Xenonauts 2 October 2024 Update!

[Chris]

Hello everyone - as we're now into the early days of November, it's time for an update on what we were working on during October. The short answer is this: we made good progress in several areas last month, but frustratingly slow progress in one key area that delayed the Milestone 5 prototype.

Milestone 5 / Strategic Improvements:
Our main focus is still on getting our Milestone 5 prototype into a state where we can release it for public testing. We were hoping that would happen last month, but we weren't able to make enough progress on the new strategy mechanics. There were a few reasons for this, but the main one was that we continued to find new bugs that needed fixing after the Unity editor update I discussed in our previous update.

Thankfully, in the second half of the month we were able to better focus on implementing our new Supporter system. This system places four VIPs in each funding region who can be recruited as Supporters by the Xenonauts to provide your organisation a variety of strategic bonuses (more funding, faster research / engineering, etc) or turned into panic-generating Infiltrators by the aliens. If you can recruit all of the Supporters in each region, you also unlock a special regional bonus.

The Supporter system itself is now mostly functional, but we're still unsure how long it'll take us to connect it to the other game systems. For instance, the new Doomsday Counter system that is now active in the early stages of the game also ties into the Supporter system (with alien Infiltrators generating enemy Doomsday progress, and Xenonaut Supporters slowing it). We will also need to update the Infiltration UFO missions to turn neutral VIPs into Infiltrators if successful (where previously they simply generated Panic like other types of UFO mission), etc.

Given what happened last month I'm not going to make any promises about when the Milestone 5 prototype will be out - I'll just say we're working hard to get it into the hands of testers as quickly as possible (we should be able to release the first testing builds as soon as these strategic updates are complete).

New Missions:
Milestone 5 adds various new missions - crash sites for the Battleship UFO, the two-part final mission (Operation ENDGAME), and two unique new plot missions that take place on an alien orbital station (which appear around the point Cruiser UFOs start appearing). 

The Battleship assets and crash site maps were completed some time ago, and this month we finished the final art assets and map setup for both halves of the Operation ENDGAME mission. The first mission on the alien orbital station is also at quite an advanced stage, with the custom art assets for that map now complete, but there's still further work to be done on the second orbital station mission. Thankfully, this shouldn't cause delays - most of the remaining work is custom art assets, and we don't need the visuals to be final for the Milestone 5 prototype builds.

Alien Updates:
Last month we added a new type of alien to the game, the Biter. These small insectoid aliens are more of a living weapon than a proper new species, as certain alien units can fire them towards enemy units - at which point they will charge towards nearby hostiles and try to bite them to death. Biters will expire within a few turns of spawning and have very low HP, but a pack of them can still pose a threat - particularly against units equipped with weapons that cost a lot of TU to fire (e.g. sniper rifles). 

We also continued to make changes to our existing aliens to better differentiate them from one another. The main cannon on a Cyberdrone no longer acts like a giant plasma rifle, but is instead now a blast weapon that can inflict major damage across a large area (although it is now less likely to instantly kill a heavily-armoured soldier). We'll be finishing up some changes to the Mantid and Sebillian weapons this month too, which I'll explain next month.

Illustrated UI Backgrounds:
One of the coolest features in Xenonauts 1 was that the illustrated backgrounds of the strategic UI screens would upgrade as you progressed through the campaign, showing the way the new technological developments you had unlocked were changing your organisation - by the end of the game, the all characters had futuristic uniforms and the rooms were full of sci-fi equipment. Lots of players thought this really helped immerse them in the game.

Although implementing this in Xenonauts 2 involves repainting our existing (perfectly fine) UI background art, we've decided the feature is cool enough that we've found some extra budget for it. Handily, all the programming for this feature has already been finished, so as soon as the new artwork is done we can just slot it straight into the game. We started the sketch work for the new Research screen background last week, and hopefully you'll be able to see some results either in the Milestone 5 prototype or next month's development update!

I'll leave the update there for this month - thanks for reading, and hopefully we'll have some good news on Milestone 5 in the coming few weeks!

