450 days in Milestone 2.08B

[Raffik]

Just finished my test run on the version 2.08B. Here my observations during the 450 days.

Overal the game feels easier, especially the air war, which felt very easy (almost too easy) until interceptors arrived.

Economy wise, the lower costs for starting a base and reduced costs of aircraft allow to build up relatively quickly, but the higher upkeep cost limit the expansion and coverage of rhe globe. I was able to build 3 main bases (with fighters and drophips) in the northern hemisphere and 3 radar only bases in the southern, before the funding became negative around day 440. I believe, that the funding in the later stage should not go into negative, but rather stop, as the player in that stage can fund his operations by himself easily.

There could be a new building avalable perhaps - Alien containment, to store alive and dead aliens. The base stores are getting full pretty fast if you have to stack up all the dead alien bodies to perform the corpse analyses. The alien containment unit could be also a secondary goal for the aliens during base attack, where they would try to free the captives ans escort them back to hangar or to arm them to make the attack stronger.

The pattern in which the UFOs appear on the globe seems to be random. Aside of the supply missions to alien bases and retribution missions, most of the UFOs just seem to fly around, not even causing much damage (a few airliners destroyed, some damage on the ground). Out of 75 UFOs I encountered, the panic levels never got over 30 (tested on soldier diff). Last UFO appeared around day 300.

Start of the game:

Atlas base is in Africa. The extraction of the soldiers/survivors from the ATLAS base attack was in Canada. I was wondering, how 3 unequipped soldiers got so far...? The mission would make sense closer to Africa. 

The Air war - UFO nerf

the initial UFO is supposed to be an easy oponent, and it is. To my surprise though, an Angel interceptor can now wreck a flight of 3 mimics at once, the scout has been an adversary not to be taken lightly for the Angel, now even with escort it does not stand a chance. Destroyer, if attacked cleverly comes down pretty easily as well.  Even later combos like destroyer+mimic and destroyer+fighter fall victim to Angels as well. After the larger UFO arrive and you do have a phantom or two or combination of an Angel an a Phantom, you cannot be stopped, abductor can be taken straight on without any tactics.Abductor also comes with no sort of escort at all. The only worthy adversary are the 3 Interceptors popping out every now and then after about day 200. 

Weight system on the fighters:

While Angel can have a load of 10, which allows for a solid loadout with 2 missiles and a cannon or a lance, the Phantom has 13, which would be plenty to carry 4 missiles in 4 hardpoints, but no. There are limitations to what is allowed to be carried, either 2 cannons/lances or a combination of a lance, 2 missiles and armour. so in the end you end up with almost the same loadouts for both fighter types, the only diff is the extra armour. There are multiple options there as well of course.

Ground combat:

the HEVY seesms to be useless tactically still, as the damage output is ridiculously low at 25 only.

stun gun being available from the start feels good, so you have a relatively effective weapon to stun enemies.

The armour values could be slightly higher by the warden armour.

The rebreather was more logical to be helmet mount, than being put to the backpack imo.

Research:

might be just me, but I thought, that phantoms come after researching alenium power. In this playthrough I saw it popping out after UFO hull plating research. But I might be mistaken after which research it comes. Nothing that important, but it sucked for a while, as my first phantom was build around day 150 only. 

Lost base:

If you loose a base to UFO attack and want to build it again, the game does not allow to build the new one in the same location, as if the base was still there. Assume that is a bug.

It would be a nice touch, if the game actually offered you to rebuild that base in the same location for less money for example.

The latest update 2.08C breaks the previous saves it seems.

Thats about it. Good work devs, keep it up. Looking forward to see more content.

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Raffik

[Grobobobo]

9 hours ago, Raffik said:

the HEVY seesms to be useless tactically still, as the damage output is ridiculously low at 25 only

The cover destruction HEVY is still pretty much op, it's just that the shaped charge is even more op.

Edited October 31, 2023 by Grobobobo

[Raffik]

14 hours ago, Grobobobo said:

The cover destruction HEVY is still pretty much op, it's just that the shaped charge is even more op.

well, if you see it thisxway. yes. 

