Milestone 2 (Prototype 1) - Balance Thread / Discussion

[Chris]

Milestone 2 is not yet ready for public consumption, but it is available in a rough form for people who want to help us experiment with a few new mechanics. To access the build, enter the branch password xenonautsproto and switch to the Prototype branch. However, please read the whole post before doing so!

We're testing out a few new mechanics that we want to get people's opinions about before we commit to updating the UI and getting new artwork done etc. I'll spend a bit more time than normal explaining the logic behind the design decisions here, as that will hopefully allow people to tell us whether they think the changes achieve their intended goals or not.

Panic:
One of the biggest problems with Milestone 1 is that there's no easy way to reduce Panic in a specific region, which means that on harder difficulty settings you need to build additional bases and aircraft as quickly as possible otherwise you'll quickly reach the point where you start losing regions.

Panic will now decrease by 10% in each region at the end of each month. However, the Panic reduction for shooting down UFOs has been halved from -2 to -1. This means that Panic generated from Cleaner activity or Alien Bases or failed tactical missions will dissipate more quickly, while making interceptor coverage *slightly* less beneficial (although it's still pretty strong).

Note that due to a bug this is happening before the region loss check (which means you need ~110 Panic to lose a region) but we'll change this if the change is popular. Also, this change only solves half of the problem in Milestone 1, as the player still lacks a targeted way to reduce Panic in a region. However I think it's a useful first step.

Funding:
Funding is no longer dependent on Panic level. A region will grant you full funding (which increases as you progress down the storyline) unless you lose the region, in which case funding will fall to zero.

This change was made to support some other experimental changes I've not put in this build. But it means that building a base in a region doesn't increase income as much. Previously you'd get extra funds from shooting down UFOs and completing the crash sites, but then also gain extra funding from the fact keeping Panic low in the region granted extra funding. This hopefully means it's less essential to rush to cover the whole world with your planes as soon as possible.

Mission Order:
The game now starts with a Cleaner deathmatch mission, which is then followed by a Secton Abduction site. The plan is to make the opening Cleaner mission a bit more exciting - potentially even a continuation of the base defence mission from the tutorial where you clear the base of the attacking Cleaners, then evacuate to your new base. But the goal is to add an extra Cleaner mission and use that as a way to introduce them better at the start of the game.

We've then slightly slowed down the progression over the next three months, and in particular we've moved the Cleaner Intel Hub mission back a couple of weeks so it comes after the first UFO crash site. We're open to ideas about how we can make the Cleaner mission sequence a bit more interesting, as it seems like not everyone likes the Cleaner Network idea where the main way to advance is just to capture more Cleaner Data on missions. Feel free to throw ideas out on this topic.

Tech Tree / Item Upgrades:
One of the recurring discussion points on the forums is whether Accelerated Weapons are a "trap" or not, and I've attemped to make their purpose a bit more clear through some tech tree changes. Accelerated weapons are now an upgrade for Ballistic weapons - i.e. a one-off project that permanently upgrades all Ballistic weapons to be Accelerated weapons. The same is also now true for the Warden Armour, which is now an upgrade for Defender Armour which increases the protection offered.

As such, I've moved Guardian Armour forward in the tech tree so it can be unlocked off Scout UFOs rather than Destroyers. This means the player is given the choice of two relatively quick and cheap upgrades at the start of the game, but are also given the option to research more advanced weapons (lasers) and armour (Guardian) within the first month. But you're also presented the option to pursue the story research, which increases your funding - so hopefully this presents the player some interesting choices in the early game to try different strategies.

To stop this being overwhelming, I've moved the Dragonfly and Phantom to be unlocked off Destroyers rather than Scouts.

Finally, I've tried to expand the item upgrade options. There's a project that allows you to reduce the weight of Defender Armour, and Laser Weapons now have two upgrades that provide Recharging Ammo and increased Damage respectively. Guardian Armour also has an upgrade that increases the protection it offers which is unlocked from Destroyers. I'd be interested to know whether people like these increased upgrade options.

Soldier Module System:
I've removed all the existing soldier "modules" which could be placed in the soldier tactical vest and these are now replaced by the following set up:

• Extra Armour: all armour now weighs less and offers less protection, but there's a Heavy Armour toggle in the bottom right that will increase protection at the cost of extra weight. This is designed to make the armour more flexible rather than "heavy" armour like the Guardian being useless for low-Strength soldiers. The only gameplay consideration is "can the soldier carry the extra weight?"
• Armour Module: you can now choose a single module from a second dropdown below the existing Armour dropdown. At the start you can either choose from a rebreather that provides smoke protection, a +3 Acc boost or a +5 Bravery boost, however almost all the modules from Milestone 1 reappear as you progress down the tech tree. Obviously the question is simply which one module you choose to use.
• Jetpack: as previously, the jetpack is another toggled option. I just don't think it's useful enough that anyone would ever use it if we made it part of the Armour Module list.

