Chris
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This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!
Unfortunately this update breaks save game compatibility - the bug where the Battleships were not spawning in Phase 5 can't be fixed in existing campaigns. I'll put 6.8.0 on the Experimental Legacy branch so people can continue playing it, but you'll need to capture the Eternal on the UOO Bridge Assault mission alive if you want to complete the game.
Changes:
- The Air Combat section of the tutorial has now been added to the existing tutorial.
- Added the final side-on art for the aircraft weapons in the air combat UI.
- Added an explanatory popup when the first UOO mission is unlocked, explaining you need to click the new button to launch the mission (as people often don't notice it).
- Added a new blast door variant on the Xenonaut Base mission which can be manually opened like other types of door, and does not autoclose at end of turn.
- Set various glass doors to smash like windows when shot through.
Balance Changes:
- Autopsy projects now autocomplete after Xenobiology has been researched.
- Colossus Power Fist now has +20 Accuracy to compensate for the Colossus Reflexes penalty.
- Stealthsuit heavy armour variant now reduces Accuracy by -3 (previously 0).
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Some changes to the UOO Sabotage mission:
- The enemies on the UOO Sabotage mission now all have Fusion weapons (as the player has already encountered enemies with Fusion weapons at this point).
- One Heavy Cyberdrone has been removed from the mission crew.
- The central building should now contain aliens again.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed a crash that would occur if you used startWithCheats.bat and pressed H during a tactical mission.
- Fixed Battleships not appearing in phase 5.
- Fixed shroud and fog of war not appearing inside UFOs.
- Fixed being unable to heal unconscious Xenonauts in some situations.
- Fixed Sentry guns sometimes visually appearing to be destroyed, but still being alive.
- Fixed Endgame part 1 map starting with the Chinook dropship present.
- Fixed an AI issue where enemies were strongly discouraged from moving through closed doors.
- Fixed laser weapons snapping back to view the shooter when firing at targets at long range.
- Fixed the subtitles not appearing over the intro cinematic.
- Fixed a text error in the Aircraft Weapon tooltip (the Lock Time line),
- Fixed autoclosing blast doors in ATLAS / Cleaner Base closing even if there was an AI unit stood in the doorway.
- Fixed some frill offset issues in the Western Town store map.
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16 hours ago, Bookshelf11 said:
Battleships aren't spawning after UOO destroyed, likely a similar bug like last Milestone, at day 450+ and nothing.
Gemini have extremely slow speed and lower range, slower than a Phantom or even a Angel with upgraded engines. Gemini has 3,300 KM/H vs a Phantom with engine retrofit at 4,500 KM/H, Angels with engine retrofit have the same speed. Range wise, Gemini have 5,500 KM range vs a Phantom with engine retrofit range of 6,000 KM.
Failed first UOO Bridge Assault and during my second, all of soldiers were invisible, except when one of them died and they became immediately visible and a corpse, but I'm guessing that's because they turned into a item essentially. They still behaved like normal and essentially controlled the same but just they weren't visible. I'm guessing something to do with the cutscene only playing the first time and the teleporting animation not playing. I actually abandoned the mission and tried again and still invisible, then I saved and quit and relaunched the game, still invisible. Didn't think to post save before finishing the mission, sorry.
I'm guessing you're playing a campaign you started a while ago? The Gemini seems to go 4,500KM in a fresh game. Maybe I patched that after you started that campaign.
The battleship bug will be fixed for new campaigns in the next patch - but hopefully Koki can fix your current save so you don't waste this one.
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On 9/10/2025 at 3:35 PM, Suroubureau said:
The update removed the ability to make any gauss weapons (soldier weapons). Not regulars, not advanced ones.
On 9/10/2025 at 9:08 PM, skortil said:Me too, I think after doing a research they disappear. They do not appear in the engineering tab.
Unfortunately I think this is something that must have happened to campaigns that were already in progress when we made this patch; I've tested it in a fresh game and they seem to work fine.
