Milestone 2.06 Prototype Test Build Released!

[Chris]

Milestone 2 will shortly be moving to the Experimental branches, but for now we're still testing it on the Prototype branches while I finish updating the in-game text to reflect the new mechanics and lore. Hopefully this will therefore be the final Prototype build for Milestone 2.

You can access the Prototype branches by using the password "xenonautsproto" in Steam.

Gameplay Changes:

• Significant rewrites to the tutorial conversation and opening conversation so the lore now makes sense with the gameplay updates. The Commander is no longer a character, and has been replaced by The General - the previous commander of the Xenonauts.
• Reworked the invasion timeline so Mimics now act as escort craft, and Air Superiority missions (and therefore Fighter UFOs) are more common.
• Fighter UFOs now look different to Mimics.
• Monthly funding for players increased, and cost of new bases has been reduced from $750k to $500k. Upkeep cost on aircraft and base structures has been increased by 50%.
• Rebalanced the soldier Armour values. Heavy armour variants now double the protection offered, but triple the weight. Warden is now a little bit stronger, and Guardian Armour is a bit weaker.
• Angels now only have three equipment slots, not four.
• Torpedoes now do substantially increased damage.
• Aircraft armour now offers more protection.
• All manufactured aircraft equipment now sells for less than it costs to build. Tier 1 weapons / armour reduced in cost from $100k to $50k.
• Made month 1 Eliminate VIP mission slightly easier.
• Capturing an enemy alive no longer unlocks their autopsy, but completing the interrogation does so.

Fixes & Updates:

• Fixed a crash when selecting the MARS in the deployment phase before Ambush / Base Defence missions.
• Fixed an AI crash during the alien turn.
• Fixed the tutorial getting locked part-way through and being impossible to complete.
• Fixed the Cleaner Data Raid mission terminating as soon as you pick up the last USB stick, rather than when you get back to the dropship.
• Fixed dead soldiers sometimes surviving even when the player has a 0% survivial chance.
• Fixed the Exosuit being invisible in the Soldier Equip screen.
• Fixed some visual issues with the Guardian on the Soldier Equip screen.
• Fixed the Phantom equipment slots being misaligned, and two of them not counting towards the Weight limit on the plane.
• Fixed the Ambush mission sometimes not having any enemy combatants in it.
• Fixed aliens and humans being revealed if they are stunned when the player does not have line of sight on them.
• Added support for back layers on for armour on the Soldier Equip screen, allowing us to fix the "holes" in the collars.
• Set up the journalist VIP on the VIP Extraction mission to have the appropriate portrait / clothes.
• Fixed the new recovered items (shown in orange) being sorted to the bottom of the list on the mission debrief screen, rather than to the top.
• Fixed a couple of visual issues with the Alenium Reactor props on the base defence missions.

[Alienkiller]

Nice, keep on the good work Devs. The new Content / Features from Milestone 2 looks very good so far and close the Gaps for Missions, Specials as well as missing Content / Features a little bit more. I will look into the new Version on Weekend.

But one good Advice: Don´t make in some Points (like with unflexible Armours / Combat-Support-Vehicles and only light refitable Fighters) the same Mistake as the Devs from Chaos Concept (UFO ET-Row) are doing, esp. with the UFO 1 ET Gold-Version-Refit to Platinum. I suggest you look in UFO 1 ET: Platinum / UFO 2 ET: Battle for Mercury, then you see what I mean.

With the flexibility in Armour-Variants, Combat-Support-Vehicle-Modularity and Weapon-Upgradeabilitys, Weapon-Modularity and more differnt Missions / Special-Missions Xenonauts 2 have it´s advantage. If possible make the Fighters and Pilots more modular, with f. e. Changes in the Buildups with new Buildup-Refit-Techs and Flexibilitys (the begun Work on the Fighters with the Component-Weights etc. in Milestone 2 is an very good start).

As well as both Games have the unflexibility that Pilots (Xenonatus 2) as well as Support-Vehicle-Drivers (UFO ET-Row) are not learning as well as can´t change Vehicles.

