Chris

Thanks for the thoughts, everyone. I'm working on another balance pass at the moment so I'm reading through the last 2-3 pages at the moment, hence why I'm going to be quoting a lot of people in this post. Yes, one of the changes I'm thinking about making for Milestone 5 is reducing the damage variation from 50%-200% to 50%-150%, which is what it was in the original Xenonauts - and I think it's also what OpenXcom eventually settled on as the default settings. It just felt "fair" that damage should range from half damage to double damage, but I think it does result in damage being too spiky overall. Yes, poison grenades for certain aliens (likely Sebillians) are planned for Milestone 5.

I'm going to try reducing the possible miss arc from 80 degrees total (40 on each side) down to 50 degrees. I'm very reluctant to reduce it further than that because there needs to be enough scatter that miss shots actually miss most of the time, otherwise the HEVY is going to be hugely overpowered. There are still some bugs with the HEVY we need to fix, but they're not particularly simple and they'll be done in Milestone 5 hopefully. Those include the grenade sometimes scattering behind the shooter at short range, and the bug where if you're corner-peeking with the HEVY that miss shots can sometimes hit the corner (which is why most of those "soldier blowing themselves up" situations occur).

Nope. I don't think any of us have bought it.

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 a crash on the Soldier Equip screen when changing equipment. It was previously possible to drag items using both left mouse and right mouse button, occasionally leading to situations where you could be dragging two items at the same time and one would be in an invalid state. We've fixed this by disabling right-click dragging, which we don't think should cause players any inconvenience - but please let us know if we're wrong! Fixed an issue where the upgraded Colossus Battlesuit would revert to the un-upgraded version after a battle. Fixed the Gauss / Plasma turret base defence buildings and upgrade projects so they have a consistent cost and completion time. Added a loading screen tip about how to use TU Reserve (right-click on the desired fire mode or crouch button). (Hopefully) fixed an issue where the interior walls of the Western Town restaurant buildings would not render on certain PCs.

The intention is that you get control of your soldier back if the mind controlling unit is killed. We'll look into it. What unit mind controlled your soldier?

Yeah, the obscured yellow tiles are drawing black for some reason. I can't reproduce it though. Can you?

Thanks for the reply. That's interesting to hear. So this is a strange situation because the game is clearly capable of writing to that directory given it created the settings files. It's possible to change the install directory by adding-gameSaveFolder=<X> to the startup path in Steam / GOG / whatever. I'm not 100% sure how Parallels works but perhaps moving it might fix things? If not, we'll have another think about what could be causing it. However it sounds like you've already checked most of the things we'd suggest - it's Windows Defender and controlled folder access in Windows that have caused problems for other users historically. I'm not a Mac user but it sounds like you've already tried disabling the equivalents. EDIT - actually, one thing that would be useful is to make a bug report using F11 after trying to make a save. Hopefully that'll create a zip file in the /bugreports/ folder that will have some data we might be able to use to debug the issue.

If we've made a bad change, we'll get feedback about it and it'll be adjusted accordingly in the next batch of fixes. Bernie's feedback has been noted just the same as everyone else's, and there being a potential issue with the Automed Unit (likely due to it being too heavy now it has reduced function) is on our radar. However we've only got one data point so far, and I don't generally make balance changes based on such little information. If anyone has feedback about how the new Automed Unit feels then feel free to chip in, otherwise let's end this here. I'm always grateful to anyone who posts feedback on any topic on our forums, this one included.

There isn't any middle ground between carrying one item or carrying two items, though, as it's not possible to carry 1.5 items. You either carry one or two items. That's pretty much the crux of my point - you're asking me to pull the wrong design lever here by increasing the regeneration amount. The reason why I'm trying to drill down into why you want the Automed Unit to have the functionality of two items is because I suspect the actual fix for this issue (if this actually does end up being an issue) is to reduce the weight of the Automed Unit now it has reduced functionality, making it easier to carry the two items if you do want both bits of functionality. Not going back to having one item that fills two roles really well and one item that is totally irrelevant, as that setup doesn't actually give the player a choice to make. However, you seem very much against the idea of having to carry two items, and I was trying to understand whether it was an issue with not having the capacity to carry two items or whether it's because you just genuinely found the concept of there being two items ridiculous on a fundamental level. From your previous posts, it largely seemed like the latter. Best of luck in future anyway.

