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Quick announcement for everyone - our Milestone 2 update is due to go live for everyone on 29th November! Although the update is content complete and we were originally planning to launch it today, we've decided to push back the release by a week because the Steam Autumn Sale is starting today - it's never a good idea to push out a huge update that might cause stability issues just before a major sale. A second benefit is that delaying the update also gives our localisation partners time to translate the new content. However, anyone that wants to try the new update can switch onto the Experimental branch right now and start playing. Your save games will carry over to the public version of Milestone 2 once it releases, as the only changes we'll be making in the next week are bugfixes and translation updates. A big thanks to everyone who has helped us test Milestone 2 on the Experimental branches over the past four weeks, we really appreciate it!

Thanks for the assorted feedback. I'm glad you're enjoying the updated balance. You've mentioned a few interesting things which I might patch before we release Milestone 2. I think you're probably right about the Quantum Array cost and the fact Cleaner Leaders should probably give more monetary reward (they do give more HQ advancement). I think having Terror mission prioritise high-terror areas is an interesting idea and I'll think about that some more.

Thanks for the additional information! We're still actively trying to fix this bug and more information to glean is always helpful, we'll take a look at the output.log you've provided and see if we can track down the actions/events that led to the bug, thanks!

I'm not convinced that the money is that big a factor in the difficulty. Perhaps you've played on different settings more than me, but I found more difficulty in the added enemies and need to carefully manage TU for overwatch shots. Nerfing the money seems like it'd be more annoying than challenging and it threatens the playability of the game rather than a given mission. YMMV, but I believe X should be balanced around Ironman play, not quickloading. An experienced player on a more difficult setting should be able to recover from a party-wipe or (more likely) multiple half-wipes, which could be made impossible with a harsh enough change to the budget. Ideally, players should respond to a serious setback with "I'm going to play harder to fix this" rather than "I'm going to restart the game."

Hmm. I wouldn't like to be pushed to a quick ending. I would like to savour the game for a while, and be in a position to strike if need be. It seems that if you do badly initially then you won't have much of a chance at the end (and people always make mistakes). Perhaps the research of a particular artefact activates it and sets a countdown for a significant ramping up of alien activity, the object also benefiting your aim (so you have to research it). That's a difficult balance to get right.

For the record, this is an observation first, complaint second. If the devs decided to make xenonauts 2 easier to cater to the lower skill players, that's fine by me, It's a good decision. You're gonna upset a lot of players by making a game uncompromisingly difficult, and most of the time, to appease the """hardcore""" playerbase you just need to make the game appear difficult. The skilled players are probably just gonna make a overhaul mod that caters to them, it's a compromise FiraXCOM went with, and it's a good compromise. I've recently replayed xenonauts 1 on insane, and it hit like a whiplash. The game is so much harder it's really hard to compare. Seriously, playing X2 on Commander is like playing x1 on normal. There are so, so many important mechanical changes between the titles that I've felt like were overlooked, I'm gonna try to list the most important ones from most impactful to least: 1. LOS distance This is by far the biggest fundamental change. Both games have an average effective weapon range of 20, but while in xenonauts 2 the soldier view range is 26, in xenonauts 1 it's 17. On top of that, in xenonauts 1 most of the alien sight range is 18, higher than xenonauts and well within the rifle range. This is massive, especially since the AI often abuses that fact. In x1, getting accurately shot from line of sight is very common, to the point where you have to paranoically smoke every possible angle the enemy can shoot you through. In xenonauts 2, it's switched. unless the aliens came out of a building, you will see them before they become a threat, and now YOU out-LOS them, because of sniper rifles. That makes overwatching in an open field a really effective strategy, especially since SR's no longer have a reaction fire penalty. The longer LOS is a good change, but it heavily benefits xenonauts. 2. LOS Symmetry In xenonauts 1, there were some corners where a unit could see a different unit, but not the other way around. This could be used by both sides, but heavily benefited the aliens, first because of longer LOS, and second because catching an experienced soldier off-guard is a lot more rewarding than catching an alien off guard. In x2 sight is symmetric, which again, makes the game easier. 3. Alien AI I mentioned earlier that in x1 aliens abused the hell out of their LOS advantages, but in general they were a lot more defensive. Alien AI in x1 makes you sometimes think they're cheating (they're not, but their sight advantages make them look like they do), and in general they camp a lot more, making them a lot more difficult to kill. in x2 they practically run in the open. X1 aliens sometimes were suicidal too, but only if they were sure that they could kill at least 1 of your soldiers. This is already in a roadmap to be changed, but it's still currently a significant factor towards a difficulty decrease 4. Alien damage in xenonauts 1, on insane the first enemy you fight deals 66 average damage. In xenonauts 2, the first enemy you fight deals 25 damage. Granted, armor values in xenonauts 1 are higher, but not that much higher. While in xenonauts 2 a soldier can still be one shot, in xenonauts 1 a soldier is usually one shot. Also, alien rifle does not currently have a burst function, meaning that they rarely suppress your soldiers outside of servitors, and making parking ballistic shields at melee range towards them a viable strategy. But even if they had it, burst in x1 is a lot better than burst in x2, but that's another topic. 5. Air game That's a huge topic on its own, but to avoid making an even bigger wall of text, let's just say that with the newest version x1 air game is significantly harder than x2, despite the foxtrot nonsense. UFOS damage your funding a lot more, they outspeed your basic interceptors much faster, and you have to actually sometimes maybe do some maneuvering. In x2 you can just facetank almost everything now with basic angels. 6. Cover destruction It's a lot easier to destroy cover in x2 than it is in x1. Too easily in my opinion, the aliens just can't hide from you at all. This is also a good place to mention that throwables in this game cost less to throw, and can be thrown further, and more accurately. 7. Training center Xenonauts 1 units were deceptively not that replaceable. If your soldier died, you had to replace it with a private, and privates freaking sucked, sometimes weren't even able to carry the full gear. (until you get predator armor, which is a win condition) In xeno 2, you can easily train your soldiers up so they catch up to your own guys. Too easily too be honest, I think the training is too effective at its job, by mid game you have many 90-100 TU monsters. I think the diminishing returns from the training center should be increased. 8. Shot preview This can appear as just a QOL, but being able to triangulate reliably if a shot from that position has clear LOS or not makes you significantly more lethal against aliens, In xenonauts 1 you had to practically guess, and a lot of times you were wrong, and when you were wrong you paid for it dearly. Sometimes you thought you were safe behind cover when it turned out the alien had a flanked shot, and sometimes you thought that position was a flank, when it actually wasn't. Now you don't have to take a risk like that. 9. Vehicles Xeno 1 vehicles sucked, MARS is amazing, and you can have TWO of them mid game. Enough said. 10. Alien abilities I know that xeno 2 has a lot more alien abilities, but nothing it has compares to xenonauts 1 psionics, not even the new wraiths. To make it fair, there are areas where xeno 2 is harder: 1. Higher enemy count In xeno 1 the first mission contains 3-5 aliens, it's much more in xeno 2, but it doesn't compensate for the difficulty because they are a LOT less threatening individually. 2. Timed missions A common complaint, but once you get used to it, the significantly longer LOS distance allows you to move quicker without being shot to death, so they're still more than manageable. It's also worth noting that just because a game is more difficult, it doesn't mean that it's better. Xenonauts 2 is an overall better title than Xeno 1 despite the major difficulty drop, a lot of difficulty Xeno1 wasn't designed that well, and made the game tedious to play on insane. Xeno 2 is a lot more fun in its gameplay, it's just that a lack of challenge takes away a lot of spice from the game. A lot of the changes that make the game easier make the game better, but if the game is intended to be about as hard as xeno 1, It should have a bunch of balance passes.

