Milestone 6.17.0 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!

Although we're approaching the public release of Milestone 6, we're not going to hit our target of releasing it this week. There's still a number of issues of varying severity we need to clear first, as we want to ensure the basic release is (reasonably) polished. Hopefully it won't be too long, but there's a couple of potentially quite thorny issues that may delay things if they take a while to fix.

Balance Changes:

• Cleaner base mission made a little easier as it was quite tough for when it appeared. Fewer of the Cleaner Soldiers now have body armour, and the Cleaners with Accelerated Rifles are now less likely to use them in burst fire mode (previously even a single Cleaner could have massive damage output if RNG was in their favour; it's now a little more predictable).
• Enemy Sentry Guns are now able to move.
• Fire arc of missiles in the aerial combat has been reduced from 180 degrees to 150 degrees.

Changes:

• Tactical: added a new 3D model for the variant of the Cleaner Soldier with body armour, so there's a visual distinction between the normal and armoured ones.
• Tactical: added a new melee animation for the Colossus.
• Tactical: fixed several issues with the Sebillian grenade throw animation, and slightly improved the Sebillian runcycle and Andron fire animations. Sped up the MARS move animation a bit.
• Tactical: some more tile fixes / improvements for the Soviet Town biome.
• Air Combat: clicking and dragging the background to move the camera no longer counts as a click (so it won't change the target / move destination of the selected plane).
• Air Combat: the current formation becomes deselected when you move a plane, allowing you to press the button again to reset your planes into their original positions.

Bugfixes:

• (Hopefully) fixed a crash that could occur after killing a Cyberdrone.
• Fixed a hang that would occur if you pressed the Abort Launch button on the dropship screen while the "select soldiers" panel is active.
• Fixed there being black ground tiles around the dropship in certain types of missions (e.g. Ambush missions).
• Fixed local AI soldiers moving one tile at a time during the AI turn.
• Fixed the MARS / ARES not correctly despawning after being destroyed.
• Fixed the pathing system trying to path soldiers through the solid side walls of the blast doors on ATLAS / Cleaner Base missions.
• Further tutorial fixes to ensure none of the Cleaner soldiers get stuck trying to move to their intended positions in the tactical section of the tutorial.
• Fixed some unrevealed tiles and map edges on the ambush maps.

 

[Skitso]

3 hours ago, Chris said:

• Cleaner base mission made a little easier as it was quite tough for when it appeared. Fewer of the Cleaner Soldiers now have body armour, and the Cleaners with Accelerated Rifles are now less likely to use them in burst fire mode (previously even a single Cleaner could have massive damage output if RNG was in their favour; it's now a little more predictable).

I've obviously not played 6.17 yet, so I might be completely wrong, but at least in earlier versions the Cleaner HQ mission felt anticlimatic in how easy it was compared to many missions preceding it. Making the mission tougher has been on my wish list for ages. Even my friend who played the game for the first time ever commented how easy the HQ mission was (MS5). I see the Cleaner HQ mission as the first "boss mission" where the game should really test the players skills and show that is is not Firaxis walk in the park kids game. Make the easier difficulties as easy as they need to be, but please don't make veteran/commander too easy. 

(And I need to empahisise again, I might be completely wrong here as I haven't played few of the latest experimental versions!)

Edited October 17, 2025 by Skitso

[gG-Unknown]

Chriss,

I see your team strugle to deliver content. From player point of view, M6 is weak. At  the moment, I do not see enough reasons to start  a new campaign.

Would you please focus to ground combat  balance ? /  Are the fallowing fixies and improvement for M6 on your list ?

• Grenade louncher (crazy miss chance landing, occasional unpredictable landing - it can even shoot backwards !!! , wrong  default aim method direct vs indirect, dmg of later grenades is weak)
• Satchel charge with trigger mechanic - now It is wasted  opportunity  for fun gameplay ! (add improved versions, limited ability to throw for 5 tiles, reduced weight to 8, increased blast radius, increased dmg)
• Demolition pack - increase weight to 7
• Add ability to carry stuff for  Colossus (bodies, ammo, nades, consumables) so it work as a supporting mule for the team.
• Add ability to use Colossus  as cover (by others) so it works as a support for the team.
• Add bonus for light_amour /  no_armour for grenade range throw plus two tiles (light    armour is still not used, add range would create  an opportunity for lightly armoured grenade thrower class)

Thanks

Edited October 17, 2025 by gG-Unknown

[Skitso]

55 minutes ago, gG-Unknown said:

• Demolition pack - increase weight to 7
• Add ability to use Colossus  as cover (by others) so it works as a support for the team.
• Add bonus for light_amour /  no_armour for grenade range throw plus two tiles (light    armour is still not used, add range would create  an opportunity for lightly armoured grenade thrower class)

Agree on these. Shield bearers should also provide more cover.

