Chris

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! This build breaks save games, so you'll need to start a new campaign. If anyone wants to continue your current campaign, I've switched 2.07c to the Experimental Legacy branch and you can switch over if you want to keep playing that version. Gameplay & Balance Changes: Strategy: Updated research text for: Autopsy: Cleaner Agent Autopsy: Cleaner Soldier Probe UFO Interrogation: General The soldier portrait is now shown on hover on the Soldier screen soldier list. On the Soldier Equip screen, if you drag an item out of a slot and drop it into empty space, it now disappears and returns to the base stores rather than snapping back to its previous location. The "Commence Research" button on the Research screen is now visually disabled if you have no research available. Tactical: Stun Damage now heals more quickly (the greater of 25% of current Stun HP, or 5 HP). Throwing a grenade through a window now shatters it. Added a 3D model for a military officer. One variant of this is used for The General in the ATLAS Base mission, while another is used for the Cleaner Leaders on VIP Elimination missions. The General now has a little bit of dialogue when you encounter him in the ATLAS Base mission. Updated the Combat Shield animations so it is held straight (especially when crouching). Air Combat: Phantom Interceptor now correctly unlocks off the Destroyer UFO (alongside the Dragonfly), rather than the Abductor UFO. Angel Interceptor build cost reduced to $500,000 from $600,000. Phantom Interceptor build cost reduced to $800,000 from $1,000,000. Increased Damage on torpedoes. Slightly increased Armour Destruction on missiles. Decreased damage, firing arc and projectile speed on UFO Scout Beam. Decreased damage and projectile speed on Alien Destroyer Beam weapon. Decreased damage on Alien Fighter, Alien Interceptor, and Alien Probe Beam weapons. Decreased damage on Alien Bomber Fusion Artillery weapon. Decreased hitpoints on Alien Observer and Alien Bomber. Decreased armor on Alien Abductor. Rush replacement costs for interceptors reduced. Reduced cost of tier 1 interceptor equipment (e.g. Sidewinder Missiles) to $25,000 from $50,000. Reduced cost of tier 2 interceptor equipment to $100,000 from $120,000. Reduced cost of Laser Lance to $125,000 from $250,000. Bugfixes: Fixed clicking MARS during deployment phase crashing the game (should be fixed for real this time). Fixed a crash that could occur when entering the air combat. Fixed an issue where you could become unable to equip items on a specific plane. Fixed items on the Soldier Equip screen getting stuck if you only partially dragged them out of the Armory. Fixed the Ctrl+Shift shot preview mode being cancelled on hovering over an enemy. Fixed teleporters triggering if you do not deliberately end your move on them. Fixed the Counterfire achievement being unlocked by the aliens accidentally killing one of their own units with reaction fire. Fixed the dropship icon on the Geoscape frequently not registering clicks properly. Fixed the game displaying the rank of individually hired engineers / scientists as "ZIV." Fixed several typos in the game text, including a broken link for Low Recoil on the Lasers Xenopedia project. Fixed UFO Hull Plating unlocking two Alloy Plating projects. Fixed the Flares not appearing for a soldier if you Tab to them after having a vehicle selected.

Fair enough, no problem!

Yeah, I mean could you please load the save and double check you're still having those issues - and if so maybe write repro steps just so I can be sure I'm not doing something differently to you?

This is a bit odd. I see a few of the issues if I load your save (there's no Heavy Armour toggle, and no value displayed for the Armour) but I'm not getting te error beep or the armour selection dropdown not functioning. Can you confirm again that's happening for you on 2.07c?

If you're experiencing that then it's a bug - please make a bug post to report it if so! I can't reproduce it in a fresh version of the game though.

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! This is another small update for Milestone 2.07 that fixes several bugs identified by the community. Please put any balance or gameplay feedback in the Milestone 2 EXPERIMENTAL feedback thread. Fixes: Fixed a crash that could occur on the Soldier Equip screen. Fixed an issue where completing the ATLAS Base mission would not grant the Research Notes item, which meant that the Aerial Warfare and Combat Vehicles research projects were not unlocked. Whether this happened or not depended on what map you got for the mission. Unfortunately, this fix only affects new campaigns - if you've encountered it you'll need to restart your campaign. Updated the text for the game over dialog that pops up if you lose or ignore the ATLAS Base mission, so it no longer refers to Operation Endgame.

