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Milestone 2 is not yet ready for public consumption, but it is available in a rough form for people who want to help us experiment with a few new mechanics. To access the build, enter the branch password xenonautsproto and switch to the Prototype branch. However, please read the whole post before doing so! We're testing out a few new mechanics that we want to get people's opinions about before we commit to updating the UI and getting new artwork done etc. I'll spend a bit more time than normal explaining the logic behind the design decisions here, as that will hopefully allow people to tell us whether they think the changes achieve their intended goals or not. Panic: One of the biggest problems with Milestone 1 is that there's no easy way to reduce Panic in a specific region, which means that on harder difficulty settings you need to build additional bases and aircraft as quickly as possible otherwise you'll quickly reach the point where you start losing regions. Panic will now decrease by 10% in each region at the end of each month. However, the Panic reduction for shooting down UFOs has been halved from -2 to -1. This means that Panic generated from Cleaner activity or Alien Bases or failed tactical missions will dissipate more quickly, while making interceptor coverage *slightly* less beneficial (although it's still pretty strong). Note that due to a bug this is happening before the region loss check (which means you need ~110 Panic to lose a region) but we'll change this if the change is popular. Also, this change only solves half of the problem in Milestone 1, as the player still lacks a targeted way to reduce Panic in a region. However I think it's a useful first step. Funding: Funding is no longer dependent on Panic level. A region will grant you full funding (which increases as you progress down the storyline) unless you lose the region, in which case funding will fall to zero. This change was made to support some other experimental changes I've not put in this build. But it means that building a base in a region doesn't increase income as much. Previously you'd get extra funds from shooting down UFOs and completing the crash sites, but then also gain extra funding from the fact keeping Panic low in the region granted extra funding. This hopefully means it's less essential to rush to cover the whole world with your planes as soon as possible. Mission Order: The game now starts with a Cleaner deathmatch mission, which is then followed by a Secton Abduction site. The plan is to make the opening Cleaner mission a bit more exciting - potentially even a continuation of the base defence mission from the tutorial where you clear the base of the attacking Cleaners, then evacuate to your new base. But the goal is to add an extra Cleaner mission and use that as a way to introduce them better at the start of the game. We've then slightly slowed down the progression over the next three months, and in particular we've moved the Cleaner Intel Hub mission back a couple of weeks so it comes after the first UFO crash site. We're open to ideas about how we can make the Cleaner mission sequence a bit more interesting, as it seems like not everyone likes the Cleaner Network idea where the main way to advance is just to capture more Cleaner Data on missions. Feel free to throw ideas out on this topic. Tech Tree / Item Upgrades: One of the recurring discussion points on the forums is whether Accelerated Weapons are a "trap" or not, and I've attemped to make their purpose a bit more clear through some tech tree changes. Accelerated weapons are now an upgrade for Ballistic weapons - i.e. a one-off project that permanently upgrades all Ballistic weapons to be Accelerated weapons. The same is also now true for the Warden Armour, which is now an upgrade for Defender Armour which increases the protection offered. As such, I've moved Guardian Armour forward in the tech tree so it can be unlocked off Scout UFOs rather than Destroyers. This means the player is given the choice of two relatively quick and cheap upgrades at the start of the game, but are also given the option to research more advanced weapons (lasers) and armour (Guardian) within the first month. But you're also presented the option to pursue the story research, which increases your funding - so hopefully this presents the player some interesting choices in the early game to try different strategies. To stop this being overwhelming, I've moved the Dragonfly and Phantom to be unlocked off Destroyers rather than Scouts. Finally, I've tried to expand the item upgrade options. There's a project that allows you to reduce the weight of Defender Armour, and Laser Weapons now have two upgrades that provide Recharging Ammo and increased Damage respectively. Guardian Armour also has an upgrade that increases the protection it offers which is unlocked from Destroyers. I'd be interested to know whether people like these increased upgrade options. Soldier Module System: I've removed all the existing soldier "modules" which could be placed in the soldier tactical vest and these are now replaced by the following set up: Extra Armour: all armour now weighs less and offers less protection, but there's a Heavy Armour toggle in the bottom right that will increase protection at the cost of extra weight. This is designed to make the armour more flexible rather than "heavy" armour like the Guardian being useless for low-Strength soldiers. The only gameplay consideration is "can the soldier carry the extra weight?" Armour Module: you can now choose a single module from a second dropdown below the existing Armour dropdown. At the start you can either choose from a rebreather that provides smoke protection, a +3 Acc boost or a +5 Bravery boost, however almost all the modules from Milestone 1 reappear as you progress down the tech tree. Obviously the question is simply which one module you choose to use. Jetpack: as previously, the jetpack is another toggled option. I just don't think it's useful enough that anyone would ever use it if we made it part of the Armour Module list. My question here is simple - do you prefer this to the module system in Milestone 1 where your inventory was full of modules? There's scope to add extra artwork and improve the UI if people like the basic idea, but it'd be nice to know people's initial impression of the changes. However, from a design perspective there's some overlap with the Item Upgrade system above. Some of the modules could potentially be folded into upgrades for the armour (particularly the Jetpack) - although then the danger is that you have soldiers that can do everything, and once your armour is upgraded you no longer have to choose between say a +TU boost, or a +ACC boost, or health regeneration, etc. Let me know your thoughts on this setup and where you'd like to see the design go. Incomplete Balance Changes: These are further balance changes I expect to make prior to Milestone 2 reaching our main Steam branches: Panic will be checked for region loss before the -10% monthly decrease occurs. Abduction missions will not end when the timer expires. Instead, the tubes will be present for X turns before teleporting away, and you get rewards for each one you open. However all the aliens must still be eliminated for victory. Starting Cleaner mission will probably happen immediately after beginning the game, before you go to strategy (rather than being a mission you do on day 2 or so).

