Save permanently bugged - cannot upgrade base defenses.

[vanguard01]

Essentially the title. I thought I researched laser defenses months ago, but have lost 2 bases now.

When I finish a mission and go to my engineering department, I see "laser defenses (upgrade)" stuck researching. After an unknown amount of time in the overworld, engineering continues, the base upgrades section is completely blank but when I take a close look at my base defenses, I realize they're clearly missile launchers and nothing else. When I am attacked by a UFO, I am defending with missile weapons.

This has basically bricked my ironman save with 30+ hours.

For a 1.0 release, this is a glaring bug and has wasted a tremendous amount of my time.

[fusion-waffle]

Is it possible that the engineering upgrade project for laser batteries was queued to be built in a base that does not have any engineers?  If that's the case, that could explain why it never completed & why you couldn't queue it for building in another base that did have engineers.  When the engineering screen is open you can switch between the tabs for different bases by clicking the base icons up the top right of the screen. If the project is queued in a base with 0 engineers, you should be able to cancel it and then queue it to be built somewhere else with engineers.

 

If that doesn't explain it & something else is going on,  you can share your exact save game by hitting "F11" in game where the issue is happening & click the top button to export a f11 bug report zip file - it will be saved to My Documents/My Games/Xenonauts 2/BugReports . You can drag & drop the bug report zip file when posting here to attach it, and make it easy for the devs to take a closer look.

 

Bugs aside, it's possible to win campaigns after losing a secondary base to an alien attack - it just sets you back a month and a few $m, and if you have a full roster of heathy soldiers equipped with weapons and armour, it can be a fun challenge defending your main base from an alien assault.

Edited April 15 by fusion-waffle

[vanguard01]

Thanks for your reply, I've uploaded the zip folder for the developers.

Unfortunately no, it isn't another base. It's the core base and the tech is not unlocked or researchable, despite being on gauss weaponry.

As far as the campaign being possible, this is the second time I lost a base despite feeling something off was happening. I decided to try and play through it as a challenge, but twice in one save is a lot of tanked money and I'm just feeling frustrated by the whole thing. Investing another however many hours in a run that may already be doomed because of bugs seems like a deeply frustrating prospect. Not sure how realistic it is to even proceed without the option of base defenses.

Regardless, thank you for your thoughtful reply,

bug_report_2026-04-15-10h58_st_7.19.2_user_f11_0.zip

Edited April 15 by vanguard01

[Kouki]

14 hours ago, vanguard01 said:

Thanks for your reply, I've uploaded the zip folder for the developers.

Unfortunately no, it isn't another base. It's the core base and the tech is not unlocked or researchable, despite being on gauss weaponry.

As far as the campaign being possible, this is the second time I lost a base despite feeling something off was happening. I decided to try and play through it as a challenge, but twice in one save is a lot of tanked money and I'm just feeling frustrated by the whole thing. Investing another however many hours in a run that may already be doomed because of bugs seems like a deeply frustrating prospect. Not sure how realistic it is to even proceed without the option of base defenses.

Regardless, thank you for your thoughtful reply,

bug_report_2026-04-15-10h58_st_7.19.2_user_f11_0.zip 26.67 MB · 0 downloads

Hello there, I loaded your save and saw that you have the laser battery upgrade queued on your latin american base which has no engineers. |

[fusion-waffle]

2 hours ago, Kouki said:

upgrade queued on your latin american base which has no engineers

 

quality of life enhancement suggestion - (presumably you've already got this one captured in an issue tracker somewhere):

 

if a player attempts to queue an engineering project in a base with 0 engineers, the game could refuse & instead display an error message ("Project cannot be queued as base has no engineers!").  this could reduce the number of folks who get tripped up by this.  There'd be an edge case to think through if a base had some engineers & queued projects & the player then fired all of them. And maybe more edge cases if engineers can be transferred between bases (can they?).

Edited April 16 by fusion-waffle

[vanguard01]

9 hours ago, Kouki said:

Hello there, I loaded your save and saw that you have the laser battery upgrade queued on your latin american base which has no engineers. |

The Latin America base is destroyed and cannot be selected, and has no engineers as it has no workshop. So how was it ever queued there in the first place? And how do I cancel it, if the base is destroyed?