Yeah, the Prototype branch is going to be shut down at least temporarily in the near future. But I guess for now I'll just update it to be the same as Experimental. Thanks. We're working on a fix for this right now. In future though, it'd be great if you could put bugs in the bug reporting subforum.

This is the thread for feedback on the new Milestone 2 branches that have been released on the Experimental branches. There's still quite a bit of work to do on Milestone 2 in terms of adding more content (missing research art, missing research text, more maps needed, etc) but we want to use this time to improve the game balance and fix any new bugs we might have introduced. Please let us know about any gameplay / balance issues you encounter here. However if you encounter bugs, please put those in the appropriate sub-forum as they'll be picked up quicker that way. Changelogs: Milestone 2.07 (this is the big one!) Milestone 2.07b

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! This is a small update for Milestone 2.07 that fixes a few gameplay issues, and tweaks the balance a bit. Please put any feedback in the Milestone 2 EXPERIMENTAL feedback thread. Balance Changes: Soldier inventory modules can now be moved around in the backpack and dropped / picked up from the ground in battle. Rather than all alien units getting a 20% HP increase to compensate for the new Corpse Analysis projects, this is now tiered. Alien Soldiers and Noncombants (magnetic weapons) now get little or no HP increase, Elites and Officers (plasma weapons) get ~10% HP increase, and Praetorians and Leaders (fusion weapons, not in the playable part of the game yet) get ~20% HP increase. Crouching defensive bonus reduced from 20% to 10%, as the last patch made crouching grant 10% extra firing accuracy and it meant crouching a bit overpowered. Laser weapons now have significantly reduced recoil compared to kinetic weapons for flavour reasons. Let us know if this makes the Laser Rifle / Laser LMG overpowered. Assault Shield upgrade project has been moved earlier in the tech tree, and now unlocks at a similar time to Guardian armour. There's now a +5 Turn mission timer option for people who wanted more than +3 but less than +99. Fixes: Fixed a crash that could occur when trying to take a shot in the tactical combat. Fixed the item placement on several soldier loadouts that were visually broken due to the updated sizes of LMG / HEVY ammo. Fixed an issue where the uncancelable first research project could be replaced with new research rather than cancelled. If you get the "You have some empty slots in the dropship!" message when trying to launch a dropship, clicking the Assign Soldiers button now leaves you on the assignment screen so you can do the assignment (previously it incorrectly used Auto-Fill and launched the dropship).

I've sent the composer an email to see if he's got more time. No promises, but maybe we can get a few more tracks in.

The problem is the interaction with the camera. The problem is for any of the map to go below the ground level, the entire map has to support going below the ground level. It can be very confusing if you accidentally hit the mouse scrollwheel and scroll down a level and end up underground, because in 99% of cases everything is black and you can't see anything and many players don't know why. I actually can't remember a game that did this - the only one that springs to mind is Jagged Alliance 2, but I seem to recall their underground levels (like in the prison) were entirely seperate maps to the level above and you just transitioned from one to the other. The same was true for Fallout 2, I believe.

Hmmm - doesn't it make more sense just to crouch them at the end of their moves individually? I guess I'm curious why you don't completely finish the actions of one soldier before moving onto the next, as that's the way I play (assuming I'm not deliberately leaving TU for overwatch or supporting fire etc). The keyboard shortcut C speeds things up a bit too, if you're not aware of that.

This is something we could do quite easily, but I think a lot of people would be disappointed in an XCOM game that didn't have a largely randomised starting squad. Part of the fun is going through and seeing what idiots the game has given you this time around.

I'll add in a +5 option as well then, it'll only take 20 seconds.

I think it's limited to 16 in the UI, isn't it?

Thanks for the suggestions. The big limitation on most of these ideas is just the time and resources it would take to implement them - it'd be cool to add lots more content to the game in the form of unique weapons and new armour sets and unique alien bases per race, but it's also time-consuming and expensive. Not to say we won't do any of that but we've got to get the core parts of the game finished before we even think about it. There's also a lot of balance considerations to consider with many of your ideas. Being able to build a second dropship and bring twice as many soldiers to battle would make the game very easy, for example. But suggestions like 10) are interesting. I can see why having specialist training might be interesting to the player.

