Xenonauts-2 Closed Beta Build V7 Released!

[Chris]

Closed Beta Build V7 has now been released on Steam and GOG. Note that this build is only available on our new Experimental branch so you'll need to switch over to get this update (instructions on how to do that here).

As this is still a highly experimental build (see below) we're not releasing it on Xsolla, because Xsolla doesn't support opt-in branches like Steam and GOG do and this build is definitely not ready to be pushed out to all of our backers yet. Hopefully it'll be on Xsolla within a week or so.

This build is defintely an Experimental build and comes with lots of features but also lots of caveats - basically, a lot of these systems aren't fully finished. I'd stay on the Stable branch for now if that's going to bother you. The changes we've made to various important systems have probably introduced some fairly significant bugs too. So don't say you weren't warned!

That said, there's a lot of big upgrades and improvements in here. We've appreciate people checking the build out and spotting any obvious issues, and also giving your thoughts on how we should set up some game systems to make the player experience as smooth as possible. You can read a more detailed general progress update and see the linked threads in the development update here: (EDIT - coming tomorrow!)

Key Features:

• New Dropship Layout: we're testing a new layout for the starting dropship that carries 10 soldiers, has side walls and a tail ramp. The art is currently placeholder but if community feedback is good then we'll get a proper model and 2D artwork done.
• "Classic" Base Mechanics: we've now reverted the base mechanics back to the classic X1 sytem where you can build multiple bases and their radar ranges are driven by the radar structures at that base. The art is placeholder (it is literally just the X1 art right now) but please test out the functionality!
• Updated Aircraft Mechanics: aircraft are now stationed at Hangars built in the new base system, and we've had to add some new UI to allow you to buy new aircraft in an empty Hangar (on the Aircraft screen). Dropships also now fly around the map again rather than teleporting to mission sites, but at present the game still only supports a single dropship.
• Improved Shot Path Sensitivity: The shot paths in the game now subdivide tiles into 9 smaller cells so it can trace a more accurate path for the shot. This is basically the X1 system now but with some further upgrades that fix some of the X1 problems related to corners and walls incorrectly getting in the way of shots.
• X1 Camera / Fog of War / Shroud: We're now using a true orthographic camera and have switched the fog of war / shroud back to being purely tile-based rather than having a fadeout gradient around the edge, which looks uglier but is necessary to support night missions. Please report any problems you see with the vision!
  • This also fixes the issue where you can see the far side of a wall (e.g. a building interior) once you see the exterior side of the wall.
• Autosaves: The game now autosaves far more regularly, including at the end of every turn of combat and before each mission. Please attach saves to bug reports where possible!
• Tooltips: We've added the first set of tooltips to the game that explain the functionality of the various buttons on the screen, and give stats / details on the various items in the game. We only finished this system yesterday so only a few of them are set up so far, but the remainder will follow in upcoming builds. One nice feature is that these tooltips are linked to the actual weapon values, so they'll always be up-to-date no matter what balance changes I (or modders!) make.
• Iron Man / Save Upgrades: we've implemented Iron Man mode, and also set the game up to autosave MUCH more frequently than before. These changes require you to name each new campaign (so the autosaves don't overwrite each other) so we've added a new UI panel when you start a new campaign; this will be rolled into the difficulty settings panel when that is implemented in the next major build but for now it has its own pop-up!

Gameplay:

• The game now autosaves more regularly than before, including before every mission and at the end of every turn in the ground combat. If you're making bug reports, those saves would be very useful to include in the report!
• Autosaves are now handled on a per-campaign basis rather than overwriting earlier campaigns, hence why naming campaigns is now required.
• Iron man has been implemented, but has not yet been tested. Use at your own risk!
• If you press Enter after typing in a save game name, this now actually saves the game (rather than just shutting down the save panel).
• Melee attacks now display "MISS" if they miss the target.
• There's now an option in the graphics settings for people who want to limit their framerate to a certain number.
• Balance - you now have 12 soldiers at the start of a campaign, and the new starting dropship can carry 10 of them.
• Balance - starting base Living Capacity is now 24.
• Balance - starting funds on the Geoscape are now reduced to $2.5m, and the monthly funding per region has also been reduced by about 30%.
• Balance - All weapons now have fire costs based on a % of max TU, rather than flat costs. The flat costs were an error on my part, as they were left over from some semi-related gameplay testing I did (X-Com and Xenonauts 1 both use %TU fire costs).
• Balance - % TU fire costs are now always rounded down, rather than rounded up. In X1 you sometimes did not want your soldier to gain TU because it would actually cause them to be able to fire fewer shots in some circumstances.
• Balance - Soldier training is now MUCH slower. Coupled with the change further down the page about stats being capped at +30 above starting values, your soldiers should no longer be superhuman killing machines about three missions in.
• Balance - Soldiers can now gain strength in combat by spending TU while carrying over 80% of their max carry capacity.
• Balance - Mind War is now squadsight for the aliens, rather than requiring no LOS.
• Balance - Mind War success chance is now Psionic Strength vs Bravery, with 0-50 random roll added to both (previously it was 0-100 random)
• Balance - the Mind Shield item boosts the Bravery (and therefore Psi-Defence) of a soldier by 25 when equipped in their Secondary.
• Balance - due to one of the bugfixes below, UFO hulls are now much harder to destroy with small arms fire. Bring C4 if you want to easily breach a UFO!