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19 hours ago, Skitso said:
I started a new playthrough and have now had a few missions with sebillians, but stuff still doesn't seem ok. Odd crew compositions (psyons with androns or reapers) and huge bias towards Psyon. I had my first wraith at day ~250 for example and only 2 sebillian missions so far.
I'll keep an eye on it when I do my next playthrough.
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On 9/14/2025 at 2:10 PM, squeezechart said:
I have no crash dump this time, but got a similar crash some days ago. I have attached bug report data below.
The background music was stumbling for a wile, then I got a black screen with the message:
"Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart. We're just collecting some error info, and then you can restart.
Stop code: VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (0x116)
What failed: nvlddmkm.sys
My laptop is a Vivobook with i7-12900H, a NVIDIA RTX 3060 using driver 580.97 DCH on Windows 11
The crash happened often with milestone 6.x experimental buildsbugReport2024-05-28-20h00-GC-4.0.0-UnHandledException.zip
bug_report_2025-09-07-20h40_gc_6.7.1_unhandled_exception_1.zip
Hey - the logs for this crash report are showing a crash when you're accessing the cheat panel. Are you playing the game with cheats enabled?
Seems like if you press H with cheat mode enabled then the game crashes.
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Whatever the eventual changes to Biters are, the reasons for this particular nerf are still valid. Soldiers are frequently hit by Biters during overwatch fire, and if that happens then if they perform any action (including moving) then they're liable to be attacked by the Biter because it spawns with enough TU to reaction attack immediately. It's silly to have a situation where the optimal course of action can be to do nothing with your remaining TU (i.e. don't try to deal with the threat) so you don't eat an extra melee attack.
Plus if we're spawning a unit mid-way through a turn, I think it's only fair to give the player the rest of their turn to deal with it before it starts attacking them.
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This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!
Changes:
- Biters, Zombies and Reapers should now spawn with 0% Time Units. This means if they are spawned during the player's turn (e.g. Biters spawned from overwatch fire), you don't have to worry about them attacking your units until the end of your turn.
- Made the keybindings for the tactical combat "Soldier Rotate" and "Interact With " editable, as currently both are bound to RMB.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed a crash related to the Cyberdrones.
- Fixed an AI hang that could occur after an AI unit fell from a collapsed floor.
- Fixed an AI hang that could occur if two enemy units got stuck on the same tile.
- Fixed being unable to build Advanced Gauss Weapons after running the engineering upgrade project (only existing weapons were being upgraded, not future ones).
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13 hours ago, Ascylon said:
Description: Basically the title, when ending a turn on a base defence, alien turn seems to never end and enemy activity just keeps blinking. Attached the save game, just press end turn and it should happen again.
Thanks. Yeah, I can reproduce this - we'll get it fixed.
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18 hours ago, Suroubureau said:
The middle building in the map has second floor tiles and walls that always show, even when on first floor. Makes hard to make out whats where.
Thanks. Yeah, we know about this one - we'll hopefully have it fixed in the next week or two.
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17 hours ago, Suroubureau said:
The research upgrades all existing gauss weapons to advanced ones, but cannot make new advanced ones, only regulars.
Now I have both pistols in the armory.
Thanks. Yeah, I know what's causing this. I'll get it fixed.
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This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!
Bugfixes:
- Fixed the game crashing after various types of tactical mission by temporarily reverting the change to make autopsies autocomplete. We'll take a look at a proper fix next week that will allow us to re-introduce this change without the crash.
- Fixed the upgraded Guardian Armour incorrectly being much heavier than the standard Guardian Armour.
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This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!
Changes:
- Alien autopsy research projects now autocomplete once Xenobiology has been researched.
- Capturing The General alive on the ATLAS Base mission now only grants +100 Operations Points on research (down from +150).
- Colossus Armour now makes the wearer immune to suppression.
- Colossus Armour now has a new secondary melee weapon available called the Power Fist. For now, you'll have to manually equip this and the animations / art are placeholders (and it won't appear in existing campaigns), but it's effectively a free Energy Knife that doesn't weigh anything.
