90 Days To Greenland: Brief Thoughts On Early Game

[Steelpoint]

It is 2009, but you'd be forgiven for thinking its 1979.

Let me guess. We can't use NVG's cause the alien's guns emit some EMP effect? Then why can we use the tank? - Sergeant Goldburg

Why the fuck are we using M16's from Vietnam? - Private Coleman's last words

 

Its all the rage to talk about the game, so I believed I'd offer my brief thoughts on the state of the game as it stands on the most current version (V25). This is my first experience playing Xenonauts 2 since the very earlier versions of it, and for reference to my experience with this franchise, I was able to "almost" finish Xenonauts 1 on Ironman/Insane, losing on the final mission. I'm playing on the third highest difficulty.

Overall I've very much enjoyed the game so far, I've every intention to keep on playing but I wanted to get my thoughts down for the early game.

Gameplay - Cleaners

• Going to talk about these guys separately. The concept of fighting off a human (ish) shadow organization trying to suppress your efforts for the early game feels very unique, and I felt it was quite enjoyable. 
• However, the game tries to communicate the idea the Xenonauts is starting off as some shadow-Para investigation organization being jumpstarted into a military organization, but this idea is never really aesthetically or practically communicated. The aliens are still showing up (albeit slower) and the cleaners only seem to be a panic annoyance. I was able to go almost 90 days before I finally committed to launching the assault on their headquarters. 
• Seeing the cleaner guards gun down random civilians during the 'raid for intel' mission was highly amusing, if not a tad odd since it feels they are just gunning down their own personal? 
  • The guards just standing and waiting for the giant military helicopter to land 20 meters in front of them before reacting is also highly amusing.
• I have to guess the developers don't want the game to turn into 'Cleanernauts' instead of Xenonauts. But I'd not be against expanding the presence of the cleaners. I believe, in grand total, I only fought the cleaners about three or four times in a 90 day period, including the final HQ assault. 

Gameplay - Strategic

• The air war feels far more punishing this time around, I don't know if this can be attributed to the enemy UFO's being stronger or if I am being suboptimal in my research and aircraft development. However it can be a challenge to down some of the more "advance" early game UFOs. I am still using the game-start aircraft by day 90. 
  • Aircraft armour might need some explanation in-game.
  • I was caught by surprise when my aircraft lost the ability to dodge when I loaded torpedo's
• For the first time in Xenonauts history I suffered a base attack. I'm impressed that the aliens committed to a very early game (first 40 to 60 days I think) base assault with a ship I was unable to shoot down. However the mission itself was fairly reasonable for that stage of the game. 
• The ability for your aircraft to be freely repaired instead of lost forever is a good touch, it'll only benefit people on ironman or doing no-scum runs but its a big bonus. 
• The concept of sold items losing value needs to be better communicated. Realising this I felt a strong urge to not sell items until I accumulated a large stockpile to avoid "missing out" on the sales.
  • I've also felt the need to not sell items since I don't know if I will need them in the future. I can see the questions rising on the steam forums of "Can I use these mag rifles later on?", "Do I need all these corpses?". 
• I don't want to be an idea's guy but I felt quite annoyed when I spent a lot of money building Torpedo's and Armour only to unlock the more advance versions (Alenium Torps and the Alloy Armour) only to discover I can't upgrade the older items, and I have to re-build the new items from scratch at the same very expensive price, meaning I've doubled dipped for price. Being able to upgrade the items would be nice?
• I recall reading that the devs wanted to disincentive farming lower level UFOs over and over, while the money income might decrease, I found the alloy salvage from the UFO's to be very much worth farming for. 
• I'm just not sure when, or if, I should be expanding and how many aircraft I should be fielding. I'm at day 90 and I'm still on two starter-aircraft and I've only just begun building up a second base.
  • I distinctly recall my X1 experience where I felt I had to skip all the aircraft until the end-game Marauder. This is likely informing my decision to hold off on expanding. 