Strategy:

• Dropships now once again fly to and from missions on the Geoscape like any other aircraft. They are precluded from initiating air combat, but they can be shot down by aggressive alien UFOs.
• The pathing of interceptors has been updated so they still fly correct intercept paths when the game is on maximum time acceleration, rather than overshooting their targets. They also now tail their target correctly rather than flying back and forth over the target.
• Alien Bases now occasionally spawn Resupply UFOs that fly to their location and land, then later re-appear and fly away. As alien bases start hidden, this is a bit of a giveaway that there is an alien base nearby!
• Loadouts / Roles are now set on soldiers directly, rather than on dropship slots. This means a soldier will retain their role even when unassigned from the dropship.
• As in X1, "dead" soldiers now have a post-battle survival chance dependent on how far their HP has dropped below zero, with certain weapons (e.g. Reaper claws) automatically reducing this to 0%. In future having a Medical Center in your base will increase this chance.
• Soldiers are now limited to gaining +30 in each stat, as I'd like the starting stats of a soldier to remain somewhat relevant throughout their career. Starting stats range from 35-65 so a maxed soldier can have 65-95 in an attribute (before any equipment modifiers are applied).
• The game seed is now randomised every game, which means everything should be randomised correctly each time you start a new campaign.
• Strategic Operation soldier assignment list now displays which soldiers are already assigned to that strategic operation.
• If your interceptors shoot down a UFO that attacks them (e.g. a Fighter UFO), they will no longer automatically return to base afterwards if they were originally trying to intercept a different UFO.
• Fixed a bug where interceptors were not having their position cleared when returning to base, causing identical interceptors to have different ETAs to the same target on the Launch Aircraft screen.
• Fixed a bug where interceptors could still miss the UFOs they were trying to intercept if you set the Geoscape to max speed.
• Fixed a bug where soldier portraits would be generated in sequences, giving you lots of similar-looking soldiers.

Ground Combat:

• The roof hiding method has been reverted to the system used in X1, so there should no longer be annoying moments where you're moving the camera around trying to get the roof of a building to hide.
• The fog of war / shroud no longer uses a fadeout gradient, making it a more accurate (if uglier) representation of what's actually happening on the battlefield.
• Camera now uses true orthographic rather than a faux-orthographic perspective camera.
• We've now fully implemented the corpse item functionality in the ground combat. This operates the same as X-Com and Xenonauts 1, which means:
  • Dead / stunned units spawn an item in their tile that carries the name and appearance of that unit.
  • This item can be picked up and moved by your soldiers, and picking the item up will remove the 3d model on the ground and respawn it when dropped.
  • Whether a stunned soldier is recovered from a mission (or a dead soldier has a survival chance) is dependent on where they finish the mission, and whether you win or not. If you're going to abort, you have to carry a dead / stunned soldier back to the dropship if you want them to potentially survive.
  • Stunned units can be killed by explosions if they are on the ground.
  • We've added new armour-appropriate corpse images for the Psyons and Wraiths.
• There's a new crosshair cursor in the ground combat designed to obscure the target less than the previous ones did.
• There's now a weapon icon under each soldier mini-portrait at the top of the screen, which makes identifying soldiers much easier.
• The game now supports randomisation of weapon fire sounds, and seperate sounds for burst and single shots (previously burst fire just repeatedly played the single shot sound) - this means there's quite a bit more variety in the sound made when a weapon is fired, and this will continue to improve as development continues.
• Aliens can now be killed before a mission begins if a UFO is shot down, and the power cores of a UFO can also be destroyed (this is just a % chance like it was in X1).
• We've made some general improvements to the camera tracking of actions.
• Damage resistance now correctly supports a minimum value below which it can never fall, no matter how much armour destruction is inflicted on it. Previously extremely tough objects like UFO hulls would lose much of their resistance after a few shots, so even weak weapons could easily blow holes in UFOs (this may also make armoured enemies a bit tougher).
• The Plasma Grenade weapon has now been added to the game.
• Grenades have seen a number of fixes / updates:
  • Grenades are no longer able to hit directly adjacent cover when they throw a grenade.
  • Grenades and other explosives now have the same 50-150% damage randomisation that other weapons have.
  • Non-explosive grenades (smokes / flashbangs / etc) now detonate correctly if they land beyond their max range when thrown.
• Units with the crushing ability can actually now smash through crushable objects, and no longer smash up crushable items in adjacent tiles as they move.
• Although Base Defence missions are not in this build, we've fixed a whole bunch of problems with them:
  • The game no longer hangs when a base defence mission starts.
  • You now get an actual underground base rather than a random map, and in future this map will mirror the layout of the base being attacked.
  • You can freely set your soldiers up anywhere in the deployment zone before the mission begins.
  • The aliens then get the first turn.
• New sounds in the game for the laser weapons.
• Done a pass over the animations and inverse kinematics, so the aiming and shoot animations should work better
• Fixed a bug where units would sometimes get stuck if they stood on the corpse of another unit.
• Fixed a bug where aliens could become untargetable after loading a save game, but were actually still alive. 
• Fixed a bug where you were unable to fire at building walls directly adjacent to your soldiers.
• Fixed a bug where the Cruiser UFO did not have functional teleporters.
• Fixed a bug where the water in the jungle would be pink.
• Fixed a bug where the 3D models of the ammos loaded into all of the weapons in a mission would appear at the corner of the map.
• Reduced / fixed the heavy slowdown that could sometimes occur as you scrolled around the map.
• There's now a visual effect when you heal a unit.
• When killed, units no longer incorrectly play their injury animation before their death animation is triggered.
• The Mantids now has much more red skin, so their armour is more obvious (if they have any).
• Grenades no longer create a bullet impact decal and disappear halfway into the ground when they hit the floor.
• Androns now have visually integrated weapons rather than having a plasma rifle awkwardly bolted on at their elbow.

[Ruggerman]

If it has been released on steam, please advise as to how I can get the new revision, as it is not updating here in Australia!!

[mitrida]

hi chris, i suppose that steam key has been sent, right? 

[Chris]

5 hours ago, Ruggerman said:

If it has been released on steam, please advise as to how I can get the new revision, as it is not updating here in Australia!!

If you already have a Steam key, you need to be on the Experimental branch (see link at the top of the post). If it's still not updating after doing that then try restarting Steam.

 

54 minutes ago, mitrida said:

hi chris, i suppose that steam key has been sent, right? 

The keys for Xsolla backers are due to be sent out in about three weeks, at the end of this month. We need to give everyone a chance to reply to the email and for all the support issues to get sorted before the keys are sent. Unfortunately that means that Xsolla backers can't get this build yet but that's because (annoyingly) Xsolla is a very simple system and doesn't support branches.

[mitrida]

9 minutes ago, Chris said:

If you already have a Steam key, you need to be on the Experimental branch (see link at the top of the post). If it's still not updating after doing that then try restarting Steam.

 

The keys for Xsolla backers are due to be sent out in about three weeks, at the end of this month. We need to give everyone a chance to reply to the email and for all the support issues to get sorted before the keys are sent. Unfortunately that means that Xsolla backers can't get this build yet but that's because (annoyingly) Xsolla is a very simple system and doesn't support branches.

ok no problem i can wait

[Ruggerman]

I have a steam account, and I am in Experimental setting, but NO V7 yet!!! 

[Ruggerman]

It has come, Rejoice!!

[Valmont]

On GoG the only Channel I get is "Default", no option to select "Experimental/Legacy". 

The only other option is: Add private channels but that requires a password.

Edited September 6, 2019 by Valmont

[Ruggerman]

I spoke too soon it has many bugs, I could only do a couple of days, before it got too tedious!!

[Chris]

Yup, there's quite a few bugs in this version of the game. Thanks to everyone who reported them. We'll most likely be putting out a Hotfix tomorrow with a number of fixes.

[Dr. Ethan]

I have recently had this idea this I think could be cool with the return of X1 base mechanics and aliens invading your bases. What I was thinking could happen is that when aliens infiltrate your base they could set up like a temporary command post in one of your rooms from where they could stage the attack on the command center, so after you defend from the initial attack wave that the aliens send out you could have the option to send your troops through your rooms to attack the temporary command post which would end the attack early before they send the next wave.