[gG-Unknown]

2 hours ago, Skitso said:

Agree on these. Shield bearers should also provide more cover.

I were thinking, there is an issue in the logic, probably. The current cover system would not work well in this case.

For Colosus and ShieldCarries who work as screen there  should be other  rule then.

Cover as it works now, lowers the chance to hit intended target. Question is : Is the lowered chance of hit on intended target equal to hit the item who provides the cover ?

You see, the point ?

Colosus or ShieldCarrier should take /  ( drag on himself ) proportional chance to hit intended target on himself.

Edited October 17, 2025 by gG-Unknown

[Chris]

6 hours ago, Skitso said:

I've obviously not played 6.17 yet, so I might be completely wrong, but at least in earlier versions the Cleaner HQ mission felt anticlimatic in how easy it was compared to many missions preceding it. Making the mission tougher has been on my wish list for ages. Even my friend who played the game for the first time ever commented how easy the HQ mission was (MS5). I see the Cleaner HQ mission as the first "boss mission" where the game should really test the players skills and show that is is not Firaxis walk in the park kids game. Make the easier difficulties as easy as they need to be, but please don't make veteran/commander too easy. 

(And I need to empahisise again, I might be completely wrong here as I haven't played few of the latest experimental versions!)

I wiped twice on it in my recent Veteran playthrough, although that's possibly because the AI was still using burst fire on their accelerated rifles and just deleting my soldiers from full health.

Remember it happens earlier in M6 than it does in M5 so most players won't have Guardian armour by the time they fight the mission, nor the Dragonfly, and you're up against Accelerated weapons and some armoured aliens that also have Plasma weapons. And you have fewer soldiers. So I'd definitely try it again and see what you think - but even then, bear in mind you're a very experienced player and a lot of people would be going into Veteran blind both tactically and strategically.

4 hours ago, gG-Unknown said:

Chriss,

I see your team strugle to deliver content. From player point of view, M6 is weak. At  the moment, I do not see enough reasons to start  a new campaign.

Would you please focus to ground combat  balance ? /  Are the fallowing fixies and improvement for M6 on your list ?

• Grenade louncher (crazy miss chance landing, occasional unpredictable landing - it can even shoot backwards !!! , wrong  default aim method direct vs indirect, dmg of later grenades is weak)
• Satchel charge with trigger mechanic - now It is wasted  opportunity  for fun gameplay ! (add improved versions, limited ability to throw for 5 tiles, reduced weight to 8, increased blast radius, increased dmg)
• Demolition pack - increase weight to 7
• Add ability to carry stuff for  Colossus (bodies, ammo, nades, consumables) so it work as a supporting mule for the team.
• Add ability to use Colossus  as cover (by others) so it works as a support for the team.
• Add bonus for light_amour /  no_armour for grenade range throw plus two tiles (light    armour is still not used, add range would create  an opportunity for lightly armoured grenade thrower class)

Thanks

I don't think we're struggling to deliver content - if it's not content that excites you, that's fine, but that's not the same thing as content not being delivered.

We've already made pretty extensive improvements to the ground combat balance in M6 and we're locking it down for final release once the bugfixes are done. Some of the stuff on your list is things we might consider in M7, but the only thing that we'll hopefully be addressing in M6 (or shortly afterwards) is the grenade / HEVY miss paths and how frequently they blow up the soldier trying to use it.

[Skitso]

11 minutes ago, Chris said:

Remember it happens earlier in M6 than it does in M5

Really? Didn't it get pushed back from the end of phase 1 to the beginning of phase 2?

Edit: yeah, I checked, it was day 79 in MS5.

Edited October 17, 2025 by Skitso

[Chris]

54 minutes ago, Skitso said:

Really? Didn't it get pushed back from the end of phase 1 to the beginning of phase 2?

Edit: yeah, I checked, it was day 79 in MS5.

