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It's time for our monthly development update, where I'll be taking this opportunity to talk about our plans for further updates and the eventual 1.0 release! Milestone 5 Public Release: Almost all of last month was spent working on the long-awaited Milestone 5, and yesterday we finally released it onto the standard Steam / GOG / Epic branches for everyone to play. This is a major update that adds a lot of new content to the game, but also allows players to unlock the final mission and win a campaign (the full changelog can be seen here). Overall, we're pleased with the way Milestone 5 turned out. I personally think that the addition of the Geoscape Supporters / Strategic Operations and the new Phase system have made the strategic layer a lot more engaging than before, and the new "UOO" missions add more variety to the second half of the game. We hope you all enjoy the update - many of these new systems are "extra" content (beyond what was in our original roadmap) that we've only been able to add because so many players have been willing to support an Early Access product! The next couple of weeks have been set aside to focus on fixing problems that people may experience in Milestone 5, so please report any bugs or gameplay issues you encounter and we'll do our best to fix them quickly. Milestone 6: In the meantime, we've started work on Milestone 6. This was originally intended to be a single large update that would bring the game all the way to final release, but Milestone 5 had such a long development cycle that we've changed our plans so players don't have to go so long between updates. The key goal for Milestone 6 is now to finish all the missing gameplay content - e.g. adding the final victory cinematic, adding all remaining research art, revamping the Air Combat to have an updated UI and a proper tutorial, adding the Soviet Town biome, etc. Essentially this represents completing the remaining content on our roadmap and finishing the areas of the game still marked as incomplete. We're also going to be adding some new content that we've already completed but never made it into Milestone 5. For example, we've got a full set of updated Sebillian models that we need to set up, and we're currently working on upgraded models for the Cyberdrone and Heavy Cyberdrone that make the two types more visually distinct. There's also a lot of new terrain tiles that we need to set up and add into our existing maps. Hopefully this means Milestone 6 will still feel like a substantial update, despite the changes to the game systems being largely limited to the air combat. Our aim is to have this update released on the public branches in three to four months. Pathway to 1.0: We'll then spend a few more months polishing up the game as we transition to our final 1.0 release, as there will still be plenty of things we want to improve. We'd like to spend some more time testing and improving the AI. We'd like to do a pass over all the maps. We'd like to optimise performance and load times a bit more. We need to build the mod tools. There's also a lot of sensible and relatively straightforward community suggestions that would improve the game. We probably won't have time to do everything we want, but we'll get as much in as we can! This means we're unlikely to add any major new features to the game beyond those already planned for Milestone 6. There was a lot of content on our original roadmap and we've gone beyond that on several occasions already (the new content in Milestone 5, the expansion to the Cleaners in Milestone 3, etc), so with our second anniversary of our Early Access launch approaching we need to shift focus from adding new content to polishing what we have. We're aiming for the 1.0 update to drop before the end of the year, but as always, we'll keep you posted. We'll have a better idea of the timetable once we're done with Milestone 6.

" FIRST TRY " best mission from the game so far

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

I picked it up again, found an issue and got it working interception_crop.mp4

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! Changes: All aliens in the Terror Site around day 70 should now use Magnetic weapons (previously a couple of aliens were incorrectly using Plasma weapons). Made some small changes to the Endgame part 2 mission, ensuring the outer walls of the mission are indestructible and placing earth tiles in any of the internal voids in the map. Also fixed some misaligned floor tiles. These map changes mean that any existing save games from Endgame part 2 will now be broken! Bugfixes: Fixed a crash that could occur when a Servitor fell down a level while also trying to perform autoheal. Fixed the Autopsy: Symbiote research project not unlocking correctly. Fixed the "Recovering" state of wounded soldiers incorrectly displaying as "<1 Day" in some situations. Fixed the western town double-sided chair tiles not correctly disappearing when destroyed.

Test Methodology: A. Uninstall 5.25.2 Experimental within GOG Galaxy and close Galaxy. B. Manually delete Xenonauts 2 folder and *.JSONs in My Games\Xenonauts 2\Settings. C. Install 5.25.1 Release/Stable within GOG Galaxy and close Galaxy. D. Start Xenonauts 2 from desktop shortcut. Select 'New Game' once Main Menu loads. Select 'Begin Campaign'. Allow cinematic to run and strategy layer to load until 'Welcome to Xenonauts 2' tutorial dialog appears. Alt-F4 to exit game. E. Step 'D' repeated 5 times. Tutorial appears 5 times (Yay!) F. Start GOG Galaxy and revert to 5.24.0 Release/Stable and close Galaxy. G. Start Xenonauts 2 from desktop shortcut. Select 'New Game' once Main Menu loads. Select 'Begin Campaign'. Allow cinematic to run and strategy layer to load until 'Welcome to Xenonauts 2' tutorial dialog appears. Alt-F4 to exit game. H. Step 'G' repeated 5 times. Tutorial dialog appears 5 times (Yay!) I. Start GOG Galaxy and update to 5.25.2 Release/Stable and close Galaxy. J. Start Xenonauts 2 from desktop shortcut. Select 'New Game' once Main Menu loads. Select 'Begin Campaign'. Allow cinematic to run and strategy layer to load until 'Welcome to Xenonauts 2' tutorial dialog appears. Alt-F4 to exit game. K. Step 'J' repeated 5 times. Tutorial dialog appears 5 times (Yay!) L. Start GOG Galaxy and update to 5.25.2 experimental and close Galaxy. M. Start Xenonauts 2 from desktop shortcut. Select 'New Game' once Main Menu loads. Select 'Begin Campaign'. Allow cinematic to run and strategy layer to load until 'Welcome to Xenonauts 2' tutorial dialog appears. Alt-F4 to exit game. N. Step 'M' repeated 5 times. Tutorial dialog fails to appear 5 times (BOO!) O. Start Steam and install Legacy 5.15.0 Experimental and leave Steam running. P. Start Xenonauts 2 from 'Play' button within Steam. Select 'New Game' once Main Menu loads. Select 'Begin Campaign'. Allow cinematic to run and strategy layer to load until 'Welcome to Xenonauts 2' tutorial dialog appears. Alt-F4 to exit game. Q. Step 'P' repeated 5 times. Tutorial dialog fails to appear 5 times (BOO!) R. Install Steam Legacy 4.27.0 Stable. S. Start Xenonauts 2 from 'Play' button within Steam. Select 'New Game' once Main Menu loads. Select 'Begin Campaign'. Allow cinematic to run and strategy layer to load until 'Welcome to Xenonauts 2' tutorial dialog appears. Alt-F4 to exit game. T. Step 'S' repeated 5 times. Tutorial dialog appears 5 times (Yay!) U. Install Steam 5.25.2 Experimental. V. Start Xenonauts 2 from 'Play' button within Steam. Select 'New Game' once Main Menu loads. Select 'Begin Campaign'. Allow cinematic to run and strategy layer to load until 'Welcome to Xenonauts 2' tutorial dialog appears. Alt-F4 to exit game. W. Step 'V' repeated 5 times. Tutorial dialog fails to appears 5 times (BOO!) Conclusions: Tutorial dialog appears in stable builds but not experimental builds. Previous shortcut/GOG results with 5.24.0 stable did not repeat. It would be helpful if game's Main Menu version text indicated Experimental or Stable and GOG version text Release was consistent with https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/forum/7-xenonauts-2-releases-patch-notes/ Stable descriptions. I would be curious if tutorial dialog appears in 4.27.0 Experimental and this experimental/stable behavior was introduced in early m5.x.y as I don't recall encountering this last campaign of 5.0.0 Experimental.