My question here is simple - do you prefer this to the module system in Milestone 1 where your inventory was full of modules? There's scope to add extra artwork and improve the UI if people like the basic idea, but it'd be nice to know people's initial impression of the changes.

However, from a design perspective there's some overlap with the Item Upgrade system above. Some of the modules could potentially be folded into upgrades for the armour (particularly the Jetpack) - although then the danger is that you have soldiers that can do everything, and once your armour is upgraded you no longer have to choose between say a +TU boost, or a +ACC boost, or health regeneration, etc.

Let me know your thoughts on this setup and where you'd like to see the design go. 

Incomplete Balance Changes:
These are further balance changes I expect to make prior to Milestone 2 reaching our main Steam branches:

• Panic will be checked for region loss before the -10% monthly decrease occurs.
• Abduction missions will not end when the timer expires. Instead, the tubes will be present for X turns before teleporting away, and you get rewards for each one you open. However all the aliens must still be eliminated for victory.
• Starting Cleaner mission will probably happen immediately after beginning the game, before you go to strategy (rather than being a mission you do on day 2 or so).

[Chris]

Just giving this thread a little bump, as I had it hidden for a couple of days!

[Keinutnai]

I personally prefer the system where you place your modules in your inventory (the initial system).

The "toggle button" for armor and other modules is an interesting idea too, but I prefer "seeing" the modules in my inventory as it feels more "real"

 

Thumbs up on abduction missions not ending straight away, and having the tubes teleporting away. (i assume i can kill the aliens even after X turns when the tubes are gone)

I do prefer funding to rely on panic level. maybe instead of becoming unrelated to panic level, panic could simply carry a bit less weight in determining the funding level.

[Skitso]

On 9/4/2023 at 6:55 PM, Chris said:

• Jetpack: as previously, the jetpack is another toggled option. I just don't think it's useful enough that anyone would ever use it if we made it part of the Armour Module list.

This caught my eye... jetpack would be extremely useful if the maps were just more vertical and being higher grounds provided more buffs.

Changing accelerated weapons to being an upgrade to ballistics sounds like a good idea, but I'd like the upgrads to be weapon type specific. Similar upgrade path to armor doesn't sound like an improvement

Item upgrades sound sweet. More the better.

Regarding the module system, I kinda enjoy the Tetris mini game we have atm, where I need to balance my backpack between modules, weapons, grenades and other items.

Changing the abduction missions to be one more "kill all aliens" mission feels a step in a wrong direction.

Regarding the cleaner mission chain and progression: Gathering intel for intitial progress is fine and I love the mission (best map so far), but the daily automatic percentage gain after that feels somewhat gamey and boring. You should add more quick and simple cleaner missions where player could earn that progression instead, capture additional intel, capture and interrogate cleaners etc. I also suggested somewhere that cleaners could be added to crash site missions to clean the wreck and alien corpses. This would add a nice new dynamic to those missions where the more player waits before raiding the site, the more there would be cleaners. Avoiding these add-on cleaners could also push people to do these crash site missions at night, before cleaners arrive.

Edit:  Here's my initial suggestion

Edited September 6, 2023 by Skitso

[Twigg]

I am with Skitso that changing the abduction missions to be another flavor of 'kill everything' is a mistake. The game needs more ways to encourage different strategies and loadouts, this mission was one of the few that overwatch camping while slowly creeping forward wasn't the most effective strategy.

[Chris]

Always happy to consider other people's opinions but it was never particularly difficult to get enough Abduction tubes to win the mission, in my experience. The real question was always "how many extra can you get?" which would still be the case now. Indeed, in an ideal world we'd provide a Panic reduction for each surviving civilian (as well as the Alloys from the tube itself) so there's a definite reason to try and rescue as many civilians as possible.

The reason for the change is having a hard loss condition in the second mission the player encounters is perhaps a bit harsh, but at the same time we do want to show one of the new mission types early to clearly signal that the game isn't just Xenonauts 1 with nicer graphics.

[Skitso]

14 minutes ago, Chris said:

The reason for the change is having a hard loss condition in the second mission the player encounters is perhaps a bit harsh, but at the same time we do want to show one of the new mission types early to clearly signal that the game isn't just Xenonauts 1 with nicer graphics.

