Xenonauts 2 is easy in late game, even on commander difficulty

[PorT_Lobo]

The game is easy in the late game with the latest armor and weapons. The difficulty should be maintained throughout the campaign and not become a walk in the park massacring aliens. The escalation of scientific discoveries should accompany the appearance of more powerful aliens, and not make us far superior to them.

 

I suggest:

More Eternals should appear, especially on the battlefield, and not be confined to one location where the entire team converges and shoots, leaving them no chance to react.

Mind control should last several turns or until the alien controlling the soldier is defeated.

More potent hypnosis/mesmerasis. Throughout the campaign, the aliens only managed to hypnotize a soldier twice; in all other attempts, the soldiers resisted.

 

About Steam Feats:

A challenging one would be a soldier having all the medals.

[Skitso]

3 hours ago, PorT_Lobo said:

The game is easy in the late game with the latest armor and weapons. The difficulty should be maintained throughout the campaign and not become a walk in the park massacring aliens. The escalation of scientific discoveries should accompany the appearance of more powerful aliens, and not make us far superior to them.

 

I suggest:

More Eternals should appear, especially on the battlefield, and not be confined to one location where the entire team converges and shoots, leaving them no chance to react.

Mind control should last several turns or until the alien controlling the soldier is defeated.

More potent hypnosis/mesmerasis. Throughout the campaign, the aliens only managed to hypnotize a soldier twice; in all other attempts, the soldiers resisted.

 

About Steam Feats:

A challenging one would be a soldier having all the medals.

I agree with pretty much everything. Now that I've started playing on commander difficulty, I've started to notice it doesn't make the ground combat that much more difficult compared to the veteran. I think the aliens are already tough enough, but late game UFOs and other missions just need more aliens and especially lower tier ones to mow down with your superior weapons. You are also right about the need of additional roaming eternals too to make things more intresting.

Psionic attacks are weak and mind control especially feels underwhelming. I would give it a squad sight and 2 turn duration.

Edited March 9 by Skitso

[fusion-waffle]

4 hours ago, Skitso said:

Now that I've started playing on commander difficulty, I've started to notice it doesn't make the ground combat that much more difficult compared to the veteran.

Yeah -- I had to improve my skill at the game & strategic decisions to be able to win on Veteran, but after figuring that out, the jump from Veteran to Commander was not a big one.

 

The v7.5.0 gameplay change reworking Psyon mesmerise was a good idea -- I've only just reached Psyons in my current campaign (cleaner base), and the very first Psyon I encountered mesmerised one of my soldiers .  A++++, would be mesmerised again.  It doesn't really increase the difficulty much, once a player has figured out how to play the game reasonably well those Psyons will usually be getting suppressed or killed before they get a chance to mesmerise.

 

I'm not sure if buffing the Eternal's mind control would increase difficulty much overall -- Eternals are quite easy to suppress & by the time eternals show up you already have fusion weapons, and if you can get a shotgunner / machinegunner within striking distance for a point blank attack there's a pretty good chance you can kill it by attacking with 1 soldier.

 

The most reliably challenging battle is probably UOO-1 bridge assault, it depends a little on which tactics you use & luck (e.g. if a stray fusion round accidentally breaches the main room before you were planning to) -- that one can sometimes produce situations where you can see as many aliens as there are xenonauts!

 

The other kind of mission that I've found can be very challenging are mid-game terror sites, although there is a lot of variability. Of all the missions, for me these are the ones that are most likely to result in a full squad wipe, or retreating with surviving soldiers and losing the mission after a half squad wipe.  I've gotten a bit more skilled in handling these now, if you identify that you are getting outnumbered on too many fronts, it is often possible to retreat from one front and consolidate your remaining forces -- blocking line of sight with buildings & using smoke. Sometimes that's enough to turn a likely defeat into a win. But you need to realise this is happening & act very decisively. These difficult terror site battles are very memorable:

• One terror-site against reapers, sebillians & mantids with bio-rilfes.  Reaper numbers got out of control after they murdered all the civilians. Then pressure from sheer number of aliens (reapers, sebillians spraying & constant mantid sniping spawning biters) was too much to handle, lost about half the squad then ran away. Memorable mission!
  • I'm hoping to encounter a repeat of this, with the new 7.x bio-cannon for even more irritating biter pressure, but haven't quite had that happen yet. The potential is there!
• One terror-site against Pysons, the first time in campaign that mind-control Psyons appeared. Suffered a few early casualties. Then spiralled and suffered more casualties, with an uncontrolled mind-control Psyon who got behind my lines wreaking havoc.  Was down to two xenonauts, Decided to try to recover all the fallen bodies before evacuating, one soldier on overwatch, the other hauling the corpses and guns. Then lost another xenonaut, only one left.  Final xenonaut, who had picked up a laser machinegun after the heavy was killed early in the mission, killed the last alien and barely managed to salvage a win. Very memorable!

 

 

Edited March 9 by fusion-waffle

[PorT_Lobo]

More suggestions:

- Players must be pressured to complete cleaners base quickly. I am playing in Commander, ironman, like it has no time limit or penalties, to conquer the Cleaners base, i did not rush there and developed the team, when i finally went there, it was to easy to do. A massacre. Player should have pressure in conquer it to avoid this.

- Some aliens should be immune to smoke and able to see through it, but as it is now, it unbalances the game too much in favor of the human player. Perhaps the robotics or mantids could have thermal vision, or the psionics could know where the minds are... Something that would force the player to use different strategies against different aliens.

- The enemies should be using far more grenades; it's extremely rare for the aliens to throw grenades, and this is a severe disadvantage for them. Also, all elite cleaners should be equipped with (and using) both regular and smoke grenades.

 

 

[fusion-waffle]

1 minute ago, PorT_Lobo said:

- The enemies should be using far more grenades; it's extremely rare for the aliens to throw grenades, and this is a severe disadvantage for them. Also, all elite cleaners should be equipped with (and using) both regular and smoke grenades.

wraiths & sebillians will absolutely throw grenades at you. Cluster up your troops, leave a few wraiths & sebillians unsuppressed & see what happens.

For best results, cluster up low-HP xenonauts behind a bus when there are wraiths nearby.

[PorT_Lobo]

Player in late game is much more powerfull than everything that Aliens have... They must be buffed to balance against fusion weapons and colossus armour

Human always outsmart the AI, and if they are weaker, it take off any challange in the game. 

Edited March 9 by PorT_Lobo

[Ruggerman]

The whole Idea, is to use the Alien Technology, to get to a point were you have a chance to win, but it still needs to be a 50/50% chance, just to keep the tenion in the game...!!

[ih8california]

Oh boy, here we go again...... Look away Chris nothing to see here.

3 hours ago, PorT_Lobo said:

More suggestions:

- Players must be pressured to complete cleaners base quickly. I am playing in Commander, ironman, like it has no time limit or penalties, to conquer the Cleaners base, i did not rush there and developed the team, when i finally went there, it was to easy to do. A massacre. Player should have pressure in conquer it to avoid this.

- Some aliens should be immune to smoke and able to see through it, but as it is now, it unbalances the game too much in favor of the human player. Perhaps the robotics or mantids could have thermal vision, or the psionics could know where the minds are... Something that would force the player to use different strategies against different aliens.

- The enemies should be using far more grenades; it's extremely rare for the aliens to throw grenades, and this is a severe disadvantage for them. Also, all elite cleaners should be equipped with (and using) both regular and smoke grenades.

 

 

- Supposedly there is +global panic per day, but yeah agree that could be increased a bit

- Androns are not effected by smoke (not sure about servitors)

- wraiths (explosive) & sebillians (posion) do use grenades.

 

3 hours ago, PorT_Lobo said:

Player in late game is much more powerfull than everything that Aliens have... They must be buffed to balance against fusion weapons and colossus armour

Human always outsmart the AI, and if they are weaker, it take off any challange in the game. 

Even with top-tier armor you are at most surviving 2-3 shots from alien fusion weapons. If your health is bad enough you're getting 1-shot. Not sure where this is coming from. 

[PorT_Lobo]

On 3/9/2026 at 9:43 PM, Ruggerman said:

The whole Idea, is to use the Alien Technology, to get to a point were you have a chance to win, but it still needs to be a 50/50% chance, just to keep the tenion in the game...!!