That's an entirely different artist to the ones you've complained about previously, though, and that specific piece of art was painted two years ago (prior to the Early Access launch), back when AI image generation was very primitive. Which kinda illustrates the point I'm making - not every issue you see with a piece of art is because it's been generated by AI. Sometimes artists cut corners, sometimes they make mistakes, sometimes they just aren't technically capable enough to get everything in a scene perfect. In this case that's just the artist's style, which you can also see on all the interrogation art. He's a very talented artist (especially with biological creatures) but he's not great at industrial design, which is why the computer stuff at the top looks a bit weird.

i'm talking the original XCOM: UFO Defense from 1994 when it was released, its direct sequels, the Firaxis remake pair, UFO Extraterrestrials, Phoenix Point, the first Xenonauts, and other games of the genre. now that the final mission is actually available, it seems too easy to get to that point. with careful play it's possible to capture the second eternal encountered (the first being on the big satellite gun that i stunned but wasn't able to capture), interrogate and research the final mission, and you're on your way. this could be well before researching Gauss weapons, getting any Gemini fighters, or anything approaching the end of the research tree. i liked how XCOM had an elaborate research tree where you had to capture and interrogate various levels of UFO commanders to reach the final mission research objective. the battleship carrying the eternal comes too early in the game perhaps. it seems you have removed some aliens that are no longer in the game but those mind control guys really made things more complex to attack and defend against. other aliens previously seen i must be missing or they aren't in the game anymore. the midgame transition to endgame basically results in no activity, a lot of waiting around, and generally not having much to do nor any real challenge. even with highly successful base building and UFO interception, i would have expected a nearly constant if not growing UFO incursion rate to keep me scrambling to stop things from getting worse. instead i can usually go an entire game month with only a couple of UFO raids all of which i destroy before they can attack anything. making it worse is that the Gemini seems mostly invulnerable to attacking UFO. even at the easiest level and auto resolve i think the aliens should do a lot more damage to a Gemini squadron and making it harder to keep them in repair. so a higher UFO incursion rate plus weaker fighters would put more challenge into the mid and endgame. having the aliens be more aggressive about base building and attacking my bases would be nice. as it stands with 4 of the most current base defense weapons i can ignore defending my bases. even an alien battleship doesn't have much of a chance. the final mission seems too easy. having two base levels is a good thing but the second level is pretty short. an alien base attack mission is quite a bit harder than the second level of the final mission. the original Xenonauts had large waves of reinforcements fairly quickly and it was tough to keep ahead of them. the original XCOM, well the aliens were pretty effective even at the lowest difficulty level of making successful attacks and injuring or killing soldiers. i don't mind the larger craft capacity of the current troop transports. the Avenger in the original XCOM carried 26 soldiers and even at the easiest game difficulty it was quite possible to get all of them wounded by the end of a landed battleship attack mission. so 16 to me is not a bad thing. yes it does take a lot longer to manage and move that many squad members but if you make ground attack difficult enough then you'll have to need them all. having an explosive weapon with an area of attack effect that can break open buildings is something i miss. the old XCOM blaster launcher was a great tool for attacking and breaking open landed UFO and clearing obstacles. Phoenix Point has a number of them and carefully used they are great things. so a grenade launcher and rockets would be good. same with stunning grenades and rockets. i miss XCOM's damaged UFO attack missions. the UFO might be grounded in Xenonauts 2 but it's not damaged for the purposes of conducting missions. there's no blasted open sides with holes for entry and things like that. all the doors and lifts are functioning. seems improbable if i was able to shoot it apart enough to force it to crash land. back to the tech tree. it's pretty linear and fairly easy to complete just by sheer scientist production. there's no complexities where i have to chase down certain UFO with certain occupants to capture and interrogate. find my first eternal and the rest don't matter anymore. i feel that eternals shouldn't appear at all until a bunch of precondition research items have taken place even if battleships are busy ravaging the planet. capturing multiples of navigators, scientists, commanders and other ranks should be a prerequisite. attacking alien bases to gather other research as prerequisites can't hurt either. making it a requirement to capture them from landed UFO and not shot down ones would be even more realistic. after all if you are shot down, destroying the secrets is a standard procedure. i know from experience that balancing a game is tough. small changes can have unexpected impact and players can be sneaky about exploiting any inconsistency in the game's structure. however, i think there are some easy balance and playability changes to be made. Herb...

We'll create a Milestone 5 STABLE balance thread where this can be discussed. We can gather a bunch of opinions and then do a proper balance pass in a week or two.

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

Great idea!

But it doesn't help the player using the perspective used with existing mechanics. The soldier Xinlei is two tiles in from the roof edge with the ladder, but then at ground level the selection square doesn't show where the soldier is as a floor projection but as a ceiling projection which isn't used anywhere else in the game? As a ground level floor projection the roof soldier appears to be located over the desk 4 tiles in from the building edge inline with the ladder and two tiles in from the building edge with the smoke and box outside. Current implementation is inconsistent with other level mechanics. If it is to be left, make it a floor-to-ceiling pillar under the roof soldier like the level indicator, or make it a floor projection on the lower level using a different color like orange with a dot or hashes in the middle.

Ah well, asked Chris about it and to be more accurate, while it's not necessarily the intended effect, we're leaving that in place for now as it also helps the player identify where the currently selected soldier is without having to change camera layers. We might change it in the future though, depending on community feedback, etc.

I fee like I must comment here as I'm a game developer for Project Zomboid and we had massive backlash about artwork made for the new build. An artist was hired to create a few pieces used in the main screen and loading screens, and people started pointing fingers and calling it AI as soon as the unstable version of the build was released. In the end it didn't really matter, it was decided that all pieces would be removed so that this topic would not dominate discussion about the new build and compromise much-needed feedback. I can't say X2 would see a similar reaction from its community, but be warned anyway, this is a very problematic topic and many people are extremely vocal about it. It doesn't really need to be AI-made art, if people suspect it could be then reactions could be just as strong. If you hired an artist ask about AI use so that you can decide how to deal with it. Keep in mind it could generate negative feedback for the game.

I've been asking for this quite a while. Give me more missions so I can (or need to) choose which ones to carry out and in what order. And this doesn't concern only cleaner missions. Geoscape in general feels mosty too empty and invasion too mellow. I want the game to force me to make choices. Currently the campaign is too linear where the game mostly generates one mission at a time. Funny thing, the ancient beta years ago had three cleaner VIP missions spawned at the same time, which you needed to complete all to make the HQ appear. While it was very bare bones at that time, it felt great to have the choice how and in what ordee to tackle them.

Yes the VIP extraction and cleaner data raid are now the hardest missions before the first terror mission. I'd give VIP extract the nod of being harder because the reinforcements spawn much closer to the extract point. Abduction missions are tough too, but so long as you are only okay with getting 3-5 rescues it isn't that bad, I rarely bother with late-game abductions because you are just asking to lose soldiers/gear. Additionally, the mission to rescue the 3 soldiers seems to have completely vanished from the rotation. Would be nice to be guaranteed one of each type of cleaner mission (soldier rescue, VIP extract, data raid, convoy, & VIP elimination) before invasion phase. @Rakiii the cleaner soldier/agent interrogations are now automatic and grant a lump sum of OP points.

Thanks for the report, we'll take a look and see what's going on

https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/053/565/123/large/teo-chee-kia-presentation7.jpg?1662505076

It is the still the same bug. Not fixed yet. As more people join bug hunting, it could be useful, if you give a number to each report. Then, they can be merged or solved separately. Finally you add the number to your patch notes. Anyway people will see, their effort is not wasted. Check Factorio forum, for further details. Their polished the system over the years to perfection.