I'm not sure if making gameplay/campaign progress decisions based on the fear of Steam refunds is the correct way to do it. (While I certainly understand the reasoning)

....and if you really, really want to have an abduction mission as the 2nd mission, make an exception in it's rules for the first time. For the record, I personally enjoy trying to save the people while avoiding aliens as much as possible until they teleport away.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Skitso

[Twigg]

I agree that it isn't too difficult to get 5 tubes, you can always change the mission to make that base level success harder or easier. What I think is more interesting is the extra tubes and what you get for them vs what you risk. I played an abduction mission a few nights ago and was able to get 9 of the 10 tubes, which offered very little other than the satisfaction of playing the mission in a more difficult way. I think the player should be given exponentially better rewards for more tubes to temp them into making riskier tactical decisions. 

 

I also think this mindset can be brought into other missions in the form of temporary side objectives. For example getting inside the downed UFO in 5 turns and living till the next turn gets you a large cache of alenium. Build in an incentive to player with higher risk so the best way to play isn't WW1 trench warfare but with better weapons. 

[Chris]

14 minutes ago, Skitso said:

I'm not sure if making gameplay/campaign progress decisions based on the fear of Steam refunds is the correct way to do it. (While I certainly understand the reasoning)

I wouldn't dismiss it as "fear of Steam refunds", because hiding away your new content so people only see it after playing for an hour or two just means a decent chunk of our playerbase might get bored and switch the game off before they ever reach that point due to feeling like they've just seen it all before.

Sure, it's likely to cause Steam refunds and negative Steam reviews, and they're a bad thing - but fundamentally people not enjoying the game is a negative in itself. That's what all the design decisions we make on the project are ultimately trying to prevent.

There are other reasons too - it's one of the few mission types containing aliens that doesn't involve a UFO (which would progress the player down the tech tree too fast), and it's more engaging than the current Alien Research Team mission because it does have those special rules with the abduction tubes. Seems to me like a pretty natural fit for that point in the game, really!

[Chris]

10 minutes ago, Twigg said:

I also think this mindset can be brought into other missions in the form of temporary side objectives. For example getting inside the downed UFO in 5 turns and living till the next turn gets you a large cache of alenium. Build in an incentive to player with higher risk so the best way to play isn't WW1 trench warfare but with better weapons. 

Yeah, so this (or something very much like it) is something else we're considering - but then we do run the risk of creating the problem you outlined in your previous, in which almost every mission type could potentially have a timer and then they all start to feel the same.

[Kamehamehayes]

8 minutes ago, Chris said:

Yeah, so this (or something very much like it) is something else we're considering - but then we do run the risk of creating the problem you outlined in your previous, in which almost every mission type could potentially have a timer and then they all start to feel the same.

Have you considered adding missions with more defend objectives within them? If you are worried that most missions will feel like they have some sort of timer in them, then would it be a decent idea to have mission objectives that intentionally slow the mission down?

The problem with terror missions and base defense missions and the like for me is that they still become rout the enemy maps when the missions should feel like defending civilians or your head quarters against the alien forces. Defend objectives in those two maps might be a decent fit and add some variety to those maps. 

Maybe a story mission or two can also have some kind of defend objective as well. Have you seen the Fire Emblem Fates Conquest Chapter 10 map? The story mission I am thinking of could be similar to that where the objective is to defend the starting area, but the map would actually get easier if the player would go out of their way to play aggressive. 

[Komandos]

On 9/4/2023 at 6:55 PM, Chris said:

Panic:
One of the biggest problems with Milestone 1 is that there's no easy way to reduce Panic in a specific region,

What you need to do:

          1. The construction (birth) of new bases costs the player very cheap.

          2. The production of fighter planes is very expensive.

Total: Progress in the game is measured not by the number of bases, but by the number of fighter planes.

Thus, the player can transfer fighters from a base located in regions with low panic to a base located in a region with high panic.

Instead,: The player has a limit in the game - 6 bases.

To appear: The player has a limit in the game - 6x3 = 18 (as an example) fighter planes.

[Komandos]

On 9/4/2023 at 6:55 PM, Chris said:

• Extra Armour: all armour now weighs less and offers less protection, but there's a Heavy Armour toggle in the bottom right that will increase protection at the cost of extra weight. This is designed to make the armour more flexible rather than "heavy" armour like the Guardian being useless for low-Strength soldiers. The only gameplay consideration is "can the soldier carry the extra weight?"
• Armour Module: you can now choose a single module from a second dropdown below the existing Armour dropdown. At the start you can either choose from a rebreather that provides smoke protection, a +3 Acc boost or a +5 Bravery boost, however almost all the modules from Milestone 1 reappear as you progress down the tech tree. Obviously the question is simply which one module you choose to use.
• Jetpack: as previously, the jetpack is another toggled option. I just don't think it's useful enough that anyone would ever use it if we made it part of the Armour Module list.

It looks more natural than wearing a bulletproof vest and a laser sight in a soldier's tactical backpack.

