Jet Jaguar

Awesome and thanks for the update! I just wanted to show this potential bug off so maybe it can be hot fixed, the starting panic at Veteran seems to be 60 instead of 40 for Veteran difficulty, this doesn't seem intended correct?

Just replying to confirm, no he's correct sometimes random civilians do spawn in the cleaner Intel mission. It's quite rare but I have seen one civilian spawn in the plaza outside in-between the offices be shot and killed.

Oh one small thing I would like to see added is an option for borderless full screen if possible. As someone that has two monitors, it would be very helpful!

I was also lucky enough to get accepted into the beta and found that the game is AWESOME so far, definitely a fun and exciting experience. As I play the game more I realize that some of my initial criticisms were premature and I'm definitely enjoying it more.

Also I noticed that we have three medals for a UFO crashsite mission, an alien terror mission, and alien base mission, I think it would be great if we could have a medal for alien abduction missions too.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask but does anyone know if the tooltip for this research is still accurate? Also does the 15% damage bonus apply to ALL cleaners?

Yeah maybe I just need some more experience playing this game this is just my initial thoughts and experiences, currently I'm doing a new campaign and working on my first abduction mission on month one again to try and improve and I do find it easier this time coming around. Even though it's another night mission. However I do think that THIS should definitely be looked into. The first is a picture of a captured civilian from one camera angle, the one below is the same screen, just with the camera rotated differently, on the second picture you can't see the pod. If we could make the pod be shown regardless of camera angle that would help a ton since depending on what your camera angle is you might miss multiple pods. Here's another from the same turn with different angles. Once again the pod is basically invisible.

So far from my initial impressions of playing to around day 60 so far so good! I will say that I feel like month one alien abduction missions are simply too punishing. These missions are so important that you have to do it even if you can't handle it. Not to mention if you do this mission at night or if you get a bad map layout you are pretty screwed. Your soldiers do not have the weapons or armor to be able to effectively deal with the Psyons. Too much health too much damage, even soldiers with Defender+Plate armor can't tank two shots from them even with 60 hp or above. Not to mention they get mesmerized failing any shots they take, including reaction fire! It's absolutely brutal. The time limit forces you to play EXTREMELY aggressive in order to even hope to clear it and you will often have to put your soldiers in terrible positions to rescue the civilians. I feel like overall we should be given six turns instead of five to complete the mission. I've also noticed that if a soldier gets mesmerized, but the Psyon that mesmerizes him/her dies, they do not get any of their TU back. This feels like it is simply too punishing. I guess my main complaint is that these Aliens coupled with with this mission type on the first month is simply just too much. The cleaner intelligence mission is also extremely brutal unless you come with Warden+Laser weapons, then it can be done fairly easily. However if you try to do this on month one, you will get bodied fairly hard. I feel like this mission should have a warning indicating that you shouldn't raid it unless you are prepared. Would not recommend attempting this until better armor/weapons. Magnetic weapons seem fairly useless? Too expensive to craft for too little performance increase over the regular ballistics. Wraiths are INSANELY strong, 105 HP is absolutely bonkers not to mention the cloaking field. They aren't too much to handle as long as you outnumber them greatly but if you encounter 2-3 it becomes very difficult to fight them off. They have too much health in my opinion they shouldn't be more durable than the Sebilians which seem to be the core Shock Troops of the alien invasion, but often times they are far more durable. Other than that my experience has been very pleasant so far. I've noticed a couple of bugs with Sebilians resurrecting even though they were unconscious. And it seems that if a soldier is killed on a teleporter platform in an alien ship, it can crash your game.

I am also interested in joining the playtest.

Thanks for the update and enjoy the holidays!

Thanks for the response, Chris! I was not aware of that my apologies. Yeah, that's the gist of it. Currently, I think there can be many methods to challenge the player in both combat and on the Geoscape. The tension of losing soldiers should always be present in every mission. I just believe that the best way to lose soldiers is to feel as if you made a genuine mistake or took a risk that did not pay off. That is why I feel that if we make it more punishing economically speaking, it can bring an interesting new dimension on how to manage your resources. Maintaining and upgrading the equipment for your top Veterans while also keeping newer recruits in line with previous generation armor. It can make it interesting how you manage your money, engineering time, income through idle engineers, etc. It also gives us a reason to continue to keep around the older generation of armors. You don't need a sniper to be wearing Warden armor if you plan to keep them safe in the back. Maybe they just need some lighter armor? Building only the stronger and more expensive armors for your close-medium range troops. Would you rather take soldiers with weaker armor, and have a higher risk of losing the money and time you invested in both their armor and soldier? or is it better to invest more in the stronger armor? Lowering your odds of losing the soldier and armor but potentially having to rebuild their armor repeatedly if It's destroyed. Do you give your troops with the highest HP value the best armor or do you risk letting them go around in lighter armor, risking death and damage, potentially being wounded if they survive their mission? It just seems to open up a lot of new possibilities in my opinion. It is just some food for thought, maybe I'm just overthinking it. I appreciate the consideration though, thanks and keep up the awesome work!