Gameplay - Tactical

• Xenonaut infantry generally feel more durable than in X1. I can usually expect my guys to survive at least one shot from an enemy while wearing decent armour. If they aren't wearing armour, all bets are off. 
  • I generally lose only 1 soldier per mission, rarely 2 and surprisingly often none. The soldiers that tend to die are typically shield-users being shot through their shield. I did lose the MARS a few times at the start but after treating the MARS like its fragile I stopped losing it usually.
• Grenades feel very great to use, good range and decent accuracy and they feel strong to use, but not too strong (not like the early versions of X2 where I felt using grenades was the only way to fight). Only area they falter is inside UFOs since you can sometimes find yourself unable to throw a grenade a few tiles, but other times you can throw clear across a room. 
• All the standard firearms feel quite viable to use, and I generally bring a healthy mix. I've ended up skipping the Machinegun, replacing it with the MARS, and I've yet to use the Grenade Launcher.
• The MARS is an excellent tool. I've only used its Cannon/Rangefinder variant but I find the highly accurate cannon extremely deadly, and accurate, and its ammo is never a concern. 
  • The vehicle is surprisingly fragile, it'll tank more hits than a human but not a lot. Seems fair enough. It can be good to attract overwatch fire in a controlled, long range, circumstance.
  • I initially felt the ability to smash through walls was overpowered, but the fact the MARS will instantly attract overwatch fire while doing so does feel like a decent counterweight, as smashing your way into an enemies LOS will get you shot at. 
  • Using medkits to repair damage to the MARS feels odd. 
  • MARS being affected by a Psion's "lose morale for shooting me" ability feels like a bug. 
• Amusingly, I've found myself using the Stun Baton as the primary weapon for Shield Bearers, they are surprisingly deadly against most early enemies, it can carry the Shield user for the first few months. The arrival of Sebillians did make me fall back to pistols more so. I've never used the tasers since I've secured an excessive amount of captures with the batons.
  • I didn't feel like the Mag guns were a huge improvement over stock ballistics. But to be fair the guns were fairly cheap to build. I have to wonder if I should just rush lasers. 
  • The mag guns looks more like something I'd expect in 2009. 
• Enemies with armour are very hard to kill outside of shotguns or cannons.  I appreciate the game easily communicating their armoured status to me though. 
• The enemies having displayed health is an interesting change. It might be immersion breaking, but it does significantly inform my tactical decisions and makes tracking a particular enemy easy. Might be too strong? 
• The AI is not great, but I think everyone is saying that.
• Soldier morale overall felt fine. The only time I had a soldier panic was when they got shot for 95% of their health. The Psions's morale ability on the other hand felt very annoying to deal with, especially since the MARS' are vulnerable to it. But snipers and grenades work well enough.

Plot/Atmosphere

I get the feeling a lot of the early game 'plot and atmosphere' issues I may proclaim are more to do with some information/content not yet written or in-game yet, but this is just my opinion from the game as it stands.

• If you told me the game was actually set in 1979, I'd believe you. I feel the setting of 2009 has very little in-game support. Outside of a few civilian cars looking more "modern" and the dead AI soldiers looking somewhat like a circa 2000's US soldier. 
  • Using guns and helicopters from the 60s, aircraft from the 70s, armour from the 90s. The god-damn Soviet Union is still around! 
  • The British were using NVGs in the 80s, where's my SpecFor NVGs? Did the alien EMP fry it? (game balance trumps lore I guess, would be nice if there was an explanation though)
• The cold-war aspect of the game is never brought up again. I think I saw one random civilian using an AK-variant gun but that's the extent of international discord I noticed. Feels like the setting is being underutilized.
• The early game, as I noted above, tries to set things up in a more clandestine way with the cleaners, and your organization seemingly being suppressed. But this never pans out as you are instantly fielding soldiers and fighting off alien UFOs. The 'X-File Men in Black Gas Mask Gooks' get regulated as a side-show. 
• I do appreciate the game explaining why modern fighter jets are useless and why we are being forced to fall-back to WW2 style dogfighting tactics, even if it does mean I don't get to field F-22's or F-35's (until the look-alike appears anyway).
  • On that note, whenever the game does explain a concept in the intel/research logs I do find them well written and quite logically explained. 

Look forward to seeing what the next 90 days entail. 

[Chris]

51 minutes ago, Steelpoint said:

It is 2009, but you'd be forgiven for thinking its 1979.

Let me guess. We can't use NVG's cause the alien's guns emit some EMP effect? Then why can we use the tank? - Sergeant Goldburg

Why the fuck are we using M16's from Vietnam? - Private Coleman's last words

 

Its all the rage to talk about the game, so I believed I'd offer my brief thoughts on the state of the game as it stands on the most current version (V25). This is my first experience playing Xenonauts 2 since the very earlier versions of it, and for reference to my experience with this franchise, I was able to "almost" finish Xenonauts 1 on Ironman/Insane, losing on the final mission. I'm playing on the third highest difficulty.

