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Hello everyone - as we're now a few days into June, it's time for our regular update on what we were working on last month! New Assets: We've added a lot of new assets to the game over the past month. The most notable of these are the new 3D models and animations for the alien Sebillian and Cyberdrone units, and while the visual improvement is hopefully clear from the screenshot below, the Cyberdrone in particular also benefits from having proper animation set (e.g. movement / shooting) rather than just being a static lump of floating alien amour. The various ranks of alien are also a bit more distinctive now; again this is most obvious with the two Cyberdrone variants! Work is currently continuing on more of these new alien models. Both the Heavy Mentarch and the Heavy Servitor units are currently just palette swaps of the corresponding basic unit, but we're aiming to have distinct designs and 3d models for both in place before Milestone 6 releases. Further progress was also made in other areas too. We finished another research illustration this month, leaving three remaining (one of which is already in progress). The inventory tile artwork and 3d model for the recently-introduced Alien Bio Rifle is nearly finished. We've added some new sound effects to some of the aliens to help make them more distinctive, and we finished up our level design work on the updated Tropical biome and started adding various new tiles and maps to the new Soviet Town biome. Aircraft Paired Slots: One of the major goals for Milestone 6 is a refresh of the air combat that improves the visuals and polishes the gameplay. The first part of this has been to improve the UI on the Aircraft screen, so we can use our new "paired slot" system to replace the existing "Hardpoints" system (the blue numbers on the aircraft weapons that previously sat alongside the Weight values). This work is now complete. The Hardpoint system reflected the size of different weapons, with each aircraft having up to four hardpoints and missile / torpedo weapons filling one and cannon / lance weapons filling two. Rather than represent this numerically, we can now pair weapon slots together to produce a linked double slot. Putting a cannon / lance into a paired slot will fill both of the linked slots, while missiles and torpedoes only fill a single slot - effectively the same system as before, but much easier to understand. This change is also beneficial from a design standpoint, as it gives another method of differentiating interceptors. For instance, we may decide to give the basic Angel interceptor four weapon slots, with only two of them being paired together - this would limit the plane to only being able to carry a maximum of one cannon / lance. More advanced aircraft could have two sets of paired slots, allowing them to carry dual cannons. These extra options should help with the balancing work we'll be doing as part of the air combat refresh! Bugfixes: Once again, we ended up spending significant amounts of time last month on bugfixes. We released five more stability hotfixes for Milestone 5 last month, fixing a lot of crashes and other gameplay problems - including several annoying bugs we'd been trying to track down for several months, plus a number of older bugs that predated Milestone 5. Our work on Milestone 6 also includes bugfixes, and one of our programmers spent rather a lot of last month doing the painstaking job of tracking down the numerous places in the game where text was not being properly translated and figuring out why. Hopefully we'll be finished with this by the end of next week and non-English users will have a fully localised Milestone 6. Modding: Our technical director spent some time fixing the remaining issues with our mod loading system last month, so it's now possible to create and share "mod packs" that modify the game files. The Mod Loader panel on the Main Menu screen will now read and apply these mods correctly. From a purely technical standpoint, we can now officially say that Xenonauts 2 supports modding. Additionally, we've added support for code injection - basically, mods that can change the code of the game itself (e.g. one user has been experimenting with changing the game code so flight paths on the Geoscape follow the realistic curvature of the Earth). There's now a proper C# framework for doing this, and the process is integrated with the mod packs so that Steam Workshop will be able to distribute these mods once enabled. We'll be creating some documentation and an example project for this system in the next couple of weeks. However, it would still be misleading to claim that Xenonauts 2 is a genuinely moddable game right now - we won't start work on the official mod editor until after Milestone 6 is complete, so modding the game remains painful and difficult due to the format of the JSON files we use to store data. It'll still be a few months until most users can start making mods! Milestone 6: So when will Milestone 6 actually arrive? Sadly, it's still hard to say. Milestone 6 contains a lot of small / medium sized tasks, and the much larger task that is the update to the air combat. We've made good progress through all the smaller tasks, but we've not yet begun work on the core parts of the air combat refresh. We'll have a better idea of how long it'll take to complete once we get started on it, which we're hoping to do in the next two weeks. Of course, that timeline may slip if more hotfixes are needed for Milestone 5. While I think prioritising stability has been the correct decision, it has unfortunately sucked programmer time away from working on the planned new content. Thankfully, the number of bug reports has started to drop off recently - hopefully that's an indication we've dealt with most of the bugs and can switch focus to Milestone 6, but we'll just have to wait and see. I think that's plenty for this update. Thanks for reading!

