative collected data lets local forces plan and mount their assault sooner; first come, first served) This could force players into the risk/reward choice of taking night missions and eventually just make it so a dropship wouldn't make it in time. This could make it so those who wanted to fight every UFO would need to invest resources into multiple bases with dropships and equipped ground teams. The stealth guys: While being able to distinguish between higher/lower tier units is important, I feel like them only entering stealth on taking damage made them too easy and less distinct. It also doesn't make much sense why they only enter stealth when injured, but not when in obvious danger like getting shot at. I feel like a good way to go about telling units apart would be make their stealth fields differently colored, perhaps with some more effective, and maybe with a different shaped glitch effect for the colorblind. The Sebelians: These guys have always felt under-armored. Yes, they have their scales, but they are also wearing armor. Also, it's weird how their health regens but their scales don't. Maybe make it so they have armor on top of their scales, but only their scales regenerate. Blood Splash on Gibbing: When a unit is gibed, have blood splash messily over several tiles, and maybe the walls too. Alien Blood: Since the "aliens" are from alternate evolutionary history Earths, if they're descended from that fish that first crawled from the ocean, they would probably have red blood. The Mantids, Symbionts, and Reapers could have yellowish insect blood or Horseshoe Crab Blue blood. Sell Living Aliens for Ops Points: While living aliens are worth much than corpses it's still not really worth it and more ways to get ops points would be nice. Map of the Multiverse: Assuming that that you appear in the same location and that timeline splits occur evenly throughout time (Though it could be that there are more branches in more recent "times" because there are more universes to split off from the same way there are more branches at the top of a tree than the base, on the other hand the multiverse could expand the same way the regular universe does, pushing universes out of reach as fast as they appear and balancing things out.) about one third would appear in intergalactic space (As they split before the Milky Way formed.), one third would appear in interstellar space (As they split before the solar system formed.), and about 5% would have multicellular life (As they split before multicellularity evolved.) Terror Missions: The lore of the terror missions doesn't make sense. Why would the aliens plant a bomb with ground teams? If they wanted to explode a bunch of people, they could just send in a bomber. Instead, maybe have the aliens install psychic broadcast devices to terrorize the locals. These would need babysitting from ground forces, and might also affect Xenonaut forces. And maybe make it so terror sites inflict panic for every hour their left active, potentially forcing players to consider a night terror mission. The MARS/ARES: For that price couldn't you add more cameras to them and give them 360-degree vision, and maybe night vision too. This would lean into their intended role as a scout and also maybe let them fire in 360-degrees (i.e. turn just their turret to shoot instead of their whole chassis) as well. Also, I feel like the Gauss Cannon is a downgrade from the Laser Cannon, as I can just shoot open the front door of a UFO in just one shot from a Laser Cannon, but a Gauss Cannon needs more shots. So maybe leave it so you can choose between a Laser Cannon or Gauss Cannon after they're unlocked. I'd also like to be able to weld a shield onto a MARS as a primary, to make them better at soaking up reaction fire and breaching. Or add a Servitors healing beam as a secondary. And maybe give them Cyberdrone style directional armor. A single shot missile pod in the secondary slot for people who like Canons would be nice. Also, do the Advanced Laser/Fusion weapon upgrades effect vehicle weapons? They should. The Impact of Alienium: I feel like just how revolutionary alien technology, and in particular