Xenonauts-2 Closed Beta Build V5 Released!

[Chris]

Closed Beta Build V5 has now been released on Steam, GOG and Xsolla. This release contains two major new features and a LOT of fixes for bugs and gameplay issues that people encountered while playing an extended campaign in our previous builds. Please note this closed beta is only open to Kickstarter backers and people who have pre-ordered the game via Xsolla on our website.

The full changelog is below, but here's the most important changes that have arrived with Build V5:

• Ground Combat Save / Load: you can now save and load the game in ground combat. This is a very complex system and there's almost certainly going to be bugs in it, so please give it a test and see what issues you can find!
• New Ground Combat UI: the new ground combat interface has arrived. If you're familiar with the old UI you should be able to work this one out pretty fast - but please give us your thoughts on what works and what is confusing in the New Combat UI Feedback thread! Also, note the following:
  • You now access force-fire mode by clicking on the fire mode buttons, rather than clicking on the weapon image.
  • You can reserve TU for a specific fire mode by right-clicking on that fire mode button.
  • Each weapon now has an independent overwatch fire enabled / disabled toggle.
• Geoscape News Ticker: the news ticker from the first Xenonauts has been brought back in a semi-placeholder form. We've added a couple of new messages (like a notification when a single item in a multi-item engineering project is completed) but for now it does largely the same as it did in X1.
• Shooting Mechanic Fixes: a lot of bugs were reported with the shooting in the last build, including the aliens being able to shoot through the walls and floors of their UFOs. These were clearly spoiling the gameplay experience so we've done a lot of fixes on the shooting!
• Reworked / Smaller UFO Maps: the combat maps previously felt a bit too large; so we've reduced the size of crash sites from 64x64 to between 50x50 and 56x56 to make things a bit more focused (as such, we've redesigned all of the UFO maps).
• Terror Maps: there's a terror mission that appears in the midgame now; it's not been tested much but it's now there!
• Alien Weapon Art: the Alien Magnetic Pistol, Alien Magnetic Rifle, Alien Fusion Pistol and Alien Fusion Rifle all now have proper inventory tile art. The advanced human weapons will begin arriving in upcoming builds too.

Strategy:

• The aliens on the various UFOs and missions throughout the game have been updated so there's more of a progression (i.e. bigger UFOs now have bigger crews, etc).
• Strength is now shown on the Soldiers screen, and also on the Soldier Recruitment screen.
• Aircraft Equip screen now has a scrollbar.
• Launch Interceptors screen now has a scrollbar.
• Exosuit now has some semi-placeholder art on the strategy layer.
• Linear weapons now use the MAG weapon art from X1 as a placeholder.
• Minor restyles to the Launch Aircraft, UFO Intercepted and Post-Air Combat screens
• There's now a spacer between the aircraft from each base on the Launch Aircraft screen.
• The aircraft selection buttons on the Aircraft screen are now a toggle, as previously they weren't showing what aircraft was selected.
• Made the weapon ammo capacity text on the Armory screen slightly larger.
• Save games should now display the game version number, as they cannot be loaded in other versions of the game (previously we displayed the internal version number rather than the public number you see on the title screen).

Strategy - Bugfixes:

• Fixed a number of Geoscape crashes that would sometimes occur when attempting to intercept UFOs at high Geoscape speeds (if the UFO escaped / left radar range / your interceptor ran out of fuel).
• Fixed a bug where some of the soldier portraits would not display their armour correctly when you returned to the strategy layer after a mission.
• Fixed the positioning of the hitbox for Russia Geoscape region, as it was out of alignment with the rest of the world.

Ground Combat:

• Alien doors now work like in X1 - they autoclose at the start of the player turn, and cannot be manually closed by the player.
• Overwatch should no longer trigger at the start of a mission.
• Overwatch fire can now interrupt movement, rather than only triggering at the end of a unit's move.
• Soldiers using a medikit will now automatically rotate if they are not facing the correct direction.
• Fire cursor now appears if you hover over an alien visible to your team, even if the selected soldier cannot see that alien directly.
• Weapons held by larger aliens are now automatically scaled up accordingly, as the Sebillians previously looked like they were using tiny toy guns.
• SMG no longer incorrectly has unlimited ammo and a 0 TU reload cost.
• Composite Armour now weighs 15 rather than 25, which makes it lighter than Combat Armour.