Hello everyone - it's time for our monthly development update! Read on to see what we've been working on in June... New Assets: I mentioned last month that the main focus of Milestone 6 was adding new content to the game, and we continued to add new assets to the game this month. The first of these is the new 3d model for the alien Heavy Servitor unit (which can be seen above), which I think is a nice addition to the game and much more distinct from the basic Servitor than previously. This means we've now added unique 3d models for all of the new alien unit variants added in Milestone 5. Various other new assets were added too: The illustrations for the final cinematic is now complete, and the cinematic is now being put together by the animation team that made the intro cinematic. We added a proper background to the UOO-1 Sabotage mission. The platforms that make up this level were previously floating in empty space, but are now contained within the (fairly elaborate) hull of an alien space station. Work has continued on the new Soviet Town terror biome, which we're hoping to have finished in the coming month. Inventory tile artwork was added for the Alien Bio-Rifle weapon given to the Mantids in Milestone 5. Corpse / stunned inventory art for the new Heavy Mentarch was also added. Air Combat Refresh The biggest code changes this month were to the air combat section of the game, which has had a major interface facelift and several usability improvements. We've only completed part of this visual refresh so far, but next month we'll be updating the background, the battlefield UI and the various combatants with sharper and more attractive replacement graphics to finish the job. The gameplay changes so far have mostly involved adding extra information to the UI - for example, the Evasive Roll buttons now show a cooldown bar overlay so players no longer have to guess how long until the ability is available again. The weapon tiles also show a reload progress bar for similar reasons. We've also made minor tweaks to the control system so it's easier to select aircraft and give them orders. Next month we'll be making some actual mechanical changes, like refining the way speed / acceleration work and switching the interceptor retreat mechanic back to how it used to work in older versions of the game (where aircraft had to reach the edge of the battlefield to retreat). Once all that is done, we'll finally be able to start implementing the air combat section of the tutorial. Launch Aircraft Panel Prior to starting on the air combat, we also made some quick improvements to the Launch Aircraft panel. Hovering over an aircraft in the list now shows a pop-up panel on the left that shows additional information on that aircraft, including its full loadout of weapons and equipment and exact values for HP / Armour / Fuel. If the aircraft is a dropship, it instead shows all the soldiers assigned to it. We made some improvements to the aircraft selection logic here, too - previously this was a bit clunky, and potentially confusing for newer players. Shroud Fixes: Community bug reports for Milestone 5 were much less frequent in June than in previous months, which allowed us to shift our attention towards some long-standing issues with the shroud system in tactical missions. Anyone who has played the game will have encountered these - ranging from objects like cursors / fire + smoke / weapoon projectiles all incorrectly drawing underneath shrouded areas, to more subtle things like us being unable to reveal the rear side of doors in alien base maps. We're hoping to have fixes for some of these issues in the next week or two. However, these are quite thorny problems and there's always a chance it'll take longer! Modding Documentation: The updated Xenonauts 2 modding documentation can be found here: https://github.com/GoldhawkInteractive/X2-Modding/ Again, it's worth mentioning that the average player will struggle to mod the game until we finish the mod tools, which we'll probably start work on after Milestone 6 releases. The documentation will be most useful for C# coders want to do code injection, or intrepid pioneers with a very high tolerance for manually editing JSON files that were never intended to be readable by humans. Milestone 6 Stability Test: Finally, we're planning a stability test for Milestone 6 on the Experimental branch this month - most likely between the 7th-11th July. There's still quite a bit of work to do before Milestone 6 is finished (both in terms of adding content and doing a balance pass), but we'd like to start finding and fixing any major crash bugs while we work towards a "proper" test build for Milestone 6. As always, thanks for reading the update. We'll be back with another at the end of July!