Alienium, would be is underplayed a bit. Like, I remember reading back in like 2007 about how we had working exoskeletons back then, but they were held back by not having a suitable power source. On that same vein, the chief scientist could reason that the aliens have a power source for their weapons. And so could have designed the Accelerated Weapons ahead of time, ready to slot that power source into when discovered. So, both exoskeleton frames and accelerated weapons could both unlock the instant you discover Alienium, which would feel pretty impactful. If you feel that's too early for exoskeletons, maybe have the "first-generation" units have a downside like reduced reflexes or time units, with a later upgrade that removes that downside. Also, can Alienium be recharged? That could explain why the Alienium generators don't consume Alienium, just send the depleted Alienium offsite to be recharged and then brought back. What would happen if you overcharged Alienium? Would it explode? That could explain Alienium explosives, just overcharge a bit of Alienium until it explodes. Accelerated Weapons: I feel like these are underwhelming, and I know I'm not alone. Granted with five weapon tiers it's probably a choice of which tier you skip, but, skipping Accelerated seems to be the obvious best choice. The problem for me is they cost as much alloys as a suit of armor, so you're effectively choosing between a big boost in armor or a small boost in damage. I feel like making them cost a small amount of Alienium and no alloys would make them more attractive, and maybe give them an alloy barrel upgrade that improves damage. Lore wise, the alien magnetic/accelerated weapons seem to be coilguns that shoot regular bullets. This doesn't make much sense as regular bullets aren't magnetic, however, you CAN shoot copper cased bullets out of a railgun. So, the Accelerated Weapons could be hybrid railguns, and the alien magnetic weapons pure railguns. Yes, railguns have that barrel erosion issue, but, reducing projectile speed, or getting harder barrels, reduces the erosion. So, Accelerated Weapons could be tuned to "only" need to have their barrels replaced after every mission. Since the alien magnetic weapons are designed for stealth, a neat detail to add would be that they fire silently and can switch between subsonic or high velocity firing modes at the press of a button. Also, why is there no Accelerated Autorifle/Cannon? Laser Weapons: They're fine, maybe have their accuracy bonus be a simple flat value. Or improves at distance, because no target leading or bullet drop. Maybe. The current accuracy bonus feels a bit Jank. And I would like to point out that even looking at an area that is hit by a laser can damage your vision. Gauss Weapons: The only problem I can think of is that the ammo has an iron core. Because of something called "Magnetic Flux Saturation" or something, a material can only accelerate at a maximum rate in a magnetic field, regardless of how strong that field is, and Iron's MFS is pretty low. I remember playing a game called "Children of a Dead Earth," a game which lets you design realistic coilguns. In that the ammo of choice was something called "Magnetic Metal Glass," which sounds way cooler than iron anyway (and I'm pretty sure is a real material). Plasma Weapons: The plasma weapon lore is just dumb. Plasma stabilized by gravitons, really? Additionally, I've seen enough hard sci-fi buffs scoff at the idea of plasma weapons that there feels like a missed opportunity for the chief scientist to be insufferable ("Those morons must be misreporting lasers or something. The alien energy weapons couldn't possibly be shooting plasma.") A better explanation for plasma weapons would be that they shoot plasma in the form of plasmoids (i.e. lightning balls). These plasmoids would still just kind of scorch the surface of a target and be deflected by magnetic fields. So, on contact with a surface or magnetic field the plasmoid could collapse in such a way that they project a tightly focused beam of plasma, much like a HEAT warhead, capable of punching through matter and magnetic field alike. If you