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November is nearly over so it's once again time for our monthly dev update. We've had a productive month here overall, making numerous improvements to the game and adding in several new features too. Public Releases: We continued patching V24 this month, eventually releasing V24.7b onto the standard Steam / GOG branches. We got a lot of useful feedback on balancing from the community and I'm actively playtesting V25 at the moment with the intention of releasing it either later this week or some time next week. V25 is going to be our first open beta build, although it'll spend a few days with our existing community beforehand so we can find any critical bugs in it before we begin the open beta. The first (small) wave of invites will probably therefore be going out in mid-December. Alien Abilities: The biggest new feature we implemented this month were the remaining alien racial abilities. These are a bit more "active" compared to the alien powers in the first Xenonauts, with the idea being to pose interesting tactical challenges for the player. I'll give a couple of examples to show you what I mean. The first is the Wraith, which in Xenonauts 1 could teleport around the map (not particularly funny when you were trying to find the last alien in an alien base, etc). Now they instead have an ability called Cloaking Field, which reduces Accuracy by -2 for each tile of distance when shooting at a Wraith. However, Cloaking Field is disabled for the remainder of the turn when the Wraith takes damage from any source. The second is the Cyberdrone, which is a late-game alien unit which has heavy frontal armour and rotates in the direction of any sound - gunshots, footsteps, explosions, etc. Using multiple soldiers (or just throwing grenades behind it) allow you to expose the weaker rear armour and can make it easier to kill. Hopefully this illustrates what we're trying to achieve - basically to make the player think more closely about where to position their soldiers and what attacks or equipment to use. While these abilities still require quite a lot more testing and polishing, once we have them working properly the gameplay will hopefully be richer and the aliens more memorable. Soldier Equipment: In V24 soldiers have an equipment slot called the "special" slot (also known as the "undersuit" slot). This is basically an additional item slot where you can carry one item that gives the soldier a particular bonus - e.g. extra armour plates to boost survivability, a tactical visor to boost Accuracy, a mind shield to boost defence against psionics, etc. As this system hasn't added as many interesting choices to the game as I'd have liked, I've spent this month updating the soldier inventory. Soldiers now have a Primary weapon, a Secondary weapon, and a single 5x5 "vest" grid which contains all the additional items they want to carry into battle (ammo, grenades, extra weapons, etc). Importantly, all the items that previously went in the special slot are now 2x2 items that fit into the vest grid like any other item. I've been playtesting this over the past few days and I think it's a really fun change. The backpack wasn't really being used that much before, but now vest space (and the carrying capacity of the soldier) are much more important, even at the start of the game. Is it worth giving up that spare ammo magazine and two grenades for +5 Accuracy? It all depends on how you want to set up your soldiers, and it's a system I'm looking forward to discussing and balancing further during the open beta. General Development Progress: Other than my work on the two systems mentioned above, most of my time this month has been spent discussing the gameplay experience with our community and ironing out various smaller gameplay / usability pain points in the campaign. General feedback on V24 was pretty good but there's clearly quite a few aspects of the game that are interfering with people's enjoyment of it; many of these should be improved in V25. There's been several content updates to the game, too - the Engineering screen has now been re-skinned into our new UI style, the updated Arid biome is now present (with eight entirely new maps), and the dropships have been retextured in the tatical combat. We've also been busy planning out the tutorial and creating the map required for it, and we'll start work implementing that in December. Finally, we've been working on the load times for the game, and have hopefully now fixed the issue where Windows would think the game had frozen and invite you to terminate the process if you had alt+tabbed out while the game was loading. So overall a rather productive month. I'll wrap up this update there, and hopefully we'll be seeing some of you in the open beta during December! If you want to sign up for the open beta, please post in the previous update thread. I'll be DMing people Steam keys via these forums when the open beta starts.

Current maps feel quite flat. I'd like to see more two or even three story buildings for more verticality and sense of exploration. Certain enemies should prefer higher grounds (roofs, upper floor windows and balconies). Higher ground should also provide bonuses for accuracy(does it already?) Needing to carefully clear upper floors from ambushing snipers would definitely give more flair and suspension to the missions. Especially more important missions like cleaner building where Xenonauts need to retrieve intel would feel a lot more intresting if you'd need to infiltrate higher floors for the intel. Urban area terror missions would cerainly also feel more dangerous when multi store buildings could be full of aliens shooting from second and third story windows... etc.