This is a fair point, and I'm about to patch it so that Lasers have half the recoil of other weapons (you can assume the remainder is spinning magnets destabilising the weapon or something). It's always nice to have separation between the different tiers of weapons. If it causes balance issues we can tweak something else about the Lasers to compensate.

Yes, this feature gets requested frequently. I'm not making any promises here but I think we've reached the point in development where we can see how feasible it would be to implement it.

Thanks - this is very useful stuff, I appreciate it!

Yeah, it's possible we could increase the TU cost there or potentially reduce the defence bonus down to 10% instead. I think OpenXCom has crouching cost 4TU and uncrouching cost 6TU.

Thanks. Yeah, improving load times is one of our priorities at the moment, you should hopefully see some good improvements on that front in the next month or two!

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! Milestone 2 has now been released onto our Experimental branches for testing. This is a significant update that includes new content, new features, and many usability improvements and bugfixes - but we're awaiting several pieces of updated art / some new research text / additional maps, and the game balance is currently worse than Milestone 1! Please let us know about any bugs and balance problems you encounter so we can continue to improve it. Key Improvements: (includes all changes from previous Prototype builds!) Early Game Rework: The opening phase of the game has been expanded to increase the role of the Cleaners, and you now spend a bit more time battling them before the aliens begin to show up in force. This increaes the playable campaign duration from 180 days to 200 days. The new Probe UFO appears in the very early stages of the game. This is unmanned and does not create crash sites, but provides some early-game air combat practice and some research unlocks. As the invasion progresses it finds a new role as an early-game escort UFO that is eventually replaced by the Fighter UFO. The game story has been reworked to fit the new opening phase (which means it's worth replaying the tutorial). The player character is now a silent protagonist, and we've introduced a new character in the early game called The General that uses the previous Commander portrait. We've added several entirely new types of tactical mission to the game - Rescue Soldiers, Convoy Ambush, and Rescue VIP. We've also removed the standalone Cleaner Intel Hub and Cleaner Cell missions from Milestone 1 and turned them into generic Data Raid and Eliminate VIP missions that you may (or may not) encounter as part of the Cleaner activity on the Geoscape. Aircraft Weight System: Interceptors in Xenonauts 2 no longer have fixed weapon slots that can only take particular weapon types. Instead, we've introduced a more flexible system where they have several slots that can contain various different types of weapon or equipment. However, the aircraft now has an overall equipment weight limit that cannot be exceeded. Heavy Armour Variants: Each type of soldier armour in the game now has a "heavy" variant that can be enabled via a checkbox, which provides the wearer with improved protection at the cost of increased weight (and usually a small Accuracy reduction). This gives the player more choice when equipping their troops, particularly when using low-Strength soldiers. This system replaces the armour plate modules from Milestone 1. New Maps: The Dockyard and Jungle biomes have now been split apart, and we've created 5 new Crash Site maps for the Dockyard so we can support UFOs crashing in these regions. We've also started creating additional map variants for the new map types. The opening mission (ATLAS Base Reclaim) has two entirely new maps, and we're working on additional variants for the Cleaner Intel Hub mission (now called the Data Raid mission). Mod Management: We now have a Mod Management panel accessible on the title screen, as we've completed the backend systems that allow the game to load and prioritise mods. We're therefore now at the point where it's technically possible to create mods for the game - but I wouldn't recommend trying it yet, because it's very complex and we're working on some tools that will make the process much easier. Gameplay Changes: Economy: Money is generally a little tighter than before. It's now cheaper to build additional bases, but aircraft are more expensive - the idea is that the player shouldn't need a full squadron of 3 planes in a base until the midgame at the earliest! Funding is no longer dependent on Panic level (unless the region is actually lost). The starting base has one less Hangar and one less Angel interceptor. Aircraft are more expensive to build, and you now have to pay for their equipment items indvidually. Cost for constructing new bases has been reduced from $750k to $500k. Soldier cost increased from $10k to $20k. Upkeep on base structures and aircraft increased by 50%. Upkeep costs for upgraded buildings (e.g. Alenium Generators) reduced to match those of their basic equivalent. Alien Invasion: Panic now falls by 10% of the current total in each region at the end of the month. Shooting down a UFO now reduces Panic by -1, rather than -2. The Cleaner Base no longer continually spawns Panic-raising anomalies on the Geoscape until destroyed. Instead, the Cleaners generate regular tactical missions on the Geoscape that will raise Panic if you do not complete them (these stop when the Cleaner Base is destroyed). Most alien activity now occurs a couple of weeks later than it did in Milestone 1, as this makes space for the extra Cleaner missions. There's a couple of extra early-game research projects to fill this space. The new Probe UFO is the first type of UFO to spawn. It is unmanned and so does not generate crash sites, and is weak enough that even a basic Angel can take it down relatively easily. Because the player only starts with one Angel and missiles / torpedoes now need to be researched, Scout UFOs are quite a lot more dangerous than they were in Milestone 1. Air Combat: Most weapon damage values have been changed to take into account the new slot system on the interceptors. All aircraft equipment now has to be built individually for your aircraft, rather than being unlocked as a global upgrade. Added two new equippable items for aircraft - Armour and Fuel Pods. Missiles and Torpedoes are no longer starting items and need to be researched. Updated the stats on various UFOs, and equipped some with new weapons. Certain UFOs now use a "hunter-killer missile" which is slow and can be dodged but contains enough fuel to loop back around and attempt to hit your aircraft a second time. All UFOs now use a dynamic battlefield in the air combat, where it moves based on the position of the main UFO. This prevents them flying off the map entirely. When an interceptor runs out of fuel and chooses to retreat from combat, it now does the updated Retreat action where it escapes after 3 seconds (rather than the old retreat action where they need to fly to the edge of the map). Heavy Armour: All soldier armours now have a "Heavy Armour" checkbox that increases the protection offered at the cost of additional weight and a small Accuracy reduction. Defender Armour has been removed, as it is now the heavy variant of the starting Tactical Armour. Armour Plate modules have been removed, as this new system makes them redundant. Tech Tree: Autopsies are no longer autocomplete missions, and can be researched after completing Xenobiology. Completing an autopsy research unlocks "Corpse Analysis" engineering projects for that alien species. This consumes corpses to provide a 10% and eventually a 20% damage bonus against that type of alien. Added a new research project called Aerial Warfare that unlocks missiles / torpedoes for your aircraft. Added new artwork for Reaper Interrogation research project. Weapons & Equipment: Modules can now be moved around inside the backpack. Ammo loaded into weapons now