Overall I've very much enjoyed the game so far, I've every intention to keep on playing but I wanted to get my thoughts down for the early game.

Gameplay - Cleaners

• Going to talk about these guys separately. The concept of fighting off a human (ish) shadow organization trying to suppress your efforts for the early game feels very unique, and I felt it was quite enjoyable. 
• However, the game tries to communicate the idea the Xenonauts is starting off as some shadow-Para investigation organization being jumpstarted into a military organization, but this idea is never really aesthetically or practically communicated. The aliens are still showing up (albeit slower) and the cleaners only seem to be a panic annoyance. I was able to go almost 90 days before I finally committed to launching the assault on their headquarters. 
• Seeing the cleaner guards gun down random civilians during the 'raid for intel' mission was highly amusing, if not a tad odd since it feels they are just gunning down their own personal? 
  • The guards just standing and waiting for the giant military helicopter to land 20 meters in front of them before reacting is also highly amusing.
• I have to guess the developers don't want the game to turn into 'Cleanernauts' instead of Xenonauts. But I'd not be against expanding the presence of the cleaners. I believe, in grand total, I only fought the cleaners about three or four times in a 90 day period, including the final HQ assault. 

Gameplay - Strategic

• The air war feels far more punishing this time around, I don't know if this can be attributed to the enemy UFO's being stronger or if I am being suboptimal in my research and aircraft development. However it can be a challenge to down some of the more "advance" early game UFOs. I am still using the game-start aircraft by day 90. 
  • Aircraft armour might need some explanation in-game.
  • I was caught by surprise when my aircraft lost the ability to dodge when I loaded torpedo's
• For the first time in Xenonauts history I suffered a base attack. I'm impressed that the aliens committed to a very early game (first 40 to 60 days I think) base assault with a ship I was unable to shoot down. However the mission itself was fairly reasonable for that stage of the game. 
• The ability for your aircraft to be freely repaired instead of lost forever is a good touch, it'll only benefit people on ironman or doing no-scum runs but its a big bonus. 
• The concept of sold items losing value needs to be better communicated. Realising this I felt a strong urge to not sell items until I accumulated a large stockpile to avoid "missing out" on the sales.
  • I've also felt the need to not sell items since I don't know if I will need them in the future. I can see the questions rising on the steam forums of "Can I use these mag rifles later on?", "Do I need all these corpses?". 
• I don't want to be an idea's guy but I felt quite annoyed when I spent a lot of money building Torpedo's and Armour only to unlock the more advance versions (Alenium Torps and the Alloy Armour) only to discover I can't upgrade the older items, and I have to re-build the new items from scratch at the same very expensive price, meaning I've doubled dipped for price. Being able to upgrade the items would be nice?
• I recall reading that the devs wanted to disincentive farming lower level UFOs over and over, while the money income might decrease, I found the alloy salvage from the UFO's to be very much worth farming for. 
• I'm just not sure when, or if, I should be expanding and how many aircraft I should be fielding. I'm at day 90 and I'm still on two starter-aircraft and I've only just begun building up a second base.
  • I distinctly recall my X1 experience where I felt I had to skip all the aircraft until the end-game Marauder. This is likely informing my decision to hold off on expanding. 

