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Xenonauts-2 Closed Beta V10 Released! (Experimental Branch)


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Closed Beta Build V10 has now been released on Steam and GOG. Note that this build is only available on our Experimental branch so you'll need to switch over to get this update (instructions on how to do that here).

This build contains a number of updates to the game mechanics, the most important being the fixes to the air combat that prevent some annoying behaviour happening (such as the UFOs just circling your aircraft at long range until they run out of fuel and crash). We've also added in support for upgrading items via research or engineering projects, one of the last remaining major features missing from the tech tree. There's also some new visual styling of the Geoscape UI pop-ups which is intended to make everything feel a bit cleaner and easier to read, allowing players to focus better on actually playing the game.

Sadly I've not had as much time to play the game as I would like, so I suspect the campaign balance is still a bit of a mess. Depending on how progress goes with the implementation of vehicles and the new Modular Armour system (the two big features we're currently working on), V11 may arrive relatively soon to replace V10. If not, I might consider including some balance changes in the V10 hotfixes. Either way we'd appreciate you guys giving the game a quick test to see if there's anything obviously broken so we can try to fix it up as soon as possible!

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Gameplay Changes:

  • The Geoscape pop-up windows have been reskinned in a new style that is very similar to the equivalent X1 style, which you can see above. The style is placeholder but the idea is just to remove the visual noise that existed in the previous UI so you can focus on the key information (i.e. it's easier to read the buttons etc), and then we can make it look prettier at the end of development.
  • The game now supports upgrading items as a result of completing a research or engineering project.
  • We've made a number of updates and fixes to the air combat so things behave in a more sensible manner:
    • The Evasive Roll maneuver has been added back into the air combat.
    • Aircraft and UFOs now have a Turn Acceleration value, which represents how long it takes for them to start turning at full speed. In X1 it took aircraft and UFOs about three seconds to reach full turning speed, which made the combatants (particularly the larger UFOs) feel a bit more ponderous and "real" than in the previous X2 air combat build.
    • The pathfinding of the UFOs will now allow them to slow down if appropriate (e.g. they are turning to reach a target that is behind them). Combined with the above change, Scouts should no longer fly endless high-speed circles around your aircraft until they run out of fuel.
    • Weapons now have a seperate missile lock range, so they are once again starting to lock on some time before they enter firing range.
    • Aircraft now have a speedometer on the air combat UI.
    • It is now possible to set the size of the air combat battlefield on a per-UFO basis, and also whether the battlefield has fixed boundaries or whether they move relative to the position of the UFO.
    • If you tell your aircraft to keep fighting in air combat after running out of fuel, the aircraft no longer survives the battle. It also only recieves the additional fuel it was saving to get back to base (previously it just gained unlimited fuel, which effectively caused a softlock if you had a Scout UFO endlessly circling beyond weapon range).
  • We've reverted to the Chinook dropship, mostly due to the navigation problems that occur if you have a dropship with a "floor" that is 1m off the ground (it was very hard to click the tile behind the raised floor). There's now space in the dropship to move your soldiers around in the 5x3 troop compartment.
  • The human aircraft and UFOs now exist in JSON templates in the game files, rather than being hardcoded. These aren't exactly easy to read at the moment but this will nevertheless be important for moddability in the future.
  • Added some new research text for Alien Materials and Alenium researches.
  • The new UI now supports renaming of soldiers, aircraft and bases. Double-click on their name and a pop-up will allow you to rename them.
  • The starting squad of soldiers now has a mix of roles / loadouts, and the stats of each soldier is somewhat weighted towards the expected stats for their role (e.g. snipers have relatively high Accuracy but low Strength).
  • Aircraft on the Geoscape now fly a proper predictive intercept path based on the current heading of the UFO.
  • UFO movement on the Geoscape is now constrained to the visible area of the map, so Alien Base Resupply missions should no longer spawn off the top or bottom of the map.
  • Aircraft now have (placeholder) in-construction artwork on the Aircraft screen and in their hangars on the Base screen while they are being built.
  • The text on the Save Game screen now correctly updates as you switch between different games.
  • When you load a save game you should no longer see doors swinging open and dead units collapsing to the ground when the mission first loads up, as this is now handled as part of the loading process.
  • If you mouseover a non-adjacent target with a medikit or melee weapon, the game now displays the TU cost including the cost to move over to that unit. Clicking the target will cause your unit to move and then heal / attack.
  • Pilots now have a callsign rather than a name.
  • Soldier names are now effectively limited to 17 characters, as I have removed any first and last names with more than 8 characters and put an input limit on the rename soldier box of 16 characters.
  • There is now a "Select New Target" button on the "Target Lost" interceptor pop-up notification on the Geoscape.
  • We've fixed some of the performance issues that would occur in the GC when moving the camera.
  • Added the "alert" sound to a bunch of Geoscape pop-ups when they appear.

Bugfixes:

  • Fixed a crash from V9.3 that was occuring on Terror Sites.
  • Smoke should no longer become invisible after loading a saved game.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing units to aim lower than required. This means units should no longer aim at the feet of their enemies when at close range.
  • Fixed an issue with the progress bar on the Research screen not accurately reflecting the level of progress.
  • Fixed a bug where starting a new campaign in the same gameplay session could cause the starting Alien Invasion research to go missing.
  • Fixed an issue where blood would sometimes look white (this was due to reflection from the sun).
  • Fixed some alignment issues with the trails on plasma projectiles.

Balance changes:

  • All aircraft are now produced via engineering (including the starting Falcons).
  • A whole bunch of engineering and research tree tweaks, including the following:
    • All engineering projects take longer.
    • Alenium Missiles / Torpedoes are no longer automatic upgrades but now have to be built individually in the workshop. They cost Alenium to produce.
    • HEVY launcher is now starting equipment.
    • All aliens use Magnetic weapons for the first couple of UFOs, before transitioning into the familiar Plasma weapons. Researching these Magnetic weapons is a prerequisite for unlocking Gauss Weapons further into the tech tree, but at the start of the game it unlocks an "Accelerated Ballistics" upgrade for your starting weapons. In the next build there will be Accelerated versions of all of the weapon tiers (these are just one-off upgrades that mean the weapons do a little extra damage).
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4 hours ago, mitrida said:

Hi chris splendid work, i would only say:

remove the text-windows that appears when hidden movement come, often i cant see what happens on my soldiers.  I dont know if is a bug, maybe you can add only a text that not hides all.

Do you mean the hidden movement painting that appears during the alien turn, or something different?

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On 12/4/2019 at 1:09 PM, Chris said:

Soldier names are now effectively limited to 17 characters, as I have removed any first and last names with more than 8 characters and put an input limit on the rename soldier box of 16 characters.

I understand it's annoying to work with long strings in the UI, but this excludes too many soldiers with common, realistic names from certain countries. Which will probably be an issue once you start adding the Kickstarter ones. And would be an issue for mods that add more soldiers from other geographical regions.

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1 hour ago, Solver said:

I understand it's annoying to work with long strings in the UI, but this excludes too many soldiers with common, realistic names from certain countries. Which will probably be an issue once you start adding the Kickstarter ones. And would be an issue for mods that add more soldiers from other geographical regions.

The text area auto-sizes and can support up to 21 characters before it starts truncating the name, so this isn't actually too bad a problem. Only custom / modded soldiers will have names longer than 17 characters though because I don't see any reason to include names long enough to trigger it in the base game.

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