Reflections on First Soldier Playthrough

[realitii]

I just completed the game on soldier difficulty, and it took me about 30 hours to do so.

I never played the original xcom games or the first Xenonauts, but I did play XCOM 2. I knew that the XCOM sequel was very different in spirit to the original games, and Xenonauts 2 seemed interesting.

The tactical layer is easily the best part of the game. I loved (and hated) how destructible the environments were, and the TU system is a clear upgrade over the fixed action economy in XCOM 2. Throughout the game, I experimented with multiple squad setups and weapon types. I was pleasantly surprised that each of the weapons felt effective - I didn't feel like I was forced into a single meta build to survive the game. Early game, I used shield units supported by rifles and shotguns. Mid game, I transitioned from shields/shotguns to lmgs and more rifles. After a particularly awful night terror mission, I ended up bringing snipers in subsequent missions to deal with units sitting at long range behind cover. End game composition was 8 rifles, 2 lmgs, and 2 snipers.

Shields were really helpful in the beginning, but fell off mid game. Ultimately, aliens left alive deal damage. Killing them is the best form of damage reduction, not using a shield. In addition, I got very comfortable using smoke grenades - especially if I had really bad RNG with my accuracy in a round. I found that LMG colossus xenonauts were really good at clearing rooms, and few things are as satisfying as deleting a sebillian point blank with a %50 x 10 spread from my plasma lmg.
Rifles are just excellent for most situations, and I really valued that versatility. Snipers aren't always necessary (e.g. alien bases), but they are sometimes necessary to deal with long range threats efficiently. I was initially annoyed by damage variability, but I got used to it. However, if you gave me a module (e.g. Aim Assist Module) that removed that volatility at the expense of average damage for round, I'd take it. I'd strongly prefer a rifle that always does 90% damage than one that usually does 50-150% damage - even if the latter does more damage on average.

Damage falloff over range is tuned too aggressively for sniper rifles.

Equipment was pretty straightforward. I used smoke, stun, and the cover destruction grenades (I forget what it was called). I never used grenades as a damage dealing tool, so I never used frags. Early in the game, I frequently had grenades land at my feet by bouncing off cover. This was the biggest reason I save-scummed.  The only other note I'll make here is the end-game module that lets your units see with 360 degree vision cone - I had massive performance issues moving those soldiers around the map. Having 360 field of view would be nice, but I didn't use those modules because of the lag they caused.

Alien variety was fine. I think the only alien I really struggled with throughout the game was the sebillian. They were always priority targets due to their lmg spray - not even because it necessarily killed my xenonauts directly. Even if they missed a xenonaut, they usually destroyed their cover. Any other aliens would then get a free shot at the now-vulnerable xenonaut. In addition, their regeneration essentially negates overwatch shots. Unless you catch a sebillian in multiple overlapping overwatch nets, they would usually eat the hit - kill one of your units - and then regen that lost health back. I'd estimate that at least half of my soldier deaths were to sebillians - directly or indirectly. Just to be clear, I am not advocating any changes to the balance of Sebillians; they're just scary lol.

Map variety was very limited. Mission types are even more limited as the game progresses. 
I did 30 missions throughout that play through, and like 10 of them were crashed UFOs on a farm. That may be a slight exaggeration, but it certainly felt very repetitive.

While losing soldiers was pretty common (every other mission), I only came close to losing a tactical mission once - due to time constraints making me play aggressively.
Throughout the game, I felt that partial cover was ineffective. My crouched xenonauts sitting at moderate range (10-15 tiles) were usually one-tapped behind partial cover, and even if aliens missed (miraculously) - they would destroy the partial cover for the next alien. This was a really big reason why I leaned on shields early game. However, even though I lost plenty of soldiers - it never felt run ending. This game is far more lethal than XCOM 2, but soldiers are far more replaceable.

The best way to prevent alien fire was sitting behind full cover/smoke at angles that forced aliens to walk through multiple overwatches to fire. Most of the time, they won't bother.

