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Hello guys , welcome back ! Since the new milestone, I decided to make a new campaign ! "I am a xenonauts 1 veteran who completed the game on insane iron man. I also ended on day 900 my first xenonauts 2 commander campaign because there was no ending and alien ship stoped spawning." This is my 4th attempt in commander difficulty (not ironman in order to respect my time and also to have the ability to savescum as a last resort if needed.) "LOSING IS FUN" My first campaign ironman was a failure because of the dooms day mechanic , its just pure luck based. I didn't have much luck regarding the green light thingy. Even today I still doesn't fully understand how it work. The only thing I know is to get as quick as possible all available buff that get you -1 doom day /panick run. The second ironman attempt was just bad luck for some weird reason my game kept crashing on turn 3 in the first cleaner mission. For some reason the general dialog would start while I was still in the spawning area. Third ironman attempt was failed because i had a bad strategy for the cleaner operations ie : "vip /rescue/ data raid ". My strategy for tactical battles : In xenonauts 1 my favorite weapons were shotguns and rifles because of the exploitable and "frustrating" leaning mechanic (the game engine was broken). Now in Xenonauts 2, Line Of Sight is shared meaning in theory that if an enemy can shoot you, you can shoot back & vice versa. This changes everything for CQB combat and weapons. For commander difficulty If you want to take the least risk, you came to the right topic. Weapons & Equipment CQB Machine guns are your primary weapon making the main used gun for your composition. For the first missions until day 100 equip your field medics with rifles and switch to full automatic when they have enough strenght capacity . Have at least 1 shield guy with a 9mm for 4 main reasons : draw reaction fire on doors / be a bait for alien fire / scout / protect wounded soldiers. Get 1 MARS : the MARS is extremly useful I use it the same way as a shield guy with the exception that it can be sacrificed and have more power of destruction Equip your soldiers if possible with : ammo<aiming module <smokes <flash<grenades. Smokes are extremly useful to avoid getting shot at and it gives you time to change positions . composition view : 1 shield 1 MARS 2 Medics 5 machine guns. STRATEGY : Use the Turtle method. After many trial and cqb testing I sorta "invented" the Turtle method wich is as simple as it is effective. You need to make a square with 1 front row and 1 back row . You can put anything as you like in your square. If needed you can make a rectangle or another shape depending of the space. Move your formation (square ) 1 foot step by 1 foot step. Be aware to face all angles and always keep a security behind as you move. If you have a small oppening or a diagonal angle where an alien is sitting : let him walk on your threshold or use grenades to get rid of him or to repostion. Take your time. If a soldier is wounded heal him and take him back to the rear somewhere safe. Weapons & Equipment for Cleaner/EXDEF operations You will need to be on the move consistently YOU DON'T HAVE TIME ! Prepare for casualties , choose meats bag that you don't expect to live. Composition I used : 1 shield 2 assault 1 shield 2 assault 1 shield 2 assault . Equip assault soldier with shotguns or rifles , first aid and smoke grenades . The mask module is mandatory on everyone! STRATEGY : RUSH B Sadly if you lose one of these missions, it can end your campaign ! You are backed into a corner so there is only one way and its to fix bayonets & yell : foward ! For the VIP just rush B get rid of the baldy and dip/ For the journalist wait 1 or 2 turn at spawn to clear enemies and then rush B don't look back/ For the rescue missions wait 1 or 2 turn and then rush B again./For data raid rush B. Side Notes: The dooms day mechanic is ruthless ! One bad move and its game over ! There is SO MANY enemies like 15+ for data raids / rescue the journalist raids it's just actually insane Heavy Armor is Mandatory in commander difficulty Grenade launcher is useless (see grenades ) Grenades becomes useless as the game reaseach goes on (im talking to you fusion nade) Smoke grenade is Over powered (I love it ) Flash bangs are kinda useless or very niche for commander difficulty Demo charge is useless or very niche for commander difficulty Shotguns becomes useless past cleaner mission (not enough damages) Rifles is useless past cleaner mission (not enough damage and/or accuracy) UI is gooood Pathfinding was changed ? Feels like it Loves the new aliens addition Love the new AI behaviour (I got flanked by 1 mantis and 1 sebillian all the way around in alien base and they killed my back security) Wonder were the alien baby stroller machine gun went Love the new spawn behaviour PRAY FOR THE ALMIGHTY MACHINE GUN The machine gun have so many advantage over the rest of the weapons counterparts : Mag dump : Shooting 10 bullets is very lethal to transform any bad alien behaviour into purple mist . Heavy armor is essential to survive a potential one-shot from enemies over 10 tiles away. Firing 10 bullets ensures at least one will land.The heavier the accuracy penalty for wearing heavy armor, the more useless other weapons become. Reaction fire : This is the only weapon that can shoot 3 bullets over 20 tiles ! It have also