[Kouki]

15 hours ago, vanguard01 said:

The Latin America base is destroyed and cannot be selected, and has no engineers as it has no workshop. So how was it ever queued there in the first place? And how do I cancel it, if the base is destroyed?

Your Latin American base is still functional from the latest strategy save from the .zip file which I will link below. If it gets attacked later on, then it might've gotten destroyed with the project permanently in queue (as there are no engineers), which might've led to a bugged state. I'll give this a check on my end, but can you send us a save from your current campaign so we can give it a look? I can also fix it on your ironman campaign so you can continue playing on

save^iron_man^st_created_2026-04-15-10h58-1.json

[vanguard01]

Interesting, in my current save, the one I thought I uploaded, I absolutely cannot access my Latin America base. It's possible I'm doing something wrong? I've attached a screenshot below, and recreated the bug report, in case I accidentally uploaded the wrong export. This is actually the second time I've lost this base, and I suspect I've had the Laser Defenses upgrade pending since sometime before I lost that base. But, since I lost it, I cannot cancel it. Currently in my save, I can't access the upgrade anywhere, because it is stuck behind the Latin America base which does not exist.

I suppose if anything, this is the feature I would like to see added the most -- that any research or projects pending in a base that is destroyed are cancelled, their funds restored, and the ability to resume that research in another base restored. Regardless, here is the other zip file in my bug reports. I suppose I uploaded the wrong one, related to a crash? I've also attached a number of screenshots trying to illustrate that in my save, there is no Latin America base, and there is no laser defense upgrade project available to my engineering team. I suspect if I started a new Latin America base, then developed it, I would be able to access and cancel the project.

Anyway, I recreated the save export to see if you can duplicate this. The screenshots essentially are trying to show that the base defense upgrade, the latin america base, and the pending version of the upgrade suspended by engineering do not exist - but I clearly have the tech researched to be able to do so.

Thank you again for your efforts to duplicate this.

bug_report_2026-04-18-21h22_st_7.19.2_user_f11_0.zip

[Kouki]

On 4/19/2026 at 11:28 AM, vanguard01 said:

Interesting, in my current save, the one I thought I uploaded, I absolutely cannot access my Latin America base. It's possible I'm doing something wrong? I've attached a screenshot below, and recreated the bug report, in case I accidentally uploaded the wrong export. This is actually the second time I've lost this base, and I suspect I've had the Laser Defenses upgrade pending since sometime before I lost that base. But, since I lost it, I cannot cancel it. Currently in my save, I can't access the upgrade anywhere, because it is stuck behind the Latin America base which does not exist.

I suppose if anything, this is the feature I would like to see added the most -- that any research or projects pending in a base that is destroyed are cancelled, their funds restored, and the ability to resume that research in another base restored. Regardless, here is the other zip file in my bug reports. I suppose I uploaded the wrong one, related to a crash? I've also attached a number of screenshots trying to illustrate that in my save, there is no Latin America base, and there is no laser defense upgrade project available to my engineering team. I suspect if I started a new Latin America base, then developed it, I would be able to access and cancel the project.

Anyway, I recreated the save export to see if you can duplicate this. The screenshots essentially are trying to show that the base defense upgrade, the latin america base, and the pending version of the upgrade suspended by engineering do not exist - but I clearly have the tech researched to be able to do so.

Thank you again for your efforts to duplicate this.

bug_report_2026-04-18-21h22_st_7.19.2_user_f11_0.zip 24.94 MB · 0 downloads

Yeah, it looks like the project gets stuck in queue. We'll get this fixed as this looks like a genuine bug. Although I can't say for sure whether invested funds will get refunded as this is more a design choice for the team to make, as storywise, the money invested is lost with the base, so I'll have to bring this up with the team.

In the meantime, I'll attach a save with the laser battery unlocked AND the LA base being destroyed. Feel free to choose whichever save you're going to continue with for your ironman campaign! The save version is 7.20.2 (current experimental version), but it should work fine on 7.19 (stable) as well.

iron_man-1.json

[vanguard01]

Thank you for supplying both! I'm curious to see what the team decides. The funds being lost is totally reasonable, but at least the project will get cancelled in the future. I do think a QoL change would be an indicator that you are starting a project in a base that has no ability to progress that project. Perhaps even being unable to start it to begin with.