This would have some pros and cons as well. For example, the pros could be, the attack end early obviously, maybe if you don't attack the command post after a few failed wave attacks the aliens could self destruct the post causing major damage to your base's rooms which could be stopped by attacking it early, and with that you could also collect valuable tech and information from the temp command post. The cons could be, its pretty dangerous to go from your well-defended position to attack the command post, you will be staging a counteroffensive against a very well defended position with the possibility of higher-level 'officer' aliens, I was thinking there could also be a turn timer that starts after you start the attack on the temp command post in whereafter it ends the aliens self destruct the command post killing all your troops in the room and severely injuring the ones in adjacent rooms.

With that being said I think it would be cool if there were a few other cool mechanics added to base defense that would increase the importance of defending your base. For instance, it would be interesting if you were able to build static defenses inside your base for when it gets attacked, it would also be cool if later techs allow you to build bigger base's (which would in turn both decrease the number of bases you need but increase the difficulty of base defense). It also always annoyed me that it never really mattered where you put your buildings in your base, this could be fixed by making the position of rooms vitaly important to base defense, for example, the aerial defense turrets could also protect certain rooms from becoming the temporary command posts, the happening because the aliens want to set up the command post as soon as they land/crash-land on your base so they wouldn't have time to move rooms from where they crashed, this would make it so you could start creating kill boxes by placing aerial defense turrets defending certain rooms to make the aliens basically only be able to crash in a certain room that could be surrounded by well-defended areas. 

[Dr. Ethan]

It would also be interesting if X2 adopted some mechanics from XCOM EW, by making some non-combatant people from your base be mixed up in the attack. For example, there could be an event where you couldn't evacuate all your scientists or engineers in time so one of the optional objectives would be for you to go and rescue said scientists or engineers or else face them being killed or captured by the aliens, this could go with wounded soldiers in the medbay as well, or maybe some of your non-combatants are being mind-controlled from a unit in the temp command base to attack or distract your units, and you could have the choice of either killing them to get them out of the way, stunning them, ignoring them, or going to kill the unit in the temp command post (which would integrate with the self destruct mechanic as talked about in the last post).

It also really annoyed me that there wasn't really any dynamic content to the rooms in your base. For instance it would be cool if you were able to send some soldiers to your garage to get in one of your tanks/vehicles you have stored in there for some extra power, or maybe some of your units forgot their weapons so they have to run to the armory (aka a section in the storeroom) to pick them up, and with the static defenses it would be interesting if there could be certain rooms created for the sole purpose of housing a massive armory of them which would help with the defence of the base.

Another feature that would be nice would be auxilary storage for vehicles and the dropships. This would be used for either emergency use (i.e. you troops run out of ammo and need a quick clip) or to be able to switch guns mid-fight(i.e. if you are up against an alien with good energy defense but poor ballistic defense but your guys only have laser guns). With the vehicles, this would be useful by maybe having vehicles have upgrade slots that you can fill with defense, offense, or utility upgrades (i.e. storage or reload upgrades which could allow for your soldiers to store extra ammo or weapons for the battlefield or allow them to reload the tank/vehicle when it runs out of ammo)

[Dr. Ethan]

Also, I just played a mission in X2, and I am loving the changes so far (other than the more than a few bugs XP), the player units (at least seem to) move much faster than before, the dropship having solid sides again is a nice addition, and being able to move where your command center is placed on a new base creation is a pretty interesting idea. However with that last thing, if you were to implement what I talked about in my last few posts, i think there should be a monetary or strategic incentive to place the command post more towards the center (to help with base defense balance) whether it is that when you are infiltrated the farther away your command center is from some rooms the fewer people you can have posted in that room to defend it, or the farther away a room from the command center the more the aliens damage it because they aren't caring too much about keeping intact for cover, or maybe the monetary incentive being that you have to build placeholder rooms (like tunnels or hallways) from the center to where the command center is to be able to build it there.

[Keflin]

I received my Steam key today and I followed the activation as stated successfully. On Steam I run the game and it installs the Closed Beta V6,3 - 17 July 2019 build. On Steam I look at the properties tab where you opt into betas and I do not see any beta option available.

So, are Steam people going to see the current builds?

[Max_Caine]

Deleted my last post. As a Steam user I can assure you it should be there.

[Keflin]

Complete uninstall and delete the the folder in steam. Install again and same version Closed Beta V6.3.

[Max_Caine]

Does this help?