Xenonauts 2: Research Tree

[Chris]

The research mechanics in Xenonauts 2 are the primary method of storytelling in the game and also the avenue by which the player unlocks all the exciting new equipment they get to use in battle against the aliens. The tech tree in the original Xenonauts was adequate but took some criticism for being too straightforward, so we're hoping to add a bit more player choice in Xenonauts 2.

The topics of discussion here are:

• Game Lore
• Research Structure & Equipment Tiers
• Modular Armour

 

Game Lore:
How interested you are in reading technobabble about your latest invention and discovering the story behind the aliens you're fighting is really down to personal preference, but I know a lot of people appreciated the fact that Xenonauts makes an effort to maintain an internally consistent universe and justify why the game works like it does. If you're one of these people, good news - this is something we're expanding on with Xenonauts 2.

The research writing isn't yet finished, but we're planning to include more lore that the player can seek out if they want to read it - indeed, doing so is planned to unlock an alternate ending. I've tried to make the backstory of the aliens a little more interesting than before, made an effort to make fundamentally unrealistic tech sound a bit more plausible, and made the actual game storyline more complex than just capturing aliens of increasing seniority until the final mission gets unlocked. Hopefully people will enjoy it.

I'm also conscious that I don't want to force this stuff onto people if they aren't interested, so you can also safely ignore it if you don't particularly care.

Research Structure & Equipment Tiers:
The research tree in X1 was fairly straightforward in the sense that it was mostly just unlocks of tech that were universal upgrades over what came before. This didn't really give the player much in the way of research choices - e.g. there was no reason to prioritise plot research over upgrading weapons or armour, and if unlocking plasma weapons requires you to have first unlocked laser weapons then there's no way to skip past tiers of technology to gain an advantage, etc.

The first change is therefore to try to differentiate the different weapon tiers more than in the first game. Although more advanced weapons should still be better overall, there's still space to make them behave differently - e.g. the laser weapons could have recharging clips and be unusually accurate. Certain enemies may also have a resistance to either kinetic or energy weapons, encouraging the player to change out their loadouts if they know what type of enemy they are facing. This is a more interesting setup than the "more advanced weapons are always better in every situation" model we used in X1.

Swapping out loadouts based on the enemies present is only possible if the player has access to the X2 equivalent of the Hyperwave Decoder, so in the current design the early plot research / missions unlock better radars and the Hyperwave Decoder. It's therefore possible to get these very early on if you prioritise them, but doing so obviously means you're not getting advanced weapons / armour / aircraft etc as early as you would otherwise.

Another change is that there's no longer any research projects that auto-upgrade things (like the explosives projects did in X1) - these now unlock engineering projects that take time and resources to do this. In the current design there's also a "V2" upgrade for each of the weapon technologies that improves the stats of an older weapon tier, the idea being that people can either commit to the new weapons or run an upgrade project to try and keep their existing weapons relevant for longer.

Overall, we're just trying to make a few sensible changes to the research structure to make it a bit more interesting. We'll only be able to see the full effects of these changes when the game is fully playable (most of them represent fairly fine balancing) so we're not completely sure yet that they are good changes, but I'm fairly confident they'll improve the game!

Modular Armour:
One of the biggest improvements to the equipment / research system in X2 is the addition of modular armour. In the first Xenonauts most armour tiers had two armour variants - for example, the Wolf armour was heavy and protective, and the Buzzard was a similar tech level but offered less protection and integrated a jetpack.

In Xenonauts 2 all of this would be represented by a single suit of armour. Equipping a soldier with Wolf armour would offer them a certain amount of protection and give them access to a number of additional armour modules that can be independently activated, such as:

• Heavy Armour: this adds extra armour to the soldier, but increases the weight of the armour.
• Rebreather: this makes the soldier immune to gas damage, but slightly reduces their Accuracy.
• Tactical Visor: this gives the soldier an Accuracy boost, but reduces the protection offered by the armour.
• Jetpack: this allows the soldier to move vertically, but increases the weight of the armour.

You can probably see how you can create an equivalent for the X1 Wolf and the X1 Buzzard using that system, but there's additional customisation options too. Maybe most of your soldiers want Heavy Armour, but only your close range shotgunners need a Rebreather. You probably want to give your snipers a Tactical Visor, but do they need a Jetpack as well?