Xenonauts 2 and the UFO ET-Row are Competitors, in some Points Xenonauts 2 is better (the announced Points), in other Points the UFO ET-Row with UFO 2 ET: BfM / UFO 1 ET: Platinum (more differnt Techs, an linked Storyline from UFO 2 ET [Earth] to UFO 1 ET [Esperanza] etc.). Atm. it´s an Head-to-Head-Running, because I play both, so I can say what is in both Game-Rows good or not so good. 

Edited October 5, 2023 by Alienkiller

[Grobobobo]

9 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

But one good Advice: Don´t make in some Points (like with unflexible Armours / Combat-Support-Vehicles and only light refitable Fighters) the same Mistake as the Devs from Chaos Concept (UFO ET-Row) are doing, esp. with the UFO 1 ET Gold-Version-Refit to Platinum. I suggest you look in UFO 1 ET: Platinum / UFO 2 ET: Battle for Mercury, then you see what I mean.

Can you please elaborate on that? I don't want to play the UFO games to get what you mean.

[Alienkiller]

The best is that you look in the Let´s Plays for them, then you see what I mean.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Alienkiller

[skaianDestiny]

20 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

The best is that you look in the Let´s Plays for them, then you see what I mean.

I don't want to spend my time searching through those. Just write up what the issues are.

[Raffik]

On 10/4/2023 at 5:50 PM, Chris said:

Milestone 2 will shortly be moving to the Experimental branches, but for now we're still testing it on the Prototype branches while I finish updating the in-game text to reflect the new mechanics and lore. Hopefully this will therefore be the final Prototype build for Milestone 2.

You can access the Prototype branches by using the password "xenonautsproto" in Steam.

Gameplay Changes:

• Significant rewrites to the tutorial conversation and opening conversation so the lore now makes sense with the gameplay updates. The Commander is no longer a character, and has been replaced by The General - the previous commander of the Xenonauts.
• Reworked the invasion timeline so Mimics now act as escort craft, and Air Superiority missions (and therefore Fighter UFOs) are more common.
• Fighter UFOs now look different to Mimics.
• Monthly funding for players increased, and cost of new bases has been reduced from $750k to $500k. Upkeep cost on aircraft and base structures has been increased by 50%.
• Rebalanced the soldier Armour values. Heavy armour variants now double the protection offered, but triple the weight. Warden is now a little bit stronger, and Guardian Armour is a bit weaker.
• Angels now only have three equipment slots, not four.
• Torpedoes now do substantially increased damage.
• Aircraft armour now offers more protection.
• All manufactured aircraft equipment now sells for less than it costs to build. Tier 1 weapons / armour reduced in cost from $100k to $50k.
• Made month 1 Eliminate VIP mission slightly easier.
• Capturing an enemy alive no longer unlocks their autopsy, but completing the interrogation does so.

Fixes & Updates:

• Fixed a crash when selecting the MARS in the deployment phase before Ambush / Base Defence missions.
• Fixed an AI crash during the alien turn.
• Fixed the tutorial getting locked part-way through and being impossible to complete.
• Fixed the Cleaner Data Raid mission terminating as soon as you pick up the last USB stick, rather than when you get back to the dropship.
• Fixed dead soldiers sometimes surviving even when the player has a 0% survivial chance.
• Fixed the Exosuit being invisible in the Soldier Equip screen.
• Fixed some visual issues with the Guardian on the Soldier Equip screen.
• Fixed the Phantom equipment slots being misaligned, and two of them not counting towards the Weight limit on the plane.
• Fixed the Ambush mission sometimes not having any enemy combatants in it.
• Fixed aliens and humans being revealed if they are stunned when the player does not have line of sight on them.
• Added support for back layers on for armour on the Soldier Equip screen, allowing us to fix the "holes" in the collars.
• Set up the journalist VIP on the VIP Extraction mission to have the appropriate portrait / clothes.
• Fixed the new recovered items (shown in orange) being sorted to the bottom of the list on the mission debrief screen, rather than to the top.
• Fixed a couple of visual issues with the Alenium Reactor props on the base defence 

The turorial is nicely overwritten, there is a small typo though - in the dialogue between the traitor general and the main characters.

Perhaps the team of soldiers used in the tutorial could be also part of starting team of soldiers? The ones in the tutorial and at the game start seem to be different.

