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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 apologise if this has been mentioned previously but it I really do think an option for side stepping, maybe at double or triple TU cost, should be implemented. My unit has a shield, knows the enemy is behind the wall yet has to show his side to the aliens and potentially get shot, making the shield useless for that moment.

I agree on this! For now, a solution is to not make a step to the side, but one back and then diagonal. It's safer, but requires a lot more TU.

Hahaha crackhead! Sniffs suspicious substance, rushes to the closest Sebillian screaming "Come here Yoshi! Let's settle our differences!"

Hello devs, as requested at the end of campaign to share thoughts on forum, here are mine. I've played nearly all tactical squad games over the past 30 years and play most games preferably on hardest diff and iron man mode. One game I havent played is Xenonauts 1, i was going to, but then a kickstarter happened I have not checked other playstyles or strategies. It took 2-3 attempts on the first map to learn survivability As every alien on the map can have 2 reaction shots, and already 1 can be lethal at start. The only way I found to go through with least amount of casualties is using lots of front runners with shields I guess the other way would be to have a tank and run behind that. MY SQUAD SETUP: At beginning of game, rifles and shotguns guys are crap because of the low hit percentage and then getting 1 or 2 reaction fires back in your face (and because of the range, reaction fire hits a lot) So what i did was: 4 Shields, with pistol, 1 extra clip but mostly stocked with grenades. They are front runners until shield is gone 3 snipers to attack from range without getting reaction shots. They carry the medikits, and aim item (mostly shields are being wounded after shield goes down, they walk back to sniper and heal) 2 Rocketeers, just a grenade launcher and as many rockets as possible, can have some weight overload since they gonna blast ammo from first turn to remove line of sight blockers. They are used to shoot corners of buildings, or fire at enemy and at the same time remove obstacles. (Not directly shot at enemy, but targeting ground ) Mid game and end game: Too easy. Your strength increases much quicker than the aliens. I've shot lizards with a gauss pistol 1 shot. ENEMIES ARE ALL THE SAME: All enemies are kinda the same. I hope that in future there will be more variaty, because i was bored halfway my first playthrough. Airborne units? Large units that bash through everything Maybe a melee unit that gets free reaction moves instead of reaction fire (because its so damn fast) A quick bee type that 'stuns' your units rather than killing. You can make it that it can easily fly to and stun 2 of your soldiers in 1 turn. So it can really upset the player playstyle but he can come back from it unharmed. Headcrabs? They would ignore shield and counter that kind of heavy focus. Units that spawn many little monsters over time? An alien mob that fight in a pack (like wolves). So grenadiers are good, snipers are worse Just some things so that you have to tweak ur squad for missions and get into new situations Newest Xcom games has some really creative enemies with behaviour, keeping the playthrough fresh, and you really 'respect' certain aliens and their capabilities. Havent really noticed much psionics. in my playthrough. I hate the 'mind control', though new xcom has that solved with a visible 'link' to the caster. But psionics could do so much more, like illusions and buffs. For example, a soldier is hit by an illusion that the world is on fire. You select him, and you see fire and smoke everywhere, and moving through it actually cause damage. YOUR SOLDIERS ARE ALL THE SAME: Same counts for your troops, they are also all the same. In the first days of campaign, you gotta look at their stats, because 1 might have 30 accuracy or 60. That is significant. But after a while, they train up all stats equally and it hardly matters anymore: All your troops are kinda the same. Jagged Alliance is truly great in having unique characters. It doesnt have to be like that for Xenonauts. But current troops are too generic, they can all throw grenades equally good and far. If you look at dungeons and dragons. Each character has stats: Dex, Int, Str etc. They get much better over time, but certain area's improve much faster than others. You might want to reconsider adding something like this. So you gotta handpick recruits that will get really great snipers over an amount of missions, or really good grenade throwers. Or maybe slow down training speed by 50% of current, and give each soldier a random 1,2 or 3 affinities (maybe even hidden) in which they progress much faster. USER INTERFACE: I am very pleased with the menu's, keys and commands. It plays really easy. Game looks good. Really old school vibe but new and crisp. great work. OTHER STUFF: I like a squad of 9 instead of 4/6: A casualty is than so much less significant for the completion of the current mission. Its also not too much, your turns go quite fast. Hoping floors will be breakable in future. Stun gun is really thrash, before you have a good hit %, you are so close to target a stun rod would have done the work too. I dont like how reaction works at all. I mean aliens that dont move, just stock up 2 reactions. Thats mostly when you see reaction shot system: From enemies that are too hard to kill with 1 shot, but can kill you in response immediatly, and if they miss on the first reaction, they kill you on the 2nd. So the whole reaction shot system does not feel 'rewarding and fun' Like with gears tactics of jagged alliance 3. Its just some annoying behaviour that the aliens have. Atleast keep reaction fire to the 90 degree angle of facing. It would make a sneak around with a shotgun much more viable. I rather fight 2x the amount of aliens on a map (or they have 2x the hitpoints), than that every alien can rotate 180 degrees and one shot you in reaction. I would like to see more flexibility with research progression and base building progression and squad strategies. I know the state of the game, and I get it that it couldnt have been primary focus till now. Right now I am pleased with the basics of the game. It's like a good basic meal, but it needs some salt, pepper and a bit of variety. Because right now, I cant see me play it again. Its too much of the same thing throughout the game, and I had already figured out how to beat it on day 1, and didnt have to change my strategy at any point. After first map, there was never a moment: Holy crap what is this and how do I beat this. I dont like the exploration of UFO's, its the same thing as the original with many reactions as soon as you open the door Overall: Pleased what I saw and experienced, and looking forward to more. I have faith that this game will grow into one of the best tactical squad games of all time. It has a good basics for that.

m=E/c^2 The energy of a sniper cartridge 7.62 = 3500 Even if a laser weapon is twice as powerful as a sniper rifle. m=7000/300 000 000^2 The soldier will not feel this recoil.

I noticed that the alien base has a nice holographic globe

Or make the globe slightly transparent? Changing the geoscape is probably out of the question at this point, but maybe a paid DLC might be a possibility?

For a globe, to see both sides of the planet at once, you could have two circular shaped maps side by side, locked so that when you “rotate” one, the other turns as well by the same amount. That way it can bypass any potential issues with the engine not being able to display a 3d sphere for an actual globe.

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!

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