Chris

This is a small patch for the 4.4.0 release from a few hours ago, fixing a balance issue with the aircraft equipment weights and a few other small improvements. Changes: Aircraft lance weapons reduced from 8 payload capacity to 6 payload capacity. Performing melee attacks on hostile targets now grants progress points towards increasing Reflexes. The new "loading complete" sound is now played when you load into tactical combat, whether you press the Begin Mission button or use the auto-start toggle. The Training Rate value on the Base screen is now shows decimals where appropriate, as each Interrogation increases the rate by 0.5. When viewing a dropship on the Aircraft screen, the soldier list now increases in size as the dropship capacity increases (rather than a scrollbar being added). Added a new 3D model for the Fusion Pistol. Reduced the volume on the new Geocsape base construction sound.

Increasing the UFO stats doesn't really address that sort of balance issue though - if shotguns were overpowered, it wouldn't be a good idea to fix it by buffing the HP of all aliens. That would just make all other weapons non-viable and ensure everyone had to use shotguns all the time. Hardpoints are a way to potentially deal with the issue, yes - although the Angel having 3 and the Phantom having 4 is already the setup, isn't it? Anyway, give things a bit of a test once the Lances are patched and feel free to comment on the issue in the balance thread.

The Laser Lance values should also have been reduced back down to 6 weight too, but I missed that change. I'll get it patched in shortly. Basically we experimented with weapons needing more payload as their tech level increased, but decided it was a bad idea and reverted the change - but I forgot to change back the increased interceptor payload limites. I'm happy to consider increasing that payload on the interceptors ... but the problem I'm concerned about is the Angel feeling great at that payload capacity, but then the Phantom and Gemini not really being a significant improvement because the Angel can already carry most loadouts.

We've moved the Global Panic caused by a UFO finishing it's mission successfully onto the anomalies, which means that UFOs gradually inflict Global Panic as they fly around generating anomalies rather than it all happening at once at the end of the mission. I'll update the patch notes to explain that better. Yeah, I'll fix the Laser Lance in the next patch then.

Thanks. That should now be fixed in the patch I released a few hours ago.

May has been another month of progress for Xenonauts 2. We released the first experimental version of Milestone 4 a couple of weeks ago, an update which brings a lot of new improvements and features to the game. You can read the initial (very long) changelog here, but our work isn't complete yet - we'll be continuing to add new content and fix bugs until we feel the update is ready for general release on the standard Steam / GOG / Epic branches. As always, we greatly appreciate the feedback from members of our community who have played the new version. This help has been invaluable in finding and fixing bugs, and ironing out problems with the game balance. We've got most of the stability issues under control now, which means it's a good time for anyone interested in playing the Experimental build to dive in - and please let us know any thoughts or issues with the game balance in the dedicated Milestone 4 Balance thread! Campaign Balance & Stability: Over the last month we spent a great deal of time playing the campaign in an attempt to get the game balance into reasonable shape before the Experimental release. This seems to have paid off, with the update getting a positive reaction from the community so far. There's not really space to go into specifics about what we've changed (we've tweaked the numbers in a LOT of different places), but the overall difficulty progression and campaign pacing should feel smoother than in previous versions. We've also spent a lot of time fixing bugs. Most of the crash bugs in Milestone 4 have now been fixed, and we're continuing to work through fixes for the other bugs introduced by the new content. In addition to this, we've been working through our backlog of historical bugs (some of which date back to the original Early Access launch), and we've now fixed quite a few of the more serious historical issues too. New Content: We added new content in a few areas last month. Our new sound designer provided a number of new sounds for various parts of the game, such as the soldier equip screen where moving weapons and equipment in soldier inventories previously played no sound. There's now unique sounds for picking up and putting down all sorts of items (also played when switching weapons in the tactical combat), which makes the screen feel much more satisfying to use. We've also added some new 3D models for certain alien variants, some of the human Fusion weapons, and some new terrain pieces for the Farm and Tropical biomes (although these won't appear in the game until Milestone 5). Our level designer has also continued to create new maps for the game; I think we're getting to a pretty good place in terms of map variety now. As per usual, we've added a number of small usability features too - but there's too many of those to list, and individually they're not that exciting. Hopefully you'll notice one or two when you next play the game though! Finally, there's a new bug reporting tool in Milestone 4 that makes it easier for players to report bugs, which can by accessed by pressing F11 and appears automatically after a crash. This just provides a handy zip file of all the files we need to track down bugs, which should make squashing the remaining bugs in the game more straightforward! Conclusion: Our priority for this month is to finish up Milestone 4 and push it out for general release - although we're exactly sure when this will happen, because a lot depends on what feedback we get from our testers and how many bugs we need to fix. However, we'll let everyone know as soon as we're able to set a launch date!

