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This is my very first game of X2 and here's some random thoughts I wrote down while playing. Gameplay related stuff: The game feels nice and fast to play. I just feel a bit lost in the strategy layer and constantly feel like I need to make uninformed decisions that will wreck my campaign if done wrong. Not sure if it is like that in reality, but that's my gut feeling playing for the first time. Losing the game for researching and manufacturing "wrong" stuff early in the game will probably be an issue for new players. Research is super slow and if you don't build new labs and hire scientist from day 1, your are going to be screwed. On my first game I realized this too late, spending my lab time on researching alien alloys and interrogating different species, only to realize on day 25 that I should have researched aerial warfare and ablative plating or something similar to aid my air forces and at that point it seemed to be too late. I feel some additional help doing right strategic decisions might be good at least for 2 of the easier difficulty levels. Maybe head scientist could give some hints what to do, instead of just being an ass all the time? I feel like I need the game to encourage me to expand and build more bases. Like I was left wondering when is the "right moment" to build the second base. Are there any gameplay effects interrogating aliens or is it just fluff where you can spend your research time? I can't research multiple things simultaneously anymore? Do I really need to manufacture one aircraft missile at a time? Or is it one per aircraft? This might need some tutorial info? Automatic roof toggle still doesn't work. Disable roofs only when: 1. enemy units are seen inside 2. own units are inside 3. mouse cursor is inside What's with all the information displayed next to a cursor when applying first aid kit? Not fan of the visible alien health. Odd to see exact stats on autopsy report too. Maybe have a toggle for it? Also, unit health could be told more vaguely using states like: <healthy>, <slightly wounded>, <wounded>, <almost dead> or similar. In general I would prefer more "simulation" styled gameplay instead of too much gamification like simplifying suppression for example. Would love to see small things like randomly losing consciousness or accuracy after being shot, losing small amount of health when dashing through a window, needing a lot of TU's to bandage severe bleed wounds etc. Aliens using their racial abilities need some additional sound and/or visual effects for player to know something out of the ordinary is happening. Sectons' triangulation could have purple lines connect all sectons that are within the effective 8 tile range, targeting Psyons could change the reticule to purple and have 'mesmerising' text above it or something similar... Why can't I assign lightly wounded units to missions? Like who gives a shit if your toe nail is bent when humanity is at the brink of total annihilation? HUGE pile of logs broke into splinters from two pistol shots. Also other large props seemed to break too easily. Would like to cancel grenade throw, first-aid etc. with right click. Assigning new soldiers in the Launch dropship screen is too cumbersome. You need to click empty soldier space in dropship list, then click select soldier button, then click soldier and after that click the assign soldier button. It's 4 clicks for one soldier. It should be click empty slot, click soldier, done. Graphics stuff: The games feels really smooth and polished, animations, effects and destruction are super nice. (Speaking of destruction, can't I level buildings completely any more?) Geoscape map seems visually too static and "boring" for something so essential to this game. Maybe add some quick zoom-in when intercepting UFO's, starting ground combat etc. Some small animations to radar range, revealing ufo's and stuff like that... In armory screen, the chinook shadow is displayed on top of the bottom left info panel. In tactical mission there's no way to notice a door from "wrong side" of the wall. (ie. even if your soldier sees a door, but your POV is on the shroud side, you can't know there's a door unless you rotate your view) Crashed ufo's really need some fire, smoke and debris around them. Abduction maps could use some additional abduction props to make them feel more diverse. (like piles of empty abduction tubes or something) Pools of blood should be sized by the amount of damage received. It's comical to see 1hp damage and having a few liters of blood pouring out of a soldier. Lots of small issues with soldier portraits not fitting in the uniform layer properly (see through seams visible) Region panic levels need to be more