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Xenonauts-2 Version 0.7.0 (Public Combat Test) Released!


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This new version of Xenonauts 2 is a free public test build, released free because it is still an early build and we don't yet think we can justify charging for it; full details on where to get the build can be found in this thread. The next update is due on Tuesday 25th April, although if necessary we will also release hotfixes for any game-breaking bugs encountered in this build.

This build has a good number of new features / changes in it. That is a minor miracle given everything that has happened over the past week - but more on that at the bottom of the post!

CHANGELOG:

  • Selection Rework: we've changed the way that clicking works to make unit selection and movement in enclosed spaces easier. Essentially selection is now done on the tile rather than on 3D object colliders, which means it's easier to click through units / walls / whatever to select things behind it.
  • Door Clicking: we've also changed the input system so open doors no longer block left clicks aimed at the tile behind them (left click selects the tile, right click opens and closes the door).
  • New Alien - Reaper: we're putting an early version of the Reaper in the game to test the model and animations. The Reaper does not yet have the "zombify" ability nor any specialist AI so don't expect it to be too scary yet ... but that will all arrive in the next few months.
  • Bleeding Wounds: 
    • Each cumulative 10HP of damage suffered by a solider causes a Bleeding Wound roll.
    • Each roll is rolled separately and has a 10% chance of inflicting a Bleeding Wound on the soldier (the same shot can cause multiple Bleeding Wounds).
    • Each Bleeding Wound inflicts 5HP of damage on the bleeding soldier at the end of the player's turn.
    • Bleeding Wounds are cured when a unit has a Medipack used on them.
    • If a unit has suffered a Bleeding Wound then it will display a blood drop icon in the top right of the soldier portrait, and you get a notification message when the wound is suffered and at the start of any turn where a soldier is still suffering from bleeding damage.
  • Stun Damage:
    • Units can now suffer stun damage and (eventually) be knocked unconscious.
    • Unconscious units are effectively dead from a mission standpoint - they can't currently be revived through any means.
    • Units are rendered unconscious by reducing their Stun HP to zero.
    • Stun HP starts at the same value as normal HP.
    • If anything reduces the modified max HP of a unit (e.g. taking damage) then the max Stun HP is also reduced accordingly.
    • Certain weapons inflict Stun Damage in addition to (or instead of) normal damage, which can be used to bring the Stun HP to zero without killing the unit.
  • New Weapon - Medipack:
    • Medipacks allow you to heal wounded soldiers and clear them of any Bleeding Wounds for a flat cost of 20 TU.
    • Remember only half of damage sustained in combat can be healed up; if a unit takes 30 damage then it has its max HP reduced by 15 for the remainder of the mission!
    • Riflemen now have medipacks and pistols as their secondary weapons - right click on the rifle image to access them (or press "X").
    • For now the healing cursor is accessed by holding Ctrl + Alt down, not by clicking on the medikit image (this will change soon). You'll know if you do it right because the cursor will turn green. 
  • New Weapon - Stun Baton:
    • Your armoured guys have a stun baton and pistol as their secondary weapon - right click on the shotgun image to access them (or press "X").
    • The stun baton is a melee weapon which inflicts stun damage on the target rather than normal damage, allowing you to capture them alive for interrogation. It's basically pointless until the strategy layer arrives but we'd appreciate you trying it out and seeing if it works as intended.
  • New Weapon - Submachine Gun:
    • Your sniper and LMG soldier have an MP5 as their secondary weapon - right click on the main weapon image to access it (or press "X").
    • The SMG is essentially a rifle with a shorter range and less armour penetration, so should allow these units to participate in the UFO assault.
  • Visual / UI Tweaks:
    • Units now correctly aim in the direction that the bullet travels, so bullets should no longer fly off at apparently weird angles.
    • Damage numbers for multiple hits from a shotgun blast / automatic weapon burst now display as separate numbers rather than a single cumulative total.
    • Damage numbers now show the full damage inflicted, rather than being limited by the remaining HP of the target.
    • Clicking on a 0% hit chance shot no longer fires the weapon, unless you are in force-fire mode (holding Ctrl or having manually clicked on the gun).
    • Xenonauts now aim for the head / chest of their targets rather than their kneecaps.
    • Units now generate a blood pool when killed.
  • Bugfixes:
    • Individual aliens can no longer fire beyond their own visual range.
    • Suppressed aliens under the fog of war no longer show "SUPPRESSED", giving away their location.
    • The alien door sound now follows the volume slider from the main menu,

It has been a pretty manic couple of weeks here at Goldhawk HQ and we're pleased that we've been able to push out a decent update despite everything. A number of features also just missed the deadline, so I fully expect the next build on 25th April to be another big update too.

Our coding team been pretty depleted over the past two weeks - one programmer became a proud father shortly after the release of the last build and has spent most of the last two weeks on paternity leave, one has taken a week off to work on his university dissertation, and another has been working pretty much full-time on the strategy layer for the past month. We've effectively only had one coder free to work on stuff for this build, so I consider the changelog to be good going.

