Xenonauts 2 January 2026 Monthly Update!

[Chris]

Hello everyone - hope you all had a good Christmas! We've now reached the end of January, which means it's time for another development update. It's unusually long because it covers both December and January!

Milestone 7 & Full Release:
We're almost entirely focused on our upcoming Milestone 7 update these days. As many readers already know, this is the update that will become our full 1.0 release when Xenonauts 2 leaves Early Access. We're not yet ready to confirm our planned release date, but we've locked in an internal target and our publisher (Hooded Horse) will be making the full announcement once the trailer and marketing are ready to go!

We'll hopefully be releasing the first version of Milestone 7 onto the Experimental branches for testing next week. I've just finished writing up the 5,000-word changelog for the initial Experimental release, and there's already a lot of good stuff in there - despite having a shorter development cycle than Milestone 5 or 6, it should still be a fairly chunky update. We're looking forward to sharing it with everyone.

However, the Experimental release is subject to stability - we're currently working on fixing some critical bugs that make the game unplayable, so unfortunately we don't yet know if there are other game-breaking bugs lurking deeper into the campaign. If there are, we may need to push the release back while we address them. Fingers crossed for next week, though.

Strategy UI Backgrounds & Interceptor Paperdoll:
I'm pleased to say the updated interceptor art on the Aircraft screen is now fully implemented, which means you see the aircraft art update and change as you customise the loadouts of the planes. The updated strategy UI background art that upgrades and changes as you progress through the research tree should also be complete for the Experimental release next week, as we're now working on the last variant of the final UI screen.

I think these updates will be the most noticeable part of the update for most people - they sound like small things when written out, but I think they do a lot to make the game feel more reactive and immersive.

Performance Optimisation:
A large chunk of programming time over the past couple of months has been spent on improving the performance of the game, and we've made substantial improvements in a lot of different areas - faster loading times on strategy and tactical combat, reduced slowdown on the strategy layer when UFOs spawn on the Geoscape, improved AI turn times during the tactical combat, and speed improvements that should stop explosions and autosaves locking up the tactical combat for 1-2 seconds (the autosave improvements will probably make Iron Man mode feel a lot better).

There are a few other areas we wanted to optimise, but we're on a tight schedule so we'll be moving onto other tasks instead (unless community feedback suggests there are still serious performance problems in particular areas). Unfortunately, the downside of all these improvements is that optimisation work frequently introduces bugs to the game - indeed, it's part of the reason for the critical bugs we're currently working on fixing. Ironing out any of these newly introduced issues is going to be an important part of the Milestone 7 testing cycle.

Praetorians & Alien Bio-Cannon:
We've now finished adding a new rank of elite Psyons / Sebillians / Wraiths that appear on the hardest missions, acting as bodyguards for Eternals. The 3d models for these "Praetorians" have now been completed and set up in the game, and we've finished the big reshuffle of alien ranks required to make this happen (as "Praetorians" already existed in the game, we've had to demote the existing Praetorians to be Elites, and the existing Elites to be a newly-created "Warrior" rank).

We've also finished setting up an improved version of the Mantid Alien Bio-Rifle, which is the weapon that spawns Symbiotes that previously disappeared halfway through the campaign because it posed little threat to heavy armour. The new Alien Bio-Cannon does increased damage and spawns two Symbiotes per shot, meaning Symbiotes will continue to appear throughout the campaign. This is especially fun because the Colossus can crush Symbiotes by walking over them in the same way that vehicles can!

Farm Maps & Additional Scout UFO maps:
We felt that the Farm biome maps were noticeably weaker than the others, in terms of both visuals and map layout. We've therefore reworked this biome as part of Milestone 7, revisiting and redesigning all of the Farm maps and incorporating a number of new terrain tiles that we were working on towards the end of last year. We're most of the way through this process, with just the Ambush and Extract VIP maps left to complete.

