Milestone 6.10.0 Released! (Experimental)

[Chris]

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!

Unfortunately this update once again breaks save game compatibility, so I've moved 6.9.1 to the Experimental Legacy branch. It's annoying we have to keep doing this, but this time it is because we needed to update the way the Infiltrators worked to properly switch from Doomsday to Panic generation in Phase 2. This fixes the issue of massive unexplained Panic gain at the end of each month (which was being caused by a bug with the Infiltrators).

Changes:

• The ending cutscene has now been added to the game.
• The Soviet Town biome has been enabled. For now we've only added 5 Small Terror maps, but we'll also add three larger maps in the near future.
• Added a campaign option for the UFO Delegation system, so players can disable if it they want. Note that this also disables the monthly funding increase that occurs when you delegate a UFO, so you'll have lower monthly income than a normal player in exchange for the ability to run more crash site missions.
• Added three additional strategy layer and three more tactical mission music tracks, going from three to six tracks in each section of the game.
• Infiltrators now correctly display that they generate +1 Doomsday per day in Phase 1, then switch to +2 Panic per month in Phase 2.
• New models have been added for the MARS / ARES, and for the Mantid alien.
• You're now able to fire cannons and perform Evasive Roll while retreating in the air combat, and the tooltip for the Retreat button has been updated to reflect the new retreat mechanics for this Milestone.
• The air combat UI has been updated so that the selected aircraft now shows a selection ring at all times, as previously it was a little difficult to spot which aircraft was actually selected.
• The Operation Point generation UI in the bottom left now correctly shows decimals.
• Rewrote a number of Xenopedia entries to reflect mechanical changes made in Milestone 6 (e.g. dropship capacity, Gemini jump capability, Endgame teleporter, etc). The Gemini and Pegasus entries have been rewritten entirely.
• Updated the Boreal sawmill to have some additional window variants.
• Improved the destruction state on the ATLAS Base command room table.

Balance Changes:

• Commander difficulty: enemies now have a 1.1x Accuracy modifier (down from 1.3x) and there are now 7 starting Infiltrators (down from 8). Although Commander is supposed to be difficult, the Accuracy bonus in particular seemed to be so high that you couldn't play the game "properly" that difficulty setting due to aliens basically being able to ignore key game mechanics like cover / smoke due to having such high hit chances. We'll think up a better way to increase difficulty instead.
• Mimics now grant a minor Panic decrease if shot down in Phase 2, like other UFOs.
• ENDGAME mission now supports 4 vehicles (previously 3). 
• Pegasus dropship now supports 3 vehicles (previously 4).
• A couple of changes to make Psyon / Secton crews a bit less common in the early stages of the game - firstly, the initial Destroyer (which spawns near your base) now always contains Sebillians. Secondly, the third Abduction Site now always contains Wraiths.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a crash when hovering over certain tooltips in German language.
• Fixed a crash that would occur if you tried to remove the target soldiers from your dropship when preparing for a Rescue Soldiers mission.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when loading a manual save made immediately after an air combat battle.
• Fixed a crash that would occur at the end of the UOO Bridge mission if you loaded a save during that mission.
• Fixed a bug where Infiltrator Supporters were causing +4 global panic per month each, rather than +2 panic in their local region.
• Fixed a number of issues with the obstruction shader (shown when a unit is behind an object) not correctly drawing over the shroud.
• Fixed the aircraft information panel on the Launch Aircraft panel being hidden or misaligned on non-1080p resolutions.
• Fixed grenades and explosives applying damage through indestructible floors (such as within UFOs).
• Fixed an issue where it became impossible to heal an unconscious soldier, or move into their tile.
• Fixed a bug where completed non-repeatable research projects triggered by sellable items (mostly Autopsies and Observations) would incorrectly trigger a "new project available" pop-up when recovering more of the trigger item.
• Fixed Wraith units flickering during their injury / death animation if they had their cloak active.
• Fixed Sebillians T-posing before and after their melee anmation.
• Fixed a bug where units transformed into Reaper Zombies would spawn a corpse (despite the zombie being their corpse).
• Fixed the player not getting a "VIP spotted" toast if the VIP was spotted during the enemy turn.
• Fixed soldiers spawning off-center from their teleport pads on the UOO Bridge Assault mission.