has weight. We have therefore also reduced the weight of all weapons by roughly the weight of their default ammo clip. Stun Baton and Combat Knife are now 3x1 items rather than 3x2. Rebreather module added as a starting item. This makes units smoke immune. Stun Baton and Stun Gun are now starting items. Machineguns now require 51% TU to fire the 3-round burst, not 50%. HEVY now uses %-based fire modes, like all other weapon types. HEVY has been reduced in weight. HEVY grenades no longer inflict reduced damage if they miss the target and detonate beyond the maximum range of the gun. HEVY Smoke Rounds no longer destroy enemy armour. Tactical Combat: Crouching now provides a 10% Accuracy bonus. Units have their Accuracy reduced by 0.25% for each 1% of missing Health. This also includes soldiers who are sent into battle not fully healed! Increased all alien HP by 20% to counterbalance them appearing later and the corpse analysis projects. On Xenonaut Base Defence missions, the player is now given vision on all alien units after 10 turns. Units will now automatically path to the intended location if using a melee weapon or placing C4 from more than one tile away. Time Units costs for fire modes now have a minimum of 1 Time Unit, as hugely overloaded soldiers were able to fire their weapons an unlimited number of times. Time Units are no longer refunded if an overweight soldier drops an item to reduce their TU penalty, as this permitted an exploit where units could use multiple 51%+ TU actions per turn. However, overweight TU penalties are only applied when you close the inventory screen so you're free to shuffle items about as long as the weight is at acceptable limits when you close the screen. Fleeing units now drop their Secondary weapon in addition to their Primary. Berserking will now always choose a random inanimate object as a target if no alien is nearby, and the soldier may recieve some bonus TU that allows them to fire more than normal if they berserk. Grenades now always damage shields if the unit carring the shield is in the blast radius. Shields will offer protection from grenade damage, but only if they're facing towards the tile where the grenade exploded. Jetpack move costs have been increased slightly, which means soldiers will now only use the jetpack if they cannot walk the path instead. Usability / Visual Changes: Strategy: The icon for the Skyhawk dropship has been updated so it doesn't look like it is flying backwards. Mission briefings now accurately display the turn limits / reinforcement timers for timed missions, even when this value is modified by the difficulty setting. The "Items Arrived" popup will now split the list by base if items simultaneously arrive at multiple bases. The Damage value for weapons on their tooltip is now modified by the ammo loaded (e.g. the HEVY shows 0 damage if loaded with smoke rounds). The equipment selection menus on the Aircraft screen have been updated so they size themselves dynamically, which means they can display more weapons without having issues. Tactical Soldier Inventory: You can now scroll through soldiers using the left / right arrows, or by pressing the number hotkeys. Scrolling past a vehicle without an inventory (e.g. MARS) now simply skips past it, rather than closing the inventory screen. Added a "Reset Item Moves" button that resets all item moves and refunds all TU spent. Added a new line that shows the current TU of the soldier. Improved the way items stack when dropped on the ground (usually by a dead combatant). Tactical: Move paths for jetpack-equipped soldiers now display properly. Fixed various issues with the TU reserve system (which can be accessed by right-clicking the various weapon fire modes). Combat Shields now play an appropriate impact sound if hit by enemy fire, and a destruction sound if destroyed. They also play a spark visuel effect if they absorb all the damage, rather than a blood splatter. C4 now shows its blast radius once laid if you hover over the detonator, and will display a "Are you sure?" popup if you try to detonate it with a unit in the blast radius. Using Tab or Next Soldier to cycle through your soldiers now works correctly with soldier number 10 (who was previously being placed last). The combat camera zoom now switches between five preset distances, and the alt+scrollwheel zoom shortcut should now work correctly. The 3D models of dropped items are now placed within the tile to look like they are laying on the ground. Weapons in the hands of dead bodies are now also hidden (as those weapons are being shown as an item on the ground). Healing stun damage with a medikit now displays "Stun: -X" rather than "Stun: X", as some people thought the medikit was causing stun damage. Fixed several visual issues with the Alenium Generator objects in the Xenonaut Base defence missions. Bugfixes: Strategy / General: Fixed a cursor offset bug that could occur if you tried to switch Xenonauts 2 between multiple monitors with different screen resolutions. Fixed various issues with the following achievements: First Contact, Counterfire, Unfriendly Fire, Welcome To Earth, Future Warfare. Fixed various visual issues with the hair / jaw of certain soldiers and the collars of certain types of armour. Removed the "do you want to save?" popup on quit if the player is playing Iron Man mode. Fixed an incorrect error message when trying to build the Gauss Blaster without completing Accelerated Cannon first. Fixed the visual highlight when hovering over the names of unassigned wounded soldiers. Tactical Combat: Fixed smoke and suppression damage incorrect passing through undamaged solid walls or closed doors. Fixed Combat Shields not functioning correctly or displaying correctly if picked up off the ground. Fixed the Secton glowing eyes that indicate Psionic Triangulation being active not triggering correctly. Fixed aliens and humans being revealed if they are stunned when the player does not have line of sight on them. Fixed dead soldiers sometimes surviving even when the player has a 0% survival chance. Fixed moving items around the inventory incorrectly not deducting TU in some cases. Fixed units being able to shoot themselves when using Ctrl+Shift to preview move & shoot actions. Fixed various issues that would occur when you pick up and drop corpse items, as sometimes the game was not properly reflecting the new location of the body (both visually and mechanically). Fixed units not playing their death animation correctly if they are stunned, then revived, then stunned / killed again. Fixed fleeing units dropping their weapons but their 3D model not updating to show they are now unarmed. Fixed revived units still visually holding the weapon they were carrying when they were stunned, despite them being unarmed and the gun being on the floor. Fixed HEVY soldiers incorrectly using 1-handed weapon animations if they switch to a pistol and then back to the HEVY. Fixed the 3D models of items on the ground not being removed if an explosion destroys those items. Fixed a misleading error message about uncrouching. Fixed blood puddles not correctly hiding when you changed camera level. Fixed camera incorrectly snapping to an alien the player cannot see going through a teleporter. Fixed an issue where an unloaded weapon would display 0/0 ammo, rather than 0/X. Fixed melee weapons causing the target to play their injury sound twice. Fixed the player gaining 50 Alenium simply by visiting an Alien Base and aborting the mission. Fixed hitbox issues with the main door on some of the larger UFOs (from Observer up). Fixed an issue with the Observer UFO sometimes having invisible terrain objects near its front door. Fixed destroyed doors in the Alien Base maps still showing the open / close door icon. Fixed the Electroshock Rifle having the incorrect silhouette in the minitabs at the top of the screen. Fixed melee attacks not causing units to rotate to face the attacker. Fixed AI units that are able to crush objects by walking through them absolutely trashing the interior of their UFO / base as they patrol around.