take nothing else from me, please, make the plasma weapon lore less stupid. Fusion Weapons: The player skipping plasma straight to fusion feels like skipping a step. Yes, the game already has enough weapon tiers, but still. Perhaps the Advanced Stun Weapons could be fluffed as first generation plasma weapons while they work on something with more stopping power, or at least have the chief scientist go "Thanks to my genius, we can skip a step!" For the lore, Fusion Weapons seem to have the fusion reaction happen inside them. This is bad, as fusion reactions emit a lot of X-rays and potentially neutrons, problems Alienium is supposed to avoid. Which is why, from a weapons standpoint, you want the fusion reaction to happen as far away from you and, ideally, as close to the enemy as possible. You could do this by firing a plasmoid loaded with a charge of fusion fuel which ignites a fusion reaction when it collapses. As to which fusion fuel, well, Deuterium-Deuterium and Deuterium-Tritium both emit large amounts of neutrons, which can cause neutron activation and radioactive fallout. So, Deuterium-Helium3 is probably the best, the alien fusion weapons could conveniently also use that, solving the supply issue. Colossus Battlesuit: It feels a bit too single purpose, like, is it too clumsy to hold a shield? Or a(n energy) knife? And I kinda wanna punch things with it. I guess I'm just upset seeing the secondary weapon slot empty, and the inability to add a mindshield or tactical module is a big downside too. Maybe let them mount MARS secondaries like the smoke launcher, Autorifle, or that single shot missile pod on their forearm Warmachine style. Bionic Implants for Soldiers: Equipment being as easily swapped between soldiers as it is, I feel that having equipment that is literally attached to the soldiers could offer an interesting choice for the player. Recruitment Loadouts: I would recruit a bunch of soldiers, have them arrive three days later, and have already forgotten what class I wanted them to be. Please let me set what class the soldier will be when I recruit them. Commanding Officer Indicator: All too often the commanding officer of a mission would turn out to be that Assault or Shield that just got wasted for taking a risky move, and now everyone's panicking. So, an obvious indicator would be nice. Roof Explosives: I once threw a Hail Mary demo charge on the roof over an enemy's head, the roof didn't collapse. I was upset. Night Missions: I noticed that all the lights were out during a cleaner VIP mission at the dockyard at night, even in buildings with people in them, this doesn't make much sense. And while yes having the lights out with aliens around makes some sense and is creepy, maybe have some lights stay on during night missions. Seeing a Secton suddenly run under that lone working street could also be very creepy. Maybe add an option to spend operations points to have local forces launch an artillery flare, providing outdoor, but not indoor, illumination for a time. Radar: The UFOs stealth could be explained with an alloy-based Radar absorbing coating and their electric thrusters having a low thermal signature. This coating could be copied by the Xenonauts, which would enable them to fly through even restricted airspace at will, important for the first phase. The aliens' electric thrusters could emit a low radio noise and leave an ionized exhaust with a distinct if fuzzy Radar signature that terrestrial, and especially military, Radars are suspiciously unable to detect at a hardware level. The necessary hardware retrofits could take years. And the Xenonauts could just use carefully tuned and extra sensitive Radiation Seeking Missiles (these seek radio waves, like Radar), possibly with alloy components. As for the Quantum Array, it just feels too strong for how early it is, just one upgrade and you know everything about every UFO from there on out. Like, have the first upgrade be "Higher Resolution Radar" that just tells which class the UFO is, with later upgrades revealing more. Maybe early on, the player could choose to spend some operations points to scout the area of a mission and