The most obvious casualties of this resource shortage have been new maps and grenades / grenade launcher. We've got a bunch of new maps ready to go (with new UFO designs) but we were also planning to add some new types of spawn points into the map editor to give us more control over the AI scripts on units, which should allow us to pace the missions better and allow us to restrict specific units to specific parts of the UFO (instead of them all clustering by the door). Without any coder time available for this, the new maps have been pushed back to next build - and, similarly, we just didn't have time to finish up the logic for grenades and explosions.

Anyway, have a play and see what you think - post up any bugs you see in this thread or use the in-game bug reporter. I think the updated selection system makes the game feel much nicer to play (particularly inside the UFO) so hopefully you can see the improvement!

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A good build.  What I like:

  1. The bullets are easier to spot now, and I like how the screen follow them.
  2. I also like the new damage display that split the damage of each bullet and show stun damage.
  3. Love the pool of purple blood!
  4. Medkit works. Although it shows 0% hit chance on self, it can be used to self-heal.
  5. SMG make machine gunner more useful even outside of UFO, since he can now move and shot.
  6. Hello Reaper!  Why are you hiding in the UFO?  It seems that you are no longer one hit one kill.  Thanks God!

And now the bugs:

  1. Can't see cover indications.  Used to set to max radius two releases ago.
  2. Hit chance is weird.  I can make 2% burst that all hits.  Actual hit rate feel like 95%.  Some bullets hit obstacles but still damage the target.
  3. What that machine gun burst all hits, the damages disappear too fast; would like them to stack up and up.
  4. Because it is too fast, I am not sure but I think the first five bullets deal 8 damage and the last five deal 11.
    Same with two shotgun shots, all hits in first volley deal one damage and second volley another.  How is armor degradation applied?
  5. I get wound notice from shots that wouldn't hurt any of my soldiers.  I think it is nice to know I dealt a wound.  The notice is too quick for me.
  6. Soldier does not stop moving when he spots an enemy.
  7. Twice when a soldier is ordered to retreat, he turns his back from the only visible alien that only he can spot, then crouch down without moving.
    In both case the alien is being spotted the first time in the mission.
  8. The moment when a crouched soldier stand up to walk, the TU preview on the ground does not regard the soldier as standing and show the wrong TU.
  9. Sniper rifle reload cost 1 TU.
  10. HP bar's max size does not drop with reduced HP.  Number is correct, though.
  11. Haven't accidentally destroyed any cover or UFO object even when I expect to.  May be related with all hits.
  12. I tried to stun a Reaper and a Sebillian, but not sure whether it is really working.  Both have to be neutralised by guns at the end.
  13. I get no overwatch after enemy movements and reaper attack, and the aliens didn't make any overwatch either (auto-resolve off).
  14. I can't find the gameplay log.  Has it been moved?  Edit: Thanks everyone.  Got the game logs now.

Edit: almost forget the usual feature requests!

  1. Free camera?
  2. Jackal armour can be hard to spot when next to some rocks, may be a standby animation will help.
  3. Can we show enemy facing in their ground indicator?  I find myself reading a drone for a few cycles to make sure where he is facing.
Edited by Sheepy
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Thanks for the feedback. A bit more testing with some fresh eyes suggests there's definitely some issues with the stun batons / stun system in this build, so maybe don't bother testing them too hard. We'll fix up some bugs with them and get some new animations (and add sounds) for the next build.

We've also identified the bug with the burst fire you're experiencing right now - basically the issue is just that that any damage applied to anything (even miss shots) is being incorrectly applied to the target instead. So your bursts aren't actually hitting the target but are damaging them anyway. Maybe we'll release a hotfix for that as it obviously has some pretty big gameplay ramifications :)

Yes, we've removed the cover icons. They were a holdover from an older cover system that used more of an XCOM 2012 cover system; they don't really make much sense in the current incarnation.

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---
Well I don't have much things to add @Sheepy already mentioned, aside for various confirmations.
(( Replay-file can be find at the bottom again. )) 

 

11 hours ago, Sheepy said:

I can't find the gameplay log.  Has it been moved?

Not certain if "Creators Update / Edition" changes something ( I am still waiting in the "queue" for this update), but otherwise the replay-files should be still here:
 

C:\Users\%USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Xenonauts 2\Logs



...And then we have the good'old rock-wall causing line-of-sight oddities aliens exploit
(( I am certain you might noticed these things in your internal testings. But here's my observations for re-confirmations. ))

((( I am a little tipsy at the moment, the image-text might a little messed-up from time to time; I'll browse through them later to see if there is some corrections to be made.)))


First we are back to this good'old corner causing some nasty'ish line of sight issues.
Well, it's just actually repeating what I've said in some of my other reports. But here is another scenario anyways:

2017-04-12 17_05_41-Xenonauts 2.png


I think this image was to show that the move-markers are now shown under the foliage?
Foliage regardless was really obstructive.
Also I think this was also the evolution for classic game called "Find the Muton / Drone". Perhaps the "spot-marks" could cause a slight 2-second highlight-outlines for the targets?
2017-04-12 17_06_27-Xenonauts 2.png


Some more spotting-angle oddities.
2017-04-12 17_07_28-Xenonauts 2.png


This shotgun-man apparently just got the drone into his "blind-area" of his eye.
This is something I wanted to report last time, but I was missing a screenshot.
Incidentally this is the exact same spot where this line-of-sight-error happens.