Goldhawk Interactive are hiring a 3D Environment Artist to join the team working on Xenonauts 2. We are looking for an enthusiastic candidate capable of producing impressive environments for our tactical combat missions. This is a remote role and we are considering applicants on either a full-time basis or a part-time basis, assuming they can contribute at least 16 hours per week to the project. Effectively this is a long-term remote freelancing role, as we expect there to be at least six months of work available to the successful candidate (and possibly more). The Role: Creating 3D models for the terrain objects and buildings that make up the various battlefield environments in Xenonauts 2. Creating damaged / destroyed variants of these assets (including particle effects where necessary). Rexturing existing 3D assets to improve their visual appearance. Key Skills: Essential: Fluent English. Essential: Strong 3D modelling and texturing skills in a Unity-compatible 3D modelling program of your choice. Essential: The ability to deliver cohesive and visually consistent 3D environments. Essential: Experience with the Unity game engine. Very Useful: Experience with particle systems. Useful: Familiarity with git or another form of source control software. Useful: Working hours that overlap with European time zones, as the team is largely based in the UK. If you think you fit this description and want to apply for the role (or have any questions), please send an email to chris@xenonauts.com with a link to your portfolio, your expected pay rates, and any other information you feel is relevant. We will be closing applications for this role on Wednesday 18th October.