Individual modules can be unlocked or upgraded by research; e.g. the Heavy Armour can be upgraded to offer better protection via research, and the appearance of the Jetpack module could be tied to completion of a research and subsequent engineering project. Anyway, this system should make your soldiers more flexible than before, and I'm also very keen to see what modders can do with it once our mod tools are released!

[EurekaSeven]

Good to have more lores! I'm always excited to read about the settings of Xenonauts and i even find it interesting for adding personal comments into lore articles like X:CE did, which made me feel that we are having an "alive" staff with a decent sense of humor, I hope the new lore stories can dig deeper into the Cold War authentic elements as well, like the counter-espionage for stolen technology story in X:CE was a really interesting side plot.

I'm also curious about the new story of this case. What would be triggering the alternative endings then? Would players still get this ending if they chose to research the specific project even if they dont know what it is, or if they completely ignore what the lores are saying, they won't unlock anything related to the alternative endings?

[Alienkiller]

Like before in the Other Parts I can say as an Beta-Tester:

1. Read the Game Lore Texts for the Storyline. They are very interessting and Chris as well as his Helpers invest much time in it. People which don´t read it have to play Ponnyhof.

2. The Research Structure & Equipment Tiers are a very hugh improvement to the Game. Here a big Thanks to Chris and his team for what we could see in the already existing Betas. It´s not finished yet and need a lot of work to do. We will see what have done to Beta 13 in this case.

3. The new Modular Armor System is amazing. Thank´s for that and keep up the good work.

[Ninothree]

more lore, alternative endings 

One thing that confuses me is that AAA games always seem to have a pretty weak story line. Sometimes it feels intentional, like they want to spend $$$ on the graphics but only pennies on writers. XCOM2 did a good job of crafting a scenario to fit the gameplay (i.e. guerrilla fighters), but the story line was not at all compelling and didn't drive you to discover things through research. This is not to say that the X1 story line should've won the Booker Prize but the way the story was delivered was interesting, almost neo-noir (yes, I did just look that up). I really like the idea of burying something in the research reports, so you as the player/commander actually have a role in reading them and putting two and two together.

For the research structure and equipment tiers - this sounds a bit more like a skill tree for an RPG or something. So each campaign you can create a different 'build' (but if you have the patience you can unlock every upgrade). On that point, I think it is preferable to go down the route of a research-based skill tree for the squad, rather than a perk-based skill tree for each soldier. 

In terms of the engineering upgrade projects - that better reflects the reality of R&D / R&T. As a suggestion, could this involve live alien captures? Speeding up the project by getting info on advanced tech through interrogation. In line with the above (about creating a tech-based build for each campaign), such games usually involve some kind of crafting or grinding to get the optimal equipment. I think linking actions in ground combat (e.g. captures) to progressing tech would make both aspects of the game more rewarding. Ideally, I love to see some elements of 'snatch and grab' missions, where you specifically target the aliens with heavy weapons, loot their corpses, then leg it before you get pwned.

[Xeroxth]

On 5/20/2020 at 8:22 PM, Chris said:

Another change is that there's no longer any research projects that auto-upgrade things (like the explosives projects did in X1) - these now unlock engineering projects that take time and resources to do this. In the current design there's also a "V2" upgrade for each of the weapon technologies that improves the stats of an older weapon tier, the idea being that people can either commit to the new weapons or run an upgrade project to try and keep their existing weapons relevant for longer.

Oh this is just my jam! I always love how old and tested weapons can be kept relevant in universes like 40k. But these shouldn’t be just v2 upgrades as you say but they should have certain perks over other weapons so that they can be kept around after more advanced types of weapons are made. For instance:

- normal guns -> ETC guns (v2) -> RAVEN guns (NATO exclusive v3 - a high rate replacement for rocket launchers) / Chemogyrojet guns (Soviet exclusive v3 - just straight up the heavy bolter from 40k but can only be used with power armor)

- laser guns -> alenium focused lens (v2) -> Heat ray (NATO exclusive v3 - basically Martian death rays from Mars attack, only comes in rifles variant; a burst laser weapon with higher chance of critical hits that turns enemies into cartoonish steaming skeletons) / Las riffle (Soviet exclusive v3 - shoot a continuous but short ranged beam that increased in damage the more TU given to it, the mechanism was mentioned by some posters on the general discussions, only comes in carbines, practically very similar to the las guns from Dune and Judge Dredd) -> point defense armor ( a kinda v4 version of laser weapons that offer 25% of shooting down grenades or missiles about 5 tiles from the soldier, only if you go all the way with NATO)