[gG-Unknown]

Wow,

- hire up new members + engine update + add new significant gameplay changes + new milestone = all this combined in the late game  development is a guide for headache. You are truly brave to handle that, hat down.

 

I thought you could release this year, but it looks like better aim at  March. Hope your budget can handle that. Wish you luck.

 

-  "new type of alien to the game, the Biter "

YES, that was needed a lot. Weak enemy who attack en masse.  Pro Tip : BaldursGate3 used  nice trick for weak but numerous opponents : Instead of move each Bitter one by one, they all makes their move at_once ! As result, you can spawn weak 20 opponents but in  turn based  combat  all 20 moves at one moment, as  they were one. So player is not  bored  to death by watching each bug encroaching few squares one by one. Also player get better feel of wave of enemyes.

Perhaps make a "static_weapon" Biter hatchery, which continuously spawn a biter each turn, when Xenonaut is closer  than 25 tiles.

Edited November 5, 2024 by gG-Unknown

[Tom Pouce]

Take your time to polish the game but is it possible to have images of some new features just to keep us waiting !

[ih8california]

On 11/4/2024 at 12:27 PM, Chris said:

 

New Missions:
Milestone 5 adds various new missions - crash sites for the Battleship UFO, the two-part final mission (Operation ENDGAME), and two unique new plot missions that take place on an alien orbital station (which appear around the point Cruiser UFOs start appearing). 

The Battleship assets and crash site maps were completed some time ago, and this month we finished the final art assets and map setup for both halves of the Operation ENDGAME mission. The first mission on the alien orbital station is also at quite an advanced stage, with the custom art assets for that map now complete, but there's still further work to be done on the second orbital station mission. Thankfully, this shouldn't cause delays - most of the remaining work is custom art assets, and we don't need the visuals to be final for the Milestone 5 prototype builds.

Does this mean OPERATION ENDGAME will ONLY be on the orbital stations and NOT on the alien homeworld?

Will the orbital station map for OP ENDGAME be the same/similar to the orbital station raid map (mentioned in a previous diary)?

[gG-Unknown]

2 hours ago, ih8california said:

Does this mean OPERATION ENDGAME will ONLY be on the orbital stations and NOT on the alien homeworld?

Will the orbital station map for OP ENDGAME be the same/similar to the orbital station raid map (mentioned in a previous diary)?

They mentioned before, "Orbital station mssion(s)" are new type of missions to spice up the last mile. Orbital station is not just the final mission.

Edited November 7, 2024 by gG-Unknown

[ih8california]

Actually, I think you're right. I just re-read that sentence, and it is now a bit clearer that Chris was referring to two different things.

[Vishvogg]

Ugh. This is turning into project zomboid npc update all over again. I'm going to go invest my attention in a game I can actually finish. See you in a couple of years I guess.

[Alienkiller]

On 11/7/2024 at 12:26 AM, ih8california said:

Does this mean OPERATION ENDGAME will ONLY be on the orbital stations and NOT on the alien homeworld?

Will the orbital station map for OP ENDGAME be the same/similar to the orbital station raid map (mentioned in a previous diary)?

 

On 11/7/2024 at 2:30 AM, gG-Unknown said:

They mentioned before, "Orbital station mssion(s)" are new type of missions to spice up the last mile. Orbital station is not just the final mission.

There gG-Unknown have right. The Alien-Station Missions are Story-Missions, which get needed for the Endgame. Like in other Games of that Gerne (UFO ET-Series, old X-COM-Series, new XCOM-Series) you need to solve the Story-Plot to come to the Leader-Enemy / Leader-Enemys. Nothing other get implemented from the Devs here to upgrade the Game including the Gametime.

 

5 hours ago, Vishvogg said:

Ugh. This is turning into project zomboid npc update all over again. I'm going to go invest my attention in a game I can actually finish. See you in a couple of years I guess.

That you can do, if you whish. But don´t pause to long.