On the strategic layer, if you are intercepting UFO's and winning missions - doomsday/panic just isn't a serious problem. The interception mini game was interesting at first, but the hundreds of interceptions throughout the campaign grew somewhat tedious. I leaned on auto-resolve towards the end, which I think may be too generous. The biggest problem I faced in the strategic layer were the UFO waves that would bait out your interceptors so that troop transports could land on your bases. I did lose one of my secondary bases at the end of the game to this mischief. However, at that point, I was swimming in cash so it was only a minor inconvenience. At higher difficulties, I expect to invest more into batteries in my bases to prevent this.

At some point, I anticipate replaying this game on Ironman Commander for the challenge. I really enjoyed it, and I will definitely be back to try out future milestones. Thank you for making such a wonderful game <3

[fusion-waffle]

Welcome to the forum! Thank you for taking the time to write up and share your feedback after a campaign.  The devs do periodically read through these although given the recent monthly dev update, for the next week or two they may be neck-deep in focused debugging working to stabilise the prototype milestone 7 build...

 

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the TU system is a clear upgrade over the fixed action economy in XCOM 2.

You may be amused to know that Xenonauts' TU system is exactly the same as the TU system from the original UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994)!

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I was pleasantly surprised that each of the weapons felt effective - I didn't feel like I was forced into a single meta build to survive the game.

Yeah! Chris has explained in a few weapon balance/suggestion threads that they're prioritising balance & making sure each xenonauts 2 weapon has a role, rather than strict realism (in which case assault rifles might perform all roles well & there'd be no space for shotguns etc).

Interesting to hear how your weapon composition changed over the campaign & how you ended up 2/3rds rifles.   In my last campaign I ended up 1/3 shotguns, 1/3 lmgs & 1/3 everything else! 

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even though I lost plenty of soldiers - it never felt run ending. This game is far more lethal than XCOM 2, but soldiers are far more replaceable.

Yeah, I really appreciate the tools that Xenonauts 2 offers (training center, funding region bonuses for North America & Western Europe) to make replacing veteran soldiers less of a burden in terms of the player's time. It makes it much easier to play through serious losses of veteran soldiers without save scumming. Attrition is regrettable, but it's a war and everyone is replaceable.

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The biggest problem I faced in the strategic layer were the UFO waves that would bait out your interceptors so that troop transports could land on your bases. I did lose one of my secondary bases at the end of the game to this mischief.

Hey cool!  I'm glad the aliens (accidentally?) figured out how to do that to someone!  I've won 3 campaigns and never had them quite figure out that manoeuvre.

 

You might enjoy an Ironman Commander run -- it sounds like you breezed through the campaign on Soldier in 30 hours!  Ironman really helps to savour those unfortunate but memorable moments, but the game design is merciful in that even in Ironman it is cheap to replace veteran soldiers, particularly toward the end of a campaign.

Edited February 6 by fusion-waffle

[Chris]

On 2/6/2026 at 8:59 PM, realitii said:

I just completed the game on soldier difficulty, and it took me about 30 hours to do so.

I never played the original xcom games or the first Xenonauts, but I did play XCOM 2. I knew that the XCOM sequel was very different in spirit to the original games, and Xenonauts 2 seemed interesting.

The tactical layer is easily the best part of the game. I loved (and hated) how destructible the environments were, and the TU system is a clear upgrade over the fixed action economy in XCOM 2. Throughout the game, I experimented with multiple squad setups and weapon types. I was pleasantly surprised that each of the weapons felt effective - I didn't feel like I was forced into a single meta build to survive the game. Early game, I used shield units supported by rifles and shotguns. Mid game, I transitioned from shields/shotguns to lmgs and more rifles. After a particularly awful night terror mission, I ended up bringing snipers in subsequent missions to deal with units sitting at long range behind cover. End game composition was 8 rifles, 2 lmgs, and 2 snipers.