- mag guns -> rail guns (NATO v2, big damage, good accuracy but small ammo capacity) / coil guns (Soviet v2, less accurate but can use multiple ammo types like Flechette shot) -> mag puller (Soviet v3, use the magnetic field itself as a weapon to break down the target molecular bonds, really powerful and long ranged but only have one shot per magazine) / grav immobilizer (Allied v3, pretty much Jojo’s Echoes Act 3, increases the target weight so much that they can’t move, do no damage to normal enemies but drain their TUs for the turn if hit, deathly to drones) -> mag shield (a v4 upgrade to mag tech and also the best version of the riot shield, you can only get if you follow the USSR all the way, have a 10% chance of reflecting the damage back to the shooter)

- plasma guns -> plasma capsules guns (NATO exclusive v2 - offer more control bursts but lower damage, a sniper only variant) / Sun guns (Soviet exclusive v2 - extremely powerful to the point of vaporizing alien officers in single shots but is very unstable as it works by overcharging the plasma charge to the heat of the sun, can explode violently if overheated comes in only pistol variations)

On 6/9/2020 at 3:35 AM, Ninothree said:

So each campaign you can create a different 'build' (but if you have the patience you can unlock every upgrade).

This could add a huge amount of replayability if implemented right. For instance you could go for a pure dakka run with lightly armored soldiers using overwhelming firepower to kill enemies before they can hit you. Or a stealth run where most of your soldiers is equipped with deflector shields, neural implants, cloaking fields and plasma sabers to charge at the enemy like techno knights.

[Alienkiller]

I have to mention some Ideas which I get during Testing, without to destroy the easy Research Way and Upgrades in the Game such as I could test for now.

Weapons-Research and Upgrade:

Basic-Ballistics -> Accelerated Alien Weapons -> Acellerated Ballistics (very good); The already used Ballistic-Weapons from the Combat Team should be upgradeable [Sniper, LMG, Rifles, Pistol, Shotguns] with an Workshop Project [like the Laser-Weapons to upgraded Lasers] and all new ones have to be produced then normal

Basic-Ammo -> Alien-Ammo-Clips -> Upgrade Standard-Ammo for more Armor-Destruction (doable?); R & D-Project

Accelerated Ballistics -> Alenium -> Laser-Weapons (Laser-Weapons are to fast researchable)

Laser-Weapons -> Alien-Plasma-Weapons -> Advanced-Laser-Weapons (like announced in an Version Text)

Cevlar-Armor (Heavy Combat Armor) -> Alien-Alloys -> Warden Combat Armor (very good); The already used Heavy Armor used from the Combat Team (mostly 5 or 6) should be upgradeable with an Workshop Project (like up to Beta 14 or so); all new Warden Armors have to be produced then normal

Warden Combat Armor -> Alienium -> Alien Alloy Fabrication -> new Combat-Armor [forgott the Name] -> Warden Combat Armor Upgrade (lighter Armor-Weight, lighter Production, Cevlar-Reduction etc. [doable??])

light Night-Vision-Upgrade [heavyly discussed] with R & D (what Human-Alien-Tech??)

Long-Range-Tanks for your Fighters [extra Equipment]

Turbine-Upgrades from Alien-Alloys [R & D-Project]

Troop-Transport-Upgrade from Alien-Alloys [R & D-Project]

Research like specials Weapons from beginning on after the first Alien Meeting [Throw Stars, upgraded-Standard-Ammo like above announced etc.]

To the other Weapons and Armors I can´t say anything, because I haven´t had Plasma Weapons and Gauss-Weapons and the other Armors yet.

We need more R & D, like my Idea with Engine-Upgrades for the Fighters [Afterburners in Battle], long Range-Upgrades for your Fighters, better Figher-Electronics and Troop-Transport-Electronics, Alien-Alloys-Upgrade for your Transport, the fighters get upgradeable to the next Generation and similar things.

If there are Ideas too which aren´t complicated and again easy to implement, then tell it?

Edited January 18, 2021 by Alienkiller

[Komandos]

It's not a bad idea if research requires not only artifacts of alien technology, but also living aliens who will help uncover this technology. In addition, the progress of research requires more than one instance of alien technology, and sometimes more artifacts.