We've also created an additional two maps for each biome for Scout UFOs, as previously each biome only had three maps shared between the three smallest UFOs (Scout, Destroyer, Observer). Although this was 21 possible maps across the seven biomes, players who restarted their campaign would inevitably start to see map repeats (especially if they did it more than once). The 14 new maps are currently at the draft stage, but we're expecting to get them fully completed in the next four to six weeks.

Smaller Tasks:
We've also worked on a lot of smaller tasks over the past two months. I won't go into detail on them, but I know there will be community members happy to read about things like the return of weapons having Reflex Modifiers, the addition of a new Interrogation project for Cleaner Leaders, the ability to manually activate teleporters when your soldiers are stood on them, and making being on a higher / lower level than your target give a more straightforward hit chance increase / decrease in the tactical combat. 

Mods & Steam Workshop Integration:
Finally, we've spent a bit of time this month doing the last remaining technical tasks on modding support. Previously our solution did not support the loading of replaced assets (e.g. edited textures, etc), but Milestone 7 will have functioning support for this. Additionally, we've implemented Steam Workshop integration and created the UI required to generate new mod manifests and upload the files to Steam.

This means that any modder familiar with Harmony code modding should theoretically have everything they need to create and distribute mods with the release of Milestone 7. Unfortunately, the average modder will probably need to wait for our Mod Editor tool to be completed - and that's likely to be pushed back to a post-release update, as right now it makes sense for us to focus all our attention on polishing the game content prior to launch. Now the technical foundations of mod support are complete, building the tools themselves will hopefully be fairly straightforward.

And that's everything - as always, thanks for reading. We'll write another update at the end of the month, and hopefully we'll see some of you testing the Milestone 7 before then!

[fusion-waffle]

Awesome. Looking forward to Milestone 7 hitting the experimental branch.  All the best to you & the team during the last stretch toward a stable RC build & lining everything up with the marketing campaign.

Edited February 5 by fusion-waffle

[gG-Unknown]

Looking forward for those 5000 words update.

Funny thing, I have asked for Colossus being able to crush Symbionts a year ago, and Chris replyed:

On 4/23/2025 at 9:02 PM, gG-Unknown said:

How do you handle Simbiots ?

well, you do it wrong !

Tracked MARS and Colosus Crushin power are best to deal with menace. Run over them crush them !

// it is request : add ability for Tracked versions of MARS and Colossus simple walk/run over the Simbiots. Let me feel the power of the Colosus. Important add satisfying  crackling/snapping sound!

On 4/23/2025 at 10:31 PM, Chris said:

You already can crush the Symbiotes!

Well, it was not true. I can not crush Symbiots when they are not  on battlefield, obviously. So It took me just a year of recommendations, bitching, and announcing bugs that aliens are not using  the bugs.

Then suddenly we get a superb news :

On 2/4/2026 at 6:33 PM, Chris said:

 meaning Symbiotes will continue to appear throughout the campaign. This is especially fun because the Colossus can crush Symbiotes by walking over them in the same way that vehicles can!

Hallelujah !

Could  I ask for  another 3 related improvements ?

1. Make Symb  Luncher use ballistic curve  like grenade  luncher , so the live  form can better survive g-force acceleration and it  would it  would be only indirect alien weapon. (aliens should have  at least one, right ?)
2. Current texture of Symb. luncher weapon uses  the same colour like mantid natural skin colour, so it looks like an thick hand instead of The_Signature_Weapon. Solution: re-skin Symb luncher  so it uses an distinct  colour, like toxic green or meaty pink - which are  different to mantid brown.
3. When Mantid dies, it release one Symbiont which lives in symbiosis attached on Mantid. Praetorians can release 2 Symbionts. More Symbionts, means  more powerful symbiosis means more  powerful Mantid. Easy as that.

Thank you in advance,

// I edit and fixed  an typo mistake  and it asks for approval from moderator again. Sorry.

 

Edited February 8 by gG-Unknown

[Skitso]

Seeing some fantastic improvements coming! And 5000 word patch notes! Love it!