Ah, great - I'm glad you've got it fixed. Out of interest, if you start a new campaign in German and start playing it, does the game still crash? It'd be great to know if there's bugs we need to fix in the German game!

Hi there - so this is quite an interesting issue. My suspicion is that this is something to do with your antivirus software, but this bug does affect people occasionally so it'd be great for us to try and figure out what's going on. First question: if your \saves\ folder is empty, are there files in the rest of the \Xenonauts 2\ directory? I'm guessing there are, otherwise the game would have crashed on startup. Second question: what antivirus software are you running? Is it quarantining or automatically deleting the save files? Although our save games are just text files, they do contain some elements that resemble a .zip file so they might be getting wiped out while the other files are considered fine. It is possible to change the save game directory file but I doubt that'll help much in this situation. I'll let you know how if this antivirus stuff doesn't fix the problem

Thanks for providing the crash dumps. This is a really strange issue - it looks like a crash in the AI pathfinding, but it's not in an area we'd normally expect to see a crash. I also can't reproduce it at this end at all - I've loaded up version 4.22.0 on the Experimental branches and loaded the saves from both the .zip files you've provided, and I just don't get any crashes even if I do four or five End Turns while playing in German. The programmer who would normally look into this is away on his honeymoon at the moment. We do have someone else who could potentially look into it, but before I get them involved I want to be totally sure this isn't a result of corruption on your machine. Sorry for the hassle, but can you please try following the instructions in this thread, and then start a new campaign? If you get any crashes at all, then please try switching the language to English (US) and see if that fixes the crash. Maybe there's a translation bug in the game somewhere.

No problem. I'll flag your issue with the flashbang grenade to the Polish translators then, and see if they can improve that. You're right that the easiest difficulty level shouldn't be too difficult, so I will be looking into that in Milestone 5 too. I've got some ideas about what might be causing the problem already.

Thanks. OK, I'll bear in mind your feedback about the Terror mission. As for the units not being stunned - it sounds like the issue is that you're using the Flashbang, which suppresses enemies (removing all their TU and giving them reduced TU next turn), rather than a weapon that stuns them. Suppressing them is good and makes them easier to stun, but you do need to use a Stun Baton or Stun Gun on the enemy unit to actually knock them unconscious afterwards.

Stunning all the aliens should end the mission. If it doesn't, please attach a save game so we can check if there's a bug. You can reserve TU for firing / crouching by right-clicking on the buttons for the fire mode / crouch. We'll eventually add this to the tutorial. Do you have a save game from the Terror Mission you had trouble with? Ideally a save from the very start of the mission. I'd like to test it and see if we've made the mission too difficult, but as part of the test I need to know the type of weapons and armour you're using, and how experienced your soldiers are etc - so a save game would be great.

We've now released a small patch onto the public branches for Xenonauts 2 that contains a few more important stability fixes. Bugfixes: Fixed a translation bug that could cause frequent crashes for people playing the game in non-English languages. Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur when the player opens an abduction tube. Fixed a crash that could occur if a berserking unit kills another unit that was about to go berserk.

I'm sorry to hear that's a dealbreaker for you. But if the assault rifle was so deadly at both long range and midrange that it made the sniper rifle completely redundant, I'd have to nerf the assault rifle so it was mostly a midrange weapon as was intended - even if it led to some players being annoyed that they would now need use a mix of assault rifles and sniper rifles in their team, and made them hate the game (and some would, because people rarely like having overpowered things taken away). The same applies here. I hope you come back and enjoy the final version of the game, but I can't leave the game balance broken simply because you want an item that provides complete protection from bleeding wounds AND heals so well it makes the Medikit completely redundant. Surely the gameplay can't be that atrocious without having regenerating soldiers, else you'd never have played far enough into the game to get the Automed Unit in the first place?

Thanks, yeah, I can reproduce this. We'll take a look.