As the cleaner agents are now normal humans, there could be a chance to persuade some of them to join xenonauts as a side quest perhaps (captured agents for example)

Some other observations from first 18 days of V2.06 playthrough:

Weapon weight is shown without ammo in the armory now, but unloading and loading the weapon still seems to add the weight to soldiers inventory.

HEVY has been nerfed from 35 dmg to 25, which renders it tactically almost useless, as the dmg output is the same as demo charge. Having a GL with loaded weight of 56 and only 4 shots is nonsense. The same soldier could carry 4 demo charges, a rifle and a grenade on top of it for 54 weight and be therefore tactically much better equipped.

The HEVY should fire in a shallow arc fot a longer range, so that it can provide at least some advantage to the player.

LMG range reduced to 20 from 25

Its a shame, that the Angel interceptors do not have 4 slots anymore, that seemed to be an interresting fearure worth exploring more.

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by Raffik

[Grobobobo]

16 hours ago, Raffik said:

HEVY has been nerfed from 35 dmg to 25, which renders it tactically almost useless, as the dmg output is the same as demo charge. Having a GL with loaded weight of 56 and only 4 shots is nonsense. The same soldier could carry 4 demo charges, a rifle and a grenade on top of it for 54 weight and be therefore tactically much better equipped.

Honestly, cover destruction is so busted that I still use H.E.V.Y anyway. It still has a larger AOE and slightly larger range than a demo charge. I don't mind that carboard boxes are easy to destroy, but even something that's supposed to be sturdy instantly evaporates. That makes hunting down aliens a bit *too* easy, especially since you have no reason to care about collateral damage. I wish they upped the damage, but also significantly upped the cover health on most things so 1 charge or nade doesn't evaporate everything. It's also weird how it's the only thing using flat TU cost.

16 hours ago, Raffik said:

Its a shame, that the Angel interceptors do not have 4 slots anymore, that seemed to be an interresting fearure worth exploring more.

Yeah, the 4 slot system has much more potential, the current system isn't very balanced for options either, making it boring despite the supposedly higher customizability. In general I hope they haven't come close to finishing the air game changes, if that's all the changes we're getting I'm going to be disappointed.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Grobobobo

[skaianDestiny]

Angels have 3 slots instead of 4 to let there be a more immediately visible upgrade to Phantoms having 4 slots.

[cman1983]

@Chris unbelievably great work on this side only down is on my save I don't have the add weapons to dropship 

[Grobobobo]

47 minutes ago, skaianDestiny said:

Angels have 3 slots instead of 4 to let there be a more immediately visible upgrade to Phantoms having 4 slots.

That can be done by simply extending the weight and weapon bay capacity for the X-55. Besides, currently on angels you use 2 important slots and 3rd is whatever, you're far more limited by weight than by slots, so a 4th one isn't immediately good. I don't think I'd use all 4 slots on X-55 either, since it's probably gonna be double autocannon + armor.

[cman1983]

14 hours ago, cman1983 said:

@Chris unbelievably great work on this side only down is on my save I don't have the add weapons to dropship 

@Chrisalso can we have a random if pilot dies or stays alive if defeated in air battles as I think having the same pilot in say 200 days in different version of same aircraft just wouldn't happen 

[flipflopguy]

I've been thoroughly enjoying my play through so far. 

I'm not sure if it was intended or even if this is the correct term but the changes to the Tutorial and intro dialogues have resulted in a nice silent protagonist effect for the Commander.  
Really appreciated the hints at additional lore from cleaner interrogations and autopsies.

So far I've just noticed three minor issues the new mechanics and lore. 
* Really minor personal niggle: In the training dialogue when the cleaners are approaching the base it feels a little off tone-wise when the Ops Officer Commands the Commander to deploy the troops. "Commander I advise that you deploy your troops so that we can evacuate...." may be better.
* I also missed the text about leaving space for the rescued soldiers - I only had six to deploy so I wasn't penalized for it.
** Perhaps consider varying their equipment a tad if possible - handguns and SMGs suggesting being caught off guard.
* I lost the VIP rescue mission because I moved my last soldier on to the Skyhawk before the VIP - poor VIP protection tactics I know - but I was surprised when the mission ended and we lifted off leaving one very confused VIP one square away from the chopper in an area cleared of enemies 

All that said - great fun. 

Thanks very much the hard work Devs.