see what's there. Additionally, the Quantum Array is supposed to intercept alien communications, but wouldn't it be trivial for them to change encryption keys on a whim? Speaking of... Encryption: The Xenonauts, being an organization expecting to face an enemy with unknown, possibly infinite, computational ability, would use Single Pad Encryption. With single use keys generated by random physical processes, such as a wall full of lava lamps, it would be mathematically unbreakable, by virtue of there being no math involved. The catch is that the keys would need to be delivered physically on hard drives without being compromised, with more delivered as they're used up, but that's the Operations Director's problem. Indeed, the aliens could be using Quantum Computers to read all of humanity's most heavily encrypted secrets like an open book. Good ending: The Xenonauts find whatever quantum proof encryption the aliens use, and everyone switches to that. Bad ending: The aliens also use Single Pad Encryption, implying that they believe, or have proven, that there is no quantum proof encryption, and so the era of Public Key Encryption is over, another casualty of the invasion. The Cleaners: The Cleaners just never feel threatening past the very early game. Like, once you get lasers, they're a joke. Maybe give them upgraded armor and weapons one or two months into the game, and not just at their base, to keep them competitive. On top of that, maybe make it so the cleaners have to be found and taken out to stop Doomsday. To help with that, Intelligence Supporters could give progress on finding the Cleaners' base, giving a choice between Security Supporters to keep Doomsday away and Intelligence Supporters to find the Cleaners before it's too late. To Keep the pressure on, they could get better at stoking tensions as time goes on, like, Doomsday goes up 1% every day the first month, 2% the second, 4% the third, and so on. Perhaps make it so the player can't build new bases until the cleaners are gone, and the Cleaners are hunting for the Xenonauts' base. If they find it, game over. Free Supporter at Beginning: Since the Xenonauts are borderline fugitives at the beginning of the game, having a (non-elite) supporter in the region their first base is set up in could explain how they're able to operate at all. Plus, it could add more nuance to the decision of where to set up the first base, and give a nice early game boost. The General: When I first read in the blog that the General was an adversary, I thought that ATLAS was set up by the Cleaners themselves as a controlled opposition to refine opsec or something, and so was set up to fail from the very beginning. The Chief Scientist, Operations Director, And Tactical Commander (Which could be the Commander's full title.) all have flaws that could easily justify their firing. So, naturally, when they actually succeed with that first UFO takedown, they needed to be disposed of. Thus, the Xenonauts rise from the ashes of ATLAS. ExDef: These people seem less "mediocre" and more "outright stupid and reckless." Grey goo, alien diseases, antimatter, there is SO MUCH damage even a few grams could do, they should have no go-ed it at the first sign the gateway could receive ANY mass. So perhaps it can easily be tuned between "accept mass" and "only information," with ExDef naively not knowing "information" includes "psychic influence." The Eternals: I was... disappointed by the Eternals, but I'm not sure if it's because I set myself up for disappointment. They just feel... boring. You see, I had what I thought was a cool fan-theory about the identity of the eternals would be. Thats why I played the experimental branch, to see how my theory held up as soon as possible. I originally wanted this send this whole post including that theory as an email instead of a forum to avoid spoiling it on the off chance the devs actually took it, but I had trouble finding an address. Well, even if the devs liked it, it's probably too late to change the story anyway. Ugh, I've been working on this post for days, it's getting late, I need to go to bed for work. Hopefully it posts alright.