I admit it does all start to blur together now, we’ve been through so many iterations. Phase 1 is longer in M6 than in M5 though isn’t it?

[Skitso]

16 minutes ago, Chris said:

I admit it does all start to blur together now, we’ve been through so many iterations. Phase 1 is longer in M6 than in M5 though isn’t it?

You certainly didn't have Dragonfly at that point in MS5 at least. But yeah, I'll start a new playthrough as soon as you release the stable version (plus a patch or two)

[gG-Unknown]

Well, I made some searching for your previous statements :

 

18 hours ago, Chris said:

I don't think we're struggling to deliver content - if it's not content that excites you, that's fine, but that's not the same thing as content not being delivered.

 

On 3/5/2025 at 4:52 PM, Chris said:

Community Suggestion Review:

Once Milestone 5 is done we'll be starting work on Milestone 6, which should be our final major update before then 1.0 launch.

 

On 4/1/2025 at 3:17 PM, Chris said:

Milestone 6:

In the meantime, we've started work on Milestone 6. This was originally intended to be a single large update that would bring the game all the way to final release,

Pathway to 1.0:

We're aiming for the 1.0 update to drop before the end of the year, but as always, we'll keep you posted.

 

In April your aim was release before end of this year. It means to hit Christmass season, ideal release  would be mid November. Now in mid October is clear that release 1.0 would be on next  April at the best. So yes, my statement that Goldhawk struggle to deliver content is valid.

Anyway, the point of my suggestion was, when development of new content takes long, you could spend few man-days for ground combat balance and ground combat mini-projects. Combat balancing  need iterations anyway, players need time to develop meta and possible holes in ruleset. I am pointing out, that ratio of time invested into aircombat and strategic map this year of development ,was ginormous compared to ground combat.

 

The list of items I provided above are just top pressing. Also there are another list of old time issues you unfortunately buried - shot gun range, shotgun dmg type, On-Off cammo, alien grenades pickable and equipable in armoury, colour tapes on soldier uniforms,  too large smoke, smoke properly interfere with gas&enviroment ... .    People would come to play Xeno2 for ground combat as the main reason, so I guess  you would like polish it as much as possible.

Oh and here is one idea on top, how to soften Power  fist to make it fit the lore :

Colossus is described as barely movable suit, but melee combat need speed and agility which do not fit. So, solution for Power fist : Make it work as a hydraulic / pneumatic piston, which punches (release) than self auto-reload. (no ammo needed, it takes energy of suit to compress then release piston) It means his melee power is not based on speed, rather brute force. As result, the power fist can be used only once per round, as it takes time to auto-reload self. TU consumption is same as for baton. Add unigue sound of releasing air off the pneumatic piston when used .

Thanks again for re - re - consider  your time budget towards ground combat polishing.

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2025 by gG-Unknown

[Chris]

On 10/18/2025 at 10:48 AM, gG-Unknown said:

Well, I made some searching for your previous statements :

 

 

 

 

In April your aim was release before end of this year. It means to hit Christmass season, ideal release  would be mid November. Now in mid October is clear that release 1.0 would be on next  April at the best. So yes, my statement that Goldhawk struggle to deliver content is valid.

Anyway, the point of my suggestion was, when development of new content takes long, you could spend few man-days for ground combat balance and ground combat mini-projects. Combat balancing  need iterations anyway, players need time to develop meta and possible holes in ruleset. I am pointing out, that ratio of time invested into aircombat and strategic map this year of development ,was ginormous compared to ground combat.

 

The list of items I provided above are just top pressing. Also there are another list of old time issues you unfortunately buried - shot gun range, shotgun dmg type, On-Off cammo, alien grenades pickable and equipable in armoury, colour tapes on soldier uniforms,  too large smoke, smoke properly interfere with gas&enviroment ... .    People would come to play Xeno2 for ground combat as the main reason, so I guess  you would like polish it as much as possible.

Oh and here is one idea on top, how to soften Power  fist to make it fit the lore :

Colossus is described as barely movable suit, but melee combat need speed and agility which do not fit. So, solution for Power fist : Make it work as a hydraulic / pneumatic piston, which punches (release) than self auto-reload. (no ammo needed, it takes energy of suit to compress then release piston) It means his melee power is not based on speed, rather brute force. As result, the power fist can be used only once per round, as it takes time to auto-reload self. TU consumption is same as for baton. Add unigue sound of releasing air off the pneumatic piston when used .