[Komandos]

2 hours ago, Kamehamehayes said:

The problem with terror missions and base defense missions and the like for me is that they still become rout the enemy maps when the missions should feel like defending civilians or your head quarters against the alien forces. Defend objectives in those two maps might be a decent fit and add some variety to those maps. 

Civilians do not react in any way to the presence of the player's soldiers. The player's soldiers cannot influence the behavior of civilians in any way (soldiers do not have the functions of influencing the behavior of civilians).

The only existing way to save civilians without completely killing the aliens is to paralyze (put to sleep) all civilians and bring them to the helicopter.

As an option: I propose the idea of a mission in which huge robots fly around the city and paralyze all civilians. The player's task: 1. Distract the robots. 2. Collect the bodies of paralyzed civilians and deliver the bodies of civilians to the evacuation point.

P.S. Robots shoot only paralyzing beams. With the help of ballistic weapons, robots can only be temporarily stunned. It is forbidden to use explosives in the city. (Otherwise, the panic increases).

[momerathe]

I think I prefer the old module system. My issue is that the automed module feels pretty much mandatory, so I would probably never use anything else if I’m limited to only one. 

[Potatoman967]

I always thought funding being tied to how well your doing in the game was interesting. It makes the player think carefully about their actions and if they skip this mission so their soldiers can heal or whatever, they risk things getting worse. The mechanic strikes a balance between two playstyles on opposite ends of the spectrum, going guns blazing and doing every mission regardless of whether or not your equipped, versus the opposite end simply doing the bare minimum, strictly the story missions required for progression and nothing else. Ideally you want the majority of players to fall somewhere in the middle, I think keeping funding the same regardless of panic removes this dynamic and a significant amount of tension and planning from the game.

I like the idea of the toggle modules, but maybe soldiers with a specialty in a given stat have a proficiency for that module? Maybe a soldier with a high strength stat doesnt lose as much carry weight when wearing heavy armor. Maybe the high accuracy soldier doesnt take as many TUs to shoot when wearing the goggles. Just something to think about, imo gives soldiers more personality and adds to tension bc if you lose your sniper, theres a very good chance the replacement wont ever be as good as the one you lost.

I love the tech tree ideas, the difference between big upgrades and small upgrades add much needed diversity to it and lets me go on my upgrade tangents freely.

Also, if your struggling with mission variety and really wanna set this game apart from the first, try mixing them together?

EX: During a terror mission you discover a room of abduction tubes, the room is well guarded and both the tubes and the guards appear to be teleporting away in 3 turns, do you attempt to save the abductees?

One off kinda side missions that only happen once per campaign would be awesome as well.

EX: Command picks up an alien weapon prototype signature on an otherwise normal VIP mission, the VIP is already KO but the mission isnt complete yet. Do you attempt to take the weapon and get out? The reinforcement timer remains the same but they're closing in 2 turns or less. If you extract the VIP and the weapon, the payoff could be huge. Make 10 or so of these semi-unique missions and insert 2-3 per campaign, would give tons of replayability and excitement for each run.

Another EX: During a terror mission an alien ship drops something from the sky. Is it a bomb? Reinforcement? Supply Cache? You could go all 3 ways with this and have the player guess each time they play it.

Loosely tying these basic plot threads into the missions would add so much depth to them, mix and matching mission types adds even more.

Side note this game is super addicting, love it to pieces and spent 10s of hours launch week playing.

[Mardigraz87]

i think the JetPack should be aloud to hover and use an action then come down.

[ComradeCpt]

9 hours ago, Twigg said:

I am with Skitso that changing the abduction missions to be another flavor of 'kill everything' is a mistake. The game needs more ways to encourage different strategies and loadouts, this mission was one of the few that overwatch camping while slowly creeping forward wasn't the most effective strategy.

 

9 hours ago, Chris said:

Always happy to consider other people's opinions but it was never particularly difficult to get enough Abduction tubes to win the mission, in my experience. The real question was always "how many extra can you get?" which would still be the case now. Indeed, in an ideal world we'd provide a Panic reduction for each surviving civilian (as well as the Alloys from the tube itself) so there's a definite reason to try and rescue as many civilians as possible.

The reason for the change is having a hard loss condition in the second mission the player encounters is perhaps a bit harsh, but at the same time we do want to show one of the new mission types early to clearly signal that the game isn't just Xenonauts 1 with nicer graphics.