[gG-Unknown]

On 2/4/2026 at 6:33 PM, Chris said:

Smaller Tasks:

 

I know there will be community members happy // small step for a astronaut programmer, but huge leap for a humankind playerkind to read about things like the return of weapons having Reflex Modifiers, // Yes, please. Reaction bonuses were removed for a good reason - Too many numbers, I agreed to delete them. Lets Do not fall into the same hole again. I think we need just one Group - "Fast Handling Weapons" which all gets the same bonus. Every other weapon then stay as now. Power of Simplicity is underrated. Make it as a Weapon Property so it is easy to find in Xenopaedia. Quick handling weapons should be : pistols, SMGs, shotguns (include alien versions. We want fair play, right) and all melee weapons include natural weapons like  claws. (alligator lurking just behind the door should go snappy snap). When we talk about this, natural weapon should be  considered  as "always selected", therefore aliens could use  in reaction two weapons in one round, the one which is selected AND the natural. This way, Aligators are always ready to bite with a bonus for melee reaction, regardless weapon type in their hand. the addition of a new Interrogation project for Cleaner Leaders, // Very nice. Several missions offers to capture them, so allow interrogate all of them them is lovely. the ability to manually activate teleporters when your soldiers are stood on them, // Ooooh! Looking forward the for the UI. Anyway, please Make sure that the new trigger use a rule "one teleporting per turn at max", current unfair whack-a-mole trick is awful. and making  being on a higher / lower level than your target give a more straightforward hit chance increase / decrease in the tactical combat.  // I know  this was asked several times but, I strongly ask you do not do this. Seriously no. It is an artificial rule which is copied  from dumb games. After your latest balance  package regular_rifle x sniper it is just perfect, dont brake it please by adding a flat acc bonus. Here is a better  version for height advantage :

• being on a higher level than your target reduces target's cover which comes from an interfering objects. (not smoke, only items)Each level of difference reduces (subtract)  20%  of interfering, so when attacker gets on level 3 shooting down on level 1 have an advantage minus 40 % from cover made by interfering objects.

That means  hiding behind items do not help (mostly) against attackers  at high ground. Which is perfectly OK. Contrary, If you would add a straightforward flat acc bonus to hit, you get unwanted edge cases like a shotguner climbs on a container to shoot 2 tiles away on a target to get the height bonus. Or even worst, people will try to end round on a container while crouching to get defence bonus. Ridiculous! Add a defensive bonus to higher targets is not needed at all, just make sure that all buildings have the small defensive wall on roof. I know that all the buildings in arctic environment do not have this wall, perhaps there are  some others too.

Here is another idea, which support verticality gameplay :

• being on a higher / lower level than your target give a plus / minus one tile of throwing range per level of difference

Logical and fun rule. You throw further from higher place AND it is obviously harder to throw up. You could try it yourself, climb on a garage and throw a  canned beer, you will  see that you land it farther than usual. Chriss, Do you like it ?

 

 Thank you considering my ideas to make the game better !

Edited February 8 by gG-Unknown

[gG-Unknown]

On 2/4/2026 at 6:33 PM, Chris said:

Smaller Tasks:

 the ability to manually activate teleporters when your soldiers are stood on them,

I have found perfect example of  Whack-a-mole issue.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2694823663?t=00h41m22s

I highlighted  the issue several times already, include suggested solution. Make sure that the new trigger use a rule "one teleporting per turn at max"   See my previous post in this thread.

The trick is based on mechanic of reaction fire, as long as teleported  soldier keep enough TU he is safe.

I em highlighting it again, by video, to make sure we get rid of this toxic type of gameplay.

Edited February 12 by gG-Unknown

[Alienkiller]

Nice, I can wait to test the Milestone 7 with the new Contents / Features and many Fixes & Upgrades to the Basegame. The new Contents / Features sounds great and give the Basegame an very good start, when Milestone 7 have no big Problems in the Testing-Part. 