2017-04-12 17_11_14-Xenonauts 2.png


A summary here is that this Psyon-Officer exploits this spot, as seen in the images following until his death.
2017-04-12 17_16_28-Xenonauts 2.png


I think I was supposed to capture a image here showing completely missing bullets still hitting this drone;
You have already confirmed this glitch though.

2017-04-12 17_17_35-Xenonauts 2.png


Path-finding oddities?...
2017-04-12 17_20_10-Xenonauts 2.png


2017-04-12 17_23_28-Xenonauts 2.png


2017-04-12 17_25_01-Xenonauts 2.png


Showing here the ledges taking priority over character selection.
This could also be an issue that I was semi-accidentally activated the game into "Borderless-Fullscreen"-mode with "Borderless Gaming"-application. ( Hopefully you'll implement a build-in-option for borderless-window-mode. )
Anyways, since I accidentally moved this rifle man instead of activating the Sniper, the rifleman ended-up being shot into his back.

2017-04-12 17_26_31-Xenonauts 2.png


Sebillian T-pose-ragdolling into "fence-rail-thing".
2017-04-12 17_29_49-Xenonauts 2.png



2017-04-12 17_32_28-Xenonauts 2.png


Something to add-on to what @thixotrop talked about camera-angles on this test-ufo; they indeed are troublesome.
2017-04-12 17_37_11-Xenonauts 2.png


Now it's been made clear that this "box-UFO" is only for the initial tests.
But for the sake of future designings: This corridor is simply too narrow.
2017-04-12 17_37_52-Xenonauts 2.png



An extra glitch-mention(s):
- When shooting with pistols in point-blank, the solider might suddenly point the gun completely upwards into skies and thus obvious missing the target. More hilariously though it will also miss the roof (if they are indoors that is).
- According to this game, even the ground bleeds blood (as in popping-up up the "bleeding-message"-box once hit).
- Doors take the priority while trying to turn around near the doors (I.E. "right-clicking" near the doors -> you're most likely going to close the doors instead of turning a soldier-token).

---
---
---

recording_9.rec

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Okay, here's my report.

Successfully knock out a Sebillion (spelling?) with a stun baton.  Interesting every time I hit him I got stun damage and resist at the same time...perhaps one was stun and the other health damage?  I noticed that no info was given after the mission succeeded except the number of soldier I lost and the number of enemy killed (nothing about capturing).

Had a soldier bleed to death because I could not figure out how to use the medic kit another man was carrying.  Tried right click, left click, clicked both ways on the kit but still no joy in applying the medic kit to the injured soldier.  The soldier using the medic kit had 28 TU remaining so it should have worked.  It took several turns for him to die but I just could not figure out how to use the medic kit.

 

Just notice have to use alt+ctl down at same time.

Edited by Larry Burstyn
use of healing kit.
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Quite a bit slipped through in this release. But luckily most bugs reported were easily fixed:

@Sheepy

  1. Hit chance is weird.  I can make 2% burst that all hits.  Actual hit rate feel like 95%.  Some bullets hit obstacles but still damage the target.
    Fixed! Small SNAFU where the target getting damage was always the original target.
  2. Because it is too fast, I am not sure but I think the first five bullets deal 8 damage and the last five deal 11.
    Same with two shotgun shots, all hits in first volley deal one damage and second volley another.  How is armor degradation applied?
    Degradation is applied per bullet.
  3. Sniper rifle reload cost 1 TU.
    Fixed!
  4. Haven't accidentally destroyed any cover or UFO object even when I expect to.  May be related with all hits.
    Fixed, see the first fix! :-)
  5. I get no overwatch after enemy movements and reaper attack, and the aliens didn't make any overwatch either (auto-resolve off).
    Fixed!
  6. I can't find the gameplay log.  Has it been moved?
    It should be in "My Documents\My Games\Xenonauts 2\Logs"

Edit: almost forget the usual feature requests!

  1. Free camera?
    This is an option settable in Options in the next build.
  2. Jackal armour can be hard to spot when next to some rocks, may be a standby animation will help.
    Up and coming in a future release
  3. Can we show enemy facing in their ground indicator?  I find myself reading a drone for a few cycles to make sure where he is facing.
    Noted down, and personally I agree!

@Pave

Quote

- According to this game, even the ground bleeds blood (as in popping-up up the "bleeding-message"-box once hit).

This is probably tied with the fact that the original target would always get damage, so it should be fixed.

@Larry Burstyn

Quote

 Interesting every time I hit him I got stun damage and resist at the same time...perhaps one was stun and the other health damage?

Yes, the resisted message is for the damage not applying any damage. 
It's a bit confusing as the Stun Baton never deals direct damage, so I'm removing the popup for that case!
Fixed in hotfix build!

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