As a consolation prize if you have a particularly bad mission. Not hard to figure out.

4.27.0 Experimental 01.AVI 5.0.0 Experimental 01.AVI 4.27.0 has tutorial. 5.0.0 does not. Video of each from old camera.

Once you research Advanced Alien Alloys, the Stalker armor should get a manufacturing project to improve its armor capabilities especially given Advance Alien Alloys specifically mentions it can be used as fabric covering with 70% of the effectiveness of a plate of alien alloys. Given Stalker armor was initially a skintight kevlar suit, replacing the outdated kevlar with fabric-like advanced alien alloys makes the most sense, and numbers-wise Increasing its protection from 9/18 to 16/32 would be fair, keeping it weaker than upgraded Guardian armor but still being fairly protective to keep up with increasing threats.

This hotfix for Milestone 5 fixes a serious issue in the game considered urgent, so we're launching it straight onto the normal branches without letting people test it for a few days on the Experimental branches first. There's therefore a higher chance of stability issues than normal - we'll be watching the bug report forums closely over the weekend, so please let us know if you encounter any issues! The critical bug we're fixing can cause soldiers to suffer permanent stat loss if you're saving / loading during combat, as well as potentially getting stuck in the wounded state on the strategy layer. However, we're also toning down Mind Control and fixing an issue with night missions getting out of sync with the Geoscape night shadow. Changes: Mind Control for Psyons no longer uses squad sight, so Psyons need to get direct vision on a Xenonaut before they can cast the ability (Eternals can still cast Mind Control using squad sight). Added new art for the Alien Antigravity Unit research project. Added new injury / death sounds for the Eternal. Bugfixes: Fixed a bug where soldiers could permanently lose stats if a player loaded a tactical save in which their units had temporary debuffs from being Suppressed (Reflexes) or taking HP damage (Accuracy), as this caused the temporary debuffs to incorrectly become permanent. Unfortunately it's not possible for us to fix soldiers that have suffered from this issue - sorry about that! Fixed the day / night status of a mission on the Geoscape being set when it first spawns, rather than the time when the player actually begins the mission. Fixed a bug where smoke tiles and doors would sometimes appear invisible to the player, but still be present in gameplay terms. (Hopefully) fixed combat shields sometimes not disappearing when destroyed by enemy fire. Fixed the UOO Bridge Assault mission not allowing you to attempt it a second time if you abort the mission. Fixed soldiers getting stuck in the "airborne" state if you abort the Bridge Assault mission. Fixed the Geoscape objective text going off the edge of the screen on non-16:9 screens.

It's not AI-generated. The artist has just painted over a 3d render of the in-game prop and placed it in front of the updated research UI background. No, you haven't. You're just making assumptions.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of evidence of AI generated elements in the more recent art.

Thanks, this is really useful information given we can't repro it ourselves. I'm guessing the difference between Stable and Experimental is because Experimental builds have worse performance. Are your findings with the 5.24.0 Stable on GOG reproducible? Or is is just semi-random on the Stable builds where you get the bug sometimes but not others? I'm a bit sceptical that launching through GOG Galaxy would make any difference. One thing that would be really valuable if you have time is to revert to a few of the older Experimental versions in GOG and see if you get the same problem? At least then we might have some idea of when the bug was introduced? Was it in 5.12.0? Should be able to zero in on it fairly quickly if you half the version numbers each time.

This article mostly suits to the Milestone 5 Feedback thread, but it introduces new mechanics, so it is asked by Chris, : "for new mechanics make other thread". 1. Sebilian Hunting methods Sebilians shooting and sight is tragic, but they adapted their hunting methods to their skills. Sebilians often use ranged burst fire. Main purpose of ranged combat is not to kill a target (they like eat their food alive) but suppress the prey. Sebilians use Alien flash-bang grenade (blast radius 1,5 ; Stun dmg 15 ) to suppress the prey. (every second Sebilian has one Alien flash-bang grenade) ( The NEW Alien flash-bang grenade replaces the Alien Toxic gas grenade. Sebilians do not use Toxic gas grenades, it would spoil the food !) Once prey is suppressed they go in and Attack Close range. First Succefull Sebilian's melee attack in a turn provide a healing equals to Natural Regen per turn. ( This way Sebilian can get two healing per turn, one from melee attack, second from Natural Regen) 2. Sebillian Feeding methods Sebilians love live food more than anything. They do not risk kill food, prematurely. Sebilians do no shoot unarmed civilians or use precious grenade. Sebilian enjoy hunt those yummy humies in melee. Ranged combat for suppressing prey is used only on armed prey (armed civilians or Xenonuts). When prey is killed in melee, Sebilian could continue feeding on warm fresh corpse. (Eating a cold corpse is considered awful, so they dont do that. When there is no other armed prey in sight, Sebilian always fully eat his current warm prey. Eating is the highest purpose of Sebilian life, so he is focused to his task. When devouring a warm prey Sebilian sight range is reduced by 6 AND cone of view is reduced by 40Degree. ) Eating action takes 40% of TU. Each eating action makes one healing equals to a Natural Regen per turn. ( Bonus healing can be combined, so Sebilian can get up to three healing per turn. e.i. One by first melee attack inn a turn, Second by eating warm fresh corpse,Third Natural Healing ). Body of prey is consumed after two Sebilian feeding actions. Consumed Body is turned into pulp and is not revivable in Hospital. Soldiers who are eaten has their status "eaten" in Cemetery. Sebilian can do feeding action on a corpse killed by someone else. Corpse have to die in the same or previous turn, otherwise it is considered cold - not edible. 3. Melee Attack of Opportunity mechanic - all characters in game, (soldiers, aliens, robots, civilans,..) get Melee Attack of Opportunity (MAO) - any form of Unsuccessful close range attack provoke Melee Attack of Opportunity (MAO) Consequences: Attack which produce no damage is considered as Unsuccessful - (burst shot where at least one bullet hit for one HP is successful; armor dmg do not count towards Successful attack - Only real HP dmg; shooting a weapon in close range and miss, provoke MAO; If the unit has no melee weapon then he has no MAO; MAO do not provoke another MAO as response) - Melee Attack of Opportunity costs half TU of a regular melee attack ( Consequences: Successful Melee defender can get DOUBLE melee attacks per turn. ) - Suppressed unit loose Melee Attack of Opportunity mechanic unless they have Tenacious Melee feat Consequences: Sebilians and Reapers have Tenacious Melee feat. 4. Tenacious Melee Feat: feat provides several bonuses which creates fearsome melee opponent - unit can do MAO even suppressed - unit can do first MAO per turn for zero TU cost - unit can do first Melee Attack per turn for zero TU cost - unit can get up to 2 zero cost melee attacks per full turn. One as regular attack in own part of turn, second as MAO in opponent part of turn. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Consequences: Execute capture by melee weapon of ( suppressed ) Sebilian or Reaper is dangerous. Player will try avoid any personal contact with those melee specialists. When Melee Specialist reach the Xenonaut he always attack at least once, player usual response should be back pedal and try shoot from distance. Consequences2: For balance purpose, Sebilians and Reapers gets their base TU slashed by 10%.

Yeah why not, make multiple tools for the snake BOIS like green poison with health damage (the one we already have) , another one like blue or purple to make hoomans go sleep sleep, flash bangs and catch nets !

Well, "a poison cloud" which makes you sleep is simple smoke. It makes stun dmg so victim fall unconscious, ready to be eaten. Do you recommend a poison cloud which is a smoke with other colour ?