I like it too, that the Mods can be downloaded from the Steamworkshop. That makes it easyer to test them, if they are Mulitlanguage (esp. for German Players).

But first the Basegame must be stable and run smoothly, before the Modding-Part can be finished. Without an smooth running and as most Bugfree as possible Basegame Moddig is useless.

[Chris]

On 2/12/2026 at 12:44 AM, gG-Unknown said:

I have found perfect example of  Whack-a-mole issue.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2694823663?t=00h41m22s

I highlighted  the issue several times already, include suggested solution. Make sure that the new trigger use a rule "one teleporting per turn at max"   See my previous post in this thread.

The trick is based on mechanic of reaction fire, as long as teleported  soldier keep enough TU he is safe.

I em highlighting it again, by video, to make sure we get rid of this toxic type of gameplay.

Hmmm. I think the issue here is that the fix is as bad as the problem. Yes, it's possible for experienced soldiers to abuse the teleporters. But setting a limit of one teleport per turn is going to affect a lot of players who aren't abusing the teleporters, who would just be confused and frustrated by the artificial limitation - and there's likely to be a lot more casual players who are affected than there are experienced players who want to cheese the teleporters.

I'm not sure that this issue is a huge priority really, but I guess a better solution would just be to give a large Reflexes penalty to any soldier who uses a teleporter more than once a turn. That would make any teleport-cheese soldier very vulnerable to reaction fire but not affect players who are playing normally.

Do you actually see that sort of behaviour happening much?

EDIT - actually, I misunderstood the problem in this post. See my second post for a proper reply.

[Skitso]

24 minutes ago, Chris said:

Hmmm. I think the issue here is that the fix is as bad as the problem. Yes, it's possible for experienced soldiers to abuse the teleporters. But setting a limit of one teleport per turn is going to affect a lot of players who aren't abusing the teleporters, who would just be confused and frustrated by the artificial limitation - and there's likely to be a lot more casual players who are affected than there are experienced players who want to cheese the teleporters.

I'm not sure that this issue is a huge priority really, but I guess a better solution would just be to give a large Reflexes penalty to any soldier who uses a teleporter more than once a turn. That would make any teleport-cheese soldier very vulnerable to reaction fire but not affect players who are playing normally.

Do you actually see that sort of behaviour happening much?

Yes, that is a common way to cheese command rooms. How about a %TU cost for using teleports? I think something like 20% would do the job?

[Chris]

Hmm, no, having actually watched the clip this time (Twitch wouldn't let me log in before) I don't really know that this is something that needs "fixing". It's not that dissimilar to cheesing a doorway or a building corner really. The Andron got to reaction fire after it was attacked the first time so it's not like the player was able to avoid attacks.

The issue with making this strategy less effective is exactly what the player said in the video - "I don't know what to do here, the Andron is unsuppressable". The danger is that command rooms become a place where people are guaranteed to take casualties whatever they do. Setting it so teleporters are effectively one-way trips would do that, I think.

It's easy enough to add a TU cost to using a teleporter (the new manual activation mode already has a TU cost) but I don't think that would fix the problem, as I don't think it would have changed the behaviour of the guy in the video at all. Really the only advantage he's gaining here is ensuring his team are safe from enemy attack during the AI turn, and while that is an advantage it does mean the AI will be able to reaction fire during the next turn as soon as a unit attacks.

[Skitso]

39 minutes ago, Chris said:

Hmm, no, having actually watched the clip this time (Twitch wouldn't let me log in before) I don't really know that this is something that needs "fixing". It's not that dissimilar to cheesing a doorway or a building corner really. The Andron got to reaction fire after it was attacked the first time so it's not like the player was able to avoid attacks.

The issue with making this strategy less effective is exactly what the player said in the video - "I don't know what to do here, the Andron is unsuppressable". The danger is that command rooms become a place where people are guaranteed to take casualties whatever they do. Setting it so teleporters are effectively one-way trips would do that, I think.