[Skitso]

3 hours ago, Chris said:

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!

Unfortunately this update once again breaks save game compatibility, so I've moved 6.9.1 to the Experimental Legacy branch. It's annoying we have to keep doing this, but this time it is because we needed to update the way the Infiltrators worked to properly switch from Doomsday to Panic generation in Phase 2. This fixes the issue of massive unexplained Panic gain at the end of each month (which was being caused by a bug with the Infiltrators).

Changes:

• The ending cutscene has now been added to the game.
• The Soviet Town biome has been enabled. For now we've only added 5 Small Terror maps, but we'll also add three larger maps in the near future.
• Added a campaign option for the UFO Delegation system, so players can disable if it they want. Note that this also disables the monthly funding increase that occurs when you delegate a UFO, so you'll have lower monthly income than a normal player in exchange for the ability to run more crash site missions.
• Added three additional strategy layer and three more tactical mission music tracks, going from three to six tracks in each section of the game.
• Infiltrators now correctly display that they generate +1 Doomsday per day in Phase 1, then switch to +2 Panic per month in Phase 2.
• New models have been added for the MARS / ARES, and for the Mantid alien.
• You're now able to fire cannons and perform Evasive Roll while retreating in the air combat, and the tooltip for the Retreat button has been updated to reflect the new retreat mechanics for this Milestone.
• The air combat UI has been updated so that the selected aircraft now shows a selection ring at all times, as previously it was a little difficult to spot which aircraft was actually selected.
• The Operation Point generation UI in the bottom left now correctly shows decimals.
• Rewrote a number of Xenopedia entries to reflect mechanical changes made in Milestone 6 (e.g. dropship capacity, Gemini jump capability, Endgame teleporter, etc). The Gemini and Pegasus entries have been rewritten entirely.
• Updated the Boreal sawmill to have some additional window variants.
• Improved the destruction state on the ATLAS Base command room table.

Balance Changes:

• Commander difficulty: enemies now have a 1.1x Accuracy modifier (down from 1.3x) and there are now 7 starting Infiltrators (down from 8). Although Commander is supposed to be difficult, the Accuracy bonus in particular seemed to be so high that you couldn't play the game "properly" that difficulty setting due to aliens basically being able to ignore key game mechanics like cover / smoke due to having such high hit chances. We'll think up a better way to increase difficulty instead.
• Mimics now grant a minor Panic decrease if shot down in Phase 2, like other UFOs.
• ENDGAME mission now supports 4 vehicles (previously 3). 
• Pegasus dropship now supports 3 vehicles (previously 4).
• A couple of changes to make Psyon / Secton crews a bit less common in the early stages of the game - firstly, the initial Destroyer (which spawns near your base) now always contains Sebillians. Secondly, the third Abduction Site now always contains Wraiths.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a crash when hovering over certain tooltips in German language.
• Fixed a crash that would occur if you tried to remove the target soldiers from your dropship when preparing for a Rescue Soldiers mission.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when loading a manual save made immediately after an air combat battle.
• Fixed a crash that would occur at the end of the UOO Bridge mission if you loaded a save during that mission.
• Fixed a bug where Infiltrator Supporters were causing +4 global panic per month each, rather than +2 panic in their local region.
• Fixed a number of issues with the obstruction shader (shown when a unit is behind an object) not correctly drawing over the shroud.
• Fixed the aircraft information panel on the Launch Aircraft panel being hidden or misaligned on non-1080p resolutions.
• Fixed grenades and explosives applying damage through indestructible floors (such as within UFOs).
• Fixed an issue where it became impossible to heal an unconscious soldier, or move into their tile.
• Fixed a bug where completed non-repeatable research projects triggered by sellable items (mostly Autopsies and Observations) would incorrectly trigger a "new project available" pop-up when recovering more of the trigger item.
• Fixed Wraith units flickering during their injury / death animation if they had their cloak active.
• Fixed Sebillians T-posing before and after their melee anmation.
• Fixed a bug where units transformed into Reaper Zombies would spawn a corpse (despite the zombie being their corpse).
• Fixed the player not getting a "VIP spotted" toast if the VIP was spotted during the enemy turn.
• Fixed soldiers spawning off-center from their teleport pads on the UOO Bridge Assault mission.