Thanks for the report! As the person above me kindly stated, we're aware of this issue and we'll get it fixed (just not as high priority as the other bugs floating around right now)

Yeah, there's currently an issue with blast door states getting inverted. So this bug can happen on alienbase, cleaner HQ and base defense missions. We haven't been able to reproduce this bug however as we need a save to figure out what's causing the issue. If you still have the end of turn save, that would be a very big help as it'll most likely allow us to reproduce the bug

It happens regularly in all UFO. On my side, at least. I have already posted this bug, it is in slow queue.

Thanks, your save has been absolutely helpful. We've managed to figure out what's causing the bug, we'll get this fixed asap!

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! Changes: Mind Control success chance now reduces by -2% for each tile between the caster and target (rather than -1%). Abduction tubes now stop their humming sound when opened. Bugfixes: Fixed a tactical crash that could occur at end of turn, or when alt+tabbing. Fixed a crash that could occur when selling items on the strategy level. Fixed an issue that was preventing aliens from using Mind Control (introduced in the last build). Fixed aircraft armour plating sometimes not removing their +armour bonus when unequipped, causing the interceptor to incorrectly gain a permanent buff. Fixed the tactical UI soldier minitabs (at the top of the screen) displaying the name of a dead zombified soldier as "reaper Reaper Zombie". Fixed the crosshair / shot hit chance calculation not updating immediately if you're hovering over an enemy and then press "C" to crouch. Fixed some instances where some stacked shipping containers were not correctly destruction linked, occasionally causing floating containers and some other issues.

Here are my thoughts from playing on Commander difficulty on the stable 5.23 branch: General feedback Pacing of the game feels too fast. Each phase should be at least 3 months with more events occuring (more missions, wave of UFO´s etc). Also Long war version of the game would be cool The moment I have researched advanced lasers I could have gaus weapons. Btw I think magnetic and gaus weapons should have advanced version of them available to research same as laser/fusion does. Abduction mission seems harder than the rest of other early game missions. There should be less aliens or we should have more time (+1 Turn would be fine) // Well cleaner timed missions are harder than UFO crashed in general cos time pressure (+1 turn would be fine) Sebiilians - giving them burst was a nice idea but 5* burst feels a bit too strong. I would change it to 3* but made them harder to suppress. Well suppresion is too strong in general imo. I know we had different values for suppression in X1 (for grenades and weaponsú. Is it still a thing ? I cannot see any values. I think Reapers are too easy to kill - they should be tougher to kill but give them more stun damage over lethal damage to compensate. Also there could be rare but bigger and stronger version of them (alfa reapers) Cyberdrones - I think they should not be moving through walls (e.g. on orbital mission) and the gun feels too accurate or strong in general. I think one bigger ball of plasma that explodes on impact feels ok. Also did you buff their numbers? I have met six of them on terror mission and seen screen with 7 of them ... I think I have never met such high number of them in any mission earlier. I think 3-4 would feel more fair. Colossus Armor First of all I would keep it rather niche but more interesting armor to use. I think base armor could be buffed from 40>50 but rather than just buffing its armor values I would give it smth special like semi-regenerating armor based on damage taken. Smth like restoring 33% of damage taken as armor (60 lost hp could restore 20 armor) More effective LMG - reduce TU from 75% > 65% Modules - not all but I think it could have inbuilt healing module and could give user higher morale bonus (as opposite to negative reflexes). You are kind of walking tank so you shouldnt be too scared right?:). I have controversial idea here. What about removing strength module from the game ( it´s easy to use on all soldiers and feels mandatory). instead I would reduce weight of items (especially grenades, magazines,-...) to not affect your soldiers too much but +strength bonus on Colossus would feel more rewarding finally. Additional weapons - I would allow heavy launcher for use as well. Big melee weapon? yeah that seems unrealistic but could be fun so why not. Maybe smth like minigun with higher number of projectiles but lower damage, high strength and TU requirement (40-50 strength), low accuracy but high damage and suppression potential so it could profit from strength bonus. Carry other items - ok why not Jetpack - pls NO! ever seen tanks flying? .. Wraith Cloaking Field: Activates at start of first turn (battle), becomes disabled for rest of turn on damage and been disabled permanently while on low life (<33% hp) Squad Sizes: 8 - 10 - 12 would feel like a good compromise but I wouldnt mind having a few special missions where you just need e.g. 4 soldiers or smth. It would bring more diversity. Btw I could use max 12 soldiers on UO-1 mission despite having the best ship. Is it intended?

Thanks for the bug report! We've made a fix for the crash caused by selling sentry guns, which should be included in the next patch

i practically ignore most of what anyone says about the game being too easy if I find out they don't play on commander. its like play the game how you want to play it, but if you are not playing on max difficulty don't whine about the game being too easy. We've already gotten too many nerfs based on recruit and soldier player whining/exploits.

yes both servitors and cyberdrones can fly.

Also the cyberdrone/psyon terror missions are bad; but the late-game wraith/andron terror missions are worse. Usually after the 3rd terror mission I stop doing them, because they are such an existential threat to your soldiers when they are swarmed by 30+ wraith/androns. Very important to have panic under control to be able to absorb +35 pain to a singular region.

Yes, I just won a commander run on ironman. A lot of your comments are spot on. Shields, Assaults, Heavys, Snipers (occasionally a grenadier). Rifles are pretty worthless IMO and never invest in them. SHOTGUNS, MGS & SNIPER RIFLES. I don't think people realize how much more difficult commander is from veteran. Many of the timed cleaner missions are pure sprints. Totally agree that cyberdrones need a nerf (as well as servitors), being able to move and fire 3 fusion grenades is insane.

re: Sebillians, I think gas masks are fine for smoke- one less grenade in exchange for being able to move through your own smoke- but they do trivialize the poison grenades. Simple fix? Make them acid grenades. They always damage you, mask or no, but humans inside the acid at the start of the turn need to make a bravery check or flee for their turn unless they're wearing a mask. The damage isn't that extreme anyway, and this preserves the area denial role of the grenades while leaving utility on masks to help resist them.

Thanks for taking the time to post a bug report! This is a bug we've fixed in 5.17, however it does not fix campaigns that are in a bugged state so the only way to continue playing is to either load a save and make sure the uoo analysis research (after doing the uoo sabotage mission) is finished prior to day 283, or we can fix the save for you. I've attached a save with the research enabled, so you can keep playing your campaign. user_day_742_manual_save-1.json

Thanks for the bug report, it looks like the civ remains mind controlled even though the Psyon it was linked to has died, we'll look into it and get it fixed

Difficulty: Many cleaner missions are tougher than the first few UFO crash site missions. (Aliens don't feel scary enough compared to the cleaners at the beginning of the game) Cleaner intel gather missions are too easy to gain huge amount of intel. Cleaner HQ too easy (especially the command room) First Terror mission is too tough Sebillians feel the easiest race to fight against. I would make them a bit harder to kill and suppress. High level sebillians should be proper bullet sponges. Sebillian gas grenades are a joke. It's too easy to just have everyone wear gas masks. Make gas mask have more penalty (TU, ACC, vision) and make gas grenade melt away armour or something to make it hurt even if you have gas masks on. Mantids with symbiote weapons are too easy to deal with. Make them spew more symbiotes around or make symbiotes a form of grenade in addition to a proper gun. Reapers are too easy to deal with - at least in more open terror maps. Needs better AI and specs to feel more scary. Geoscape feels too easy. Air superiority is too easy to maintain at least until abductors. Aliens should protect their more important crafts with air superiority fighters. Waves need to have more UFOs to overwhelm me and make me choose what to shoot down. Teleports make raiding command rooms way too easy. Make using them cost 33% of TU. Squad sizes: I would prefer smaller squad sizes, but as you said, it will need a huge rebalancing of the game. I would also make crash site maps smaller (especially the later ones) Colossus armor: I haven't played so far into game yet, but rocket launcher sounds badass enough. Wraith cloaking field: Starts disabled, becomes active on damage for the rest of the turn. Become completely invisible on the next turn. Unable to shoot while invisible and uses all TU moving to a new location. Buff the cloak effect significantly. Edit: I've played veteran ironman difficulty.