 

My opinion is that the main strategic resource that contributes to victory should not be money, but new knowledge and technology. Even if you give the player an unlimited amount of finance, this should not affect the difficulty of the game in any way. Because the main strategic capital is knowledge / technology turned into material objects. So I vote for a very detailed implementation of this aspect of the game.

[MrAlex]

10 hours ago, Komandos said:

the main strategic resource that contributes to victory should not be money, but new knowledge and technology.

This is more typical of the Aftermath series. Where the player was given everything in the missions and almost nothing had to be bought. I did not like this approach. In real life, you have to pay for everything, and nothing is given for free, so the existing gaming economy is more relevant. 

It would be even better if the ammunition for the weapon had to be made separately and they were not endless.

[Komandos]

I don't mind the money in the game. I am against them being the main strategic resource that determines victory. For example, on a tactical map, money does not determine victory. The main resource on the tactical map is the soldiers and fire suppression equipment of the enemy.

[Kamehamehayes]

6 hours ago, Komandos said:

I don't mind the money in the game. I am against them being the main strategic resource that determines victory. For example, on a tactical map, money does not determine victory. The main resource on the tactical map is the soldiers and fire suppression equipment of the enemy.

Why? Are you sure that money doesn't determine a tactical victory as well? Well equipped soldiers with better weaponry, armor, etc are more likely to defeat a less funded one (ignoring the number of soldiers or tactical prowess but the player should have better tactics than the alien anyways), its just common sense.  It presents a big challenge in the strategy layer since you have to manage your funds to keep your struggling organization afloat while competing with the growing power of the aliens. 

It is a great system that makes the game challenging and the strategy layer interesting. You said you don't like the current money system so what system do you propose instead? 

[Komandos]

4 hours ago, Kamehamehayes said:

It is a great system that makes the game challenging and the strategy layer interesting.

Let's say we decided to abandon the "great" monetary system, which makes the game "challenging" and the strategic part of the game "interesting". Let's say we decided to make all the resources that we used to spend money on free. 

How much will this accelerate our victory? Yes. Now we can lay the maximum number of military bases at once. Theoretically, you can buy an unlimited number of soldiers, scientists, engineers, weapons and ammunition. However, in practice, this has little effect on the game. We still can't say when or how we will defeat the aliens. The construction of military bases and modules takes time. The number of personnel is limited to living quarters, and the number of weapons is limited to warehouses. We still don't know anything about the aliens. Their research requires time and artifacts that we can only get on combat missions. Combat missions and the artifacts we get on them depend on the rate of expansion of the aliens. We are no closer to winning.

When there is a lot of money, we will definitely not lose, although there is no guarantee that we will win.

Total: the money in the game only serves as a "trigger / defeat indicator", which disables the player access to the necessary resources. However, any other resource can serve as such a "trigger/indicator of defeat".

Such a trigger/indicator of the defeat can act as a time (timer). Such a trigger/indicator of defeat can be the military bases of the X-COM organization. (The aliens destroy them faster than the player can launch production and research on them.). Such a trigger/indicator of defeat can be soldiers, scientists, engineers (they die faster than they are replenished with new ones). All this affects our strategy.

Money is not a super-necessary resource. Prove it with the help of different games. Xenonauts have a very simple strategy: at the very beginning of the game, you need to establish control over the territories that will bring the player income. The sum of these revenues determines the speed of research and the speed of production, and therefore the speed of victory. The main decision that the player makes at the beginning of the game is to cover the territories with the construction of the first military bases, and the rest of the game gets the consequences of this decision.

 

4 hours ago, Kamehamehayes said:

You said you don't like the current money system so what system do you propose instead? 

I would  suggest  a system that was implemented in Jagged_Alliance2. There are key points (for example, cities) that the aliens occupy with their troops. These troops can be pushed back. The more of these key cities are controlled by alien forces, the slower your scientific research progresses and the slower your production goes. The progress of science stops at a certain percentage. At a lower percentage ,  the production progress stops.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Komandos

[Kamehamehayes]

4 hours ago, Komandos said:

Let's say we decided to abandon the "great" monetary system, which makes the game "challenging" and the strategic part of the game "interesting". Let's say we decided to make all the resources that we used to spend money on free. 