- Basic Cyberdrone now only fires 2 shots (down from 3), but damage increased to 50 per shot (from 40). Heavy Cyberdrone still fires 3 shots.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed a crash that would occur on the UOO Sabotage mission when the reinforcements started spawning.
- Fixed the Reaper Zombies incorrectly spawning a new Reaper every turn once they time out.
- Fixed some issues with the camera focus when firing shots at long range.
- Fixed vehicles always being illuminated on night missions, and the corner tiles on the ATLAS mission being visible even without line-of-sight.
- More assorted map fixes.
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This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!
Changes:
- Fixed the Supporters incorrectly offering a much smaller funding increase than in earlier versions.
- Fixed the game not correctly returning to the Main Menu after showing a Game Over screen.
- Fixed the starting Angel interceptor needing Armour unequipped / reequipped for it to function properly (for a second time).
- Fixed the three soldiers in the Rescue Soldiers mission having ballistic rifle ammo in their medikits.
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9 hours ago, ih8california said:
Are you still considering module buffs to colossus armor?
Yeah, we are. I haven't had a chance to properly test it myself in my most recent playthrough so I've not finalised the changes for it yet.
5 hours ago, SoftwareSimian said:Is it expected that funding amounts are drastically lower? Supporters now give +$15k instead of +$150k, plot research gives +$75k instead of +$150k, etc
No, none of that data has changed. It's likely a bug related to the updated Funding Report. I'll look into it.
5 hours ago, Skitso said:Imo snipers shot cost/accuracy were fine and needed more range, damage and penetration.
Well, they've got more range now, which is the main thing. I think giving them a little more flexibility is fine too. Adding damage / penetration is a much bigger deal because it complicates the ratios between different tiers of weapon / enemy. I might buff those things in future but not in my first round of changes.
40 minutes ago, gG-Unknown said:Wraith Cloaking Field ability now triggers once at the end of a burst, meaning hitting a Wraith with two or more shotgun pellets / machinegun rounds / etc will only change the cloaking state once. // good partial improvement, but still waiting for fix the main issue the ON-OFF feature.
Shotgun - current shotgun is very very bad.
I made a full article, well several, but here is a short version :
Shotgun is a mid range soft-target weapon of specialist. It should be best against servitors, crawling bugs and targets which were softened by someone else.
range : 14 , number of pelets:5 ; armor destruction per pelet :1 ; dmg : is same as now but split into 5 instead of 3, which means armoured targets are mostly invulnerable.
The Wraith Cloaking Field is fine in my opinion. I like that it makes you think about your attack sequencing.
I also think the shotgun is fine as is - if anything, it's a bit overpowered. I'm not really interested in mirroring the real-life properties of a shotgun here, because this is a video game and having a weapon that is ineffective against armour would fall apart very quickly in the midgame where most enemies have at least some armour. Everyone would just use a rifle instead (just like in real life).
The commonly understood "shotgun" archetype in video games is something that does massive damage at short range by firing multiple smaller projectiles, and our current version works pretty well at doing what people expect while also being a viable primary weapon.
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This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!
Unfortunately this update breaks save game compatibility, but if you want to continue your 6.4.0 campaign then please switch over to the Experimental Legacy branch.
Changes:
- Added research art for Biosurvey Array research project.
- Updated the ENDGAME biome art to reflect we now use a teleporter rather than the Pegasus.
- There's now a dedicated "Supporter" line in the Funding Report that shows the funding received by the Geoscape Supporters.
- Supporter icons are now darkened when they are in the "replacing" state.
- Building roofs on the UOO Sabotage mission are now destructible.
Balance Changes:
- Reaper Zombies now only spawn new Reapers if they survive the incubation period, which has been reduced to two turns. Killing the Zombie within two turns of it being spawned therefore prevents a new Reaper from spawning.
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Sniper Rifles have been buffed and Rifles nerfed slightly, as there were situations where the rifle was a better pick for long-range sniping. The Sniper Rifle now has a longer range, is cheaper to fire, and the penalty for moving has been reduced a bit (but it can still only fire once per turn).