Great to see new music and soviet town biome getting added to the game!

Any plans to use the soviet town biome in any other mission type than terror missions? For such a huge addition, I'd love to see it used more for example in cleaner missions.

Edited September 29 by Skitso

[Alienkiller]

Yeah, great big Bugfixversion. Let´s see what can be done with it. First she have to be stable and fully useable. Chris announced already, that more will come from that Maps. Eventually they will used for more, but only time will tell. 

[KalafioRR]

It seems that in Steam version going to Experimental Legacy gives us version 6.8.0 and not the promised 6.9.1.  Please advise?

[chacineiro]

Bug report: Killing infiltrators is not reducing doomsday per day counter, mine stays at +7 on veteran no matter how many I kill. And its not just a visual thing, it really increases by 7 every day, making the early game very problematic. 

[gG-Unknown]

8 hours ago, Chris said:

• Commander difficulty: enemies now have a 1.1x Accuracy modifier (down from 1.3x)

GOOD - fair play is important feeling. I like this change a LOT. There are  definitely enough other  options to make Commander difficult enough. For example Hospital revival rate has serious potential... However, for this milestone, dont crank it up yet.

[Chris]

3 hours ago, KalafioRR said:

It seems that in Steam version going to Experimental Legacy gives us version 6.8.0 and not the promised 6.9.1.  Please advise?

Sorry, forgot to update the branch. This is fixed now!

[Grobobobo]

15 hours ago, Chris said:

Commander difficulty: enemies now have a 1.1x Accuracy modifier (down from 1.3x) and there are now 7 starting Infiltrators (down from 8). Although Commander is supposed to be difficult, the Accuracy bonus in particular seemed to be so high that you couldn't play the game "properly" that difficulty setting due to aliens basically being able to ignore key game mechanics like cover / smoke due to having such high hit chances. We'll think up a better way to increase difficulty instead

Definitely in favor of that, but i think it'll be hard to increase it in a proper way. Further strategy layer funding penalties? Significantly lower mission expiration timer so you have to sometimes do night missions? Even bigger enemy count modifier? Wort mentioning that xeno2 is already a lot easier than xeno 1.

Edited September 29 by Grobobobo

[Skitso]

6 hours ago, Grobobobo said:

Definitely in favor of that, but i think it'll be hard to increase it in a proper way. Further strategy layer funding penalties? Significantly lower mission expiration timer so you have to sometimes do night missions? Even bigger enemy count modifier? Wort mentioning that xeno2 is already a lot easier than xeno 1.

Increasing alien armour could be interesting...

[gG-Unknown]

12 hours ago, Skitso said:

Increasing alien armour could be interesting...

Increasing alien armour  means, that balance of weapons is thrown off  the window. I believe that turn based game is better build as stone-scissor-paper game. In the base level. It means, player could train on easy difficulty to get knowledge that Mantid can be one shotted from pistol. This knowledge should be the same, for all difficulty levels. 

18 hours ago, Grobobobo said:

Definitely in favor of that, but i think it'll be hard to increase it in a proper way. Further strategy layer funding penalties? Significantly lower mission expiration timer so you have to sometimes do night missions? Even bigger enemy count modifier? Wort mentioning that xeno2 is already a lot easier than xeno 1.

Yes, I agree number of ground combat opponents  is a good way to increase difficulty. Or some bonuses or prices on strategic view.

 

Just dont fall into a hole of buffing  HP, Armour, TU, or whatever combat stats of opponents = >that  is bad design way.

Anyway, we received several high power balance changes in 6th milestone squad size, AI buff  and accuracy Commander change so let it settle down before add more difficulty.

Edited September 30 by gG-Unknown

[Skitso]

Excessive alien numbers are already a bit ridiculous. How can they all even fit in the UFO?

[gG-Unknown]

On 9/30/2025 at 8:11 PM, Skitso said:

Excessive alien numbers are already a bit ridiculous. How can they all even fit in the UFO?

Scouts are a bit crowded, true.

But there is no rule that Commander number buff have to be linear for all missions, right ?