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I agree that it isn't too difficult to get 5 tubes, you can always change the mission to make that base level success harder or easier. What I think is more interesting is the extra tubes and what you get for them vs what you risk. I played an abduction mission a few nights ago and was able to get 9 of the 10 tubes, which offered very little other than the satisfaction of playing the mission in a more difficult way. I think the player should be given exponentially better rewards for more tubes to temp them into making riskier tactical decisions. I also think this mindset can be brought into other missions in the form of temporary side objectives. For example getting inside the downed UFO in 5 turns and living till the next turn gets you a large cache of alenium. Build in an incentive to player with higher risk so the best way to play isn't WW1 trench warfare but with better weapons.

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 100% agree, currently the biggest flaw of the game is that camping is too good of a strategy. That said, the abduction change feels like QOL rather than anything else, it was pretty arbitrary that the mission straight up ended and aliens just vanished into the thin air. I'm fine with it continuing untill aliens are dead, but the mission reward should be a lot more dependent on how many pods you get (currently the reward for an individual pod is too low), so you get far less if you just sit on your ass after getting the 5 pods. maybe instead of a flat 100 000 in cash for passing a mission you get 10K for each pod, and the alloy reward is increased.

Just, more missions with Cleaner presence in them, for one? We only have the 3 or 4 bespoke missions with them. The suggestion that leaving crash sites for long periods of time results in more Cleaner presence (for example, replacing each civilian spawn with a Cleaner one) on the tactical map is a good one; it provides incentive for the player to do a crash site quick and weigh having soldiers rested up/certain equipment or tech unlocked or manufactured vs more enemy presence in the early game. I made a thread with some Cleaner ideas here, with varied mission ideas that could also be adapted for the more alien-focused late game: I feel the tetris sort of thing that the Milestone 1 modules encouraged was really neat and I'm not sure I'll like the changes. The extra armor toggle mentioned is fine and means it has continuity with the MARS's "heavy armor" toggle, but making modules exclusive from a dropdown feels like a downgrade. I'd actually suggest the opposite and lean far more into the tetris juggling thing and make every module have a unique shape on the inventory box instead of just having a 2x2 box. Have modules of the same type but different sizes, letting you choose between having more inventory space for ammo, grenades, etc. or getting a really good buff from the large module. For example, make the exoskeleton take up a 3x4 space in the inventory, which means the player now has to ask "is the extra strength worth losing so much inventory space?" instead of the no brainer of of "can my soldier carry 5 more grenades and heavy armor for the low price of a tiny 2x2 box?" Maybe there's a small 1x2 medical module that consumes itself to give a minor heal to your soldiers (perhaps only healing wounds), with the Milestone 1 medical module taking up a full 2x5 space, providing the full suite of automatic healing and wound treatment. This easily lends to a fun bit of tech progression where you eventually replace the older, very clunky module that takes up a 4x3 space with the sleeker, more technologically advanced successor that takes up a 3x2 space. This system also implicitly means certain modules will be mutually exclusive with each other, which adds to the element of tradeoffs and makes module choices much more meaningful. For example, the big medical module and exoskeleton would still fit in the current 5x5 grid together, but you're barely left with 3 spaces for the rest of your soldier's equipment like grenades or magazines. Maybe the aiming module takes up a 4x2 space, meaning you cannot mount both it and the medical module at all. You could argue the drop down menu accomplishes the same sort of thing, but you have a grid inventory system, it's much more fun to actually use it and let the player wrack their brain trying to fit every module they can while keeping their soldiers with a reasonable amount of ammo and equipment. Otherwise you might as well scrap the whole inventory grid and just make the entire inventory system a list or drop down menu. There's a reason the Resident Evil 4 attache case inventory system was a thing people fell in love with (and even inspired some indie games that entirely revolved around it) while basically every other inventory system is mostly forgettable or barely worth mentioning.

I always thought funding being tied to how well your doing in the game was interesting. It makes the player think carefully about their actions and if they skip this mission so their soldiers can heal or whatever, they risk things getting worse. The mechanic strikes a balance between two playstyles on opposite ends of the spectrum, going guns blazing and doing every mission regardless of whether or not your equipped, versus the opposite end simply doing the bare minimum, strictly the story missions required for progression and nothing else. Ideally you want the majority of players to fall somewhere in the middle, I think keeping funding the same regardless of panic removes this dynamic and a significant amount of tension and planning from the game. I like the idea of the toggle modules, but maybe soldiers with a specialty in a given stat have a proficiency for that module? Maybe a soldier with a high strength stat doesnt lose as much carry weight when wearing heavy armor. Maybe the high accuracy soldier doesnt take as many TUs to shoot when wearing the goggles. Just something to think about, imo gives soldiers more personality and adds to tension bc if you lose your sniper, theres a very good chance the replacement wont ever be as good as the one you lost. I love the tech tree ideas, the difference between big upgrades and small upgrades add much needed diversity to it and lets me go on my upgrade tangents freely. Also, if your struggling with mission variety and really wanna set this game apart from the first, try mixing them together? EX: During a terror mission you discover a room of abduction tubes, the room is well guarded and both the tubes and the guards appear to be teleporting away in 3 turns, do you attempt to save the abductees? One off kinda side missions that only happen once per campaign would be awesome as well. EX: Command picks up an alien weapon prototype signature on an otherwise normal VIP mission, the VIP is already KO but the mission isnt complete yet. Do you attempt to take the weapon and get out? The reinforcement timer remains the same but they're closing in 2 turns or less. If you extract the VIP and the weapon, the payoff could be huge. Make 10 or so of these semi-unique missions and insert 2-3 per campaign, would give tons of replayability and excitement for each run. Another EX: During a terror mission an alien ship drops something from the sky. Is it a bomb? Reinforcement? Supply Cache? You could go all 3 ways with this and have the player guess each time they play it. Loosely tying these basic plot threads into the missions would add so much depth to them, mix and matching mission types adds even more. Side note this game is super addicting, love it to pieces and spent 10s of hours launch week playing.

I think I prefer the old module system. My issue is that the automed module feels pretty much mandatory, so I would probably never use anything else if I’m limited to only one.

This caught my eye... jetpack would be extremely useful if the maps were just more vertical and being higher grounds provided more buffs. Changing accelerated weapons to being an upgrade to ballistics sounds like a good idea, but I'd like the upgrads to be weapon type specific. Similar upgrade path to armor doesn't sound like an improvement Item upgrades sound sweet. More the better. Regarding the module system, I kinda enjoy the Tetris mini game we have atm, where I need to balance my backpack between modules, weapons, grenades and other items. Changing the abduction missions to be one more "kill all aliens" mission feels a step in a wrong direction. Regarding the cleaner mission chain and progression: Gathering intel for intitial progress is fine and I love the mission (best map so far), but the daily automatic percentage gain after that feels somewhat gamey and boring. You should add more quick and simple cleaner missions where player could earn that progression instead, capture additional intel, capture and interrogate cleaners etc. I also suggested somewhere that cleaners could be added to crash site missions to clean the wreck and alien corpses. This would add a nice new dynamic to those missions where the more player waits before raiding the site, the more there would be cleaners. Avoiding these add-on cleaners could also push people to do these crash site missions at night, before cleaners arrive. Edit: Here's my initial suggestion