Milestone 5 has finally been released on our public branches and is ready to play! Please be aware that this update will break saves, and if you would like to continue playing your Milestone 4 campaign then you'll need to switch back to the older Milestone 4 version on our Legacy branch (instructions on how to do so here). Developer Commentary & Key Changes This is a major update to the game which introduces several new Geoscape mechanics that add more depth and choice to the strategic layer, and also adds significant content to the end of the game (e.g. two new types of alien, a new UFO, three new plot missions, etc). It is now finally possible to unlock Operation Endgame and complete the campaign - something we'll further improve in Milestone 6 when the ending cinematic arrives! After that, we'll spend some time polishing and hunting bugs before launching into 1.0! We're likely to do a balance pass on Milestone 5 in a few weeks, so if you've got opinions on the game balance please let us know in the dedicated Milestone 5 STABLE Balance & Feedback thread (there's also a few specific questions in there we're asking for player feedback on, such as squad sizes, the Colossus Armour, Wraith camouflage, etc). Please do report any bugs you encounter in the bug reporting subforums, as we'll be watching them closely to ensure we fix any issues as quickly as possible. Finally, I just want to thank anyone who tested Milestone 5 while it was on the Experimental branch and gave us feedback / reported bugs - we really appreciate your help! KEY CONTENT: Battleship UFO: the Battleship is the final alien UFO. It is extremely powerful in aerial combat and is a large multi-level UFO with a large crew of the most elite alien defenders in the tactical combat - successfully capturing one therefore provides the player vast quantities of Alloys and Alenium! Operation Endgame: it is now possible to unlock Operation Endgame and complete the campaign with a high-stakes assault on the alien leaders. We made this a two-part mission in homage to the Cydonia mission from classic X-Com, and we created an entirely new set of terrain tiles for the first section! Supporter System: each of the six funding regions on the Geoscape now contains four Supporters, representing important VIPs in the local area. There are several different types of Supporter that can be recruited by spending "Operation Points", each of which provides your organisation with a permanent bonus when recruited. Additionally, recruiting all the Supporters in a region also unlocks a unique Region Bonus. However, alien activity can also cause unrecruited Supporters to fall under alien control - becoming Infiltrators, who slowly raise Panic in the local area until you assign the resources required to eliminate them. Strategic Operations: the same "Operation Points" can also be used for Strategic Operations, which provide an instant benefit such as an injection of cash or lowering Panic in a specific region. The value of these operations increases with time (resetting after use) - for example, the Raise Funds operation normally grants +$500,000, but this value increases by +$10,000 for each day since it was last used. Invasion Phases: the campaign has been divided into five different phases that better explain the progression of the invasion, with some phases introducing or removing new mechanics to reflect the changing alien invasion strategy. New Missions: two new plot-related tactical missions set on an alien orbital station take place towards the end of the game, adding more mission variety to second half of the campaign. One of these is an entirely new mission type - wave defence. New Aliens: two new alien units have been added - the Eternal (the alien leader caste), and a small melee creature with a limited lifespan known as the Symbiote which certain enemies can fire at Xenonaut units as a form of living weapon. Civilian Evacuation: civilians on tactical missions can now be interacted with to order them to evacuate. Doing this will cause them to run towards the evacuation zone (next to the Xenonaut dropship) and leave the map - assuming no aliens kill them on the way! Mind Control: several types of alien are now capable of psionically Mind Controlling your troops for a short period of time. Bravery and Morale help defend against these types of attack. KEY BALANCE CHANGES: Doomsday / Panic: Individual regions do not suffer Panic in the first phase of the invasion. Instead, there is a single global "Doomsday" counter which must be kept below 100. This is mostly for narrative reasons, but it also means the player has more time before needing to worry about keeping Panic down in each individual region (so building a second base becomes less urgent). Base Regional Pricing: Xenonaut bases now vary in price between $500k and $1.5m depending where in the world you place them, with the optimal locations in terms of radar coverage (e.g. North Africa / Middle East, Latin America, etc) being more expensive. This means there are more viable strategies in terms of base placement, and also means new players end up with more starting funds if they unwittingly place their first base in a "bad" location. Panic & Lost Regions: Lost regions will now re-join the Funding Council if their Panic level is below 100 when the funding report arrives at the end of the month. It's worth noting here that the Reduce Panic strategic operation can be used on lost regions! 50%-150% Damage Randomisation: In Milestone 4 both human and alien weapons inflicted between 50%-200% of their Damage value when they hit the target, but this has now been reduced back down to 50%-150%. This makes armour a bit more effective at stopping units being instantly killed by a single enemy hit. Explosion Drop-Off: Explosion damage now falls off linearly from 100% (explosion tile) to 50% (outer edge of explosion), instead of inflicting full damage right to the very edge of their blast area. Destructible Roofs: Destructibility has been enabled on building roofs, along with falling and fall damage for objects / units standing on them (unless they have a jetpack). Reinforcements Move: Enemy reinforcements now spend 50% of their TU on movement after they spawn, and then go into overwatch. Previously they would stay clumped on their spawn point and be easy prey for explosives. Strategy - Full Gameplay Changes: The strategy layer should now be properly deterministic, so if you load a save and choose not to reset the game seed (by default it does reset) then events should play out exactly the same way every time. This might be useful for tracking down some of the more elusive Geoscape bugs! As covered in the Key Changes section above, we've added several new strategic mechanics such as Strategic Operations, Supporters, and the Invasion Phase system. Additionally, the Base Regional Pricing and UFO Delegation system significantly change the game balance. A new "Geoscape Timer" UI element has been added, which tells you how many days until your next Funding Report and any other upcoming events. The Campaign Victory / Campaign Loss screen has been updated with proper artwork, flavour text and music. The full campaign stats (e.g. total aliens killed, etc) are now shown for both victory and loss. Items now regain part of any lost sale value at the end of each month. The introduction of Phases (see Key Changes section) has led to a rebalance of some parts of the invasion: A global Doomsday counter has replaced individual Regional Panic values for the first three months of the campaign. Monthly funding is much lower at the start of the game, but increases significantly once Phase 2 begins. Infiltration UFO missions no longer cause Panic, but instead convert neutral Supporters into Infiltrators that generate Panic each month. Infiltrators can be eliminated by spending Operation Points. Alien materials are now more plentiful in the second half of the game. Added more Construction / Terror UFO missions to the timeline. These are UFO missions that will spawn alien bases or terror sites if not shot down. Failing a terror site now causes -35 Panic rather than -20 Panic. Various updates made to the tech tree: Research speed is 10% faster on Soldier and 20% faster on Recruit Research project durations have been decreased by 10%-20% for projects in the second half of the game on all difficulties. Added a number of new narrative research projects at the start of the game: The Cleaners, Waveform Analysis, and General Autopsy / Interrogation (depending on whether you capture him alive). Added a number of research projects at the end of the game. Some of these are related to the Battleship UFO, but most are the plot-related research required to complete the game. The placeholder plot research from older versions of the game (Alien Officer Interrogation / Alien Leader Interrogation) have been removed. The second-stage Corpse Analysis engineering projects have been removed, meaning there is now a single Corpse Analysis that grants +10% damage for each alien species. Interrogation research now also grants +10% damage against that species, giving a cap of +20% damage (previously +35%). Engineering projects have been added to upgrade the speed of Angel interceptors to match that of Phantom interceptors, and to upgrade the speed of Phantom interceptors to match that of Gemini interceptors. An engineering project has been added to improve the protection of Guardian Armour (unlocked by researching Alien Plasma Weapons). As both Stalker Armour and Colossus Armour are somewhat specialised, Guardian Armour remains the mainline armour for quite a while! Added an upgraded variant of the Stun Baton called the Electroshock Baton (unlocked from Advanced Stun Weapons research). The Quantum Laboratory and Nanotech Workshop upgrades now require Alien Electronics in addition to completion of the Cleaner Base mission (meaning they arrive