How much will this accelerate our victory? Yes. Now we can lay the maximum number of military bases at once. Theoretically, you can buy an unlimited number of soldiers, scientists, engineers, weapons and ammunition. However, in practice, this has little effect on the game. We still can't say when or how we will defeat the aliens. The construction of military bases and modules takes time. The number of personnel is limited to living quarters, and the number of weapons is limited to warehouses. We still don't know anything about the aliens. Their research requires time and artifacts that we can only get on combat missions. Combat missions and the artifacts we get on them depend on the rate of expansion of the aliens. We are no closer to winning.

When there is a lot of money, we will definitely not lose, although there is no guarantee that we will win.

Total: the money in the game only serves as a "trigger / defeat indicator", which disables the player access to the necessary resources. However, any other resource can serve as such a "trigger/indicator of defeat".

Such a trigger/indicator of the defeat can act as a time (timer). Such a trigger/indicator of defeat can be the military bases of the X-COM organization. (The aliens destroy them faster than the player can launch production and research on them.). Such a trigger/indicator of defeat can be soldiers, scientists, engineers (they die faster than they are replenished with new ones). All this affects our strategy.

Money is not a super-necessary resource. Prove it with the help of different games. Xenonauts have a very simple strategy: at the very beginning of the game, you need to establish control over the territories that will bring the player income. The sum of these revenues determines the speed of research and the speed of production, and therefore the speed of victory. The main decision that the player makes at the beginning of the game is to cover the territories with the construction of the first military bases, and the rest of the game gets the consequences of this decision.

 

I would  suggest  a system that was implemented in Jagged_Alliance2. There are key points (for example, cities) that the aliens occupy with their troops. These troops can be pushed back. The more of these key cities are controlled by alien forces, the slower your scientific research progresses and the slower your production goes. The progress of science stops at a certain percentage. At a lower percentage ,  the production progress stops.

If we choose your scenario and somehow nothing costs any money (I guess we are facist now), it would destroy a lot of the challenge of the game. We can max literally everything from the number military bases to to the facilities that make them up. While the difficulty in the early game doesn't change all that much, later in the game this system would completely destroy the difficulty curve since you can research and develop to your heart's content while doing so, causing you to be able to have almost everything you want as soon as you complete the research for it and take the time to produce it (which won't take long since you can max out your scientists/engineers too without much consequences). You said that by doing this we are no closer to winning, while this statement is correct that was not the reason this system is here in the first place. The reason it is here is to increase the difficulty by having another resource you need to manage wisely in order to make your organization prosper. 

 

Money is a super necessary resource. As I have already said it increases the difficulty, but it also does something else. This system increases the believability of the game. If you were the head of a military organization with the almost insurmountable goal of protecting the world from a massive alien invasion. Securing funding from your organization should be of the most pressing issues that faces your organization, and its lack of funding throughout the game makes perfect sense. The countries of the world are already struggling to defend their citizens from the invaders, so they have very little to give to the Xenonauts due to most of their funds being spent on defending themselves. The rest of your statement literally does nothing to help your point, the first base should be built with this in mind and you should feel the consequences of this decision throughout the rest of the game. Doesn't your point only help to prove mine? 

 

The issue with your proposal for a different system is that it already exists within the game, already bundled with the money system. If you let the aliens terrorize and take over major funding regions your funds go down which decreases the amount of facilities, scientists/engineers/soldiers, and equipment you can have which obviously slows down your production, research, and the general means which you can fight the aliens. 

[Komandos]

I played Xenonauts by setting a maximum budget that allows me to maintain the game's programming code. I also played Xenonauts with the usual starting amount. This did not affect my tactics in ground battles in any way. In both cases, I had the same success. Money only slows down the game. And the acute lack of money made the game less interesting. The lack of money prevented me from turning the game into a "sandbox", when the gameplay becomes too monotonous and I have to find a way to have fun on my own. The money in the game only serves as an "indicator of the player's defeat". They are a condition of the player's defeat. Total: The war is for the budget, not against the aliens. At the end of the game, the player does not rush to deal the last blow to the alien, but continues to increase the budget until he gets tired.

[MrAlex]

14 hours ago, Komandos said:

I would  suggest  a system that was implemented in Jagged_Alliance2.