- Rifle accuracy slightly reduced (by about 5% on a 100% accuracy shot).
- Sniper Rifle range increased to 26 (from 20).
- Fire cost of both Sniper Rifle fire modes decreased to 52 / 64 TU (from 56 / 70 TU),
- Reduced the "no move" accuracy bonus on the sniper rifle by about half, and added a similar amount to the standard fire modes. Essentially this means the weapon is now more accurate if the soldier has moved, and the same as before if the soldier has not moved.
- Automed Unit is still too much of an autopick item, so the weight has been increased to 12 (from 8) and the healing amount decreased to 3 HP per turn (from 5). It's intended to stop units dying from bleeding wounds, rather than replacing conventional healing items!
- Wraith Cloaking Field ability now triggers once at the end of a burst, meaning hitting a Wraith with two or more shotgun pellets / machinegun rounds / etc will only change the cloaking state once.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed doors automatically closing after the line of sight updates. This means you should no longer see situations where the front door of a UFO closes at the start of the turn and the aliens inside are still visible in the fog of war.
- Fixed the game displaying the "UFO Captured by Xenonauts" toast at the end of the mission if the final alien was stunned.
- Fixed some more visual issues in various maps.
- Destruction particles should now correctly fall through the gaps between the space platforms on the UOO Sabotage maps.
- Fixed a bug in the French translation.
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On 9/2/2025 at 10:51 AM, Vicus said:
Fair enough. As a suggestion if this is intentional, maybe have have the light expand a few more tiles and feather it a little like a normal light source?
It's not intentional, we'll get it fixed in the next week or two.
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This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!
This is a small hotfix for 6.4.0 that should allow people to complete their existing campaigns on the Experimental Legacy branch, as we'll shortly be releasing 6.5.0 which will unfortunately break save game compatibility.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed a crash loading ENDGAME part 2.
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13 hours ago, vnhfremen said:
Simply pressing end turn from here will crash the game. I think it was the first turn as well.
bug_report_2025-09-01-16h07_gc_6.4.0_unhandled_exception_0.zip
Thanks. This error seems like it might be caused by map corruption, which usually occurs if you try to load a tactical mission save after a game update that changes something in that map?
Could you try loading the strategy save from just before the mission instead? It should work fine if you do that.
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Just now, Skitso said:
I play on veteran and at least the first ~150 days seemed easier than ms5
Tactically, or strategically? And you played over the weekend, right? I ironed out a few tactical difficulty spikes in Phase 1 in 6.1 and 6.2, but to me the tactical battles still felt a little harder than M5.
It feels quite easy now I'm past day 150 though.
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7 hours ago, Skitso said:
My first destroyer also didn't have sebillian crew. I remember it was forced at least at some point...
Yeah, it's no longer forced.
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3 hours ago, Bookshelf11 said:
Either 6.1 or 6.2.