a couple of months later). The research projects for Cleaner Autopsy and Cleaner Interrogation now autocomplete and grant extra Operations Points, as the Cleaner damage bonus becomes obsolete before most people complete them. The Cleaner Corpse Analysis engineering projects have been removed for the same reason. Engineering construction times increased on Gemini / Pegasus aircraft, and on Gauss / Fusion weapons. Various updates made to the power consumption of various base structures: Power consumption of many buildings has been slightly increased, including the Hangar and Living Quarters (which previously did not require power). Power production of the Access Lift and the basic Generators has been reduced (Alenium Generators remain unchanged). Your starting base now contains an additional Generator to compensate. The overall effect of this is that new bases can only construct a single Hangar and Radar with the power from the Access Lift, and expanding the base further requires construction of additional Generators. Various updates made to the aircraft and air combat: Xenonaut aircraft no longer consume fuel when fighting in the air combat (they still consume it flying on the Geoscape). The fuel mechanic rarely came into play during the air combat itself, and when it did it mostly seemed to frustrate people (or cause confusion by making autoresolve fail unexpectedly). Using Afterburners in the Air Combat now blocks that aircraft from firing weapons. However, you can use evasive roll while using afterburners. Torpedoes are now faster and Missiles are now slower, so the Torpedoes will hit the target first if both are fired at the same time (usually desirable because they are very effective at destroying Armour, allowing subsequent Missile hits to inflict higher damage). Evasive Roll now travels a consistent distance whatever speed the air combat is set to. Weapons now have a minimum fire range in the air combat, correcting for the fact that weapons actually fire from the center point of all aircraft / UFOs. This doesn't really affect Xenonaut interceptors, but it should make a big difference against large UFOs with powerful frontal weapons - these would sometimes fire when interceptor flew across the middle of the UFO, instantly causing massive damage that could not be evaded. Increased the acceleration values of all aircraft in the air combat, as they were set to about 10% of their intended values (which made aircraft speed up far too slowly). Cruiser UFOs now have a slightly lower top speed, as Phantoms could often struggle to catch them. The weapons on the Cruiser / Abductor UFOs now do reduced damage and have smaller fire arcs. The Interceptor UFO now has 20 Armour instead of 2 Armour, and has a much higher turning rate / turn acceleration. All UFOs should now regenerate 1 Armour per hour on the Geoscape if damaged but not destroyed in combat (previously they would regenerate HP but never repair their damaged Armour). Various usability / UI changes: Geoscape: Slightly increased the range of dropships to ensure they can reach anywhere in the world, as there were a few places you could put your base where it was not possible to reach certain missions. Base Stores: The "Sell Junk" button is now disabled if there's no junk to sell. Base Stores: Completing the Corpse Analysis engineering projects will now mark the appropriate corpses as "junk" items. Soldiers: Added injured / wounded text colouring on the soldier list. Xenopedia: Updated various autopsies to better display the weapons of units with integrated weapons (e.g. Mentarch). Tactical Combat - Full Gameplay Changes: The Civilian Evacuation system allows you to click on a civilian from an adjacent tile, which causes them to path towards the evacuation zone near the dropship as quickly as possible. This does not cost TU to use. Note that evacuating civilians will ignore any hostile units they encounter, so make sure their escape route is safe! Open doors now act as physical objects that block movement, vision and shooting. Units will automatically close open doors that are interfering with their move path. Suppressing a unit now reduces their Reflexes by 50%, which makes them easier to hit with melee weapons. Various fixes and updates have been made to the shooting mechanics in an attempt to reduce the number of instances where shot paths seem to pass through solid walls or travel at unrealistic angles through doors / corners etc. Sloped building roofs now correctly block line of sight and shots / throwable objects from all angles. All building roofs are now destructible, and units / objects will fall down to the level below if the floor beneath them is destroyed. Units suffers 25% of their max HP in damage for each level they fall, and 10% of their max HP in Stun Damage. Any unit they land on will be immediately knocked out. Units now only rotate to face their attacker when damaged during the enemy turn. Having rotation occur in the player turn could be frustrating, as soldiers hit by reaction fire would rotate towards their attacker and sometimes be left without enough TU to complete their planned actions. Performing melee attacks on hostile units now grants attribute progress towards improving Reflexes. Hay now costs additional TU to move through, and is crushed the first time any unit moves through them. This penalty does not apply if the unit doing so is Crushing (e.g. vehicles, Colossus Armour). Capturing the command room in an alien base now reveals the entire map. This now correctly triggers automatically at the start of each turn, rather than needing the player to move / rotate a soldier before it updates. Various updates to aliens: Eternals have been added to the game on Battleships and inside the largest Alien Bases. These powerful alien units have a number of different abilities, including Mind Control. Mind Control is now active on Psyon Officers, Psyon Leaders and Eternals. The chance of success is based on the Psi-Strength of the alien and the Bravery and Morale of the defending soldier, with the attack being more difficult with greater distance. The attack always occurs in the alien turn, and if successful then the aliens will take control of your soldier for one turn. Mind Control is broken if the alien responsible is killed or stunned. Psyon "Mesmerise" ability can now only be used once per turn by each Psyon. Killing a Psyon providing a Psionic Triangulation link to a Secton now suppresses the Secton, rather than causing a morale break (e.g. flee / panic / berserk). This should be easier to understand, and should provide the player more tactical benefits due to Suppression also removing 50% TU the following turn. Some Mantids now carry Symbiote Launchers, which fire eggs towards their enemies that hatch into Symbiotes - small, aggressive melee aliens with low HP and a lifespan of only three turns. Pistols are particularly useful against them due to their low TU costs. Sebillians now carry LMGs instead of Rifles, and some been issued with a special type of grenade that spawns large clouds of poison gas. Wraith Cloaking Field is now inactive by default, and activates if the Wraith takes damage. It then deactivates again if the Wraith takes damage, and so on. The defence bonus per tile has increased to 3 per tile (from 1.5 per tile). This should make Wraiths a bit easier to deal with - but more importantly, it should now be possible to distinguish between different ranks of Wraith on the battlefield. Wraith Cloaking Field is now disabled by stun damage (as well as normal damage). Wraith soldiers now have a 30% chance of spawning with a grenade. Cyberdrone cannon is now an AOE weapon that fires 3 explosive shots (damage per shot has been reduced). Androns and Cyberdrones should no longer seek cover, nor back off if facing large numbers of hostile units. Androns should no longer crush alien doors or walls when moving around UFOs / alien bases. Cleaners are no longer hostile to civilians / local forces on certain map types. AI units of all kinds should no longer clump together quite as much as before. Alien units should hopefully be a bit less aggressive on Terror Missions, as we fixed a bug where seeing dead civilians would trigger them to think they were in active combat. Various updates to weapons and armour: Increased the Accuracy penalty from wearing heavy armour from -3 to -5 for most armour types (and -2 to -3 for Warden) The maximum deviation on a missed shot is now 10 degrees. As well as looking more realistic, this makes the HEVY more effective. A couple of bugfixes related to the way corners (e.g. walls, doorframes) and fire arcs work for missed shots have made the HEVY less likely to unexpectedly blow up the user. All thrown grenades now have 2 tiles less range. Smoke grenades of all types now generate a substantially larger cloud of smoke. Demolition grenades now spawn smoke and fire on detonation. Cleaner Accelerated Rifle now has identical stats to the Accelerated Rifle. Knife reduced from 8 weight to 6 weight, base accuracy increased from 60 to 65. Various UI / usability changes: Settings: There's now an option in the settings to force the camera to return to its previous location or move to the currently selected soldier once the AI turn is finished. Tactical: Pressing R will now reload your weapon. Tactical: We've added an "abort mission" button to the tactical combat UI, as not everyone was aware you could access it through the Esc menu. Tactical: The soldier minitabs along the top of the tactical UI now also display the secondary weapon if the primary weapon is a combat shield. Tactical: Mind controlled units remain in the topbar minitabs (but cannot be interacted with, as if the soldier was dead). Tactical: You can now set a move path to an obstructed tile that contains a unit or a terrain object under the shroud, although unit movement will end once the obstruction is revealed (this