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Hi, This is my first post here. I backed the X2 Kickstarter as a big fan of Xenonauts 1 & CE (and of 90s XCOM, TFTD, Apocalypse, and Laser Squad before all that). To this point hadn't really followed the development efforts, just put a little heart icon on the steam announcements when they showed up but recently got some time to check out the first 90 days in V25.5 on steam experimental on Normal difficulty. I'm very pleased I did and thought I would share feedback in a hopefully respectful and constructive way. First of all, I would say that overall it's really fine work and everyone who has contributed their hard effort towards Xenonauts 2 should be proud of it. It's in great shape already (compared to some prerelease builds I played in X1) and I did have a lot of fun on my run. Whether it was tossing flashbangs and getting up real close with shotgun or punching through armoured foes from a distance with the enhanced sniper rifle or laying down smoke and running away with mission documents, it was a good experience. Particularly good: Art, sound, music Mentarch unit - nice idea, well executed Mantid race Generating cash without having to make widgets MARS pathfinder/wall crusher - absolutely brilliant compact HWP - love this Rebuilding of downed MARS/sentries Cleaner origins backstory Health display Performance is really good Feels less 'grindy' than X1 Armour system in Tactical Things I considered inconveniences on my run: In interceptor combat, keyboard selection 1,2,3 is used for Geoscape-style time advance rather than selecting craft. This drove me nuts because even after hours in the game I still press instinctively press 1 for Angel-1 in squadron and it immediately unpauses. I consider the air combat as analogous to tactical where you can go 1,2,3 etc for units. Game menu window stays open after saving game, I wish it would auto close on save. In the first month I was penniless after some big capex spending and very few UFOs appeared in my region and with both scientists and engineers tied up there weren't any chances to make tough spending choices because nothing was coming in at all. It got much better though after the first month end. No dot or dash permitted in save game names seemed a slightly restrictive choice. It wasn't clear to me how much power at a new base (for interceptors) was going to be provided by the access lift. The tooltip suggests a small amount so I thought I would need to build 1 generator to power a 60-drain radar. When access lift came online it was actually providing 100 power itself. Didn't need that 200k genny. Likewise for stores. I knew I would likely need small amount of storage so I built a stores facility, but the lift provided 25 storage anyway. So I wasted 300k upfront on extra facilities I didn't need which could have helped me crank my first Phantom out earlier. Some minor issues I encountered: I did have several crashes to the desktop but nothing that couldn't be quickly got back to after a last save/autosave. As some of the logs implied out of memory I raised my virtual memory pagefile size which had been quite low at 1GB and that seemed to reduce the frequency somewhat. Killed enemies occasionally shows 'Suppressed' text as they bite the dust. 'MARS recovered from injuries' in the geoscape messages probably should say was fully repaired. MARS was mesmerised by a Psyon, well maybe its operator was. Clicking after arrival of new scientists/engineers took me the soldier list. Smoke grenade hit a blue transparent storage cylinders in cleaner base and didn't explode. Alien corpses of Mantid and Sentry guns show stood up sometimes when reloading a save. Quantum Transmitter research list text seems to be same as cleaner base research text. Arid layout tiles didn't seemed to be randomised for my crashed Destroyers. Solders with long barrel weapons like sniper rifle stick them through wall if directly facing the wall, perhaps add an animation where they raise the barrel when turning to face wall or moving into a square facing a wall. Yellow reserved TUs on the TU bar for a rifle weapon action weren't cleared when the rifle was swapped out for a different weapon (shotgun) from the backpack. Balancing-related observations: A handful of 20-armoured foes turned up very early for normal (day 44 destroyer psyon crash site) making soldiers carrying the standard rifle or not enough explosives virtually useless. Aircraft weapon manufacture is extremely expensive per unit. I think this was the part of the economy I found the hardest. And Sidewinder Missiles were superseded very quickly for their outlay - Regret Buy! Bog standard Angel aircraft seems like they should just be purchasable from the aircraft screen rather than have to build for days through the workshop. Very long build time on just the step-up magnetic weapons (about 2 days each meant almost a month toto) compared to say similar tech level armour or a new craft even Sell price tail-off seems quite harsh on normal. High increase in early panic from UFO bombing/strafing activities in regions far outside interceptor range. In first 30 days two regions were at 50 panic with no hope of interceptions. Seeing the numbers increase made me feel totally impotent - probably I was meant to, to some degree, or maybe I was just unlucky with the mission types in the far-flung regions. When at cannon range interceptors seem to almost stack up on top of each other on reaching target rather than X1 style overshoot and turn. Didn't see more than 2 UFO types, plus an fighter. Almost all from the 90 days were Destroyer type. A bit more early variation or more Scouts would be nice. Other than the UFO which is probably a warm space, aliens seem actively avoid being inside any buildings. I miss enemy building window snipers they were fun for