Gameplay - Tactical

• Xenonaut infantry generally feel more durable than in X1. I can usually expect my guys to survive at least one shot from an enemy while wearing decent armour. If they aren't wearing armour, all bets are off. 
  • I generally lose only 1 soldier per mission, rarely 2 and surprisingly often none. The soldiers that tend to die are typically shield-users being shot through their shield. I did lose the MARS a few times at the start but after treating the MARS like its fragile I stopped losing it usually.
• Grenades feel very great to use, good range and decent accuracy and they feel strong to use, but not too strong (not like the early versions of X2 where I felt using grenades was the only way to fight). Only area they falter is inside UFOs since you can sometimes find yourself unable to throw a grenade a few tiles, but other times you can throw clear across a room. 
• All the standard firearms feel quite viable to use, and I generally bring a healthy mix. I've ended up skipping the Machinegun, replacing it with the MARS, and I've yet to use the Grenade Launcher.
• The MARS is an excellent tool. I've only used its Cannon/Rangefinder variant but I find the highly accurate cannon extremely deadly, and accurate, and its ammo is never a concern. 
  • The vehicle is surprisingly fragile, it'll tank more hits than a human but not a lot. Seems fair enough. It can be good to attract overwatch fire in a controlled, long range, circumstance.
  • I initially felt the ability to smash through walls was overpowered, but the fact the MARS will instantly attract overwatch fire while doing so does feel like a decent counterweight, as smashing your way into an enemies LOS will get you shot at. 
  • Using medkits to repair damage to the MARS feels odd. 
  • MARS being affected by a Psion's "lose morale for shooting me" ability feels like a bug. 
• Amusingly, I've found myself using the Stun Baton as the primary weapon for Shield Bearers, they are surprisingly deadly against most early enemies, it can carry the Shield user for the first few months. The arrival of Sebillians did make me fall back to pistols more so. I've never used the tasers since I've secured an excessive amount of captures with the batons.
  • I didn't feel like the Mag guns were a huge improvement over stock ballistics. But to be fair the guns were fairly cheap to build. I have to wonder if I should just rush lasers. 
  • The mag guns looks more like something I'd expect in 2009. 
• Enemies with armour are very hard to kill outside of shotguns or cannons.  I appreciate the game easily communicating their armoured status to me though. 
• The enemies having displayed health is an interesting change. It might be immersion breaking, but it does significantly inform my tactical decisions and makes tracking a particular enemy easy. Might be too strong? 
• The AI is not great, but I think everyone is saying that.
• Soldier morale overall felt fine. The only time I had a soldier panic was when they got shot for 95% of their health. The Psions's morale ability on the other hand felt very annoying to deal with, especially since the MARS' are vulnerable to it. But snipers and grenades work well enough.

Plot/Atmosphere

I get the feeling a lot of the early game 'plot and atmosphere' issues I may proclaim are more to do with some information/content not yet written or in-game yet, but this is just my opinion from the game as it stands.

• If you told me the game was actually set in 1979, I'd believe you. I feel the setting of 2009 has very little in-game support. Outside of a few civilian cars looking more "modern" and the dead AI soldiers looking somewhat like a circa 2000's US soldier. 
  • Using guns and helicopters from the 60s, aircraft from the 70s, armour from the 90s. The god-damn Soviet Union is still around! 
  • The British were using NVGs in the 80s, where's my SpecFor NVGs? Did the alien EMP fry it? (game balance trumps lore I guess, would be nice if there was an explanation though)
• The cold-war aspect of the game is never brought up again. I think I saw one random civilian using an AK-variant gun but that's the extent of international discord I noticed. Feels like the setting is being underutilized.
• The early game, as I noted above, tries to set things up in a more clandestine way with the cleaners, and your organization seemingly being suppressed. But this never pans out as you are instantly fielding soldiers and fighting off alien UFOs. The 'X-File Men in Black Gas Mask Gooks' get regulated as a side-show. 
• I do appreciate the game explaining why modern fighter jets are useless and why we are being forced to fall-back to WW2 style dogfighting tactics, even if it does mean I don't get to field F-22's or F-35's (until the look-alike appears anyway).
  • On that note, whenever the game does explain a concept in the intel/research logs I do find them well written and quite logically explained. 

Look forward to seeing what the next 90 days entail. 

Thanks for the detailed thoughts. I'm glad you're enjoying the game so far - but I'd say at this point you've probably seen the best part of the game, and I think general consensus is that the game becomes fairly boring and repetitive after day 100-120. So maybe quit while you're still enjoying things and check back again during Early Access?

A few comments:

• It seems quite a common request for the Cleaners to have a somewhat expanded role, so I'll look into that for the next major build. I think there's a game mechanic somewhere that ties together the Cleaners with the shadowy plot / setting, and adds a bit more to the Geoscape. I've got a few ideas and hopefully I'll have time to play about with them.
• I didn't think there were random civvies in the Cleaner Intel mission - unless I'm mistaken, you probably just saw friendly fire?
• I'm surprised you aren't aware that aircraft in X1 are also not lost forever when shot down. There was one particular forum user who was furious about our "invulnerable interceptors" for literally years.
• Yeah, I think the sell price stuff needs some finesse in terms of communication and probably game balance. It's a new mechanic and I think that'll come with time. Deciding what things get upgraded automatically and what things have to be rebuilt is a bit of a tricky choice, as there's pluses and minuses to each approach and I'm always going back and forth trying to find the best balance.
• I'm not really sure what the meta approach to the strategy layer is yet either, but the idea is that the invasion is a bit delayed compared to X1 thanks to the Cleaners providing some early missions. I'm trying to set it up so just expanding as fast as possible over the map isn't the automatic best course of action, but the balancing may not be quite there yet.
• Yes, there's a couple of bugs with the MARS re: healing and psionics that will be fixed next update. I think it's possibly a bit overpowered right now too, but then it does need to be worth researching. I tend to use it in the rockets / autorifle configuration because I find the rockets super useful, but it's nice to know that the other configuration is viable too.
• I think I'll increase the Baton attack cost from 20% to 25% TU, as I think you're right that it's low key one of the strongest weapons in the game at the moment.
• I think we might tie the infobars above the units heads to the difficulty settings. They make the game much more accessible, but they also make it easier. Maybe on Veteran we'd obfuscate the exact number with a vague description like "Wounded" or something, and just remove them entirely on Commander.