prevents players "scanning" the shroud to identify what is there). Tactical: The currently selected soldier now displays with orange shading if obstructed, whereas all other friendly units display in green. This makes it much easier to see which soldier in the dropship is currently selected. Tactical Inventory: Scrolling between soldiers can now be done using up / down, as well as left / right (this mirrors the Soldier Equip screen). Tactical Inventory: You can now click outside the inventory panel to accept the changes and close the panel. Mission Debrief: Added tooltips to the post-mission debrief screen for the soldier promotion icon, and the soldier kills icons. Various updates to different mission types: Ambush / Cleaner Base / Base Defence: Pressing the "Commence Mission" button at the end of the pre-mission deployment phase no longer softlocks the game for a couple of seconds. Ambush: These missions now reveal the position of all enemies during deployment, so you can better choose where to deploy your soldiers. Data Raid: If you return all the soldiers to the dropship without having sabotaged enough computers for the mission to count as a victory, the game will now spawn a pop-up telling you this and asking if you want to end the mission anyway. Data Raid: Updated the objective text to be slightly clearer about how many computer desks need to be interacted with for victory. Abduction: Updated objective text so the "Eliminate all hostile combatants" line is now marked as complete if all enemy units are eliminated before the mission ends. Rescue Soldiers: Added camera scroll from the target soldiers to the rest of your team at the start of the mission. Terror Site: We've thinned out the number of spawn points around the dropship on most Terror maps. The underground military base tileset now has pillars on the rock cave wall corners that block vision. This should helpfully clear up some of the line-of-sight issues in the ATLAS Base and the Cleaner Base missions. Visual / Audio Updates: Fixed various kinds of minor visual issues in lots of different tactical maps. Added various new terrain tiles for the tactical combat. These are mostly alien tiles related to the new missions (e.g. Operation Endgame, Battleship UFO, the alien orbital missions, etc) but there's some visual updates to the Farm biome, new Alien Singularity Core and Alien Antigravity Generator models inside the UFOs, and a new oil pumpjack prop for the Desert biome. Added new 3d models for the Wraiths, including entirely new designs for the heavily-armoured elite Wraiths. Added Soldier Equip screen paperdoll artwork for the various advanced MARS / ARES weapons. Alien Magnetic LMG now has the correct 2D art, and has a new a 3d model that matches it. The MARS / ARES "Plasma Cannon" is now correctly called the "Fusion Cannon", and should have green rather than blue artwork and should fire green projectiles. MARS Smoke Launcher now has a sound / projectile / visual effect that is more appropriate for a smoke launcher. Alien grenade projectiles now match their artwork. Added artwork for the Andron Praetorian corpse. Updated inventory artwork for the Reinforced Shield. Updated preview artwork for Fusion Grenade engineering project. The landed variant of the UFO Scout no longer has a low-res hull texture compared to the crashed variant. Removed a duplicate soldier role icon. Added new or updated sound effects for: Ambient sounds for various tactical biomes and strategic UI screens Winning or losing a tactical mission Accelerated and Gauss weapons Alien Fusion weapons MARS / ARES / Sentry Gun movement and death sounds MARS / ARES rocket turret weapon Dropship take-off sound on the Geoscape Bugfixes: General: Quickload and the Continue Campaign button now both reset the game's random seed, which is default behaviour on the Load Game menu. If you've previously been testing the randomness of shots using Quickload and getting the same result every time, this bug was why! Fixed the "Ultimate Power" achievement (all Colonels in a squad) being unlocked if a single Colonel was present on the team, or if you play a base defence mission containing only Sentry Guns. The War Machine achievement now correctly reads "Equip a soldier with Vanguard armour" for all translated languages. Strategy: Geoscape: Fixed a crash that could occur if a UFO destroyed an undefended Xenonaut base that had soldiers / personnel / items midway through being transferred to it. Geoscape: Fixed a rare multi-threading crash related to saving the game. Geoscape: Fixed the map not wrapping correctly on rightward movement. Base Management: Fixed the Laser / Gauss / Fusion base defence turrets not having a tooltip. Soldiers: Fixed a UI bug where selecting soldiers would cause the Training Capacity bar to decrease. Soldier Equip: Fixed several issues where the game could crash when moving inventory items. Soldier Equip: Fixed the ammo capacity tooltip being broken when comparing items on the Soldier Equip screen. Soldier Equip: Fixed the tooltip for the Stalker Armour showing the linked tooltip for the Wraith Cloaking Field, not the human equivalent. Soldier Equip: Fixed the Colossus tooltip not having enough space to display the various effects. Soldier Equip: Fixed the colour-coding for wounded / injured soldiers in the bottom left soldier list, as it was getting out of sync in some situations. Base Stores: Fixed a crash that would occur if you tried to sell a MARS / ARES. Base Stores: Fixed the MARS / ARES incorrectly having a $0 sell value. Tactical Combat: Fixed a crash that could occur if you accidentally killed The General in ATLAS Base with an explosive weapon before he had been revealed from the shroud. Fixed a crash that could (rarely) occur on enemy overwatch fire. Fixed a rare crash that could occur if an offscreen bullet hit something while the camera was still trying to pan over to track it. Fixed zombies incorrectly spawning two Reapers when stunned, which could then cause a crash in some circumstances. Fixed an issue where a teleporter would still trigger if a unit ended a move on it due to their move being interrupted (e.g. by spotting an alien, or because of enemy reaction fire). Fixed a bug where most of the internal crew of Harvester UFOs were not spawning, leaving the UFO largely undefended. Fixed some abduction missions loading incorrect map variants with too few abduction tubes. Fixed a bug where soldiers would sometimes not carry out move actions even though the UI tells you there are enough TU to do so. Fixed a pathing calculation issue where the game would sometimes tell you a soldier lacked enough TU to reach a tile, but would then recalculate and allow a longer movement if you chose a different tile. Fixed some pathfinding issues for jetpack-equipped soldiers, where the game was incorrectly claiming a "path cannot be found" if the soldier did not have enough TU to reach the spot (rather than showing how far the unit could move). Fixed pathfinding incorrectly calculating costs for units with Crushing making moves that involved crushing multiple objects. Fixed interrupted soldier moves not always reimbursing the player with the correct number of TUs. Fixed an issue where units would sometimes not turn if attacking as part of a move >> shoot preview action, leading to their arms facing a completely different direction to their torso. Fixed some (but not all) instances of shroud drawing over materials with transparency, such as the glass parts of alien abduction tubes etc. Fixed an issue where fleeing aliens would often flee directly towards your units. Fixed an issue where the shroud would sometimes not be revealed on certain tiles, even if a unit walked into them. Fixed some displayed "hit chance" labels being offset when passing through certain types of smoke. Fixed some displayed "hit chance" labels being offset in certain camera circumstances. Fixed the issue where destroying a shipping container would often not destroy the ladder attached to it. Fixed an issue where certain dropped items could not be picked up. Fixed destroyed splinters of wood hovering in the air after destroying certain sawmill walls. Fixed the Psyon Mesmerise triggering incorrectly when a "missed" shot from an explosive weapon kills the Psyon. Fixed an issue where in some circumstances the UI would show the fire mode icons for the medikit on top of the normal fire mode icons for a pistol in the other hand. Fixed an issue where thrown grenades would sometimes get stuck in mid-air and explode on the wrong tile (or leave flares floating in mid-air.) Fixed EMP Damage and Stun Damage numbers incorrectly being shown on Commander difficulty, when normal damage numbers are not. Fixed the bodies of aliens that had been killed on impact in a Harvester Crash Site being placed on the empty mid-level of the UFO. Fixed there being an invisible and indestructible tile on the bridge of the Harvester that blocked shooting and movement. Fixed the move+shoot preview calculating TU costs slightly wrong on Soldier or Recruit difficulty if soldier rotation was part of the shot. Fixed the crashed Observer UFO hull not having a drop shadow. Fixed pressing "C" to crouch causing the wrong soldier to crouch if you were hovering over one of the soldier minitabs at the top of the screen. Fixed Cleaners attacking civilians on the Rescue Soldiers mission. Fixed Sebillian regeneration being visible in the fog of war. Fixed units being able to activate alien / cleaner consoles through solid walls. Fixed spacebar selecting the next soldier not working for several seconds after pressing C to crouch a soldier. Fixed a bug where the Large / Small body size hit chance modifiers were only causing a tiny effect. Fixed a bug where loading a tactical save could make UFOs briefly appear with black boxes and shroud errors. Fixed the Servitor pausing for too long before playing their attack animation.