Yeah, I think after first few UFO tiers (maybe after abductors?), there should always be one UFO flying around that is tier above everything else to show how advanced aliens are compared to humans. You could maybe be able shoot it down, but at what cost?

Yeah, in the same vein I feel like there should be fuckloads more Battleships in the last phase of the game and introduce a new alien air superiority craft that straight up outclasses any fighters you make.

5.28

Yes, we do need to unify this a bit. Thanks for the reminder.

Great idea!

Is it intended for wraiths to walk on water?

Not a huge fan of these obviously (at least partly) AI generated images. Telltale signs: Chair has only 1 armrest Clone brush artifacts in top left corner from stitching multiple images Odd font in NEWS Edge of the table goes nowhere Odd shadows from the shelf. Image is also full of these odd blurry items that are not anything specific. The whole image is a mess of wrong perspective with multiple vanishing points. (Yellow lines are table's vanishing point, teal is for the room) Vertical walls are all skewed in different directions, making the whole room look odd. (Yellow lines to highlight) Screen (yellow lines) is skewed in relation to the wall (teal line)

Higher ranked Mantids should get a grenade that has little to no actual damage but spawns like 3-4 Symbionts.

Hey guys. After playing 2 full campaigns on soldier and commander difficulties can share my thoughts about questions asked above. Little disclaimer - thats a subjective experience and you can agree or disagree and thats fine) "the general difficulty curve of the invasion" - quite same on both difficulties, moderate on the game start and become more and more simple after you advance at your tech-tree (generally and only if you know what to do and how to do on your geoscape). Probably the most unbalanced thing in a game generally are supporters system - some of them are totally worthless while some of them are op (-1 panic per region at month start sounds like a joke while +1 operation point per day is a game-changer especially in first months) "certain missions being too hard" - the hardest missions in whole game are several in the start of your campaign (when your soldiers are all rookies and you dont have any precious weapons/equipment and cant carry much because of low strength). First cleaners data computers mission and first civilian abduction mission are near impossible to complete with a 100% result on commander difficulty (but quite easy on soldier difficulty though). Also a psyons+cyberdrones terror mission is a nightmare on commander difficulty (cause drones are blowing everything around with a fusion burst reaction fire). I dont say those missions need balancing - on lower difficulties they are absolutely manageable. Just you asked about hardest so here they are) "certain enemies being too tough or too weak" - too tough is a cyberdrone badass lol While not a big problem on soldier difficulty several of them can bring you some big problems on commander difficulty. Probably the best way to balance him is to increase emp damage for electroshock grenades or at least make those grenades turning off his reaction fire for current turn. Cause enemy that cant be killed even in 2-3 shots, cant be blinded/suppressed and shooting everything that moves near him with a burst fire can be annoying sometimes. Hard to say who is the weakest among them - all other seem to be balanced (Sebillians throwing a gas grenade into you when you are inside your own smoke and have no damage out of it is a nice bonus - not sure if that needs to be changed or not lol) "certain weapons being overpowered or underpowered" - well i think the correct question should be "what weapons you use/shoot with the most and what the least". In my campaigns i used absolutely all of them and what seemed to me not so useful on soldier difficulty become surprisingly very useful on commander difficulty. Good example - on soldier difficulty i almost never used shields, pistols and shotguns but on commander difficulty those weapons become basic. IMO - weapons that need some rework are assault rifle and machinegun. AR has lots of firing modes but problem is that aimed shot outperforms all of them. Why would i bargain with a chances in other modes if i almost always see 100% on aimed shot? For me it looks like you need to either decrease accuracy for AR aimed shot or increase for all other modes (or make some changes with TUs costs - for example AR aimed shot cost 60% TU not 48%). Machinegun because it's too situational weapon. On one hand thats the only weapon that can 1-shot a Cyberdrone (if odds are on your side) on another you just dont need that amount of damage and usually will have an "overkill" with a high cost of 75% TUs. And with X3 burst fire risk of all 3 misses is too high. Hard to say how to balance this weapon properly - probably increasing accuracy for x3 burst (from 40% to 50-60%?) or adding 3rd firing mode with 1-round and higher accuracy+lower TUs. Squad Sizes: Why everyone talking about reducing a number of carrying soldiers for dropships? Maybe it's just better to add one more aircraft type - an interceptor-transport hybrid like it was in original xcom? Lets say it should be interceptor with a power between Phantom and Gemini that could carry 8 soldiers. So while intercepting a small/medium ufo you could send it with a 8-soldiers squad and start mission right after successful interception. But for large ufos and terror/alien base mission you could still use your 12-16 man dropships. I think such aircraft will solve all problems with squad sizes Colossus Armour: first of all need to add using all types of grenades with a range of a grenade launcher not just regular throw (i think this suit should have no problems with throwing something on long distance right?). Second you can add something like a "siege mode" ability for this suit - for example you activate it with a large amount of TU (60-80% TU) and become immobile but starting from next turn you get a TU discount for all combat actions like firing and throwing grenades (all actions for half TU price maybe) Wraith Cloaking Field: for me works just fine as it is. No need for any change. P.S. If i recall smth valuable will update this post. Have a good day everyone!

Well i can agree with most of your points except just few (after playing on commander difficulty). First of all - just dont nerf smoke/gas masks. This part of a game works just perfect imo. Considering a fact that around 70-80% of time my soldiers were inside smoke (cause in some missions you basically cant poke your nose out of smoke because of react fire) nerfing smoke/masks will make some missions insanely hard. Regarding Sebillians with gas grenades - just give them alenium grens instead. Second - i dont see any imbalance in teleports usage. Yes they are a perfect way for kiting (tp in - shot - tp out OR tp-grenade-tp) but aliens can do the same arent they? So instead of changing a teleport system maybe just make aliens more actively using them for scouting and "shoot-tp out" strategy? All other points i probably agree

May i ask which campaign difficulty those remarks were made for?