I fully agree... but like it is now, human is always smarter than AI and is 80-20% chance to human in Commander difficulty. 

[PorT_Lobo]

23 hours ago, ih8california said:

Oh boy, here we go again...... Look away Chris nothing to see here.

- Supposedly there is +global panic per day, but yeah agree that could be increased a bit

- Androns are not effected by smoke (not sure about servitors)

- wraiths (explosive) & sebillians (posion) do use grenades.

 

Even with top-tier armor you are at most surviving 2-3 shots from alien fusion weapons. If your health is bad enough you're getting 1-shot. Not sure where this is coming from. 

That is not my experience. Aliens don´t have a chance to play most of the times because our team overpower them a lot. 

[Rakiii]

I have to agree ..

 

Aircombat:

First of all there is no real pressure on global map in late game. There are just a few UFO´s you can shoot down without any real threat. Even battle ships are weak against Gemini craft.

I think Gemini is just too good. Dodge should not be instant and teleport should have higher cooldown. Btw using teleport turns aircraft the opposite way which shouldn´t be the case.

I would also nerf Fusion lance from 35-45 to 20-30 damage

I think it should be harder to destroy Harvester and Battleship (give them more hp, armor and their weapons better range) and add more waves of UFOs (all types of them from scout to BS) on globe

 

Tactical combat:

I can agree that the most reliably challenging battle is probably UOO-1 bridge assault

 

Psyonic attacks:

I think it should not be just YES or NO but rather more frequent attack that affects morale with all the consequences.

I haven´t used "focus mind" ability ever and bravery module could also be used more often then ...

I can agree that Ethernal should use squad sight and duration of mind controlled soldier could last 2 turns (with conditions above) instead of 1 turn.

 

Training system / soldier stats

I am thinking about the current training system and it feels quite uniform. You can train all stats of your soldiers up to 100 and it doesn´t feel realistic or fun to me. I would train nonstop but never ever could reach Usain Bolt´s speed ....

I would think of more realistic system where you can train stats of your soldiers up to 150% from their base (starting) stats (e.g. 50hp up to 75; 40 accu up to 60 etc. )

I know it feels like a nerf to the current system and you are right here but it shouldn´t be too punishing cos you can still use an extra modules (for more TU, accu, morale, strength) that might help you with some negative aspects of this change.

It should also make those modules (and Colossus armor) more meaningful and choosing your soldiers could be more important than now.

I also suggested earlier some items should be lighter (grenades, clips) 

On the other hand the worse soldier you could recruit should not have stats below 40 and all starting soldiers should have +5 stat.

I would also give players a chance to recruit higher ranking soldiers if lucky (maybe 2-3 cpl., 1 sgt. in mix) for higher price (30k cpl, 50k sgt.?) later

 

I would also cap the highest rank you can achieve just by passive training to Cpt. cos I think you shouldn´t be able to reach colonnel just by idling on base.

On the other hand the soldiers should be getting 50% more XP during tactical missions.

The changes above would make your starting soldier feel stronger while limiting them in late game where you can compensate their weaknesses with additional modules but game could feel a bit harder in late game ...

 

Misc.:

The highest Praetorian rank of aliens could be even stronger (e.g. androns 100 armor 200 hp,..) but would limit their numbers in UOO-1 bridge assault mission.

 

Poison grenades couldat least destroy a bit of armor or addinga stun overtime cos they are useless once you have masks on.

 

I think aliens should differ more and e.g. Mantids could have better LoS than humans.

 

Smoke grenades are too strong imo.

I would reduce effect from 20% > 15% and make two tiers of them

basic with less AoE but lighter (weight 6>5)

advanced more AoE, weight = 6 (current value)

Edited March 12 by Rakiii

[ih8california]

On 3/11/2026 at 7:37 AM, Rakiii said:

I have to agree ..

 

Aircombat:

First of all there is no real pressure on global map in late game. There are just a few UFO´s you can shoot down without any real threat. Even battle ships are weak against Gemini craft.

I think Gemini is just too good. Dodge should not be instant and teleport should have higher cooldown. Btw using teleport turns aircraft the opposite way which shouldn´t be the case.