Yes, Currently missiles can't take down much of anything on their own from a distance. But the thing is, I don't think instakilling the ufo from the distance just like that is very good for the game, In X1 you could one-shot scouts with foxtrots and that was extremely boring. I think the missiles and torpedoes should be more powerful, but also in general require more effort/skill to use. Torpedoes for example could require you to lock on to a ufo for a long and constant time, while missiles could serve as a finishing burst to a ufo that's already softened up from its armor (but still eh against ufo's that can dodge them). Or just a weak-ish filler weapon that you throw in because you don't have any space for anything better.

Because the Panic will rise ridiculously due to the orbital bombardment you can do well and suddenly just get overwhelmed, and you have no other choices to end the game you must go do the "end scenario attack" - I would prefer to have a better delaying choice to allow all the tech to get up to speed. Those out there that are not well versed in this game and ones like it are going to have a very bad experience when that happens. Now have the aliens have different goals for their end game. For instance, annihilation (orbital bombardment), "you are good lab rats" more abduction missions, maybe something like a Harvester mission where rescuing Civilians out of a Space craft before it lifts off, "You are the slave race we need to exploit the planet", more emphasis on base building, abductions, seeing Civilians turning on Your troops as they are "programmed" by the aliens, with probably a resurgence of the "cleaners" with better weapons, And then "Fear Us and Obey" the aliens concentrate on Terror type missions to force panic to rise in regions so they can Control us through fear. How do you tell which "mission" the game is working on, we add research hints to the "interviews" maybe a special mission type for intel gathering to discern their plans. Put something like this in place and you will have the desire to do another play through to see "what happens this time". Currently you have to play nearly perfect to have enough leeway in panic and tech upgrades to complete the final mission. The above could all lead to the final mission, but getting there would be a different journey and story line each time. You could even have the final mission have alternate defender types based on how you controlled their "plan" i.e. adding in cleaners, or civilians with guns, Local forces type etc. The possibilities for a truly epic game abound, and what it takes is alternate pathing through various mission types, etc. My son put it to me a few days ago, He doesn't much care if the Graphics are "snazy" and so on. He Asks is there a branching or alternate story where you actions will affect the game as you progress. I think just having the aliens acting differently based on "plans" like above would do wonders for the immersion factor. Not truly an "open world" obviously, but it would be nice to be able to be "misled" as to their true purpose in coming to earth. Just my dreams I know but maybe someday...