Thinking on losing, quite a lot of things stacked together really
- I lost the Andron/Wraith terror mission in the US which boosted panic up a ton and was broke constantly so I couldn't build a new base there to reduce UFO activity which cost me it as both North and South America were unable to be calmed down
- 2nd base I had in Asia was essentially worthless because I didn't have enough to make two hangers or two interceptors and by that time most UFOs then were either Observers I couldn't catch unless I upgraded the engines using the resources I couldn't shoot down to get or they had a Defender escort who I couldn't take on alone
- The 8 infiltrators reduced a lot of cash flow because I had to spend all my points on removing them or any that popped up, when most of the time I'd put those points into getting a starter fund for a new base or aircraft to help bootstrap my panic management, which indirectly led to me losing the air war and probably the campaign
- Funding was much lower than I anticipated, combined with multiple mission losses and the costs of losing so many people or MARS units, just couldn't afford much so I couldn't hire who I needed or build myself up
- Had a total loss on a Cleaner Convoy which wiped out my MARS, all my A Team and their gear meaning I lost a huge amount of resources, there were so many cleaners that it made it quite hard to not be overwhelmed even when I had the jump on them and managed to kill or supress quite a few on the first turn
- I also had a really bad abduction because the map was quite small so the enemies were close together and the landing zone was a kill zone, the artic map where you're surrounded by fencing and there's cargo containers up ahead, you can't really advance without having your sides exposed, I've had bad missions there before but this felt worse since I had less troops and more aliens
- A couple times where a unlucky dodge or dogfight led to a Angel getting downed due to the 150% UFO damage, leaving me unable to tackle the Phase 2 UFO wave and panic outbreaks, infiltrations or get resources from crashes
On average, the amount of troops and missions I lost were way higher than most campaigns due to I feel like having less soldiers and more enemies who have better aim. Losing armour on death, making new weapons, rebuilding MARS units and hiring up new troops really can drain your funding that it makes you unable to put it towards anything else, and when considering funding is lower and the amount of infiltrators is higher, your ability to spend Op points on a emergency reserve of cash is really strongly reduced, especially when you're using them to also reduce panic in countries you can't reach yet.
Yeah, sounds like several things snowballing together. I'll bear that in mind as I continue my own balance playthrough.
BTW, from your message it sounds like you don't usually play on Commander? If not, it might be worth giving your next campaign a try on Veteran (which is what I tend to balance on). You might find that M6 is slightly harder than M5 but without it being quite so harsh as Commander is.
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This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!
Changes:
- The "pity" crash site that is spawned if you fail to shoot down the first Scout UFO has now been delayed, as in some cases it could spawn before the Scout Crash Site had timed out.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed a crash that could occur when starting a Base Defence mission, UOO mission, or ENDGAME mission.
- Fixed an AI hang that could occur during the AI turn (linked to Psyons).
- Vehicles no longer show their vision cone during the deployment phase, as this was old functionality from back in the days when Sentry Guns could not move.
- Fixed the Rescue Soldiers mission incorrectly claiming it gave a $225,000 reward.
- Fixed the Latin America Elite Scientist supporter displaying a green icon (rather than red) when an Infiltrator.
- Fixed a minor typo in the Demolition Grenade tooltip.
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Hello everyone - welcome to our consolidated development update for July and August, which we've rolled together because I was away on holiday at the start of last month.
Milestone 6:
Let's start with the biggest news first. The initial version of Milestone 6 arrived on the Experimental branch a couple of weeks ago, and since then we've been working hard on patching and improving it in response to community bug reports / feedback. Milestone 6 is another major update for the game, and will be the penultimate update for Xenonauts 2 before we leave Early Access.Progress has generally been good since the initial Experimental build. We're continuing to release a steady stream of new content and bugfixes for Milestone 6, but there's still quite a few gameplay issues to work through before we can release it onto the standard branches for everyone to play. We're therefore expecting a late October release.
If anyone is interested in trying out the new content and giving us feedback (particularly if you play the highest or lowest difficulty settings), please feel free to hop over to the Experimental branch and give the new update a play, However, please be aware that Experimental builds haven't been tested as thoroughly as the public versions of the game and tend to contain more bugs!
Game Assets / Content:
The final public release of Milestone 6 will contain all the remaining content in our roadmap, except the Mod Tools (which are slated for Milestone 7). Most of this work is now either completed, or very close to it. In addition to everything covered in our previous monthly updates, we now have:- All the research art and research text in the game.
- The updated Air Combat UI fully implemented (barring a few last polishing tweaks).
- The ending cinematic completed in video form (so we just need to implement it in the game).
There's two major tasks left to finish before Milestone 6 is done. The first is the Air Combat tutorial, which has been fully written and designed and is currently being hooked up in the code. The other is the new Soviet Town biome - progress here has been a little slower, but we still have five draft maps set up. I'll be switching my focus to this once our current balance pass is complete, so we're hoping to have it in the game by the end of the month.
