Xenonauts 2 June 2024 Update!

[Chris]

Hello everyone - hope you all had a nice June. As we're now into the start of July, it's well past time for our monthly development update. 

Milestone 4 Released:
We released our Milestone 4 update onto the default Steam / GOG / Epic branches last week, which was a rather substantial update to the game. Most of our efforts this month simply went into patching and tweaking Milestone 4, so this is going to be a much shorter update than normal.

Anyway, we want to give a big shout out to everyone who helped us out by testing the experimental versions and reporting bugs or giving feedback, as your assistance really helps improve the quality of our updates!

We've continued patch Milestone 4 post-release to fix the handful of bugs that made it past our testing, and also to add a few bits of missing content (such as the text for handful of research projects that didn't quite meet the original deadline). We'll continue this as long as necessary to fix any remaining stability issues, but in general the game seems to be stable for most players. This means we're now ready to turn our attention to our next big update.

Milestone 5:
Milestone 5 is going to be our most important update so far - the goal is to allow the player to unlock and complete the final mission, meaning you will be finally able to play the entire game from start to finish. However, this won't be the last update for the game before we launch out of Early Access, as we'll still be releasing at least one additional Milestone update afterwards to further polish and improve the game. 

Unfortunately, Milestone 5 is likely to have quite a long development cycle - it's likely to be an even larger update than Milestone 4 was, and will likely include most of the remaining gameplay-related items on our roadmap and revamping the second half of the story. That means there's going to be quite a lot of content for a small team to generate!

Rather than try to talk in detail about plans that haven't yet been finalised, I think the most sensible thing is just to finish this update here. Next month's update should be a lot more exciting, as we should have some solid progress towards Milestone 5 that we can show off!

[gG-Unknown]

Milestone 4 is good.  However, take time to polish things, there are several gameplay issues or areas which unfolded and need  attention. I  would recommend dont push M5 too  fast.

 

Wish you luck !

[CaptainSPrice]

On 7/3/2024 at 1:48 PM, Chris said:

Hello everyone - hope you all had a nice June. As we're now into the start of July, it's well past time for our monthly development update. 

Milestone 4 Released:
We released our Milestone 4 update onto the default Steam / GOG / Epic branches last week, which was a rather substantial update to the game. Most of our efforts this month simply went into patching and tweaking Milestone 4, so this is going to be a much shorter update than normal.

Anyway, we want to give a big shout out to everyone who helped us out by testing the experimental versions and reporting bugs or giving feedback, as your assistance really helps improve the quality of our updates!

We've continued patch Milestone 4 post-release to fix the handful of bugs that made it past our testing, and also to add a few bits of missing content (such as the text for handful of research projects that didn't quite meet the original deadline). We'll continue this as long as necessary to fix any remaining stability issues, but in general the game seems to be stable for most players. This means we're now ready to turn our attention to our next big update.

Milestone 5:
Milestone 5 is going to be our most important update so far - the goal is to allow the player to unlock and complete the final mission, meaning you will be finally able to play the entire game from start to finish. However, this won't be the last update for the game before we launch out of Early Access, as we'll still be releasing at least one additional Milestone update afterwards to further polish and improve the game. 

Unfortunately, Milestone 5 is likely to have quite a long development cycle - it's likely to be an even larger update than Milestone 4 was, and will likely include most of the remaining gameplay-related items on our roadmap and revamping the second half of the story. That means there's going to be quite a lot of content for a small team to generate!

Rather than try to talk in detail about plans that haven't yet been finalised, I think the most sensible thing is just to finish this update here. Next month's update should be a lot more exciting, as we should have some solid progress towards Milestone 5 that we can show off!

@Chris I got few questions.

1. Adding more songs/music if possible

2. Change music/songs options where instead same song runs 24h/7 until you reload different save make it generate randomly. 

3. If possible add option where you can additionally from Xenonauts-2 turn on songs from Xenonauts-1.

4. I am planning on testing Ironman+highest difficulty+No Damage Run for my YT Channel. It is gonna be safe to play these settings without  any crashes or I need to w8 for Milestone 6?

Edited July 6 by CaptainSPrice

[Ruggerman]

There would be a problem with picking music for any games, that will cross multiple age groups, as music will need to be more inline with the game, and not about styles, and genres, picking that music should add an atmospheric feeling to the game, that's inline with it's central theme.