My Xenonauts 2 strat is the exact same as mine in 1, charge forth, for I can always easily replace the casualties. I never even knew the Aliens would disappear once the time runs out as my rush strat would always grab 10/10 by the time the turn limit hit. So I believe that the issue is the lacking strategies. I also do believe that changing missions to kill everything is also a mistake, perhaps the addition of differing types of missions? To add more variations of 'kill all xenos' and add a new type of mission like 'survive for X turns'

Like a defend VIP like a president (linked to increasing funding/decreasing panic or vice versa, get control of bodyguards and the president defend for X turns, and after the threshold, the xenonauts arrive to push back?),
Defend critical infrastructure like a highway or a military base (survive but minimize destruction),
Help an intelligence agency kill Cleaners (kill em all with friends),
Capture Cleaner supply convoy for resources (capture mission within X turns)

[skaianDestiny]

On 9/4/2023 at 11:55 AM, Chris said:

We're open to ideas about how we can make the Cleaner mission sequence a bit more interesting, as it seems like not everyone likes the Cleaner Network idea where the main way to advance is just to capture more Cleaner Data on missions. Feel free to throw ideas out on this topic.

Just, more missions with Cleaner presence in them, for one? We only have the 3 or 4 bespoke missions with them.

The suggestion that leaving crash sites for long periods of time results in more Cleaner presence (for example, replacing each civilian spawn with a Cleaner one) on the tactical map is a good one; it provides incentive for the player to do a crash site quick and weigh having soldiers rested up/certain equipment or tech unlocked or manufactured vs more enemy presence in the early game.

I made a thread with some Cleaner ideas here, with varied mission ideas that could also be adapted for the more alien-focused late game:

On 9/4/2023 at 11:55 AM, Chris said:

My question here is simple - do you prefer this to the module system in Milestone 1 where your inventory was full of modules? There's scope to add extra artwork and improve the UI if people like the basic idea, but it'd be nice to know people's initial impression of the changes.

I feel the tetris sort of thing that the Milestone 1 modules encouraged was really neat and I'm not sure I'll like the changes. The extra armor toggle mentioned is fine and means it has continuity with the MARS's "heavy armor" toggle, but making modules exclusive from a dropdown feels like a downgrade. I'd actually suggest the opposite and lean far more into the tetris juggling thing and make every module have a unique shape on the inventory box instead of just having a 2x2 box. Have modules of the same type but different sizes, letting you choose between having more inventory space for ammo, grenades, etc. or getting a really good buff from the large module.

For example, make the exoskeleton take up a 3x4 space in the inventory, which means the player now has to ask "is the extra strength worth losing so much inventory space?" instead of the no brainer of of "can my soldier carry 5 more grenades and heavy armor for the low price of a tiny 2x2 box?" Maybe there's a small 1x2 medical module that consumes itself to give a minor heal to your soldiers (perhaps only healing wounds), with the Milestone 1 medical module taking up a full 2x5 space, providing the full suite of automatic healing and wound treatment. This easily lends to a fun bit of tech progression where you eventually replace the older, very clunky module that takes up a 4x3 space with the sleeker, more technologically advanced successor that takes up a 3x2 space. This system also implicitly means certain modules will be mutually exclusive with each other, which adds to the element of tradeoffs and makes module choices much more meaningful. For example, the big medical module and exoskeleton would still fit in the current 5x5 grid together, but you're barely left with 3 spaces for the rest of your soldier's equipment like grenades or magazines. Maybe the aiming module takes up a 4x2 space, meaning you cannot mount both it and the medical module at all.

You could argue the drop down menu accomplishes the same sort of thing, but you have a grid inventory system, it's much more fun to actually use it and let the player wrack their brain trying to fit every module they can while keeping their soldiers with a reasonable amount of ammo and equipment. Otherwise you might as well scrap the whole inventory grid and just make the entire inventory system a list or drop down menu. There's a reason the Resident Evil 4 attache case inventory system was a thing people fell in love with (and even inspired some indie games that entirely revolved around it) while basically every other inventory system is mostly forgettable or barely worth mentioning.

Edited September 7, 2023 by skaianDestiny

[Komandos]

31 minutes ago, skaianDestiny said:

For example, make the exoskeleton take up a 3x4 space in the inventory, which means the player now has to ask "is the extra strength worth losing so much inventory space?" instead of the no brainer of of "can my soldier carry 5 more grenades and heavy armor for the low price of a tiny 2x2 box?"

There is a natural (logical) fact: a soldier has more pockets (space for inventory) after he puts an exoskeleton (military uniform) on his naked body.

Unnatural (not logical) is the fact that a completely naked soldier has more pockets (places in the inventory) than a soldier who will wear a soldier's uniform.

Items that are put on the soldier's body should not take up space in a tactical backpack. I agree with the fact that the image of an item (those that are dressed on a soldier) looks better to the player than a list of items (those that are dressed on a soldier). Additional armor plates, night glasses (other things that are put on the soldier's body) should also have an image.

[gG-Unknown]

12 hours ago, Chris said:

 it was never particularly difficult to get enough Abduction tubes to win the mission, in my experience. The real question was always "how many extra can you get?"

Did you consider tune amount TU needed for release ?