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! Gameplay Updates: The Colossus Armour and Exosuit armour have been swapped around in the tech tree, and their stats and construction cost have been updated accordingly. There is now also an upgrade project for the Colossus unlocked from the Harvester UFO which allows you to improve their armour, which keeps them semi-relevant into the endgame (although the Exosuit is much better general-purpose armour). We've moved the Global Panic caused by a UFO finishing it's mission successfully onto the anomalies, which means that UFOs gradually inflict Global Panic as they fly around generating anomalies rather than it all happening at once at the end of the mission. Made several changes to the way Cleaner reinforcements work on the Data Raid / Eliminate VIP missions to discourage people spawn camping the reinforcements: Enemy reinforcements now spawn with 50% Time Units, instead of zero Time Units. Cleaner reinforcements now escalate more quickly, with subsequent waves of reinforcements coming 3 turns after the first reinforcements and having twice as many enemies. Mission briefings should now specify accurate values for what turn the reinforcements arrive, and the "enemy reinforcements have arrived" dialogue conversations should now trigger on the correct turns. The first Destroyer to spawn on the Geoscape now always contains Sebillians. Returned the interceptor power generation values to what they were in Milestone 3 (10 for Angel, 13 for Phantom, 15 for Gemini). ARES now has 100 HP rather than 1200 HP, as I made a typo in the last build. When in grenade / medikit targeting mode, the game will no longer preview the portrait / stats of other soldiers when you hover over their minitabs at the top of the screen (because doing this cancelled the grenade / medikit use). Updated the art on the Fusion Charge so it glows fusion green rather than plasma blue. Slight damage increase (~10%) on the Combat Knife and Energy Knife. Panic reduction for winning a Terror Site reduced to -10 local Panic from -20 local Panic. Alien Psi-Amp is now marked as Junk on the stores screen. Briefcase of Money item now has an image, and is a 4x3 inventory item that weighs 10. Added some new sounds for construction of a base on the Geoscape, and for demolishing base structures. Bugfixes: Fixed a crash that could occur when you tried to throw a grenade with a Colossus soldier. Fixed a crash that could occur if you destroyed a shipping container with a unit on top of it. Fixed selling a dropship causing the player to lose all items equipped on soldiers assigned to that dropship. Fixed an issue with the Laser: Recharge project not correctly upgrading the ammo in the planned loadouts of Unassigned soldiers. Fixed the "Eternal Interrogation" research project unlocking after you completed the Alien Leader interrogation, even if you had not captured an Eternal. Fixed soldiers that already died of bleeding wounds continuing to take damage and trigger info toasts at the start of each round. Fixed players being unable to save loadout changes if all they changed was toggling the Heavy Armour toggle on / off. Fixed the Shielded Plating aircraft armour item incorrectly using the Alloy Plating item art. Fixed abduction tubes continuing to play their humming sound even if they had teleported away due to the mission timer expiring. Fixed freed civilians on Abduction missions not being counted in the post-mission Debrief line about surviving civilians. Fixed some broken floor tiles on the ATLAS Base 3 map. Fixed the Harvester UFO hull dropshadow darkness being inconsistent between the landed and crashed variants. Fixed there being no sound played when you demolished a building that was under construction.

Thanks. Yeah, we've been able to reproduce it now - we'll get it fixed shortly.

Great, makes sense. I'll assume this bug is fixed then.

Thanks. I've checked 1) in the game and it seems to work fine, but if you have a situation where it's wrong then do a bug report and I'll check the saves to see what the random rolls are and what the target number is. Similarly, with the training facility, send me a save and I'll take a look. It might just give very slow stat increases because we slowed it all down in Milestone 3. The rescue missions now also give $50k per rescued soldier, as they're each carrying a Briefcase of Money. We'll be taking another look at the Ambush missions some time this week.

Having tested this on my own Veteran playthrough, I actually think you'll be fairly short of Alloys if you start the game by building a second Laboratory and go up to 12 scientists at the start of month 2. You'll probably have unlocked Lasers before Destroyers start appearing, and as soon as you shoot down a Destroyer and research UFO Hull Plating you unlock a LOT of projects that require Alloys.

Yeah, Alien Psi-Amps should be junk. We do need to mark corpses as Junk once the linked engineering projects are completed, but that requires implementation of a system in code and we've not got round to it yet. But it's on the to-do list. Cyberdrone Wreckage is currently junk, yeah. I should probably add engineering projects for that too.

Yeah, it's likely to be the damage roll on the weapons - the randomisation happens before the armour calculation, so if you roll 50% damage then an armoured enemy will probably take relatively little damage. Whereas if you roll 200% damage then you'll just vaporise them no matter how much armour they might have.