As I told you in other topics, we are not trying to create a new game here. We testers look for bugs and suggest possible improvements. What you offer is a complete change of game mechanics. I wouldn't play what you suggest, and probably most of the fans too. So I don't think it's an improvement on the game.

[Komandos]

Kamehamehayes 

The developers decided to add another "resource" / success indicator-time (timer). An orbital laser that destroys a planet in succession. But this does not increase the number of winning strategies available to the player. On the contrary, they are limited to a small set of options that can satisfy the time resource.

I vote for implementing other resources that determine a player's win or loss.

 

[Alienkiller]

Exactly MrAlex. Very good said. No more, no less. Ideas which get in the existing Game and upgrade it are seen well. Everything else is waste of TIME and much more WASTE OF MONEY.

It´s like in the Game itself. We have limited Ressources and have to use them wisely before the Game has to go in Early Access-State.

@ Komandos: if you have some Millions $ and / or 1 or 2 Decades for Programmimg, than you can do it, but you won´t be happy. The best Example for your announced System is Hoi 4 from the atm exsiting Basic Version. There the existing DLC´s don´t change anything in Economy. The not correctly Working Economy is the Problem there, so that for the next Version a complete Base-Game-Refit and an big DLC have to be done, which takes about 1,5 to 2 Years.

If you look in it, then you will see, that such a System won´t work. The Devs from Firaxis had an similar Problem, because you don´t have Money in XCOM 2. What else they have to look for? Exactly the Payment are normal Ressources (Eat, Drink, Food and such) as an Alternate $-Payment, which you need for your Buildup etc.

In Xenonauts you don´t have that Problen, so real Payments like $, Rubel, Euro get in the Game like in the old X-Com Games, Civilization, Sim City etc. So Money is an much needable Ressource to get other Ressources you need. 

 

[Komandos]

On 5/20/2020 at 4:22 PM, Chris said:

Research Structure & Equipment Tiers:

You can add scientific research to the game, which will become available to the player not after the artifacts captured on the battlefield, but according to the results of the combat mission.

For example: during the execution of the combat mission, the player lost all the tanks. Bottom line: The player receives research to improve the armor of tanks.

Or:

During the combat mission, the player hit the alien many times with a machine gun, but the alien did not die.

Bottom line: the player receives research to improve machine guns.

 

Or: during a combat mission, the player lost half of the team. Result: the player receives a study of a transport with a large crew (there were 10 soldiers, can become: 12; 14; 16, etc.).

 

Or: during a combat mission, several armored soldiers died after the first hit in them. Bottom line: The player gets a study for the best armor.

 

And so on.

[Alienkiller]

The R & D-System wont be changed in its Mainpart as it is anymore. There is a to long Programming Time and Testing done to get it like it is now (over 4 Years). It´s working Stable and give the Player enough to do. Some Ballancings have to be done, not correctly working already integrated Upgrade-Features bugfixed and Gapfillers have to come in (Texts, Pictures etc.).

The only thing what is missing are Special-Projects for the Techs / Scientists. In an seperate Hangar (Outposts) analysis from UFOs or Upgrades from the older Fighters with new Materials for the Founders / Defense-Fighters for the Outposts. There are many other Things we already have tested and the other Games have already in (new XCOM-Series, UFO 2 ET, UFO:AI-Fanproject etc.) like make Radars, Testing-Centers or whatever more effective.

[Komandos]

It will not be difficult to change the conditions for the appearance of 1-2 studies. (Or copy the program code and paste it, creating a parallel study). The creators of mods cope with such a task.

[Lord Blade]

I love the idea of more lore, and more things to research. That's part of the fun of these games. I would very much like to see more entries for the different classes of each alien race. So capturing one of each should unlock it's own entry (and some could have specific tech unlocks, like a Ceasan psionic unlocking some psi-tech, while a Ceasan soldier might get an armor upgrade). Then there would be the basic entry for the race and the autopsy for each (the race entry from simply capturing any class alive).

 

The tech tree in general I would like to see more of. Expanding it is always good. More tiers would be nice, though understandably challenging. However more general items like improved rooms and such would be great. Different tiers of radar for example, each with better range. The Hyperwave Relay as mentioned. As well as improved science labs and workshops (after all, you find all this alien tech, it would make sense to use it to upgrade facilities). You could even have advanced hangars (using alien tech to launch aircraft faster so they start off with a higher speed for example).