I wouldn't dismiss it as "fear of Steam refunds", because hiding away your new content so people only see it after playing for an hour or two just means a decent chunk of our playerbase might get bored and switch the game off before they ever reach that point due to feeling like they've just seen it all before. Sure, it's likely to cause Steam refunds and negative Steam reviews, and they're a bad thing - but fundamentally people not enjoying the game is a negative in itself. That's what all the design decisions we make on the project are ultimately trying to prevent. There are other reasons too - it's one of the few mission types containing aliens that doesn't involve a UFO (which would progress the player down the tech tree too fast), and it's more engaging than the current Alien Research Team mission because it does have those special rules with the abduction tubes. Seems to me like a pretty natural fit for that point in the game, really!

Hi all, To help me with Modding for Xenonauts 2 I've created a Mod Loader based on a forum post by asdfcyber (https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/28131-first-v25-modding-impressions/#comment-192760) It uses mono.cecil to patch the Assembly-CSharp.dll and inject code that loads mods from a folder of your choosing. Essentially you run the Mod Loader exe and it'll inject the Mod Loader code if needed and then starts Xenonauts 2. It will then call a LoadMods method in the Xenonauts.XenonautsMain constructor. The repo also contains an example mod that shows how to override existing methods using Harmony (https://github.com/pardeike/Harmony) and how to format the mod so that the Mod Loader can detect it. The repo can be found here: https://github.com/38Simulated/XenonautsModding Not sure if there are that many people out there looking into modding the game, but I thought I'd post something just in case it was of any use to anyone.

Yes, but now you have my actual permission :)

IIRC Empresses are quite rare. You should encounter one with enough luck. Usually on larger UFOs or big alien bases.

Some of the concepts described below I have seen in an open source UFO game, some are my ideas how to enhance the already very good player experience even further and I believe it would be great to have something similar in X2 as well.. Not sure if feasible in the way how the game is designed though.. Radar tower the radars in the bases cannot effectively cover the whole landmass of the Earth. Adding a few radar towers on the Geoscape in the blindspots could cover all continents.There would have to be construction time and costs as well as upkeep involved, and the coverage would be less (say half) of the basic radar and would also not upgrade to quantum. The bombers could also target it during their runs on the geoscape. UFO Dissasembly Yard For every downed UFO, you would have an option to either collect the bounty (there could be bids from the world regions - selling a UFO to them could reduce the panic in that region f.e.), or to keep it for dissasembly. For this, you would build an installation, where the downed UFOs would be transferred to (transfer time between 48 and 96 hours). Capacity of the yard would be limited, eventually you could build more. Every newly (not shot down before) downed UFO would trigger a research, in which the the tech and the stats of the UFO would be discovered. Every UFO could be dissasembled using workshops (as projects) into individual items (alloys, alenium, surgical tables, propulsion, navigation, electronics, weapons etc), which would be used for triggering research. Later, the items could be either sold or used for crafting items, planes etc. Damaged UFOs would generate less items to research/sell as opposed of undamaged ones (Landed and conquered ones). This would add another layer of gameplay, as now the items are gathered automatically after end of tactical battles. Cleaner base After defeating the base, it would be occupied by Xenonaut forces and would trigger research of the advanced structures. The player would have to transfer/hire scientists and engineers to that base to start the research. Until the research would be completed, the remnants of cleaner forces would attack the base trying to re-take it. After completing the research, the base attacks would stop and the base would be used as an additional source of research/crafting and/or income generation. The base itself would either become another regular base, or it would have to remain as is (no additional structures could be built) SAM site missile site (f.e. a modified ICBM site, provided by a region or country or built by player), used to shoot modified long range AA missiles at airborne UFOs (preferably the big ones - cruiser, harvester, battleship, carrier, bomber), helping to soften them up before they get attacked by the Xenonaut interceptors or to defend bases (or off-site installations) as an extra layer of defense. Alien moon base The aliens could have a logistical hub on the moon, used to coordinate attacks on Earth and stack up forces, represented by a base. Such base could be assaulted by the xenonaut forces (or by the SAM site with a special missile to allow the base attack) to weaken the logistics of the aliens. The ultimate Dropship and at least Exosuit equipped soldiers would have to be used for such a mission. This mission could be triggered in corelation to the orbital bombardment, which is not implemeted yet.