It's easy enough to add a TU cost to using a teleporter (the new manual activation mode already has a TU cost) but I don't think that would fix the problem, as I don't think it would have changed the behaviour of the guy in the video at all. Really the only advantage he's gaining here is ensuring his team are safe from enemy attack during the AI turn, and while that is an advantage it does mean the AI will be able to reaction fire during the next turn as soon as a unit attacks.

Yeah, androns are an exception as you can't suppress them, but otherwise, clearing command rooms become completely trivial: you just teleport in, toss a few stun grenades and mow the aliens down with 0 risk.

However, if teleporting cost 25% TU, you could still teleport in, throw a stun and teleport back. But then you'd block the teleport pad so you'd really need to think some alternative solutions as theres only so many pads available.

Edited February 13 by Skitso

[gG-Unknown]

3 hours ago, Chris said:

Hmmm. I think the issue here is

Do you actually see that sort of behaviour happening much? // yes, it is common meta. Same  as overloading soldiers.

But setting a limit of one teleport per turn is going to affect a lot of players who aren't abusing the teleporters, who would just be confused and frustrated by the artificial limitation - and there's likely to be a lot more casual players who are affected than there are experienced players who want to cheese the teleporters.  // There are (almost) no situations where normal player would like to port-in-and-out-in-same-turn.  (There are two rooms in alien base with one teleport, room has no  other  entry. So in this special case, you would do a " normal" play, go in, check room - and go out. )  If you remove those two room which has zero value, then I can safely say >> Whole Game has No situation where normal player want  to teleport twice in a turn. Do you see, there is  no single  case where a normal player could be confused or frustrated. 

Normal play by my book is :

Teleport in, do some action, which always takes  more  than one turn. Go back.

you see, the normal player will not even notice the rule " one teleport per turn", because he play  like this naturally.

I'm not sure that this issue is a huge priority really, // yes it is but I guess a better solution would just be to give a large Reflexes penalty to any soldier who uses a teleporter more than once a turn. That would make any teleport-cheese soldier very vulnerable to reaction fire but not affect players who are playing normally. // Well, you  miss the  target,  again. By  Add any artificial debuff after the second teleport solve nothing. Because, after second teleport soldier is back on the safe level. so He doesnt  care  any debuff. BTW > a de-buff it is even more artificial than simple  denial.

 

It's not that dissimilar to cheesing a doorway or a building corner really. // Oh  Dear !  Do you remember that  myself and Skitso were screaming on you, about 2 years ago, that doors  in a base  have to  be fully  automatic because manual doors is cheese ?  You deny  it, then re-enabled, then again  enabled then again. Crazy ! You probably dont know term "  Walling " it was coined in early online games, where  players cheese  AI by pushing  self or enemy into the wall, to fool AI  do not attack. this type of gameplay was punished  by a  ban from online world. Here  we  go again, AI has some limits (or turn based ruleset)  then player  cheese it,  by opening  doors, or  teleporting back and forth. It is the same principle, gain advantage by abusing rule-set or technical boundaries.

 

The issue with making this strategy less effective is exactly what the player said in the video - "I don't know what to do here, the Andron is unsuppressable". The danger is that command rooms become a place where people are guaranteed to take casualties whatever they do. Setting it so teleporters are effectively one-way trips would do that, I think. // WHAT ?! Chriss, you have made many great things but sometimes, ... Peak  up is  fallowed by peak down :-] No offence, only one who does nothing makes no mistakes. Player is weak, he do not use Machinegun nighter melee, he is not prepared to use shield so absorb dmg for sake of  team assault  - he dont need to suppress Andron, it is the  only tactiic he knows. Instead, he could kill opponent in one go. On top, you probably missed Servitor which didnt  get chance to shoot do to teleporting back and forth. Again,  weak player is not a reason to allow cheese !!! In my current plathru on M6 I reached day 200, never used in-out teleport in one turn. Never been wiped ( whole team dead, or  mission failed) because of one way ticket.