[Skitso]

31 minutes ago, Chris said:

• I think we might tie the infobars above the units heads to the difficulty settings. They make the game much more accessible, but they also make it easier. Maybe on Veteran we'd obfuscate the exact number with a vague description like "Wounded" or something, and just remove them entirely on Commander.

Please don't tie it to the difficulty setting and make it an option instead (on/off/vague/cursor hover only). Maybe where it defaults could be set by difficulty setting.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Skitso

[Steelpoint]

I guess I never had a aircraft get shot down in X1, lol.

I'd have to force myself to play around with the Taser to see how it compares to the Stun Baton. But in-between Shields, Flashbangs and the Baton there's rarely an issue with accruing captures. Nerfing it is likely fair, but I don't want to accidently see it fall off too hard.

It falls off against the Sebillians, but most weapons fall off against them to be fair. I had an amusing encounter where I had to spend several turns stun smacking a Sebillian only for him to get back up the next turn, I guess it had to do with me stunning him at low health only for him to regen the health while unconscious and getting back up. 

3 minutes ago, Skitso said:

Please don't tie it to the difficulty setting and make it an option instead (on/off/vague/cursor hover only)

Could be a good idea to make it some optional setting in the settings or some kind of setting in the 'new game start', like XCOM's Second Wave options. 

[Jet Jaguar]

5 hours ago, Chris said:

I didn't think there were random civvies in the Cleaner Intel mission - unless I'm mistaken, you probably just saw friendly fire?

Just replying to confirm, no he's correct sometimes random civilians do spawn in the cleaner Intel mission. It's quite rare but I have seen one civilian spawn in the plaza outside in-between the offices be shot and killed.

[Steelpoint]

Further minor thoughts, from the latest patch

Strategic

• Its a waste of resources to buy the T1 Aircraft weapons (missile, torpedo), its smarter to research the Alenium versions. Its a trap to buy the first version since you can't upgrade them, and are forced to spent your money twice if you want the better version
• Troops in sickbay keep hogging my good equipment, and I can't get them back.
• Newest update might have made global terror a bit too hard on Veteran? 55th day and most regions are at 80 to 95 terror, one wrong move and I might lose. I'll report back if this gets worse. 
• Having some small UFOs that are almost impossible to shoot down with Sidewinders means I usually only use Torpedo's and Cannons for my early game interceptors. Or I'm just not good enough. (or I just can't notice the icon diff between small and medium UFOs)

Tactical

• Alien Abduction Missions: Extremely fast paced, maybe too much? I found myself having to perform rush tactics and push hyper aggressively to secure the minimum amount of civilians, difficulty can be enhanced if the map has a lot of places for aliens and civilians to be hiding. I have to wonder if these missions become harder in the later game with stronger aliens?
  • The final turn is too easy to cheese. Since the mission will end the moment you end your turn, and skip the aliens turn, you can afford to take suicidal moves, such as leaving your troops exposed in the open next to an alien, since you know the aliens won't get a chance to react.
• The nerf to melee weapons feels fair. Stun sticks are still good enough, but you need to be more thoughtful in using them, typically now I have to dedicate more manpower to capture an alien (suppression, slowly moving troops forward, multiple people with stun sticks), instead of prior where I could just rush one guy up and capture someone no issue
• Shields don't feel good to use, although I still make heavy usage of them since I do know they work. In X1 the shield (if I recall) absorbed all damage from the front before breaking, now it seems to just reduce damage? At times I feel my shields are being ignored when some alien one-taps a shield user from the front. Maybe if there was some stronger visual indicator to tell me the shield is still reducing damage? 
• Civilians are stupid. It'd be nice if I could spend time units to "shove" a civilian out of the way. Had several issues with civs blocking the exits my aircraft on multiple occasions. 

Edited January 15, 2023 by Steelpoint
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