Thanks, sorry to hear you're experiencing issues. Can you try switching to our Experimental branch to see if it's any more stable? We'll take a look at the bug reports today to try and figure out the issue in the meantime.

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 a crash that would occur on trying to begin a new campaign once you had switched to a non-English language. Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur when the player opens an abduction tube. Fixed a crash that could occur if a berserking unit kills another unit that was about to go berserk.

We've now released another stability fix for Milestone 4 that fixes several more bugs and balance issues (mostly related to enemy accuracy being too high). We'll continue to collect player feedback and bug reports and tweak / fix things as necessary while we work on Milestone 5. Balance / Gameplay Changes: Units now only rotate when suffering damage during the enemy turn. This avoids situations where soldiers lack the TU needed to complete their planned move after taking damage from enemy overwatch fire, as they need to turn back to face the direction they want to travel. Accuracy values for all aliens has been reduced by roughly 10% overall, and enemy Accuracy modifiers have been reduced to 0.8x on Recruit difficulty (from 0.85x), and increased to 1.3x on Commander (from 1.2x). Overall, this means enemies have roughly the same Accuracy on Commander difficulty, roughly 10% less Accuracy on Soldier and Veteran, and 15%-20% less Accuracy on Recruit difficulty. Wraith Accuracy has been reduced by a little more than the other aliens, as their base Accuracy was so high. Secton Psionic Triangulation ability now grants +30 Accuracy when active (previously +50). Automed Module now heals +5HP a turn (previously +25HP). It is therefore still excellent for healing Bleeding Wounds without spending TU, but a few Medikits are now required if you want to heal badly wounded soldiers quickly. Cleaner Accelerated Rifle is no longer slightly more accurate than the human equivalent. One Cyberdrone has been removed from the early Psyon terror sites / retaliation missions (so you now face 1 Cyberdrone on Recruit / Soldier, 2 on Veteran, and 3 on Commander. Transfer item quantities are now preserved when you switch the destination base on the Transfer Items screen. Bugfixes: If the game cannot write to the save directory, it should now display an error screen instructing you how to set a new save path rather than just crashing. Fixed a bug where soldiers could lose a few TU after having their movement interrupted when spotting an enemy (they were being charged for the full planned rotation, but only rotate as far as was necessary to spot the alien). Fixed a bug where soldiers and equipment were incorrectly being recovered after losing a mission (which could cause soldiers to survive the battle despite their corpses being outside the dropship / recovery area). Fixed an issue where soldiers on roofs / higher levels could often not find a valid move path if they were being ordered to move more than 10 tiles. Fixed a bug where the Combat Shield would sometimes not disappear visually when destroyed. Fixed the Servitor playing a human injury sound. Fixed the Servitor's body not disappearing when destroyed. Fixed an issue where tooltips would spawn more quickly than they should in some situations (which could be quite annoying). Fixed interceptor evasive roll travelling further than intended if time was set to pass at 2x speed. Fixed a UI issue where it was possible to unintentionally transfer soldiers back to their own base. Fixed a bug where you could sometimes be unable to rotate the camera after loading a save. Fixed an issue on one of the Dockyard maps where there were some missing concrete walls on the water edge tiles. Fixed a purple error texture on the damaged state of some of the sandbags in the ATLAS Base map. Made the abduction tubes slightly shorter, so they fit within the shroud of a single tile.

I don't really agree. The Advanced Medikit is the improved version of the Medikit, and it's better for full healing. The Automed Unit didn't exist in the first game and is designed to stop units bleeding out - very frequently a unit takes a hit and just doesn't have enough TU to get to a medikit before they die from bleeding wounds. That won't happen if you have an Automed Unit, and if your soldier is only lightly wounded you can just let the regeneration heal them. In its previous incarnation the Advanced Medikit was pointless, because the Automed Unit was much better in basically every way. Reducing it to 15HP of regeneration still means nobody would ever use the Medikit, because it'll still heal pretty much any wound in 3-4 turns. Is the fundamental issue here is you don't want to have to carry both items, but you want the benefits of both? Reducing a gun's damage by 80% would make it totally pointless, but it's not like the Automed unit doesn't still have a role.