Balance / Gameplay Pass:
I devoted a lot of time this month to playing Milestone 6. There's been two reasons for this - firstly, it's been quite a while since we last did a proper balance pass on the game, and secondly because I need to properly understand the current player experience to plan Milestone 7.This has been useful, and I've enjoyed it. However, it can be time consuming - Xenonauts 2 is a long game, and every mission played usually ends in us seeing a dozen small improvements that need to be made (bugs, visual issues, tweaks to specific maps or terrain objects, changes to particular enemies, adjustments to the number of aliens in a particular mission, etc). Frequently I'll spend an entire morning fixing issues we spotted in a mission I only spent twenty minutes playing.
However, this is time well spent - as we approach the end of our development roadmap, Xenonauts 2 will benefit far more from time spent polishing the moment-to-moment gameplay experience than by adding further content (although we do still have a few cool new additions planned for Milestone 7). Coupled with the feedback we receive from players, we should be able to address many of the things that frustrate or disappoint players who would otherwise enjoy the game. That'll be our main focus for the remainder of the Early Access period.
OK, I think that wraps up everything we've been working on recently. Thanks for reading and, as always, an especially big thanks to all the community members who have been testing the game and reporting bugs. See you next month!
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15 minutes ago, Bookshelf11 said:
Just wanted to check out the new milestone, so didn't expect to do a long one but felt very different, both because of the new changes and the difficulty. As almost always, lost due to North and South America getting overwhelmed.
- Difficulty wise, Commander feels extremely punishing, and potentially not balanced with the new amount of soldiers we get. I had 15 aliens on I think my first or second crashed scout, while only having 7 soldiers and a MARS to bring against them was really quite scary
- Androns and Wraiths as always felt very strong, lost my first terror mission because I got massacred by them, that 130% accuracy difficulty option is horrifying on them because they can just nail you so easily on those wide open lacking in cover streets while they're in buildings, 15 aliens total on that mission and I only managed to kill 10 of them before getting fully wiped out while again having only 8 units to use myself
- Was constantly starved for cash and honestly not much for alien resources, got lucky with a landed observer at day 150 but never really needed to dip into OP's to grab alloy or such
- Smaller maps were almost always bloodbaths because the amount of aliens were concentrated together so you ended up with mission fails within a couple turns or a win with 2 or 3 people surviving after the initial massacre
- I didn't mind disabling auto resolve at first but it can be slightly tedious with probes and destroyers past a certain point and even though I like the mini game, I can imagine some people finding it slightly disruptive especially with that 150% UFO damage meaning any slip up can take out a Angel very quickly
- Defender UFOs are very strong, only fought them twice but they absolutely castrated my Angels flying solo so it makes having two interceptors a hard check because you aren't taking it down alone and I just couldn't afford to build them quick enough meaning panic ruled near worldwide
- Also felt pretty starved for Operational Points constantly as well, especially at the start clearing all 8 infiltrators and the 2 or 3 that popped up along the way, with the rest going into cash or near the end reducing panic
- The earlier introduction of plasma weapons did feel like quite a step up difficulty wise, along with most of the start of Phase 2 feeling much more oppressive with how many UFOs waves spawn and a Alien base in Asia not long after
Honestly didn't enjoy the difficulty as much as I wanted to, felt like Legendary difficulty in Halo where it's really hard and punishing but not that fun because it's just teeth kicking you.
Thanks for this. Can I just check what versions you played on? I've tweaked a few of the most oppressive parts already but I don't know if you were playing before or after that. I released the last version (6.3.0) late in the evening on Friday, UK time, so if you were playing over the weekend it'll have been with all of my tweaks already included.
Did you lose simply because you couldn't keep up with the UFOs, or had you also failed some ground missions? Or done unusually badly on some missions like Abduction / Data Raid missions where you'd normally expect to get more rewards?
I agree that the game is probably a bit too tough at the moment.
6.9.0 Aircombat
in Xenonauts-2 Bug Reports
Posted
Thanks. I'm making a patch for this crash now, it should be live in an hour or two!