When TU rise, and aliens AI are set to defend tubes  (keep  close, silent, and reserve time for overwatch),  suddenly new gameplay is here. Each  tube would need coordination of at least two  soldiers, one is working on the tube,  second over watch.  Or perhaps you even need smoke self to be covered  while working on tube.

 

Second thing is civilian interaction

- their running around feels random. It would be better give player to certain amount of control over civilans, but not overwhelm player with too  many characters to  control.  Lets say make Civilan  AI set to several states :

1. Stand on spot. (he  could crouch at will, or shoot if he has weapon)

2. Fallow me (fallow the soldier 1-2 tiles behind, position themselves as soldier is between civilan and alien or  unknown space)

3. Run to Chopper (civilan AI  use player "heat_map_of_danger" and choose safe way    back to chopper)

4. Do as you like (basicalzy current AI behaviour, also work as reset  for all AI variants above)

 

Xenoanut could "switch" civilan AI  from distance  up to 2 tiles. Interact same way as "table_with_data"  then OSD popup dialogue appear, so player can choose 1-4 to interact. That way, player get more control over battlefield. Feeling of cooperation.

[Pietje666]

I would prefer the new style of modules. Cause they get in the way in certain missions. If you could rearrange and drop the modules then which style would be used doesn't matter. 

About the laser weapons are the upgrades a follow-up or doesn't matter which order you upgrade it? 

Still i think that you should be allowed to upgrade accelerated weapons one by one. If it's a whole package then upgrade cost could be too high to engineer it.

[Raffik]

On 9/4/2023 at 5:55 PM, Chris said:

Milestone 2 is not yet ready for public consumption, but it is available in a rough form for people who want to help us experiment with a few new mechanics. To access the build, enter the branch password xenonautsproto and switch to the Prototype branch. However, please read the whole post before doing so!

We're testing out a few new mechanics that we want to get people's opinions about before we commit to updating the UI and getting new artwork done etc. I'll spend a bit more time than normal explaining the logic behind the design decisions here, as that will hopefully allow people to tell us whether they think the changes achieve their intended goals or not.

Panic:
One of the biggest problems with Milestone 1 is that there's no easy way to reduce Panic in a specific region, which means that on harder difficulty settings you need to build additional bases and aircraft as quickly as possible otherwise you'll quickly reach the point where you start losing regions.

Panic will now decrease by 10% in each region at the end of each month. However, the Panic reduction for shooting down UFOs has been halved from -2 to -1. This means that Panic generated from Cleaner activity or Alien Bases or failed tactical missions will dissipate more quickly, while making interceptor coverage *slightly* less beneficial (although it's still pretty strong).

Note that due to a bug this is happening before the region loss check (which means you need ~110 Panic to lose a region) but we'll change this if the change is popular. Also, this change only solves half of the problem in Milestone 1, as the player still lacks a targeted way to reduce Panic in a region. However I think it's a useful first step.

Funding:
Funding is no longer dependent on Panic level. A region will grant you full funding (which increases as you progress down the storyline) unless you lose the region, in which case funding will fall to zero.

This change was made to support some other experimental changes I've not put in this build. But it means that building a base in a region doesn't increase income as much. Previously you'd get extra funds from shooting down UFOs and completing the crash sites, but then also gain extra funding from the fact keeping Panic low in the region granted extra funding. This hopefully means it's less essential to rush to cover the whole world with your planes as soon as possible.

Mission Order:
The game now starts with a Cleaner deathmatch mission, which is then followed by a Secton Abduction site. The plan is to make the opening Cleaner mission a bit more exciting - potentially even a continuation of the base defence mission from the tutorial where you clear the base of the attacking Cleaners, then evacuate to your new base. But the goal is to add an extra Cleaner mission and use that as a way to introduce them better at the start of the game.

We've then slightly slowed down the progression over the next three months, and in particular we've moved the Cleaner Intel Hub mission back a couple of weeks so it comes after the first UFO crash site. We're open to ideas about how we can make the Cleaner mission sequence a bit more interesting, as it seems like not everyone likes the Cleaner Network idea where the main way to advance is just to capture more Cleaner Data on missions. Feel free to throw ideas out on this topic.

Tech Tree / Item Upgrades:
One of the recurring discussion points on the forums is whether Accelerated Weapons are a "trap" or not, and I've attemped to make their purpose a bit more clear through some tech tree changes. Accelerated weapons are now an upgrade for Ballistic weapons - i.e. a one-off project that permanently upgrades all Ballistic weapons to be Accelerated weapons. The same is also now true for the Warden Armour, which is now an upgrade for Defender Armour which increases the protection offered.