 

HOW A TELEPORT SHOULD BE USED NORMALLY

Player gather group of soldiers, prepare their equip, share grenades (we should have a feature to pick up items from adjacent tiles)  then execute BREACH. Shield goes first (lets assume that narrow shield has been fixed) then other soldiers fallows based  on situation, perhaps Mg, perhaps shotgun, perhaps melee. BREACH is most dangerous and iconic moment of the whole gameplay !!! Player have  to prepare then move carefully and consider risks. In out teleports removes the most iconic  part of game  THE BREACH!

Bridge of every UFO,  Alen base Control room - these are sort of the Boss fight.  (using dungeon crawler terms) It is the final AND  most difficult fight of the whole map/dungeon. Player should execute perfect BREACH  or  swallow the consequences.

To support intense  gameplay, to support risk management, teleports have to use rule  "one time per  round".

Here  is lore  : Teleporting  an entity means  dissemble all molecules then assemble it back on other place. If you try to teleport to quickly, back and forth, molecules start to vibrate differently, which leads to an unpleasant result. Teleported item do not assemble correctly  but turns into a  blob. Therefore, all teleporters have a safety feature, to check if  entity is ready to be teleported. 

Edited February 13 by gG-Unknown

[Skitso]

43 minutes ago, gG-Unknown said:

Do you actually see that sort of behaviour happening much? // yes, it is common meta. Same  as overloading soldiers.

But setting a limit of one teleport per turn is going to affect a lot of players who aren't abusing the teleporters, who would just be confused and frustrated by the artificial limitation - and there's likely to be a lot more casual players who are affected than there are experienced players who want to cheese the teleporters.  // There are (almost) no situations where normal player would like to port-in-and-out-in-same-turn.  (There are two rooms in alien base with one teleport, room has no  other  entry. So in this special case, you would do a " normal" play, go in, check room - and go out. )  If you remove those two room which has zero value, then I can safely say >> Whole Game has No situation where normal player want  to teleport twice in a turn. Do you see, there is  no single  case where a normal player could be confused or frustrated. 

Normal play by my book is :

Teleport in, do some action, which always takes  more  than one turn. Go back.

you see, the normal player will not even notice the rule " one teleport per turn", because he play  like this naturally.

I'm not sure that this issue is a huge priority really, // yes it is but I guess a better solution would just be to give a large Reflexes penalty to any soldier who uses a teleporter more than once a turn. That would make any teleport-cheese soldier very vulnerable to reaction fire but not affect players who are playing normally. // Well, you  miss the  target,  again. By  Add any artificial debuff after the second teleport solve nothing. Because, after second teleport soldier is back on the safe level. so He doesnt  care  any debuff. BTW > a de-buff it is even more artificial than simple  denial.

 

It's not that dissimilar to cheesing a doorway or a building corner really. // Oh  Dear !  Do you remember that  myself and Skitso were screaming on you, about 2 years ago, that doors  in a base  have to  be fully  automatic because manual doors is cheese ?  You deny  it, then re-enabled, then again  enabled then again. Crazy ! You probably dont know term "  Walling " it was coined in early online games, where  players cheese  AI by pushing  self or enemy into the wall, to fool AI  do not attack. this type of gameplay was punished  by a  ban from online world. Here  we  go again, AI has some limits (or turn based ruleset)  then player  cheese it,  by opening  doors, or  teleporting back and forth. It is the same principle, gain advantage by abusing rule-set or technical boundaries.