Ground Combat - Bugfixes:

• Fixed aliens being able to shoot through walls and floors in some situations.
• Fixed "miss" shots being able to pass through floors.
• Fixed only one half of a two-sided wall being destroyed.
• Fixed UFO teleporters so each now has a linked output teleporter (previously any teleporter could send you to any other teleporter).
• Fixed an issue with the shooting angles around the UFO doors (this was caused by some of our invisible debug entities incorrectly being factored into the shooting calculation)
• Fixed multiple soldiers being able to path into the same tile.
• Fixed UFO diagonal walls not displaying correctly.
• Fixed a bug where your soldiers could all get unassigned from a dropship after a mission (this was due to a hidden fatigue system malfunctioning).
• Fixed aliens occasionally being able to spawn inside cliffs, making it impossible to find or kill them.
• Fixed a crash that would occur at the end of the first turn any time an alien with an Alien Shield spawned.
• Fixed a crash that would occur when fighting Psyons in the late game (one of their units had a broken loadout).
• Fixed an AI hang where an alien would run through stun gas and become unconscious while pathing to fire a weapon, causing the game to wait forever for the alien to finish its move.
• Fixed a bug where units that stunned themselves running through stun gas would only fall unconscious at the end of their movement.
• Fixed the Cyberdrone and Gun Drone remaining in place when killed, rather than disappearing.
• Fixed a bug where crouched soldiers would play a quick "uncrouch" animation before rotating / shooting.
• Fixed an issue where the ground tiles under the dropship were not showing.
• Fixed an issue where the alien chair would turn white when it took damage.
• Fixed Laser and Plasma weapons sometimes firing kinetic projectiles rather than the correct type.
• Fixed some missing sections of the move path.
• Fixed an issue where TU numbers on the move path would not display on 4k screens.

It's been a productive three weeks for us. We've implemented and tested two significant features in the ground combat saving / loading and the new tactical interface, and we've also addressed a lot of the problems that people raised in the last build. These new features are almost certain to introduce some new bugs but we'll be on standby to fix any critical issues and push out a Hotfix if necessary - so please give them a test and let us know if you have any issues!

[Chris]

Unfortunately we're having some unforeseen technical issues with both GOG and Xsolla at the moment, so this build is currently only available on Steam - although we're trying to get them resolved as soon as possible, it looks to us like the problem is at the other end in both cases so we're waiting to see what the support teams say when they get back to us.

EDIT - ok, the GOG builds should now be sorted out.

[Keflin]

Forgive my ignorance, but when I launch the Xsolla Downloader, it is not detecting version 5, only 4.2. Did I need to do something to get the downloader to install version 5?

[Chris]

2 minutes ago, Keflin said:

Forgive my ignorance, but when I launch the Xsolla Downloader, it is not detecting version 5, only 4.2. Did I need to do something to get the downloader to install version 5?

No, there's a problem with Xsolla where their servers aren't detecting changes in our files correctly. We're uploading the working version of V5 to Xsolla and the download of V5 it sends out to user crashes when you try to run it. 

Until they fix that unfortunately Xsolla is going to be stuck on V4.2.

[Acosta]

Steam did not download this update until today.

[Bobit]

Did I sacrifice my steam key by buying from Xsolla? That seems fair, but will that mean I can't use workshop for easy mod management?

[wulf 21]

5 hours ago, Bobit said:

Did I sacrifice my steam key by buying from Xsolla? That seems fair, but will that mean I can't use workshop for easy mod management?

Chris did anser that some posts before, but these posts were deleted/moved/hidden. Answer is no: People who preordered on Xsolla will get Steam or GOG key (whichever they choose) when the game is publicly sold as early access on these platforms.

Only kickstarter backers do have Steam/GOG keys right now.

[Chris]

8 hours ago, Bobit said:

Did I sacrifice my steam key by buying from Xsolla? That seems fair, but will that mean I can't use workshop for easy mod management?

As Wulf said, you'll get a Steam key but only when the game launches into Early Access.