I would also nerf Fusion lance from 35-45 to 20-30 damage

I think it should be harder to destroy Harvester and Battleship (give them more hp, armor and their weapons better range) and add more waves of UFOs (all types of them from scout to BS) on globe

I think increasing UFO spawns will fix this problem. IMO the gemini should feel a bit overpowered considering the cost.

Tactical combat:

I can agree that the most reliably challenging battle is probably UOO-1 bridge assault

Maybe (but at least in a good way), but I think late-game terror missions where you get 8+ aliens spawn camping you is worse half the time i just skip because i don't want to lose soldiers unnecessarily) .

Psyonic attacks:

I think it should not be just YES or NO but rather more frequent attack that affects morale with all the consequences.

I haven´t used "focus mind" ability ever and bravery module could also be used more often then ...

I can agree that Ethernal should use squad sight and duration of mind controlled soldier could last 2 turns (with conditions above) instead of 1 turn.

This is fine and I think a neat little buff to eternals (or at least a revisit of the dread mechanic).

Training system / soldier stats

I am thinking about the current training system and it feels quite uniform. You can train all stats of your soldiers up to 100 and it doesn´t feel realistic or fun to me. I would train nonstop but never ever could reach Usain Bolt´s speed ....

I would think of more realistic system where you can train stats of your soldiers up to 150% from their base (starting) stats (e.g. 50hp up to 75; 40 accu up to 60 etc. )

I know it feels like a nerf to the current system and you are right here but it shouldn´t be too punishing cos you can still use an extra modules (for more TU, accu, morale, strength) that might help you with some negative aspects of this change.

It should also make those modules (and Colossus armor) more meaningful and choosing your soldiers could be more important than now.

I also suggested earlier some items should be lighter (grenades, clips) 

On the other hand the worse soldier you could recruit should not have stats below 40 and all starting soldiers should have +5 stat.

I would also give players a chance to recruit higher ranking soldiers if lucky (maybe 2-3 cpl., 1 sgt. in mix) for higher price (30k cpl, 50k sgt.?) later

 

I would also cap the highest rank you can achieve just by passive training to Cpt. cos I think you shouldn´t be able to reach colonnel just by idling on base.

On the other hand the soldiers should be getting 50% more XP during tactical missions.

The changes above would make your starting soldier feel stronger while limiting them in late game where you can compensate their weaknesses with additional modules but game could feel a bit harder in late game ...

I thought there already was an inherent mechanism to make leveling stats via training more difficult the higher you got or am I misunderstanding the system?

I do like the suggestion to limit promotions via training and increase xp via missions.

Misc.:

The highest Praetorian rank of aliens could be even stronger (e.g. androns 100 armor 200 hp,..) but would limit their numbers in UOO-1 bridge assault mission.

 

Poison grenades couldat least destroy a bit of armor or addinga stun overtime cos they are useless once you have masks on.

Disagree regarding armor shred. Masks aren't free (weight & invetory-wise) so i feel it is a fair trade off if you are going mask-less and at least early game since they nerf overloading.

I think aliens should differ more and e.g. Mantids could have better LoS than humans.

Mantids already have increased LOS (near 360 vision??), which means you cant sneak behind them w/out reaction fire

Smoke grenades are too strong imo.

I would reduce effect from 20% > 15% and make two tiers of them

basic with less AoE but lighter (weight 6>5)

advanced more AoE, weight = 6 (current value)

I mean maybe, but a lot of it is RNG dependent, are they OP when tackling 1-2 aliens? probably. But when it comes to preventing a squadwipe when you spawn around 6+ its essential.

 

[Rakiii]

@ih8california

"Maybe (but at least in a good way), but I think late-game terror missions where you get 8+ aliens spawn camping you is worse half the time i just skip because i don't want to lose soldiers unnecessarily) ."

I think I skipped 90% of the terror missions in my last campaign cos I could but I don´t like the way they are spawning without terror ship being involved and same goes for alien base.

I think you should  be able to shoot them down and prevent cities from terror. In that case there could be two such events going at the same time to make more pressure on the player in late game.

"Mantids already have increased LOS (near 360 vision??), which means you cant sneak behind them w/out reaction fire"

I dont mean field of view but sight range so alien can see you and shoot you without being spotted eventually.

Edited March 14 by Rakiii