As such, I've moved Guardian Armour forward in the tech tree so it can be unlocked off Scout UFOs rather than Destroyers. This means the player is given the choice of two relatively quick and cheap upgrades at the start of the game, but are also given the option to research more advanced weapons (lasers) and armour (Guardian) within the first month. But you're also presented the option to pursue the story research, which increases your funding - so hopefully this presents the player some interesting choices in the early game to try different strategies.

To stop this being overwhelming, I've moved the Dragonfly and Phantom to be unlocked off Destroyers rather than Scouts.

Finally, I've tried to expand the item upgrade options. There's a project that allows you to reduce the weight of Defender Armour, and Laser Weapons now have two upgrades that provide Recharging Ammo and increased Damage respectively. Guardian Armour also has an upgrade that increases the protection it offers which is unlocked from Destroyers. I'd be interested to know whether people like these increased upgrade options.

Soldier Module System:
I've removed all the existing soldier "modules" which could be placed in the soldier tactical vest and these are now replaced by the following set up:

• Extra Armour: all armour now weighs less and offers less protection, but there's a Heavy Armour toggle in the bottom right that will increase protection at the cost of extra weight. This is designed to make the armour more flexible rather than "heavy" armour like the Guardian being useless for low-Strength soldiers. The only gameplay consideration is "can the soldier carry the extra weight?"
• Armour Module: you can now choose a single module from a second dropdown below the existing Armour dropdown. At the start you can either choose from a rebreather that provides smoke protection, a +3 Acc boost or a +5 Bravery boost, however almost all the modules from Milestone 1 reappear as you progress down the tech tree. Obviously the question is simply which one module you choose to use.
• Jetpack: as previously, the jetpack is another toggled option. I just don't think it's useful enough that anyone would ever use it if we made it part of the Armour Module list.

My question here is simple - do you prefer this to the module system in Milestone 1 where your inventory was full of modules? There's scope to add extra artwork and improve the UI if people like the basic idea, but it'd be nice to know people's initial impression of the changes.

However, from a design perspective there's some overlap with the Item Upgrade system above. Some of the modules could potentially be folded into upgrades for the armour (particularly the Jetpack) - although then the danger is that you have soldiers that can do everything, and once your armour is upgraded you no longer have to choose between say a +TU boost, or a +ACC boost, or health regeneration, etc.

Let me know your thoughts on this setup and where you'd like to see the design go. 

Incomplete Balance Changes:
These are further balance changes I expect to make prior to Milestone 2 reaching our main Steam branches:

• Panic will be checked for region loss before the -10% monthly decrease occurs.
• Abduction missions will not end when the timer expires. Instead, the tubes will be present for X turns before teleporting away, and you get rewards for each one you open. However all the aliens must still be eliminated for victory.
• Starting Cleaner mission will probably happen immediately after beginning the game, before you go to strategy (rather than being a mission you do on day 2 or so).

Hi Chris,

after downloading the prototype build and play of 22 days of game time, the game crashed during first tactical mission (scout), so the following impressions and ideas are only relevant to that short time.

Intro:  Could be longer and go deeper into the plot - not only are the Xenonauts protecting the world from an alien invasion, but also preventing nuclear war, that cleaners are steering the world politics into... 

Panic / Funding: not able to test yet, as the game crashed way too early. 

Mission Order - Cleaners: feels intense with the first Cleaner mission so early. Bit harsh, but manageable.

The mission itself is challenging, but also just "usual kill´em all" elimination mission. I believe, that the Cleaners are more of a strategic threat to the player and their mission should therefore have more strategic background (VIP assasinations, sabotages, local military base attacks etc). The events triggering on the Geoscape (journalists abducted/arrested/eliminated) could trigger some of those missions, so the player can attempt to save them and prevent panic increase.

Perhaps also widening the scope in the tutorial of the game could be interesting - when the player fights in the tutorial, the fight could continue in the first mission of the game (the player defending the base). Loosing would mean end of the game. Hard, but immersive imo.

Mission order - Abduction: this feels so different! And very satisfying I must add. Saving all 10 people before the mission timer expires gives a very satisfying feel. Well done, I liked that a lot. I believe,that with time and more resilient enemies than sectons, the abduction missions would be even more intense.

Weapon upgrades: Finally the accelerated weapons have clear purpose and the research will not be skipped, good idea! Like that as well. Although bit expensive at the start of the game. 

Armor modules - Rebreather: good idea, it was annoying to stun own people when running through smoked terrain or UFOs.

Armor modules - Ragefinder: no graphics (visualisation) for it yet as it is just a placeholder I assume. Gives less bonus than the original module, but fine. 

Armor modules - Commlimk: no graphincs as well yet. Not sure what the effect of it could be in later stages of the game, when psionics come into play, at the start of the game a bit useless imo.

What I would like to see for example, would be night vision goggles.