Thanks again for re - re - consider  your time budget towards ground combat polishing.

You misunderstand my point. I'm not saying that we don't struggle to hit deadlines, but the problem isn't content - as of Milestone 6, the game is effectively content complete. I think people will enjoy the couple of extra bits of content we're adding in Milestone 7 but we're not going to be adding any more new aliens, or missions, or biomes, etc. What we're actually struggling with is a long list of bugs to fix, and gameplay systems that could do with a bit of a rework. There's a lot of tidying up that needs to be done, and that's what we've spent our time doing rather than adding new content.

The problem is that lots of the things you're suggesting are gameplay features - they're existing systems that could do with a rework so they work differently. Fix the grenade launcher so it has a different ballistics model. Allow the Colossus to carry items that it cannot use. Make it so that shields and the Colossus block 100% of the shots passing through their tiles. They're all reasonable requests but they're not just changing balancing numbers, they require a coder to sit down and spend several hours working on them. So you're not asking us to focus on the game balance (which we're already doing), you're actually asking us to prioritise spending dev time on the polishing work you personally think is most important.

Problem is, I could ask ten people on the forums what they think are the most important issues affecting tactical combat and I'd probably get ten different answers. I really don't think that, say, "light armour not allowing soldiers to throw grenades further" would be mentioned by many other people. They'd have their own ideas. Plus, you also shouldn't confuse things I don't want to fix because I don't agree they are issues (shotgun range, using alien grenades, smoke radiuses, the Colossus power fist weapon) with stuff I do agree is an issue but we just don't have the bandwidth to fix right now.

Some of the stuff we hope to fix in Milestone 7. Other stuff, I don't think needs fixing - but once the mod tools are done, you'll be able to mod it yourself if it bothers you.

[gG-Unknown]

15 hours ago, Chris said:

 1.  "light armour not allowing soldiers to throw grenades further"

2.  I don't want to fix because I don't agree they are issues (shotgun range, using alien grenades, smoke radiuses, the Colossus power fist weapon) with stuff I do agree is an issue but we just don't have the bandwidth to fix right now.

3. Some of the stuff we hope to fix in Milestone 7.

Thanks for the effort you put into answer.

1. do you remember  when pistol had longer range  but lower dmg ? I was bitching repetitively on forum to change  it. And ... result is = pistol plus shield is now considered as  too weak AND over-powered at the same time, depends player style.  :=) read  some Steam discussion. That is  the best evaluation what designer could  achieve ( by my measure ). Before  the change, no one asked for it, now people could play with and disagree  with each other on why  it is weak or strong. Argument that "I dont see a queue of people asking light armor has higher gren. range" is not argument for  me. Majority of consumers do not know what is fun until they get it. Even veteran player like  Skitso is able to recommend a change  which would make game instantly worse. No offence Skitso, I like your dedication.  

Long  story short = light armour need  another advantage, to make player think :  light vs heavy. Now player DO NOT THINK, it is heavy all day long, THAT IS THE PROBLEM. Simply rising current heavy penalty(s) is not wise. So there need to be another bonus for light armour. Grenade range  is easy to do, ( I hope the system is made  such way ) so it is a work for an hour. Light  armoured soldiers should take  cover behind others - so bonus in form of throwing range gives  sense. Also, it is linked to request taking cover behind shield, Colosuss or MARS = this feature allows usage light armour  as soldiers could hide  behind more armored friends.

When I could read a  Steam discussion that  light armour is weak AND over-powered  at the same time, I would be happy.

Shotgun range and dmg type (number of pelets) is  wrong. Like totally wrong.

French army training, recent photo made this late summer, regular soldiers are  trained to shot down FPV drones = small fast moving target 20 - 50 meters  range.

Shotgun should be part  of stone - scissors - paper game. Armour - HP - Size.

As you said before in  our latest shotgun discussion (typing  from my mind) " shotgun can not  be soft target special weapon, becouse in late game stage game all opponents  are armoured." - well, you have  perfectly  defined  a problem. I have read reviews on steam, many users said : " various opponents feels same I dont like it". Here we are again.

Opponents  should be built on stone - scissors - paper base. Some are super armoured,  some are HP bullet sponge, some are armor-hp balanced. There is also 4th group - always weak but  have numbers.