Thanks - so the issue here is due to the ammo for the lasers being upgraded. Do you remember when you ran the Laser upgrade that gives recharging ammo (and / or the damage upgrade project)? Do you remember anything unusual that could have been happening when it occurred? Any reason why certain ammo might not have been upgraded successfully? It looks like some ammo has upgraded correctly and some has not. Were all the laser weapons built before or after the upgrade, or was it a mix of both? If you've got earlier saves in the campaign that may also be helpful, perhaps.

Did you start this campaign in 4.0.0, or is it a fresh one? I tried to fix this bug in 4.1.0 or 4.2.0 but I'm not sure if the fix will have applied to existing campaigns. If I start a fresh campaign the armour does seem to be available for the Angel in unlimited quantities.

There's one exception to the rule - the final piece of cover is not discounted if it's adjacent cover for the unit being targeted. Otherwise you end up in some strange situations with long lines of cover. If the Mantid was stood one tile further back then both hay bales would be ignored.

Thanks. This is a very useful post. I think I'm probably going to stop the Cleaner missions spawning as soon as the Cleaner Base is exposed, and then the player can just take out the base whenever they feel like it - but since destroying it awards both cash and a monthly funding increase, they'll be incentivised to do that immediately. I think that aligns incentives better than the current setup. You're right that the mid-to-late game is still a bit lacking in variety. The plan is to add in some story elements to the end of the game in Milestone 5 that should hopefully tie everything together and give more of a purpose to the late game in the same way as the Cleaner arc gives the early game some purpose.

Thanks for the detailed feedback, as ever. It's a useful read

Thanks, glad you like the game so far. I think both the ground game and air game are improved in the experimental Milestone 4 builds too - there’s a few changes to the air combat, like aircraft equipment being upgraded rather than individually constructed and some general tweaks so its a bit less punishing in places. The idea for pilots is something we’ve been debating a while. I like the idea in principle, but it’s a question of whether we have the time to do it - and also whether it overcomplicates the UI. The idea about the different planes is a bit trickier. We’ve gone for a setup where most of the difference between planes has instead been moved onto the equipment itself, so planes can have more varied loadouts but there’s less room to differentiate different plane types. The two things I’m considering at the moment are having the speed of aircraft be upgradable, so the Angel can keep up with the Phantom etc if you pay the Alenium for the upgrade, and to make whether a plane can evasive roll be based upon how much equipment it is carrying (eg it can only roll if it is carrying less than 80% of max capacity) which might give a bit more gameplay variety in loadouts (although obviously the numbers would need tweaking again).

This needs to be posted in the bug subforums - but yeah, if this is happening then it's a bug and please write up a bug report so we look into the circumstances. It seems to work fine to me based on some quick tests at my end. Maybe the dropship was airborne at the time of the upgrade?

The in-game tooltips do explain all this if you hover over the stats in the tooltips, at least. But in summary: 1) Thermal has a damage bonus against terrain. Aliens take equal damage from each. 2) Destruction is applied after the damage calculation is performed, so it only affects future hits. 3) There’s damage randomisation of between 50-200% damage on it hit, which simulates hitting more or less vulnerable areas of the target. Skitsos maths on the hit damage looks correct at first glance.

Yeah, looks like the visual bug on the doors is back. Problem is this is really hard to reproduce at our end because it’s fine after loading a save, so do you happen to know what occurred previously?

Scouts can contain just Mantids, or I think just Sectons. From destroyers onwards it’s either Psyons / Sectons, Sebillians / Mantids, or Wraith / Servitors. Plus the appropriate terror unit as the campaign goes on.

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! Gameplay Updates: Stunned aliens will no longer suffer damage from bleeding wounds (as it's not possible to heal their bleeding wounds). The new Heavy Mentarch, Heavy Servitor and Heavy Cyberdrone enemy variants that appear late in the campaign are now palette swapped to look more distinctive from the standard versions, and are also now tougher and equipped with stronger weapons. ARES now has 100HP instead of 80HP. This means it has the same base HP value as the MARS, but it has stronger armour which makes it tougher overall. Basic Androns are now green rather than blue, matching their autopsy artwork. Right-clicking on interactive parts of the UI will now trigger a click sound in the same way left-clicking does. Added some new Andron "jump down" animations, in case they spawn above ground level. Bugfixes: Fixed a crash that could occur after a Xenonaut was killed by overwatch fire. Fixed Reapers being unable to attack. Fixed the Colossus armour animation issues that were causing it to disappear into the floor when attempting to walk in some circumstances. Fixed grenades sometimes not inflicting any damage on terrain when they hit the middle of a large object (such as a clump of trees). Fixed being unable to transfer Sentry Guns to a base that doesn't have any Living Capacity (they should only require Storeroom Capacity). Fixed the "Passive Aircraft Regeneration Item" debug item appearing in the aircraft equipment lists if you sell an aircraft. Fixed the teleport animation being visually stretched.

Yeah, that's intentional. Otherwise people think they missed an enemy on the map somewhere.