Thanks, nice to hear it's brought back those memories

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: Units now only rotate when suffering damage during the enemy turn. This avoids situations where soldiers lack the TU needed to complete their planned move after taking damage from enemy overwatch fire, as they need to turn back to face the direction they want to travel. Transfer item quantities are now preserved when you switch the destination base on the Transfer Items screen. Bugfixes: If the game cannot write to the save directory, it should now display an error screen instructing you how to set a new save path rather than just crashing. Fixed a crash on the Geoscape when certain types of missions spawned. Fixed a bug where soldiers could lose a few TU after having their movement interrupted when spotting an enemy (they were being charged for the full planned rotation, but only rotate as far as was necessary to spot the alien). Fixed an issue where soldiers on roofs / higher levels could often not find a valid move path if they were being ordered to move more than 10 tiles. Another attempt at fixing the bug where the combat shield was not being correctly hidden when destroyed. Made the abduction tubes slightly shorter, so they fit within the shroud of a single tile.

Hello everyone - with July finished, it's time for us to give our monthly developer update on what we've all been working on here at Goldhawk. Milestone 4 Although we released Milestone 4 last month, we've continued to patch it with bugfixes and balance updates. As many players found the game too punishing, we've been making the lower difficulty settings a bit more forgiving - and there's another update incoming (it's currently being tested on the Experimental branch) that will reduce the accuracy of enemies. Thanks to everyone who has given us feedback, and we'll continue to monitor it while we work on Milestone 5. Fixing bugs has also been relatively time-consuming this month. With many new players coming from both Tacticon and the recent Steam sale, we've been received a lot more bug reports than normal and we've made fixing them our priority (we released our 21st patch for Milestone 4 today). Some of these were obscure stability bugs, but many were small gameplay issues - e.g. yesterday we were fixing a bug where soldiers could lose 1 or 2 TU when their rotation was interrupted by spotting an enemy. Continuing to iron out these sort of small annoyances should improve the experience for everyone. Unfortunately, a large influx of new players combined with Milestone 4 being overly difficult and having some stability issues when first released means our Recent Reviews on Steam aren't as positive as they were previously. If you are enjoying the game and haven't left a review, please think about doing so - and if you've left a negative review, just know we're working hard on improving the game and we hope you'll give Xenonauts 2 another shot once it leaves Early Access! Air Combat UI One of the parts of the game we're working on for Milestone 5 is the air combat, with a particular focus on the visuals and the tutorial. This month we've done some initial work conceptingthe final UI style for the air combat, and even though we're still exploring the visuals (so please don't read too much into the information in the concept!) we thought we'd share it with you. The other area of the air combat that we'll be working on for Milestone 5 is the air combat section of the tutorial, as a lot of players bounce off the interception minigame because the game currently doesn't even explain the controls. Hopefully a better tutorial and improved visuals will allow more users to enjoy that section of the game. It's probably also worth mentioning that the Geoscape UI is also not yet final (which is why it still looks so similar to the first Xenonauts), and we'll be tackling that once the Air Combat is done. Rescue Civilians Another system we implemented in Milestone 5 this month was the ability to order civilians off the battlefield, as many members of our community have been requesting this since our Early Access launch. The system is simple - soldiers can order adjacent civilians to evacuate with a right-click, which causes the civilian to run back towards the player's dropship where they can flee off the map edge. By default civilians will skulk around the map and avoid enemies, but once they have been ordered to evacuate they will simply sprint as quickly as possible towards their evacuation zone. Make sure you have cleared a path for them if you want them to live! Game Editor / Modding Tools The final major system we've been working on this month is our internal game editor. Our Unity 2022 update means we've now got access to much more powerful plugins, which means we can replace our creaky old game editor with something that has better performance and more functionality. Why are we mentioning this? Not only will this allow us to work faster, but the game editor is also going to serve as the foundation for our mod tools. Once the work on our internal tools is complete we'll hopefully have taken a significant step towards having a working community mod editor. That's everything for this dev diary. Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next month!