But HEVY should have more usage, not only to remove obstacles, it should damage the enemies, not it even does almost anything to armour. You end up with a weapon, that is more than two times the weight of a rifle (56) with 4 shots and the soldier carrying it is basically spent. Demo charges and laser weapons should be the main removers of cover,  HEVY should also be usable to lay down smoke (which it does), destroy enemies in larger area, destroy cover/walls etc. It could also have a buckshot round to resemble the shotgun. Or it should have a curved trajectory to retain some tactical usage.

I know the HEVY has been a topic in many discussions before, but since it got nerfed, it is not worth using, as smoke grenades and demo charges do the job pretty well. I assume that there will be multiple new ammo types in the future (as there were in X1), but my point is, that the player needs a heavy explosive weapon for direct and indirect fire support, ideally rocket launcher and/or the HEVY. Ideally the RL would have direct fire trajectory and the HEVY a curved trajectory.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Raffik

[Grobobobo]

I mean, I did "buff" HEVY in my equipment rebalance mod, but I'd rather have other options nerfed before it being buffed. I don't use it as is, buf if shaped charges didn't exist, I would 100% use it. 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Grobobobo

[Grobobobo]

15 minutes ago, Raffik said:

with 4 shots and the soldier carrying it is basically spent

4 is actually plenty for a mission, but i usually am able to carry 8. I recently re-played xenonauts 1 on insane to compare it to the rocket launcher, and imo HEVY is significantly stronger than it in a vacuum. Lower damage and range, but 4 times as much ammo, can fire twice per turn, does not suffer an accuracy penalty after moving, and is more effective at cover destruction. I think this is the case of other tools being too strong rather than that one tool being too weak.

[Raffik]

13 hours ago, Grobobobo said:

I mean, I did "buff" HEVY in my equipment rebalance mod, but I'd rather have other options nerfed before it being buffed. I don't use it as is, buf if shaped charges didn't exist, I would 100% use it. 

Hmmm... I believe the other weapons are balanced quite nicely, the damage output is enough to kill the early aliens in 1 shot or 2 with ballistic weapons, the later techs are similarly effective against the later aliens, thats pretty realistic imo. 

Agree, that if there were no demo charges, the HEVY would be the main tool to remove cover, but it has much more (currently wasted) potential (curved trajectory, stun gas, various explosive rounds, even buckshot rounds)

13 hours ago, Grobobobo said:

4 is actually plenty for a mission, but i usually am able to carry 8. I recently re-played xenonauts 1 on insane to compare it to the rocket launcher, and imo HEVY is significantly stronger than it in a vacuum. Lower damage and range, but 4 times as much ammo, can fire twice per turn, does not suffer an accuracy penalty after moving, and is more effective at cover destruction. I think this is the case of other tools being too strong rather than that one tool being too weak.

Correct, 4 are usually enough. Each grenade round is lighter than a hand grenade, so the damage of 25 each makes sense actually. Perhaps the aim is, that the alenium, plasma and fusion grenades later in the game will be much stronger(?). The launcher is very heavy, that is also a factor, why it is not very useful imo. If there would be some ragdoll physics implemented, where the alliens would be thrown away by the blast or supressed at least, that would be nice.

Never played X1, only saw videos, the RL was pretty nice, with long range and different ammo types. I´d love to see that in X2 as well.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Raffik

[Alienkiller]

That´s cool Raffik and the way to the correct direction. That the Founders / Betatesters from Beginn on haven´t reached. I too find that the Game-Time is to short with 1 Gameplay-Year (360 Days).

If the Devs make the Game 720 Days (like UFO 1 ET Standard / Gold- and atm. Platinum-Version) which are 2 Gameplay-Years, then more Gamers will buy and play X2. Much better are about 900 Days, which are 2,5 Gameplay-Years to bring more Gamers to X2 (see UFO 2 ET: Battle for Mercury).