Shields were really helpful in the beginning, but fell off mid game. Ultimately, aliens left alive deal damage. Killing them is the best form of damage reduction, not using a shield. In addition, I got very comfortable using smoke grenades - especially if I had really bad RNG with my accuracy in a round. I found that LMG colossus xenonauts were really good at clearing rooms, and few things are as satisfying as deleting a sebillian point blank with a %50 x 10 spread from my plasma lmg.
Rifles are just excellent for most situations, and I really valued that versatility. Snipers aren't always necessary (e.g. alien bases), but they are sometimes necessary to deal with long range threats efficiently. I was initially annoyed by damage variability, but I got used to it. However, if you gave me a module (e.g. Aim Assist Module) that removed that volatility at the expense of average damage for round, I'd take it. I'd strongly prefer a rifle that always does 90% damage than one that usually does 50-150% damage - even if the latter does more damage on average.

Damage falloff over range is tuned too aggressively for sniper rifles.

Equipment was pretty straightforward. I used smoke, stun, and the cover destruction grenades (I forget what it was called). I never used grenades as a damage dealing tool, so I never used frags. Early in the game, I frequently had grenades land at my feet by bouncing off cover. This was the biggest reason I save-scummed.  The only other note I'll make here is the end-game module that lets your units see with 360 degree vision cone - I had massive performance issues moving those soldiers around the map. Having 360 field of view would be nice, but I didn't use those modules because of the lag they caused.

Alien variety was fine. I think the only alien I really struggled with throughout the game was the sebillian. They were always priority targets due to their lmg spray - not even because it necessarily killed my xenonauts directly. Even if they missed a xenonaut, they usually destroyed their cover. Any other aliens would then get a free shot at the now-vulnerable xenonaut. In addition, their regeneration essentially negates overwatch shots. Unless you catch a sebillian in multiple overlapping overwatch nets, they would usually eat the hit - kill one of your units - and then regen that lost health back. I'd estimate that at least half of my soldier deaths were to sebillians - directly or indirectly. Just to be clear, I am not advocating any changes to the balance of Sebillians; they're just scary lol.

Map variety was very limited. Mission types are even more limited as the game progresses. 
I did 30 missions throughout that play through, and like 10 of them were crashed UFOs on a farm. That may be a slight exaggeration, but it certainly felt very repetitive.

While losing soldiers was pretty common (every other mission), I only came close to losing a tactical mission once - due to time constraints making me play aggressively.
Throughout the game, I felt that partial cover was ineffective. My crouched xenonauts sitting at moderate range (10-15 tiles) were usually one-tapped behind partial cover, and even if aliens missed (miraculously) - they would destroy the partial cover for the next alien. This was a really big reason why I leaned on shields early game. However, even though I lost plenty of soldiers - it never felt run ending. This game is far more lethal than XCOM 2, but soldiers are far more replaceable.

The best way to prevent alien fire was sitting behind full cover/smoke at angles that forced aliens to walk through multiple overwatches to fire. Most of the time, they won't bother.

On the strategic layer, if you are intercepting UFO's and winning missions - doomsday/panic just isn't a serious problem. The interception mini game was interesting at first, but the hundreds of interceptions throughout the campaign grew somewhat tedious. I leaned on auto-resolve towards the end, which I think may be too generous. The biggest problem I faced in the strategic layer were the UFO waves that would bait out your interceptors so that troop transports could land on your bases. I did lose one of my secondary bases at the end of the game to this mischief. However, at that point, I was swimming in cash so it was only a minor inconvenience. At higher difficulties, I expect to invest more into batteries in my bases to prevent this.

At some point, I anticipate replaying this game on Ironman Commander for the challenge. I really enjoyed it, and I will definitely be back to try out future milestones. Thank you for making such a wonderful game <3

Thanks for the lengthy writeup, and apologies for the slow reply (as the poster above alluded to, we've been pretty busy recently). It's great to hear you had a good experience with the game, and most of the issues you raised (particularly the grenades-at-feet and 360-degree vision slowdown) are issues we'll hopefully be looking into prior to the final launch of the game.