prominently visible. Maybe color code the whole region with green-yellow-red with panic percentage shown inside it? Sound and music stuff: Music is just right. Superb atmosphere! Fading BG music away when going into loading screen would feel more polished than just keeping the music playing. Complete silence or maybe even add a quick loop of loading music instead? It just sounds silly having intense action or scary suspense music playing while the game is loading. Completing/failing a mission could play a small victory/lose jingle/fanfare when mission complete/failed text appears -> then fade to silence and go to load screen. I kinda miss some alert sound when a UFO is detected. Destroying a stone wall and wooden fence sound is REALLY FUCKING LOUD!!! Xenonaut units are too silent. Have them scream and shout in pain and fear. A player should feel the morale decreasing when soldiers are starting to panic. Crying and yelling mommy!! Misc. stuff: Main objective is not easy enough to notice in the bottom corner of the geoscape. Might be a good idea to have a proper pop-up whenever the objective updates too. I felt the main objectives were often too vague and left me uncertain how to proceed. At least for now it seems X1's objectives were more precise like "capture that and that live alien" etc. Intro text: "A strong correlation emerges between reported these sightings and rising international tensions..." Not a native English speaker, but this sentence must be wrong? Mission report doesn't show unit specific kill numbers. These are must IMO If an alien is suppressed and killed at the same time, "suppressed" text should not be shown Abduction mission needs 2-3 turns more time. Xenopedia is really nice Maps really need more verticality and tight spaces Overall, I had a really good time with X2 and it's definitely on it's way to being a timeless classic! Great work @Chris and staff!

This hotfix is primarily a balance patch for V25. You'll need to be part of our Steam Playtest or on the Experimental Branch to access the build. This update does break saves so if you want to continue your V25.2 playthrough then please switch over to the Experimental Legacy branch (just called "Legacy" branch on Playtest). Much of Goldhawk is currently on holiday, so we've not been able to fix any of the bugs reported in V25.2 that require attention from the programmers. Therefore don't worry about re-reporting bugs that you reported in V25.2 and aren't fixed - we'll hopefully be able to fix them in January! Balance / Gameplay Changes: Strategy: You start with 25 Panic in each region rather than 50 Panic (this indirectly increases your income too). UFOs now generate about 20% less Panic as they fly around the Geoscape. Almost doubled the repair speed of interceptors Before day 90, Destroyers on Retaliation missions (i.e. attacking your base) now do not spawn with Fighter escorts. Added Defender Armour project to the starting Xenopedia. Fixed a bug where you could end up with extra Steel Plates even after upgrading to Alloy Plates. Tactical Combat: Xenonaut soldiers can now only deploy within the Access Lift during a Xenonaut Base defence mission. Updated the enemies present in the Cleaner Base mission so they are a bit more of a threat to well-armoured soldiers. The objective desks in the Cleaner Intel mission are no longer crushable. The Stealthsuit now has the Cloaking Field ability (works like the Wraith version; +2 Defence per tile of range from shooter) rather than a flat +20 Defence MARS rocket launcher blast radius reduced from 4 tiles to 3 tiles, and damage reduced from 40 to 36. Combat Shield has bonus armour reduced from 20 to 16, and Assault Shield reduced from 35 to 28. Combat Knife has damage reduced from 40 to 26, and weight reduced from 15 to 10. Armour Destruction increased from 0 to 2. Fixed an issue where advanced Shotguns would gain rather than lose accuracy for one tile beyond their maximum range. Visual / Interface Changes: Fixed a lot of issues with text and tooltips in various places in the game. Geoscape popups now have open / close sounds again. Adjacency effects are now displayed in more intuitive way (showing the total value of one adjacency link). Items in the tactical vests of the default loadouts are now arranged in a more aesthetically pleasing manner. Fixed another missing move path tile. Fixed a bright pink error texture in the Cleaner Intel mission, and various other visual fixes to the walls etc. The interactive desks in the Cleaner Intel mission now correctly remove the glow effect from all objects when interacted with. Set the hotkey for Air Combat afterburners to be F, as previous key was clashing with a camera scroll key. Added a proper image for the Steel Plates soldier armour module.