 

As for armor, I like the modular idea. Xcom Apocalypse had that (and honestly it was one of my favorites in the series). So you could mix and match head, body, arm and leg armor. One of the issues with that game was simply the lack of armor options. But researching different styles of armor within a set (so light Wolf, medium Wolf and heavy Wolf) would allow you to get an upgrade tier, but not be forced to have everyone in the same gear. You'd have options within each tier. And with modular bits, you could easily equip say a chest piece with a jetpack (which might be weaker armor but has the mobility). Or equip different helmets for gas resistance or maybe better visual range, etc.

 

I would also like to see psionics implemented. I mean, why not let humans be modified to get psionic abilities? You research all that tech about it, so it would make sense you could use it. Could give more abilities. But you could also do the reverse, where you could alter a soldier to be psionically resistant. So they'd be cut off from using psionics, but be all but immune to psionic effects.

 

I also like the idea of improving on existing tech. The project to upgrade grenades and such when that stuff is available makes sense (though the auto-upgrade was convenient). But having workshop projects to further upgrade a tech once researched is nice. Also, it could be done by simply having a new research that unlocks the upgrade for the mechanics to do... OR... what about field experience? Say fire X type of gun say... 100 times? After doing that your mechanics have analyzed the usage and wear and tear enough to know how to upgrade it. So basically you would unlock the upgrade for gear by actually USING the gear, and not just an arbitrary research (that was fine for unlocking the gear in the first place). And of course, fine tune the balancing, so it could be fire a gun 100 times... use a stun rod 20 times or maybe on say, 5 different species... have a shield take 20 hits... toss 50 grenades... etc...

[Lord Blade]

Earthling Tech

Something I wanted to mention... according to the story, Xenonauts is sharing the research they come up with with the rest of the world. At least, the major governments and such.

With this in mind, I think that it would be appropriate for friendly units that spawn on maps to get some of the upgrades we come up with. Maybe some months or something after we've developed a tech (or perhaps unlocking the previous tier for them when we get a new one), we could start seeing soldiers (or even cops) using new gear. So random soldiers on the map would start having newer guns and armor as the tech we come up with starts being used by the various nations.

 

Also, one more thing (until I think of the next thing).

The snark in some of the Lore entries in the original (from whoever the scientist is) is entertaining. I would love to see that expanded on in the sequel. Have entries made by different scientists and engineers. Each with their own opinions about the others and the troops and such. I think it could be highly entertaining to have a bit of back and forth between your team.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Lord Blade

[Alienkiller]

That we tested already with higher Tech-Levels. Atm. it´s not integrated for Upgrades / Reworks or Refit about the Things you mention and the Beta-Testers found out.

In the Tests it was 1 Month, but that was to short to make an Field-Test for the Xenonauts and then for the Major Gouvernments as new Techs too. So we have to wait for the big Overwork of that and Beta-Test it again.

 

What the Scientists and Engineers belongs, we will see. Maybe we will get an Upgrade there too later on. There the Beta-Testers have some Ideas too, which get discussed already in the Forum here.

 

[Komandos]

On 5/20/2020 at 4:22 PM, Chris said:

The research mechanics in Xenonauts 2 are the primary method of storytelling in the game and also the avenue by which the player unlocks all the exciting new equipment they get to use in battle against the aliens.

Will the aliens have a research tree? To defeat Earthlings, aliens may have to complete a number of successful missions (for example: capturing and holding a city, capturing a xenonauts base, obtaining samples of xenonauts weapons, taking control of one or two states, etc.). Without the success of these missions, the aliens will not be able to win and will not be able to fully develop some of their technologies.

[Alienkiller]

Yes, the Aliens have Research Trees too in all this Games which come up if the Player have reached an Special Point in R & D / Missions etc. It´s an complicated link. 

If the Enemy wouldn´t have R & D too, you would sit on the Techs you already have done and wouldn´t come forward in the Game [from Early-Game to Mid-Game and form Mid-Game to End-Game and then the Finals].

[MARSHalMELLOW]

Specific autopsies/ interrogations could unlock new ammo types.

• Like the H.E.V.Y. Starts with HE and Smoke already.
• Adding a sleeping gas, only working of some aliens.
• Heavily armoured ones may be weak to incendiary sniper shots.
• After an interrogation, unlocking Shock slug ammo for the shotgun, lower accuracy but normal range on a single shot.