That means for X2 that the Cleaners can brought more in, you get more improvement on the Globe incl. other Parts of the Game and the Alien-Threat grow slower (like in the direct Rival UFO ET-Series), which menas more Game-Fun comes up for the Causal-Gamers. 

The Founders / Beta-Testers have had a high Stress-Level already the last Years in the Beta-Phases / Experimental-Phases with the very small limited Gameplay-Year (360 Days), so an double of Days is the Mininum to bring it on an solid Level like the Competitors (old X-COM, new XCOM, UFO ET-Series, Phoenix Point etc.).

[ooey]

I didn't realise the game ends after one year. Is that all you get? That's a bit of a bummer.

[Alienkiller]

To answer your Question: Yes after about 300 Days (10 Month) you get so much pressure from the Aliens, that you as player either have the decission to abort or make yourself an final attack in the last 60 Days. That the Communty on Steam etc. critisise already.

That´s the Founders / Betatesters, which test the Game already since several Years have noticed and give the Devs the advice to hear to the Communty. The Causal-Gamers, which brings earlyer or later the Money will buy it, if the Game change to the positive (give 360 Days more playtime). If it stays like it is, then the Causal-Gamers won´t buy it, which means the Years of Development & Testing is wasted time.

That´s the short explaining to that problematic.

[ooey]

This is true Alienkiller. I would have thought that we'd have at least 2 years to fight the aliens. 1 year seems a bit too short to do everything in. I think a shallower curve is needed (sounds like the game is in a bit of a rush). I'd much rather have a longer campaign to sink my teeth into than play the it twice over. 

Do you think it's that if you are doing too well you find the aliens exert more pressure, or is it just the case either way? Is it not based on the tech level you have researched to? I would hope that, like xen1, there are still basic scout ships to intercept well into the game if you are not doing so well.

If this is something a large chunk of the community don't like, I'm sure they will think about changing it.

Edited November 14, 2023 by ooey

[ooey]

On 10/31/2023 at 7:22 AM, Raffik said:

The latest update 2.08C breaks the previous saves it seems.

Yep. Chris said in another thread that every milestone update will break game saves. If you think about it this is logical (unless you know every variable you are going to have in advance, and the ones not yet implemented can have null values for now). This is virtually impossible to predict though when adding new ideas/features to the game and so is inevitable. 

Sadly It's what's stopping me from playing the game for now (I've played about a month of game time and have been impressed with what I have seen so far). He did say though that whatever version you are currently playing will be kept on the servers (probably until final release) so you can play through to the end game for that version (just don't update if you want to do this ;-)).

Edited November 14, 2023 by ooey

[Alienkiller]

That´s an good Question ooey. In the Games I played so far in the last 3 Decades (and that are only the Decades with PC) beginning with the old X-COM-Row over the UFO-After-Row, new XCOM-Row and UFO-ET-Row and some more or less good Fan-Remakes of this Gerne 3 Factors influenced the Game:

1. the special Breakthrough of an Tech-Level to get in the next Gamestage

2. the Fight against UFOs or similar Crafts incl. destroying or recovery (the more you destroy or recover, the faster you get to the next Gamestage)

3. the advancement of the direct Storyline [like in the new XCOM-Series, Phoenix Point] or whatever the 3rd Influnce of the Game is, dosen´t matter what Real-Time or Round-Time of this or similar Gerne it is.

In all Games of this Gene you have about 2 Gameplay-Years to 3 Gameplay-Years with several Gamestages. So it´s hard to say what Xenonauts 2 uses of that 3 announced Points to get to the next Game-Stage.

Where we all agree, that the Game-Stages come to fast and the Game-Time for the Public-Gamers is to short with 1 Year. There UFO 1 ET "Platinum" of the UFO ET-Series give 1 more Year. But fair-minded said that´s the minimum of Time (2 Years) for such an Game until you get slaved / pulverised by the Aliens or make an Patt with the Aliens with destroying their Mastermind or what good Ending is there then.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Alienkiller