So to make Shotgun work like shotgun :

• range  higher than pistol but lower  than rifle : about 13
• soft target killer : number of pelets 3 >> 5 but  total dmg same (or even a tiny bit higher)
• armour destruction 2 >> 1 (due to higher number of pellets total armour destruction changes from 6 >> 5)
• add a bonus - penalty of small target do not apply on shotgun
• weapon clip size 8 >> 6 (price for reload same)  high_reload_time_tax_per_shot and small "clip size" is a typical disadvantage of shotguns

split enemies into categories, then you need different weapons to quickly take  down different  opponents. Make HP high opponent (Sebilian) which can be best  to take down by Shotgun. (do not add armour flat on all high-lvl opponent as a general cure) Make Andron the most armoured opponent  which need to be softened by sniper or demo-pack then killed.

Edited October 21, 2025 by gG-Unknown

[chacineiro]

I agree that heavy armor right now is a no brainer, except maybe for snipers, but sometimes not even that, specially mid-late game. Anyway, I also agree that the focus should be on stomping bugs, you cant risk a release with the CTDs and issues we have right now. 

[berk]

The game already has a good lightweight armour, the stealth suit. It's "heavy" version weighs around as much as the light version of the guardian armour and offers similar protection, and it also has cloaking and gas immunity. Once you get in the super late game with a full veteran squad that has 90+ on every stat, most of them will invariably use colossus or heavy vanguard, because their survival (and the reduction in recovery times due to lesser injuries) is of the utmost importance. All in all, heavy armour is for general use and light armour is an alternative option for rookies with low stats, or very burdened soldiers such as shield users. If you do decide to buff light armour, give it something that will help inexperienced soldiers pull their weight in a veteran team, until they get strong and graduate to heavy armour.

[Skitso]

On 10/17/2025 at 7:23 PM, Chris said:

I wiped twice on it in my recent Veteran playthrough, although that's possibly because the AI was still using burst fire on their accelerated rifles and just deleting my soldiers from full health.

Remember it happens earlier in M6 than it does in M5 so most players won't have Guardian armour by the time they fight the mission, nor the Dragonfly, and you're up against Accelerated weapons and some armoured aliens that also have Plasma weapons. And you have fewer soldiers. So I'd definitely try it again and see what you think - but even then, bear in mind you're a very experienced player and a lot of people would be going into Veteran blind both tactically and strategically.

Ok, regarding the Cleaner HQ mission being too easy now that I played the 6.21:

Played on veteran. I've had 14 casualities during the campaign unitl this point, so my units weren't experienced super soldiers. I waited for 11 days after the HQ spawned so I got pretty much the optimal team and gear I had available.

8 units consisting:

• MARS with laser cannon and heavy armor
• 3 laser rifle men with warden
• 1 laser shotty with warden
• 1 guy with advanced shield and laser pistol with warden
• 2 ballistic MG with warden

I basicly ran through the mission with 0 damage received and I didn't even think how I played, just clicked it away. Didn't need to even use any smoke or stun grenades and didn't cheese the AI in any way. I cleared the command room in one turn. I'd say, compared to the difficulty level of the missions preceeding it, it would need at least 3-5 enemies more plus 2-3 enemies more in the command room to feel like being in line with those.

Edited November 9, 2025 by Skitso

[gG-Unknown]

34 minutes ago, Skitso said:

Ok, regarding the Cleaner HQ mission being too easy

I basicly ran through the mission with 0 damage received and I didn't even think how I played, just clicked it away.

It is classic dev blindness. Chriss makes his balance based on his own playthru, happily ignoring people who has skill in the area 10 times higher.

I wish we   had a long stick to  explain better what needs to  be done.

You  and  I have contributed many good ideas and improvement, still most of our recommendation fall into deaf ears.

[Skitso]

2 hours ago, gG-Unknown said:

It is classic dev blindness. Chriss makes his balance based on his own playthru, happily ignoring people who has skill in the area 10 times higher.

I wish we   had a long stick to  explain better what needs to  be done.

You  and  I have contributed many good ideas and improvement, still most of our recommendation fall into deaf ears.

Nah, calm down. The game is a WIP so let them cook.

Ultimately, it's Chris' game and he can do whatever he wants with it. I just provide help and ideas he can use if he sees fit.

Edited November 9, 2025 by Skitso