Leaderboard

Closed Beta Build V26 has now been released on Steam and GOG. Note that this build is only available on our Experimental branch (unless you're part of our Steam Playtest, in which case you don't have to change branches at all!) so you'll need to switch over to get this update (instructions on how to do that here). This build basically combines another hotfix we had planned for V25.5 with the work we did on our recent Steam demo. The game balance hasn't changed massively but there's still been some major new additions. We'll be taking a better look at the game balance for V27, which is already being worked on. Note that this changelog also includes the changes made in the tutorial, as that wasn't an "official" build. Changelog: Tutorial: the game now has a proper tutorial, which will play if you have the Introduction checkbox set. This explains the basic mechanics and some of the events leading up to the start of the game, and we're pretty proud of it - it's not particularly long, but hopefully still does a decent job of showing players the key mechanics (it has had a few visual updates and bugfixes since the demo release too). Esc menu now works in the air combat. Interceptors can now be selected with hotkeys 1-3 in the air combat. Time speed in the air combat and on the Geoscape are now controlled with F1-F4. Added new artwork for the following research projects: Cleaner Operations, Alien Alloys, Alenium. Visually restyled following UI popups: Launch Aircraft panel Squadron Information UFO Intercepted Squadron Intercepted Air Combat Result Abort Mission confirmation popup in tactical combat Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur if you clicked a save game on the Load Game screen while it was still loading the list of saves. Fixed a crash that could occur when changing camera level during a tactical mission after an alien was killed. Fixed a crash that could occur after an alien unit used a grenade. Fixed a crash that could occur when you disabled a newly-constructed Lab. Fixed an AI hang that could occur if a local forces unit was Mesmerised by a Psyon. Fixed various alien abilities getting messed up after loading a save game. Fixed a bug preventing players from being able to pick up corpses / stunned units and put them in their inventory. Updated the Geoscape region borders to be neater and less pixelated, and updated the cities and base icons to look a little neater too. Camera no longer centers on the selected soldier at end of turn. Performance should be increased on the Soldier Equip screen. Bleeding wounds minitab icon in GC now has a tooltip associated with it. Updated the Cleaner Intel Hub mission briefing and objectives so it is hopefully more obvious you cannot win the mission through elimination of all enemies. Balance Changes: The Cleaner Intel Hub mission now has dynamic difficulty depending on when it is revealed. If researched in month 1, the Cleaners present are equipped with SMGs rather than Rifles and have no armour. In month 2 they get stronger, and they get stronger again once you enter month 3. Reduced the cost of building aircraft weapons. Crushing crushable objects now costs +1 TU. Slightly increased the range bonus on most weapons, so you get more +hit bonus as you get closer to the target. Stun Guns are now quite a bit more accurate within 6 tiles of the target, but less accurate beyond 6 tiles. As always, please let us know if you encounter any bugs by posting them up on the Bug Reporting subforums, as we'll be releasing hotfixes to correct any major issues you encounter.

I just finished making a document with lots of data for how many shots a shield user can take as opposed to a normal soldier with no shield. This is tangentially related to my other topic I made the other day about making shields have a better "game feel". This document is free for anyone to use and it has no conclusion in it, so anyone reading it can come to their own conclusions. I made a lot of assumptions and my equation for my data is potentially very wrong. I also only took into account enemy weapons up to the Alien Mag-Rifle, soldier armors up to Guardian armor, and only used the default shield as I don't have the stats of any of the equipment past those. If anyone knows the stats of any equipment past the ones I have, then feel free to tell me the damage, armor penetration, and armor destruction of the weapons and tell more the armor of the armors and advanced shield. If I made a significant math error as well, feel free to shoot me a message here or on the Xenonauts 2 discord. I hope this might make discussions more about the hard math more than the shields just "feeling" bad to use, so the balance issue of shields can be addressed much more easily. And before anyone says, I know I put way to much effort into this for something that might not be used at all. But I'm proud of it, so that's the thing that matters the most. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p4Vfc1unY_59aSDWYPETrUEthFNrvfeh_hlbXt0fSXQ/edit?usp=sharing