the benefit to add the suppression effect. TU or ACTION POINT with my turles strategy will make sure that our soldier will always shoot before the bad behaving space face that is trying to kill us . Mesmerizing : Some of the aliens have the ability to mind control like Alakazam from pokemon, big brain energy ! The machine gun will counter this mechanic because you will anyways shoot only once lmao. THE SPIKE IN DIFFICULTY FROM REALLY HARD TO IMPOSSIBLE "THIS IS WHERE THE FUN BEGINS" Everything was alright until the alien switch from plasma to fusion weaponnery and I wasn't aware what was going to take place until my second alien terror site mission in Latin America. The spike In Difficulty went from challenging to new objective : SURVIVE 8 soldier and 1 MARS vs 22 aliens and 7 Cyberdrone main battle tank it was pure nightmare I was forced to save scum twice to not lose the continent and the game

INTRODUCTION Hello everyone. Let my first briefly introduce myself since this is my first post on these forums. I’m nearing my mid-forties, I live in Slovenia, and I like to play strategy (and other) games. I have played X-COM and UFO Enemy Unknown over and over as a kid and discovered it again some 4-5 years ago. I have just completed my first and only vanilla X:CE playthrough on normal difficulty without ironman. From the outset I planned to play Xenonauts with X-Division mod since I like modded games and reading about X-Division mod I’m led to expect much higher difficulty and much deeper gameplay. I thought it would be a good idea to get myself somewhat acquainted with vanilla gameplay first – hence one vanilla playthrough. This will be my first attempt at writing an AAR of any kind. It will also be my very first attempt at X-Division playthrough apart from a short sniff of 3-4 in-game days of gameplay. For this new game I have chosen NG (standard?) difficulty with Ironman, and I think all options as set by X-Division installer. X:CE version is 1.65/0.35.1 and X-Division 1.00.11c New Dawn. What about your motivation for writing an AAR, you might ask? Well, when I played another game a couple of years ago read some AARs from various players and it was great fun reading them, especially when the player/writer had an interesting story to tell. IMHO what makes a good are somewhat developed characters and story plots, so I will try (and probably fail) to write up something in that vein. I don’t know if this kind of a written AAR thing is even interesting to anyone anymore because of YT, but it doesn’t hurt anyone so why not... I have an excuse to learn something new and write in English. Regarding the additional lore, research, weapons and new mechanics of X-Division mod I have absolutely zero prior knowledge of it apart from reading some of the spoilers in mod descriptions. No videos about X-Division were viewed, so anything I write will be my fresh view of the game developments as they occur. Finally, I’ve taken the liberty to name some characters that will be “contributing” to the story. The names might or might not resemble actual national/ethnical naming conventions and I apologise to anyone that might find my made-up names inappropriate in that regard. As final disclaimers, English is not my primary language, and I could be using some other language expressions wrong, so please bear with me on this… Without further ado, lets dive in. We start with... THE CHARACTERS Military non-combat personnel: General Hugh-Trevor Rhys-Martins 59, British General, X-Division Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) calm, sophisticated and charmless with a rare spark of charisma Yevgeny Klimentovich Voroshilov 51, Russian Senior Officer, Executive officer to C-in-C and Chief of Operations (X-O/C-Ops) son of a retired Soviet Union marshal; temperamental and loud Kurt Reynalds 54, american Senior Officer, Air Detachment Commander (ADC) WW2 pilot (4 kills) and cereer officer; an Air Force man through and through Luciano (Loukianos) “Lucky” Corelli 39, Italo-Greek Junior Officer, Quick Reaction Force Commander (C-QRF) believes in his soldiers, can get emotional (inherited this from his papa) Andy MacGuinnes 36, Irish NCO, Recruitment & Drill Officer recruits tremble when he is around, but otherwise he is a fine fella' Petra Horachkova 33, Chech NCO, Communications Liaison Officer (CLO) new face in X-Division, brought in to ease communications with outside world Knut Mathiessen 47, Danish NCO, Quartermaster seldom seen outside stores and never without a cigarette (he makes certain nobody sees what he hides in his desk drawer) Pedro de Gini 48, Spanish NCO, senior radar operator reliable and experienced Anatoly Arkadyevich Shvetsov 33, Russian NCO, Interceptor pilot distrusts all western equipment Junichi Akamatsu 34, Japanese NCO, Interceptor pilot son of a WW2 Japanese fighter ace Horatio Gisbergh 23, American enlisted, junior communications operator off-duty he is seen around wearing headphones, listening to casettes on his brand new Walkman, or writing something in his notebook. Combat personnel - soldiers: Civilian personnel: Dr. Amalric Dreyfuss 41, French Lead X-Division Scientist brilliant scientist and a pain to work with Diego Vasco da Silva Magan 35, Brasilian Junior Scientist Silent, keeps to himself Vitaly Kaganov 38, Ukrainian Lead engineer dislikes intellectuals Veronika “Verka” Burszinska 47, Polish Officer’s mess & kitchen assistant a loving mother and wife, loves a good gossip