Goldhawk Interactive are hiring a 3D Character Artist / Animator to join the team working on Xenonauts 2. We are looking for an enthusiastic candidate who is knowledeable about the entire pipeline for creating 3D characters, from the initial modelling and texturing process through to rigging and animation. This is a remote role and we are considering applicants on either a full-time basis or a part-time basis, assuming they can contribute at least 16 hours per week to the project. Effectively this is a long-term remote freelancing role, as we expect there to be at least six months of work available to the successful candidate (and possibly more). The Role: Creating / editing textured 3D models for the characters in our games, ranging from human soldiers (wearing a variety of modern or advanced sci-fi armour suits) to civilians and various types of sci-fi alien species. Rigging these models. Creating / editing animations for these models performing various different actions, while armed with a variety of different types of weapon. Key Skills: Essential: Fluent English. Essential: Strong 3D character modelling and texturing abilities in a Unity-compatible 3D program of your choice. Essential: Strong knowledge of rigging and animation in a Unity-compatible 3D program of your choice. Essential: At least some knowledge of Unity. Very Useful: Familiarity with rigging and animation in Max (as our existing rigs and animation sets were created in Max). Very Useful: The creativity to build upon existing 2D concepts to produce additional unit / equipment variants in a matching style. Useful: Familiarity with git or another form of source control software. Useful: Working hours that overlap with European time zones, as the team is largely based in the UK. If you think you fit this description and want to apply for the role (or have any questions), please send an email to chris@xenonauts.com with a link to your portfolio, your expected pay rates, and any other information you feel is relevant. We will be closing applications for this role on Wednesday 18th October.

I was talking about escort craft specifically in my previous message, as being able to pick them off from a distance without taking damage would be very useful but only in certain situations.