My sound settings: Everything seems to sound well, but throwing c4 grenades is extremely loud, I guess they may be ignoring the sound settings, or at least the sound effects volume

The Vest slot sounds fun with the tradeoffs it brings into the game, as currently soldiers of sufficient strength can fill their backpack and carry way too much. Though I do enjoy the belt/backpack distinction where belt items are quicker to access. What about carrying out wounded soldiers (or captured aliens / items) though? A somewhat uncommon but very cool situation is if you carry a fallen comrade back to the dropship, I've used that in the Cleaner Intelligence Hub to successfully rescue a downed soldier. I hope that system doesn't go away.

Hi Guys, this is an Gameplay-Feedback from an Main-Betatester, which begunn Beta-Testing the Game from the first playable Beta-Version on with many other Main-Betatesters. The Beta-Version 24.7b is actually the first fully playable one, with many cool Features integrated. The Game is running fine so far (it still have some Issues left, but the CTD´s get reduced drastically). There are still some CTD´s left (like throwing Grenades in some Maps [Terror], wrong arming with Equipment [Beginn from equiping Advanced Medikits on Hurt Soldiers in Main-Base]). In the Experimental-Version you have sometimes Laggs in the Geoscape, Airbattles and Missions, but they don´t destroy the Gamefun. Good, let´s get startet: In the first 100 Days [Day 1 to 100] you have to build up your first Secondary Base, Upgrade your Soldiers and Aircraft with upgraded Weapons [Accelerated Weapons and Standard-Rockets] as well as make Basic-Research / Interrogations. In that Time you can build up in 3 Steps an Secondary Base (better called small Outpost) with 1 Access Lift, 3 Hangars, 1 Generator, 1 Radar, 1 Living Space and 2 Labs or 2 Workshops. I decided for the Workshop about the Upgrades for the Planes and Buildup for internal Base-Defenses later. The modernised Standard-Weapons (Accelerate Upgrades), which are an Equivalent from the Alien Magnetic Weapons are the first light Step forward for our Specialists and Interceptors. They will be in the next Gameversion unlimited after 1 of each is produced [hopfully if the UFO-Pedia-Entry is correct]. Some Specialits should have Stun Weapons too (Stun Gun / Stun Baton) to get the first normal Aliens alive for important Interregation. Normaly you don´t need in the first 100 Days modernised Missles / Torpedos. The Standard-Missels (Sidewinder) and Standard-Torpedos (Avalanche) are more then perfect. The modernised Defender-Body-Armour should be refited with an Warden Combat Armour (an Upgrade with Alien Alloys) as an first light Step forward for our Specialists. There the Assaults, Riflemens and Heavys will get this Armour-Upgrade. All others remain unchanged with the normal Suit with light Armour Plate or Aim-Helping-Vest (Snipers, Grenadiers and Shield). The same Modernisation you make with the Ablative-Plating / Steel-Plating for Vehicles and Interceptors (Alloy Plating Upgrade) to Alloy Plating. The new and modern X-3 "Dragonfly"-Transport is a must have too. It has a little better Transport Capacity and is an Hybrid from Human and Alien-Tech. And it have a little Surprise too against it´s Predecessor X-2 "Skyhawk". The next 100 Days (Day 101 to 200) you need an Advancement in the Storyline and Equip your Soldiers (which have the Warden Armour) with an little better Armour (Guradian Armour). The Grenadiers, Shield and Snipers have the normal Suit with an light Armour-Plate / Aim-Helping-Vest (unchanged). That have an Reason, which will be shown later. Only the Riflemens, Shotgunners and Heavys have the best Special-Armors for that Time then. You still make Basic-Research / Interrogations with some advanced Basic-Research-Projects too. One of that Researches will give you the Guradian Armour. In that Time you should have changed from the Accelerated Weapons to Laser Weapons for your Soldiers / MARS-Vehicles. Esp. the Pistols, Shotguns, Rifles and the Mars-Cannon / Rocket-Launcher should have Changed to the new Weaponary. The MARS-Cannon-Variant have a Cannon and Rangefinder, the MARS-Rocket-Variant have an Rocket-Launcher and Automatic-Rifle. After the Upgrade to Laser-Cannons all MARS-Support-Vehicles have the Rangefinder. In that Time you should have upgraded your Grenades to Alenium-Grenades as well as the Medikit to advanced Medikits. If not already