Well first of which, stress is currently disabled in Xenonauts 2. When stress is reimplemented you'll have to switch soldiers out. Second of which as the game progresses aliens will start using more lethal weaponry as well no? Also constantly hiring new recruits uses up a lot of money and valuable living space. That's a lot of money and construction as well as base space being used and power. As well as psionics becoming a bigger concern. Having more veteran troops with higher stats is going to better your odds, even moreso with medals being implemented rewarding you for keeping your troops alive. I apologize I'm having difficulty understanding this question. I'll try my best to answer. Currently, armor in Xenonauts 2 has an HP value. My suggestion is that when the armor reaches zero HP the armor is destroyed and when you return back to base you may construct more armor. If the question you are posing is what is the point of creating more advanced armor if your troops are staying alive in their current armor? That is a good question, but I think it shouldn't be too much of a problem. If you're armor is constantly being destroyed then you're constantly repairing it. More advanced armor will be more difficult to destroy is the concept. A larger initial investment to protect your soldiers from dying and from having to constantly recreate new armor. While if you're using previous generation armor your soldiers will be at a greater risk of dying and you'll have to constantly construct more armor. Using up more money over time and valuable engineering time. Also this kind of circles back to alien lethality increasing as the game progresses and you start encountering more advanced weaponry. You'll lose a lot of soldiers if you're sending out rookies in defender armor, when you're encountering psionic enemies and plasma weapons.

Thank you for taking the time to address my concerns and I understand how difficult it is to balance. I believe the changes you've made are a clear improvement. I am aware that soldiers are meant to be an expendable resource and that armor is not supposed to guarantee one's survival. The aliens should always be seen as a threat no matter at which point in the game you're facing them. Risks should always play a part in every battle you command. I agree with that sentiment entirely. I do believe that their could be a possible middle ground? We could increase the likelihood of soldiers bleeding out and lower the amount of turns they have to be stabilized from three turns to two. We could also make it that if armor is fully destroyed in combat that you then need to build more armor. As of right now you really only need 10 copies of armor, because as long as your soldiers do not die, you can switch them out with your squad as you see fit. However if we were to make it that for armor that's HP reaches zero is destroyed then the player now has a choice of whether to spend more time and money on building more armor for their soldiers. This punishes the player for taking bad risk assessment and putting the soldiers in positions where they are at risk of being fired upon. The best defense is to never get shot after all. In exchange we can slightly increase the HP value of armor to compensate. That way armor is slightly more effective but now a lot more influential over your economy. If your soldiers are surviving the fire fights more often but you're now always spending more money and more time on constructing armor, the player now may be faced with slower engineering time, since they're constantly creating new armor and has another choice. Do they spend more money and time on armor or do they risk sending their soldiers out with no armor or weaker armor? This becomes even more influential when we take into account idle engineers now make you passive income. Forcing the player to choose, what do you think?

Another awesome devblog update as usual! I'm really excited to see that engineers and scientists can now make a tidy profit. Maybe this might even lead to Advanced Workshop rushes to build items and make money as a new viable strategy. Since the faster you build things the quicker you can advance and the more time your engineers will be on idle. With engineers now generating money for being idle, it also makes sense to run fully staffed advanced workshops.

Awesome stuff! Keep up the amazing work as always guys!

I agree that the lower tier armor should still be vulnerable to being one shot, I just don't think it should lead to instant death, there's been so many times where a soldier with 65 HP and Combat Armor just dies on the first mission to a random reaction shot that activated the moment he was spotted by the alien, It's just frustrating. I think the medbay could use some improvements, definitely. Perhaps lowering the construction period by a week or so can make it more impactful in the early game.

True, but that still doesn't address the outstanding issue of your soldiers potentially being insta-gibbed with no counter play. That's the crux of the problem.

I agree, I just don't think soldiers being one shot through their armor with no way to save their lives is fun or interactive, It's just frustrating. I would understand if you're using under tiered armor. But what's the point of rushing combat armor if your soldiers just get one tapped by alien magnetic pistols? This would be true if there is absolutely no RNG involved with the game's mechanics, but damage has a spread, everyone has variable hit chance, you don't have perfect knowledge about which aliens you're fighting, where they are, etc etc. I'm not saying this game shouldn't have RNG, I am saying this game shouldn't punish you for investing in armor that has a fairly high chance of failure. To have a soldier die in one hit with no counter play is just not fun or engaging. Even if you move all of your soldiers one tile at a time through the fog of war, if there's an alien over watching a corner that you're walking through, that soldier has a HIGH likelihood of dying irrespective of his armor, or his health values, hell even combat shields have an 80% chance of being worthless. I wouldn't mind if the soldier was one tapped but survives at the end of the mission. Similar to the bleed out method in XCOM as mentioned above, maybe we can heal them to stop the bleeding but that soldier is now incapacitated for the duration of the mission.

Does anyone else feel that the alien lethality in the early game feels too high? It feels like recruiting soldiers based on HP and loading them with the best armor you can afford is pointless because they still get one shot no matter what. I wouldn't have a problem if it was unarmored soldiers being killed, but it feels extremely frustrating and punishing when one of your soldiers just bites the dust because an alien just one taps your soldier through their armor. What's the point in buying armor if it doesn't save their life or reduce casualties? I think that a soldier that gets downed in one hit through their armor should just fall unconscious for the duration of the mission. They can also make the soldier have an extremely long recovery period while they're at base and not die outright, that way their armor still protects them but you are still a man down during the mission. What do you guys think?