counter-sniper action or Explosives. Standing/running through smoke thrown by own soldiers incapacitates far more quickly than I expected. Prior to having any closed cycle armour I imagined they could automatically use an implied pocket respirator or something like that to mitigate effects from their own smoke without impeding movement or accuracy. Snagging a plasma grenade didn't add any research topics (but perhaps I need to finish plasma weapons research first and/or manufacture alenium grenade). Add a third entrance to the cleaner base final room (e.g. from the south) or reduce the number of opposition in the room, it's a significant difficulty spike. Suggestions for Tactical: Top-down 'drone' map in Tactical - would be helpful for planning and give an overview particularly on the missions with timers and for when the maps invariably get bigger with cap ship assaults. Please show loadout class name (e.g. HEAVY) for soldiers in Tactical either in the lower pane or with the corresponding little icon by the numbers at the top. Would help me identify my soldiers who are carrying little shotgun or stun baton treats in their backpacks where its not always obvious from their primary. Would be nice to see civilians run in a general direction past Xenonauts they see for safety or head to rear of dropship if they can see it for shelter. (Local forces are fine. They stand their ground or attack quite well.) Add a secondary option to MARS to fit a smoke launcher (maybe 10 shot cap) as it is an infantry support platform. Two-part missions (like in TFTD) - not for bug hunts but maybe for special missions like cleaner base. Puts extra emphasis on initial loadout and then on scavenging for ammo and passing supplies around as the turns go on. Have a creepy Mantid hive ship with extra big Mantids. That would be both very cool and scary. Multiple floors on the base defence. Having almost literally grown up playing XCOM base defences with the little passages and stairs I loved the two floor detail of your own base and that you could hide some of the soldiers who weren't ready away up above the stores while the rest went firing pot shots down corridors or exploding barrels in the hangars. Base defence rally point being the living quarters rather the access lift. I'm with the old XCOM on this one, I don't really like them bunched in the lift with a crepe paper fence for cover and I don't see logically why they would be rallying there. More secondary/environmental explosions to reward(?) indiscriminate fire/grenades. Incendiary/phosphorus grenades for area denial/serious armour stripping. Other suggestions: Add a third type of staff member - Programmers - with their own work room and personality. This would separate out some of the more programming-oriented tasks and give a bit of credit to software folks for helping to save the world. Maybe starting with a lone guy but can recruit more. They could have their own topics which can be background or prerequisites to further programming topics or as prerequisites to research topics or manufacture or as follow ups to research. Topics for programmers could be any decryption/decoding of cleaner data, counter cyber warfare to reduce cleaner influence (and panic), cleaner penetration testing, aeronautical database programming prior to new aircraft coming online, aviation simulations to unlock improved evasive capabilities, fire control systems programming to unlock extra fire modes. Like the other staff types, programmers could also generate extra cash when idle (contracting out). So could be a way to generate a small but encouraging income even when scientists and workshops busy. The name of the 'Cleaners' was ok but when I found out there was an office to be raided it actually raised a fair bit of mirth in me. I envisaged when my soldiers went inside they would find the cleaners going round the desks emptying the bins and scoffing any biscuits left in the kitchenettes. So I wished the text referred to them as the 'Cleaner faction' or something like that rather than 'cleaners' to get the association with mops and buckets out of my head. Actually reminded me quite a bit of the Janitors from Hotline Miami 1 also while typing this up. That said I did really like the idea and the Cleaner faction backstory at their conclusion, it was just the name that challenged me. Launch Control window when selecting craft for the squadron could have a tooltip to show weapons installed on the craft hardpoints. Nudge player to put starting base somewhere that is likely helpful for more than 2 of the bill payers. Some way to reduce panic in particular region even by small amount where it is higher than you would like. Air Combat have health & armour display of UFO foe(s) on the left hand side as bars so can see how the combat is going without zooming right in to see the little numbers. Thanks again for the great work, there is so much more positive than detracting. I'm sure you'll have loads more feedback from the new demo too in the coming days and weeks. Best wishes and good hunting, heavyplasma

I pretty much agree with all of your feedback, especially these: Furthermore, it would be nice to get some more information about the defenses UFOs have, how they work and which cones are main weapons and/or rotating defense batteries. I'm still struggling with the torpedoes and do not understand why they sometimes blow up just after firing :/ I think the best place to give this kind of information would be after the air combat by the pilots that engaged the UFO. They could comment about how the UFO e.g shot down the missiles at certain range or seemed not to be affected at all by certain weapon when the situation is encountered first time. This information could then be added into the UFO description. Anyway Congrats to all people involved, you are doing great work!