[CaptainSPrice]

@Ruggerman you currently have 3 songs for geoscope, 3 day combat and 1 night combat. Not the mention they are not randomized and stuck with 1 soundtrack until you reload save. It would be good to have more. Also I'm guessing Devs gonna be working on that after Milestone 6 + they gonna create new DLC.

[Skitso]

30 minutes ago, CaptainSPrice said:

@Ruggerman you currently have 3 songs for geoscope, 3 day combat and 1 night combat. Not the mention they are not randomized and stuck with 1 soundtrack until you reload save. It would be good to have more. Also I'm guessing Devs gonna be working on that after Milestone 6 + they gonna create new DLC.

I feel the biggest issue the game currently has regarding the BGM is that it plays way too much. My ears get tired when there's constant non-stop music. No matter what is going on, there's music. Please let us hear a bit of silence here and there. Loading screens for example could be good pallette cleansers. Goldhawk shouldn't be afraid of using silence in general as a device in creating mood and ambiance.

Chris and Aleksi promised we'd get more music before the game is done. Hopefully we'll get more silence and moody ambience tracks that don't get so repetitive so quickly.

Edited July 7 by Skitso

[Boris Eysbroek]

On 7/7/2024 at 3:14 AM, Skitso said:

I feel the biggest issue the game currently has regarding the BGM is that it plays way too much. My ears get tired when there's constant non-stop music. No matter what is going on, there's music. Please let us hear a bit of silence here and there. Loading screens for example could be good pallette cleansers. Goldhawk shouldn't be afraid of using silence in general as a device in creating mood and ambiance.

Chris and Aleksi promised we'd get more music before the game is done. Hopefully we'll get more silence and moody ambience tracks that don't get so repetitive so quickly.

AMEN

[CompoTheSmoggie]

Chris,

I've recently played through a campaign on the Milestone 4.17.0 and I'm pleased to see the Colossus armour suit there (despite the fact managing resources between 6 bases meant I didn't have enough alerium and alien alloys to get them in time for the fight). Big up's for not having to manufacture every single aircraft cannon or missile/torpedo as well! 

Can I reinforce the fact (as I already have), to extend the games playability, the longevity of the game has to be addressed.

If the alien attacks end during the space of the game, that said, I know there isn't any end game existing as such yet, I, like some others, in previous games held off playing the end game because the turn-based strategic battles were more appealing than completion. The game is essentially a turn-based isometric combat game which is it's appeal.

I've got nearly 7000 hours play time on XCOM 2 and most of my games on XCOM 2 I hold off playing the end missions. Complete them the first once or twice on my first couple of tries and then just come back to the game when I fancy a go on the progress I've got.

Isn't there a way to implement an infinite number of UFO attacks into the game? Even with the existing version and game development progress? I mean, if people are still playing at day 1000, 2000 or 3000 etc, the enjoyment is there. When it ends after about 500 or 600 days, I'll put down the game and play something else as there's nothing more to do on Xenonauts 2. 

[Alienkiller]

@CompoTheSmoggie: That´s cool, I played XCOM and XOM2 incl. all DLCs very long too. And after you start XCOM 2 / XCOM 2: WotC incl. all other DLCs (that´s an great Change to the Winning-End to the Predecessor XCOM: EU / XCOM: EW). The best thing from that new XCOM are the 3 Books which close the Gap between XCOM EU / EW and XCOM 2 / XCOM 2: WotC. After the End-Sequence from XCOM 2 / XCOM 2: WotC you get the Gapfiller-Game XCOM: Chimera-Squad. Last but not least there are the different Standard-Missions and Storyline-Missions from Dr. Vahlen, the Alien-Childs, the other Factions which help XCOM and a lot more, before you come to the Final Mission. That´s true, there you can play about 7.000 alone in XCOM 2 and about 12.000 Hours with both Games together.

@CompoTheSmoggie: The Weakpoint from Xenonatus 2 is the very short Game-Time, there I agree with you to 1Million+%. That the Founders and from beginning on Beta-Testers say that since the Game comes out. The big Strengh in Xenonaut 2 is not like in UFO 1 ET / UFO 2 ET / old X-Com and similar Fan Games the permanently UFO-Attacks. That was the big Weakpoint from Xenonauts 1 and all above announced Games. Where the Devs have to work on in that is an 2 (720 Days) to 3 Year (960 Days) Gametime. Maybe some more Specials instead only 08/15-Hordes from UFOs, which make Xenonauts 1 extremly unplayable. Simlar Problems have UFO 1 ET, UFO 2 ET, old X-Com as best examples.

Edited August 6 by Alienkiller