Ok, I've been a huge fan of this game and its predecessor for a very long time now. This is my first time completing the entire Xeno2 game and I have a lot to say, so bear with me; I may find the need to gush a bit about the stuff I really, really like, and zero in on the things I'm still not a fan of. There will be a lot more of the former and a lot less of the latter, though! 1. Huge Props for the new Operative System !!! I must've been on vacation or bogged down with work and missed one of the update emails, as I didn't even know this was in the works until I started playing the newest experimental run through. I can't say with enough emphasis how much I LOVE this new Op Sys, and some of the benefits you get from completing a continental 'supporter collective'. One thing I will say - and I suppose it's a bit of a spoiler but it's also an opinion - if you want to achieve full value out of this new system, you'd better start knocking out the Supporter: Intelligence missions early. I think I mucked around with a couple other choices early but quickly realized my mistake and went after each of these with a vengeance afterwards. Getting those extra Operative Points per day increased to the Max (+20) is imperative to allow you the freedom to then pursue all the other Supporter options. I think I spent 100 OP on both 'Raise Funds' and "Reduce Panic' early in the game. Looking back on that, I think the Raise Funds was important for an early jump on base building/research/workshops etc. Playing it on only Soldier Difficulty, I think I could have gotten away without using the other 100 pts on Reduce Panic like I did. While I never spent any Op points on requesting more Alenium or Alloys, I think it's great that that is an option that is available if needed. Really, this whole system is a homerun to me now and I'm loving it. 2. Really Appreciate seeing more Interactions with the Operations Director and Chief Scientist. Some might find this unnecessary or a silly thing to talk about in a review, but I found this interaction to truly heighten my gameplay experience. I want to actually give a darn about the fate of the world and the people I'm working with to save humanity, and this additional interaction helps flesh out the characters and the storyline for me, especially approaching the mid and end game scenarios. I would have liked one last interactive scene between them after completing endgame - perhaps that's still a work in progress - but I'm satisfied with what's been offered. 3. Finally, some freedom with Aircraft Armament! Yes, I've been extremely vocal about this for years. I'm super pumped to say I really got some options to explore this time through on the gameplay. While it still feels quite restrictive - and I have no idea how the implementation of pods that I've been hearing about will affect this - I was able to approach the Gemini ship builds with 2 very different aircraft. While my number was limited (only 2 per base, and I'll talk more about that later in the review) I had one Gemini armed with 2 Fusion Lances, Shielded Plating and a Fuel Pod (which was totally unnecessary but I added it because I could, and it was the only thing that cost only 1 Payload weight, lol). This was my longer range 'DPS Ship'. The next Gemini was my 'Tank' ... equipped with 2 Gauss Blasters. Why Gauss Blasters when I had Fusion Lances available? Well, glad you asked. Coming in at weights of 5 each as opposed to the 6 of the Fusion Lances, arming my Gemini with 2 GBs allowed me the option to do something I'd never done before - put a 2nd set of armor on an aircraft - weighing 3 apiece, 2 Shielded Plating made this thing an absolute beast, and you can bet I put it out in front of my DPS. What about the short range of the GBs? Honestly, not an issue whatsoever. Simply hit the Afterburners on both aircraft until you've got the cones on the target ship and then take them off to start chewing the aliens up. Did I miss not having missiles on either ship? Not one darn bit. In fact, I didn't even bother researching them until I had basically nothing else left for the scientists to do, but that's another point to discuss further down in the review. Back to the positives, I'm thrilled I was able to do something different with the aircraft. I hope that versatility remains in the final game product. 4. The Art. Lovin' It! All the small but very important bits - the character armors, the weapons, the equipment, the aliens, the battlefields, the crashed UFOs - your team has done a solid job of making all of this a great experience. Kudos! 5. The Sound Effects & Music. Solid work. Definitely helps keep me immersed in the game. 6. I See You Brought The City Killer back, and that was (surprisingly) ok. Definitely appreciated the timing of when this was reintroduced into the game, and it had a sense of belonging in there that I didn't really feel in early iterations. The missions to go out and deal with it were also fun experiences. That there was more to still do after that, also a big plus. 7. Specially Engineered Equipment. While I didn't utilize all of these, having the options to select among so many of them was very welcome. I deviated from my normal game run throughs this time by going after the Actuator Modules once my soldiers started wearing the Vanguard Armor. Initially, I was just going to use this as a 'leg up' for those soldiers who were lacking a bit in the strength department, but I think by the endgame I had everyone using them. The combination of extra TUs on the Vanguard Armor and the extra Strength provided by the Actuators allowed me to do some extra attacks with soldiers - akin to the early days of Xenonauts 2 - that I hadn't been able to do otherwise. I missed those days and that option, so I was very glad to see that back! I'm not sure if I'm all gushed out here - there are likely some other things that I really liked that I will have to come back to here, but this has gotten rather lengthy already! Those were the positive points - I think I will break the review down into 2 additional posts - one with the new things I appreciated seeing but didn't end up utilizing for various reasons - and then the second which will mostly focus on the reasons why some of those options fell by the wayside for me, along with some suggestions for how to mitigate those issues.

