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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!

Commander, standard settings, minimal re-loading saves. Duration: 48 hrs 32 mins Victory date: Day 319 Soldiers lost: 17 Missions Won: 36 Missions Lost: 0 Aliens Killed: 667 Soldiers Lost: 17 (I save-scummed friendly kills) Economy: Money is the biggest constraint throughout. I was never short of alenium and rarely short of alloys for long. I did use OP for money once but not for alenium or alloys. The other major constraint early on is doomsday and I had to use OP twice to reduce doomsday, despite winning every mission (I think I broke even on abduction missions, which are very tough early on). I gather you’re bringing back mission caps, which would be good for balance at least. I would up the money for UFO bounties but materially reduce alenium rewards across the board. Tactical game: Overall difficulty curve felt good. Early missions are hard but fun, and lost soldiers are not the end of the world. Then a nice cadence of aliens levelling up followed by me levelling up and evening the playing field. Never felt like a cake-walk. I lost soldiers slowly but steadily throughout with no big wipes. The final mission pair was principally challenging through attrition. I used all of the classes – rifles are weakest but that’s a fair price for versatility. I read people don’t like MGs but I found them to be good throughout. Air game: Mostly pretty good and balanced. Quite fun and not so hard that it makes or breaks the game. The interceptor rebuild makes it less punishing that it could be (I didn’t savescum air game but would definitely have done so otherwise as I wasn’t that skilled and got shot down quite a bit.) I would say torpedoes are overpowered, not least because they can be reloaded so quickly: I shot down my first battleship by just spamming repeat sorties of basic planes with torpedoes. Fusion explosive tech was available too early because I got it from a terror mission way before interceptors: that made me dominant in the air for a long period. Tech: Mostly fine in terms of accessibility, with some exceptions. Explosive upgrade came too early, especially fusion which I got from a terror mission I think (a good month before interceptors appeared). I skipped lasers, which meant I had a tougher period but then temporarily dominated when I switched to all gauss. But I like the fact that you can basically choose between lasers and gauss, with a different power curve. Colossus seems to have no role: recommend making it available much earlier giving it 40 hardness and immunity from armour destruction – that would make it competitive but otherwise it’s long obsolete once available because upgraded guardian armour is just better. Stalker likewise: I really wanted to use this but always had another priority and the ‘accident risk’ based on its low damage reduction was offputting. If it had been available but expensive shortly after Warden then I’d have been much more tempted. Advanced stun rifles, pistols and batons seem not worth it. They are very expensive in alloys and you can just use the stun grenades instead, possibly backed up with some basic batons. With the rifle in particular, it needs some combination of better range, better mag capacity, better armour pierce. I tried it but it was bad. The regular ‘damage’ grenades seem underpowered, albeit hard to tell on Commander with no damage readout. The automed module is overpowered, i.e. it is a no-brainer item on everyone once available. I would remove the stun cure and limit it to removing 1 bleeding wound per turn. Meanwhile advanced medkit seems not worth it: would be better if it reduced weight instead of TU. Mind shield and the 360 vision thing seem unnecessary. With mind shield you’d have to put it on everyone to be effective and why bother – mind control isn’t that bad when you can stun. Vehicles: I didn’t use them. They seemed to be expensive and didn’t offer enough unique utility to tempt me. Maybe they’re actually good but I wouldn’t know. Random suggestion: Would be cool if there were specific training awards instead of stats. Like they could cost a set number of training points. Probably have to apply to everyone, or everyone at that base at that time. You could have like Recoil Control, which reduces impact by X%. Muzzle Discipline, which stops a soldier from overwatching if there is more than X% chance of hitting a friendly. Pitching Practice, which increases range and/or accuracy of grenade throwing. Gunslinger, which increases accuracy on snapshots. Quickdraw, which reduces the % TU needed for pistol shots. (Sorry about formatting. Won't let me unbold.)

This is being worked on for Milestone 6.

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.

This game looks great and has many improvements over the original X-COM (1994, as the 2012 feels like a shoot 'em up arcade game). Still, it lacks the oppressive ambience of X-COM, in which you literally feared the next turn. X-COM was unnerving even when in the UI menus. It had a dark atmosphere and the visuals were impressive in that sense. The beep sounds were chilly. When in a mission, everything looked so gloom and mysterious. You literally feared the next turn: the sudden cry of a soldier dying in the fog. or simply the screen showing that the aliens were playing. Also, what is missing is a ship that can carry a whole platoon. I remember that attacking a very large ship in X-COM required a really extenuating session. I hope someone takes the time to mod this game to bring it closer to it.

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.

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)

I like long games too! The original XCOM: EU got it right. 35 missions to completion is far too short. 100 is much better. I don't want this game to be short (we have waited long enough for it!).

I totally get where you're coming from. But the problem is, I feel like you're catering to the wrong crowd. Those of us who are veterans of this genre, (albeit probably the minority, so I understand why you would focus on the majority) understand that these games aren't meant to be short. But people who either started with Firaxis XCOM/XCOM2/Chimera Squad (gods forbid...) and wanted to test this one out come here not realizing that they aren't the same game. There's a reason the Long War mods are so popular, and it's because of people like me lol. This shouldn't be the kind of game you sit down to and complete inside of a couple of hours. It should be something you come back to several times over the course of several days. A 'grand' strategy game, if you will. We are fighting a war of attrition against an alien menace hellbent on taking our planet from us. This isn't Independence Day where a couple of ships get taken out inside of a week, it's a full on invasion. I'm not saying this needs to happen now. I understand and fully support the road map you guys are on, as the content and patches are coming out at a phenomenal rate. I'm just hoping either you guys DO release that Extended Mode, or a modder makes a Long War mod for this game... Maybe I'm just expecting too much. It has just always bugged me that tech can be fully skippable, considering we honestly don't have that many branches to research, and the Firaxis games just feel rushed. The originals technically did too, but we weren't fighting against a doom counter, and we could play for as long as we wanted. Xenonauts 1 almost does this, but the number of ships that start showing up after a while just get unmanageable, and ratings start tanking. While not having an actual Doom Counter, you will lose if you play too long.