Hello there, thanks for taking the time to post about your bug here. We've made a fix for this bug quite awhile ago, but the fix isn't out on the public branches yet as it's on milestone 5, which is currently on our experimental branch. You can access the experimental branch anytime if you wish to (I'll link a guide below), but saves from milestone 4 are not compatible with milestone 5 due to the changes and added mechanics in milestone 5.

Regarding alien grenades, I agree with gG here. From a gamer perspective, picking up alien grenades and using them against aliens adds to fun factor. Can't see it breaking balance in any meaningful way. And regarding balance in single player game, fun factor is always much more important than perfect balance. Same with the gas mask, agree with gG. It needs to have negative effects to have any meaningful gameplay (choice). It should reduce viewing distance, TU and accuracy to balance it out. Having a grenade styled button for it where player can activate/deactivate it with few TU's is needed. When you add more toxic fumes/smoke to crashed UFO's it all balances out nicely. EDIT: Haha, just noticed you proposed exactly the same thing for gas masks in your quote (the on/off button, negative effects etc). Great minds think alike!

I asked for this already. Crashed UFO need opponents which are wounded or even bleeding. An alien with 200HP and unstoppable bleeding could bleed 40 turns. Nice thing is, that a bloody trace of his steps help humans to find it. Another variant is aliens without weapons, the serious crash is chaos, therefore some aliens do not have a range weapon (it is lost somewhere), perhaps just one grenade, fists and tooth. Another variant is, alien is scared, it is easy to make turn him into to panic. Just one shot nearby and he start to run like headless chicken. Similar can be done with suppression, some alien after UFO crush can be easily suppressed, or they are suppresed on start of the round with chancee 1:3. Or they are suppressed when they see humans, soooo many options. As you say, Those small things randomly applied make game feel alive. Currently, when UFO crach you meet an army of brave and healthy clones, on top fully kitted. That feels a bit rigid.

I really enjoyed my experimental branch playthrough. I haven't clicked on "Launch Launch Operation Endgame" yet in order to play more tactical missions with my lads and lasses and the amount and frequency of UFOs still feels great at this state, with phases of days when nothing would happen and then the occasional three days with five UFOs in the sky at the same time - I dig it. Feels neatly organic and unpredictable and the claim-bounty feature doesn't make it feel bad to miss out on crash sites because there's sometimes too many at a time to get to them all with only one dropship. In my stable branch playthrough quite a while back, it seemed to happen the air superiority UFO squads would line up better with the aliens trying to do something big, like a terror mission or base building (might have been random chance) - I reckon the aliens could put more to hunt down our interceptor squadrons or keep interceptors as seperate squads near a big ship instead of as part of their air combat entity, so they can engage human interceptors while the main ship continues doing it's thing. Would like to build a seventh base ^^ I like the supporter/infiltator/OP system a lot. Not entirely sure if it helps too much with the cash/resource management but I appreciated how much this alleviates some of the early and mid game struggles. Still missing an RPG-type weapon, let alone a high-tech version with waypoints - I wouldn't even mind if it took a whole turns worth of TU to reload - but the grenade launcher, as much as I like that one too, simply doesn't cut it late game, doing some 40 dmg on an armoured alien even with the fusion explosives upgrade. The hover tanks do a much better job at terrain destruction and their accuracy at range (at least with the range finder equipped) seems well tuned as well, the risk of missing the mark gradually increasing at larger distances. I like those as well. Actuator might be better suited as a checkbox like jetpack and heavy armor as a 2x2 module in the backpack/belt makes having more strength near useless as the character runs out of place to put anything that the additional strength could carry and there's already too many more useful modules to put in there. I concur with the folks who pointed out that the different weapon families are too similar and agree that "shotgun" doesn't seem right for things like a laser. Even if it's meant as a short-range/scatter blaster kind of weapon - additionally, the squad member icon weapon schematic is near identical to a rifle - a sniper rifle is way easier to tell apart. Point blank misses which hit a different adjacent tile at wild angles still feel odd, almost comical. Two cases of wanting to use a ten short volley of a fusion mg to remove an piece of cover only for the first shot to obliterate it yet all following 9 shots turning into puffs of particles in thin air instead of hitting what's behing the no longer existant cover. More chaos/environmental destruction/fires/smoke/debris inside crashes UFO and more damage and crash impact traceson their hulls would be highly appreciated. It would look awesome it they would really get torn open when hit by fusion torpedos or the hulls deformed from impact on the ground, maybe even whole sections separated and the near-by terrain scorched or on fire where the UFO slid over, or UFOs crashed into buildings, tearing them apart and setting them ablaze. The bullet holes on the UFO hulls look good, the scratchy splashes not quite so much. Dig the layout of the late game, large UFOs. Small ship hangar in Alien base is an awesome room. Dig it. Missing music in alien base missions on occasion though the environmental noise track has s nice feel to it too to set a mood. Dig the fusion weapon designs. Despite longer range, Fusion Lance still seems weaker than Gauss gatling, maybe mostly on account of it being a heavier payload. Footstep stomps on Colossus armour are great. In general, the Colossus and Vanguard suits look fantastic in-game and in-menu.

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.