I am one of the supporters from 2018. Today I finished the game for the first time that I have been waiting for 7 years. I remind you that it was originally supposed to appear in 2018. I will probably come back to it, because I am a fan of XCOM, but not soon. You still have a lot to do. Gameplay summary: I played on soldier level. I eliminated 116 UFO vehicles in 412 days and then in 53 victorious missions I killed 853 aliens and lost only 22 soldiers. (In reality, it was only 7 people, the rest were MARS) Now I have conclusions that I hope you will consider and include in the next versions: - MARS is not a soldier, so it should not be on the list of victims. Fix this, because it is a misunderstanding to place tanks next to the heroes of the mission. Why does the rebuilt MARS get a new number? - a lot more maps are needed, or a better generator. The missions bored me, because the maps were repetitive after some time. Give me a creator or instructions and people will make them themselves if you don't have time. - In the later phase I was unstoppable, especially since I only encountered CYBERDRONE in one or two missions against UFO/terror. That's why I only lost 7 soldiers during the entire game. - The behavior of civilians is absurd. If they are armed I understand that they attack aliens, but why do unarmed people run around pointlessly sometimes even entering a UFO instead of escaping to the xenonaut ship? - Why is a shot down UFO not damaged inside? - Where is the destruction of the surroundings and the damage to the hull after an emergency landing? In the old UFO you could punch a hole in the hull and make an additional entrance. Is it that hard to implement? - Why does destroying the drive as a result of accidental fire in a UFO not cause a large explosion like in the original X-COM? - Why can't you use alien weapons? - Where does the ship that brought the aliens to attack the base disappear to? Maybe the defense of the base should have two phases and in the second we attack the ship? - the attack on the space station was very difficult. Even more difficult than Endgame. Why was there a different number of soldiers? - defending the xenonaut base is too easy to win. All you have to do is divide the base into two parts with an access elevator module connecting them and gather all the defenders there. - I still miss the rocket launchers and more destruction in the area. Towards the end of X-COM I sometimes destroyed a significant part of the map with Stunt Bomb launchers and it was fun. Now the area of destruction even with plasma explosives is pathetic. - Why can't a soldier with a jetpack rise in place to shoot from behind a wall/hedge/building? I like this game and I have almost 200 hours in it and before that I played Xenonauts 1 and I will say this. You still have a lot to do. Especially since what I wrote above does not fundamentally change the rules of the game and would greatly improve immersion.

Yeah I see what you mean, this part of the UI is bound to get changed with the AC overhaul but I'll bring this up with the rest of the team just in case

@Chris yeah, this is no good. This makes cheesing teleports even more effective when you can easily block aliens from attacking you. Telefragging needs to be a thing. Also, consider limiting how many times units can teleport within a single turn or add a TU cost to use a teleport. (Sorry for bloating a bug report)

Of course. Real world obligations are taking me away from the game for a month but once I can ill make sure to try again.

Thanks for the response! Ah, that's unfortunate. It's alright though, we'll check the bug on our end. Although I think the research doesn't really unlock anything on its own, and the engineering project only gives a damage boost (15% or so I think)

Thanks for the mention :)