Armor upgrades - Defender protection: good, increasing the protection with alloys is logical, but it is expensive and takes a long time to develop

Armor upgrades - Defender weight reduction: good, also takes lot of time and resources at the beginning of the game, where each penny is needed (to rebuild the base, hire people etc)

Armor upgrades - Heavy armour: the basic defender armor weights 16, the heavy armour adds another 12, bit too heavy imo... not sure yet what warden will do with this (the armour value of warden was 20 I believe and the weight was 12, now the def value is 13 with the added protection and it weights 28 - defender with reduction weights 12 + 12 heavy armour, so twice the amount of Warden in original and the protection is less.)

The associated research is called Warden armour, however, onl the defender upgrades are there and there is no "real" Warden armour.... There are 2 more projects, that take about 8 days to complete and the costs are 500.000 in total for both upgrades, to have the "complete" Warden armour feel.... researching Warden in original was about the same time and equipping the whole team with Warden took less money.

Chris said: "My question here is simple - do you prefer this to the module system in Milestone 1 where your inventory was full of modules? There's scope to add extra artwork and improve the UI if people like the basic idea, but it'd be nice to know people's initial impression of the changes."

The downside I would see about the modules not in the inventory is, that there would be "too much" carrying capacity in later stages, when the soldiers get stronger, so the battlefield could turn into grenade parade..

Jetpack: as it was mentioned, I think it could remain as is, as the selectable option through a tick box.

Other modules: I believe, that some of the modules (larger ones) should still be carried in the inventory (Automed, Actuator) and the other like googles, heavy armour, rangefinder rebreather etc could be selectable through the drop down. 

Thats it for now. Overall, I like the ideas and the changes, perhaps the armour upgrades could take less funds or time away.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Raffik

[Grobobobo]

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One of the biggest problems with Milestone 1 is that there's no easy way to reduce Panic in a specific region, which means that on harder difficulty settings you need to build additional bases and aircraft as quickly as possible otherwise you'll quickly reach the point where you start losing regions.

I believe this is a misguided issue. If you kill cleaners early (which you should, you have nothing else to do early game) aliens don't actually have a properly meaningful way of generating panic until bombers, which was pretty late in milestone 1. I have a commander save where economy was pretty trivial because I only build one base for 140 days - That is because the upkeep costs of multiple bases heavily outweigh the benefits those bases provide. I agree that we should have a way for a targeted panic reduction, but -10 global panic a month will probably make managing it too easy even on the highest difficulty, and possibly make building multiple bases not worth it at all. Especially if you still can reclaim lost regions - I don't know if you can, I've never lost a region yet.

[Grobobobo]

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One of the recurring discussion points on the forums is whether Accelerated Weapons are a "trap" or not, and I've attemped to make their purpose a bit more clear through some tech tree changes. Accelerated weapons are now an upgrade for Ballistic weapons - i.e. a one-off project that permanently upgrades all Ballistic weapons to be Accelerated weapons. The same is also now true for the Warden Armour, which is now an upgrade for Defender Armour which increases the protection offered.

As such, I've moved Guardian Armour forward in the tech tree so it can be unlocked off Scout UFOs rather than Destroyers. This means the player is given the choice of two relatively quick and cheap upgrades at the start of the game, but are also given the option to research more advanced weapons (lasers) and armour (Guardian) within the first month. But you're also presented the option to pursue the story research, which increases your funding - so hopefully this presents the player some interesting choices in the early game to try different strategies.

To stop this being overwhelming, I've moved the Dragonfly and Phantom to be unlocked off Destroyers rather than Scouts.

Finally, I've tried to expand the item upgrade options. There's a project that allows you to reduce the weight of Defender Armour, and Laser Weapons now have two upgrades that provide Recharging Ammo and increased Damage respectively. Guardian Armour also has an upgrade that increases the protection it offers which is unlocked from Destroyers. I'd be interested to know whether people like these increased upgrade options.

 

The accelerated weapons felt like a trap because
a) the warden armor was far more important early game
b) you can still get laser weapons early, which are better overall even when unupgraded, and getting to them was a small delay
I'm not sure if making accelerated weapons happen even earlier fixes the issue, because you simply don't need them early game, and can easily handle the small firepower delay. The only early game units that are actually armored are sebilians, which have a whooping 5 armor, something that's pierced by a ballistic SR anyway.
I'd probably move lasers even later in the tree, so skipping accelerated weapons would be more painful. Or simply make armor more frequent and dense early game - mantids could use a buff and a new gimmick, so maybe make their health even lower, but have pretty high armor (referencing their tough but fragile chitin)

I'm not sure about armor changes, but that does look like an indirect nerf to the warden armor (splitting the upgrade into two parts), so I'd say it's probably a good thing.