 

The issue with making this strategy less effective is exactly what the player said in the video - "I don't know what to do here, the Andron is unsuppressable". The danger is that command rooms become a place where people are guaranteed to take casualties whatever they do. Setting it so teleporters are effectively one-way trips would do that, I think. // WHAT ?! Chriss, you have made many great things but sometimes, ... Peak  up is  fallowed by peak down :-] No offence, only one who does nothing makes no mistakes. Player is weak, he do not use Machinegun nighter melee, he is not prepared to use shield so absorb dmg for sake of  team assault  - he dont need to suppress Andron, it is the  only tactiic he knows. Instead, he could kill opponent in one go. On top, you probably missed Servitor which didnt  get chance to shoot do to teleporting back and forth. Again,  weak player is not a reason to allow cheese !!! In my current plathru on M6 I reached day 200, never used in-out teleport in one turn. Never been wiped ( whole team dead, or  mission failed) because of one way ticket.

 

HOW A TELEPORT SHOULD BE USED NORMALLY

Player gather group of soldiers, prepare their equip, share grenades (we should have a feature to pick up items from adjacent tiles)  then execute BREACH. Shield goes first (lets assume that narrow shield has been fixed) then other soldiers fallows based  on situation, perhaps Mg, perhaps shotgun, perhaps melee. BREACH is most dangerous and iconic moment of the whole gameplay !!! Player have  to prepare then move carefully and consider risks. In out teleports removes the most iconic  part of game  THE BREACH!

Bridge of every UFO,  Alen base Control room - these are sort of the Boss fight.  (using dungeon crawler terms) It is the final AND  most difficult fight of the whole map/dungeon. Player should execute perfect BREACH  or  swallow the consequences.

To support intense  gameplay, to support risk management, teleports have to use rule  "one time per  round".

Here  is lore  : Teleporting  an entity means  dissemble all molecules then assemble it back on other place. If you try to teleport to quickly, back and forth, molecules start to vibrate differently, which leads to an unpleasant result. Teleported item do not assemble correctly  but turns into a  blob. Therefore, all teleporters have a safety feature, to check if  entity is ready to be teleported. 

This! Teleports need nerf. Please, Chris!

Teleporting back is exactly the same as being able to close UFO doors on will. Why is door cheesing more important to you, @Chris, than teleport cheesing?

Edited February 13 by Skitso

[gG-Unknown]

I went for a short walk

Chriss, if you want give a player an option to peak thru teleport, make MARS viable. I mean, currently MARS is hopelessly overpriced, so it is not used by experienced players, for others it works as a  noob trap.  Slash  all MARS prices by half = build, rebuild, all eng. upgrades, all eng time consumption. This way player get  an expendable device. Experienced  players will not use  MARS anyway, becaouse solider is better, but for a noob, it could be a way how to loose a unit cheaply. For example, send to teleport to check siituation.

 

When we talk about  number changes, Andron  need : armour + 5 , HP -5 , TU - 5

It will be more susceptible to baton, and it will be easier to guess where he could move - so it will be  easier  to make an ambush. On the  other side kill it by shooting wiill a bit more  difficult.

Edited February 13 by gG-Unknown

[Chris]

The difference between teleporters and the UFO door example is there's no situation where a player playing the game in a non-cheesy way would need to close the UFO front door.

There's quite a few situations when a player might want to use more than one teleporter in a turn. For example if you have a soldier on the ground floor of a 3-level UFO, and you want to move up two levels to reach the bridge. Or if you go through a teleporter accidentally (or it goes a different place than you were expecting), and want to go back through it. Or even if you go through a teleporter and find a lot of aliens on the other side - in every other situation you can retreat your soldier by just running back around the corner, or through the doorway you used. Preventing that via teleporters (i.e. guaranteed death for that soldier) would make a lot of less hardcore players VERY angry, I'm sure. No matter how much the MARS costs.

Making the game frustrating for the majority of players to stop a cheese tactic only used by experienced players wouldn't be a smart thing to do. We either need to find a solution with fewer downsides than "one teleport per turn", or the solution needs to be redesigning the various maps so that the teleporters are in smaller rooms that have limited sight lines instead, and you have to go through doors to breach the command rooms instead. But I'm not sure how much work the latter is; we may not have enough time to revamp lots of maps prior to release.