done, upgrade the Fighter-Amour from Ablative Plating and the Vehicle-Armour from Steel Plating to Alloy-Plating. In that Time modernise the Standard-Missles / Torpedos to Alenium-Missles / Torpedos (Alenium Upgrade), which are the first big Step forward to Upgrade our Interceptors. As well as the first Explosive Modernisation for our Specialist Hand-Grenades (Alenium Upgrade). In that Time you should Upgrade the first Secondary-Base (where your 3 upgraded X-25 "Angels" should stationed) with 1 Rocket-Defense, which get an Second Rocket Defense later on. Better link it to have an Advantage against bigger attacking Enemys. I made in that Case the Mistake to seperate the Defense-Buildings. As well as Upgrade your Main-Base with 2 linked Rocket-Defenses, 2 Workshops, 2 Labs, 1 Hospital, 1 Training Center, 2 Generators and 2 more Living Quarters too from Day 1 on. You will need them. The Main-Base should now get 2 of new and modern Interceptors X-55 "Phantom" for Testing, which are like the X-3 "Dragonfly"-Transport an Hybrid from Human and Alien-Tech. They are a little bit better then the X-25 "Angels" in Range, Speed, HPs, Armour etc., therefore it costs 150.000 to 200.000 Credits more then the older X-25 "Angel". But it have 1 little Disadvantage, which I won´t tell here. Therefore it´s an Prototype-Fighter which assists the X-25 "Angels" in more Secondary Bases (Outposts). The next 100 Days (Day 201 to 300) you will get Access to new medium Tech. There you will get very nice Secrets, which in the Beta-Tests therefore couldn´t testet or only very litte. That´s an Surprisse for us Testers too. There you get Plasma-Explosives, advanced Stun Weapons, an new Suit for your other Soldiers (Snipers, Grenadiers and Shield) and many more new cool Stuff wich upgrades older Vest-Equipment / Armour-Equipment for your Soldiers, Vehicles and Interceptors and much more. You will get more Storyline-Parts now. In that Time the last Accelerated Weapons have to be changed to Laser Weapons for your Soldiers (Laser-LMG and Sniper Rifles) as well as for your Interceptors (Laser Cannon). Now you should have 2 new X-55 "Phantom" Interceptors in the Main-Base and 3 older upgraded X-25 "Angels" in the first Secondary-Base to make your Airforce more effective. All should have Laser Cannons. 3 Fighters should have Alenium Missles (2 X-55 Phantoms and 1 X-25 Angel) as well as Alenium Torpedos (2 X-25 Angels). The Armour should be Minimum Alloy-Plating, if you have the more advanced Alloy Plating you are on the save Side for the 3 X-25 "Angels". (Alloy Platings are enough for the Phantoms / advanced Alloy Plating for the Angels) Now it´s time to Modernise the Rocket-Defenses to Laser-Defenses. The Laser-Defenses are more powerfull then the Rocket-Defenses, but have a lesser Accuracy, which means they should be linked together to improve the Accuracy. That I have overseen in my Base-Buildup for the first Secondary Base in the Defense-Buildup and see my Mistake, because the Main-Base shoot down all enemy attacking UFOs with the Base-Defenses and the Secondary Base not or with difficulty. In that Time you will get new Suits, which get to the remaining Soldiers (Snipers, Grenadiers, Shield) as well as new Explosives (Plasma), which you realy need as an big Step forward for your Explosive-Soldier-Equipment (Plasma-Grenade-Upgrade) and Airforce-Equipment (Plasma Rocket / Torpedo-Upgrade) and Soldier-Safety for Soldiers without Special Armour (the 3 Armour Types you have are Heavy). Eventually you can construct an another Secondary Base (Outpost) to make your Airforce much more effective. It will have the same Buildup as the first Secondary Base (Outpost) [1 Access Lift, 3 Hangars, 1 Generator, 1 Radar, 1 Living Space and 3 Labs or 3 Workshops as well as 2 Laser Defenses]. That Goal I haven´t reached yet. 2 Bases are at the Moment the Maximum (Main-Base with Advancements and the first Secondary Base (Outpost). I upgrade the second Secondary Base (Outpost) with an 3rd Workshop / Lab to use my Living Quarter and the Base to 100%. Sadly you can´t test out everything in that Gameversion [V.24.7B] about the Limitation to 320 Days. Hope that Limitation get canceld for the following Gameversions [V.25+] to test everything out. Thats all so far Folkes from the first fully playable Beta-Version. I will go deeper hopfully the next time and find some more cool Stuff I haven´t seen so far when the more advanced Beta-Version V.25 will come up.