Colossus Armor Top idea : keep Colossus clumsy and limited to mg, but add some spice on top in a good way - soldier gets Experience points into levelling TU by walking with more than 80% carry capacity. Soldier in Colossus armour should get a chance to do that by carrying something useful. Backpack filled by mg ammo to reach carry capacity is silly. a] allow modules : all of them, I have never used The Brave module so at least this would be something new. AutoMed module is very logical, soldier is literally sealed in the armour so field medic could not even touch him. Workshop with special tools is required to get soldier in/out the armour. For Lore reason, DISABLE healing Colossus by standard MedKit. Edit Colossus description UFO-paedia accordingly. In general, Modules are heavy so it fills up the need to carry something meaningful b] allow carry shield in backpack: shields are heavy as hell, and they tend to get destroyed. Ability to provide a spare shield for a friend is nice gameplay c] turtle ninja : this option is based on previous. It is totally cool, hilarious and authentic at the same time ! - Colossus carry shield on his back, it is visually animated. It looks like turtle ninja. All attacks from backs (180 degree back ) are covered by the shield, e. i. shield is consumed as usual. Colossus can be used as a brick in breaches, door opening and so on. He turns his back to a danger zone, and holds it. It offers an unusual situations and fun gameplay ! And of course he could pass the shield to a friend too. Adding all three a] b] c] options at once would be ok. Fun gameplay offering unusual options, but not too strong in general. Certainly make team full of Colossus would not create an unbalanced advantage. BTW : There is an archetype in the past. In middle ages, Crossbow warrior with pavise (a type of large shield) on his back. He shoot his crossbow, then turn back to danger and crouch, in this position he reload crossbow, stand up turn front to danger and shoot. another pictures of crossbowman with a shield on his back https://se.pinterest.com/pin/370421138093551622/ https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/375909900117601743/ I will comment other areas later.

Not everything that isn't visually perfect is AI art. Lots of artists work with photobashing, where they grab photo references and paint over them. If they're pulling together multiple photos then the vanishing points often don't match (and even the best artists often get the vanishing point wrong anyway, as they're only human). In the second image the dubious vanishing point is forced by the UI. There's a few suspicious things with the first image that I'll speak to the artist about, although I'm not necessarily convinced AI is responsible. I doubt either of the other two have any AI in them from what I've seen of the WIP versions.

Another recent image with no proper perspective whatsoever. Yellow lines are the "perspective" of the tables and shelves. (Three different vanishing points) Teal lines are for the ceiling and I can't find even a single proper vanishing point there. These images are a mess where it just looks odd when there's no proper perspective. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanishing_point

Those two things jump out at me as being interesting ideas - the former has occurred to me before, and it's not too difficult to implement a "night vision" visual range that is independent from the day visual range that might be quite interesting. Maybe it would be a good idea to fight certain aliens at night, but not others... The second idea would be harder to implement in practice, but is a very cool idea in principle - the idea that your soldier could just stand still and not move or shoot and become invisible to certain types of aliens would be pretty awesome. It might be a bit abuseable in practice but who knows - it's something that I might be willing to try out as the game gets closer to release. It'd certainly stop the aliens feeling so interchangeable.

You're right, but this is fully intentional - the old X-Com games have quite a strong tension / horror vibe to them and a lot of that is generated by the fact your soldiers can't see very far and have quite narrow view cones. You can contrast that with the modern XCOM games by Firaxis where your soldiers have 360 degree vision and there's basically no horror element at all, and the tension present is a very different kind of tension. I understand it might not feel natural to you, but an X-Com spiritual success kinda has to go down that route if we want the game to feel like X-Com. The good news is it'll also be easy to mod this in Xenonauts 2 if you don't like it; the vision angle is a value you can set on combatants.