[Chris]

7 hours ago, Skitso said:

However, if teleporting cost 25% TU, you could still teleport in, throw a stun and teleport back. But then you'd block the teleport pad so you'd really need to think some alternative solutions as theres only so many pads available.

While adding a TU cost to the teleporter is probably the simplest solution to implement, I'm still not convinced it actually fixes the problem. Or not fully, at least. Even if you made teleporting cost 25% TU, you'd still only need to do two tiles of movement in total to step onto the teleporter, go up and shoot at an alien, then teleport back down and move one tile to free the pad up.

So that's 50% TU + 6TU of movement. It'd make teleport cheesing less effective, but you'd still have something like 40-45% of your TU free to attack with, right? An experienced player would still be able to cheese the game using that.

[Skitso]

7 hours ago, Chris said:

While adding a TU cost to the teleporter is probably the simplest solution to implement, I'm still not convinced it actually fixes the problem. Or not fully, at least. Even if you made teleporting cost 25% TU, you'd still only need to do two tiles of movement in total to step onto the teleporter, go up and shoot at an alien, then teleport back down and move one tile to free the pad up.

So that's 50% TU + 6TU of movement. It'd make teleport cheesing less effective, but you'd still have something like 40-45% of your TU free to attack with, right? An experienced player would still be able to cheese the game using that.

Yeah, but at least you wouldn't be able to throw a stun, which in my opinion is the worst culprit in the command room teleport cheese tactic.

Having fewer teleport pads leading in command rooms would also help I guess.

Edited February 14 by Skitso

[ih8california]

Skitso, you are the biggest whiner about player cheese (which i wouldn't really care about, except chris seems to only listen to you regarding balance and makes me think you are his burner account), yet offer no solutions for viable counterplay to camping command-room aliens. In fact with the nerf to shields and overloading, command rooms are going to be even more annoying.

[Skitso]

56 minutes ago, ih8california said:

yet offer no solutions for viable counterplay to camping command-room aliens.

Lol. I didn't realise you needed help playing this game.

[Skitso]

1 hour ago, ih8california said:

Skitso, you are the biggest whiner

Quote

NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF

Yeah...

[ih8california]

The funny thing is that I agree with many of your criticisms of 'player cheese,' the problem is that the devs just look at your complaint and nerf that instead of fundamentally addressing the underlying issue, creating an overall worse implementation.  It's just bad game design and honestly makes me not want to play the game if the devs are going to remove any advantage the player has without providing any alternative strategy/counter.

You want to remove the cheese of overloading soldiers for a mission? Fine, but give me a (drop-ship dependent) way to bring *some* extra gear.

You want to remove teleport/stun cheese? Fine, but make command rooms something other than an alien camp fest.

You want to make bases cost OP points too? Fine, but give me starting infrastructure to offset.

1 hour ago, Skitso said:

Lol. I didn't realise you needed help playing this game.

How many successful commander-playthroughs do you have again?

[Skitso]

13 hours ago, ih8california said:

How many successful commander-playthroughs do you have again?

OK, I'll bite, eventhough it sounds like a loaded question:

None.

Now that the alien accuracy has been set better, I play on custom Veteran with excessive alien numbers and 0 survival chance. So why are you asking how I play?

Edited February 15 by Skitso

[ih8california]

The point is that I have 800 hours playing EXCLUSIVELY on commander difficulty, so I think I have a pretty good idea when a change is going to have an unnecessarily negative impact on overall gameplay. 

I couldn't care less what difficulty people play on, play how you want, it is just that I get annoyed when people who dont (and I doubt chris does either) make or advocate for changes that don't impact their gameplay.

But aside from all of that, it was just a dumb change that:

- no one asked for (meanwhile, there are dozens of awesome suggestions here and on discord that go ignored).

- is little more than a middle finger to players for being "too good" and does nothing to enhance the gameplay experience, create a new strategy/replayability, etc.

- is actually a double nerf (when you consider you can't overload anymore).