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!
The build fixes a couple of quite serious bugs from 5.10.0 around troops getting stuck in the Airborne state after the UOO mission, and the game repeatedly crashing on save once the strategic operations get into a particular state. However, in both cases, you'll need to roll back to a previous save before the bugs appeared in your game - these fixes stop campaigns getting broken, but they can't fix saves that have already got into a broken state!
Gameplay Changes - Strategy:
Added a pop-up notification when the aliens recruit an Infiltrator.
Added a pop-up notification that triggers when you recruit all supporters in a region and receive a region bonus.
Added a Symbiote Autopsy research project with artwork and all other related things (e.g. the Corpse Analysis project etc).
Added research text for the Singularity Core research project. This should mean that all research projects in the game now have text.
Reduced the "interception radius" of units on the Geoscape, meaning they need to get closer to one another to initiate combat. Coupled with another fix, this should help address the problem where UFOs attacking bases on the coast never trigger "Trail Until Over Land" combat.
Visually updated the Geoscape buttons that launch the UOO missions and Operation Endgame, and the Rush Replace aircraft button.
The Operation Endgame button should now spawn immediately after the Operation Endgame research is finished (rather than 10 minutes later in-game).
Added tooltips to the Recruit Supporter, Eliminate Supporter, Region Bonus and Operations Point elements.
Updated various autopsies to better display the weapons of units with integrated weapons (e.g. Mentarch).
Gameplay Changes - Tactical:
The doors in the underground military base maps (Xenonaut Base Defence, ATLAS Base, Cleaner Base) no longer autoclose and can now be operated like normal doors.
You can now click outside the Tactical Inventory screen to accept the changes and close the panel.
Fixed the missing shadow on the crashed Battleship UFO hull in the tactical combat.
MARS Smoke Launcher now has sound / visual effects that are more appropriate for a smoke launcher.
Bugfixes:
Fixed a crash that would occur on save in certain circumstances on the Geoscape.
Fixed units being stuck in the Airborne state when returning from the UOO missions (you'll need to load a save from during or before the UOO mission to fix this issue in existing campaigns, as this fix can't fix saves that are already broken).
Fixed a bug where loading a tactical save could make UFOs briefly appear with black boxes and shroud errors.
Milestone 5.10.0 Released! (Experimental)
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!
Gameplay Changes:
We've now added a special "dropship" for the two UOO missions that represents the fact you're using a teleporter rather than actually flying a dropship up into space (although I've not set up the art for it yet so it just looks like an empty hangar). Currently it allows the player to bring 12 soldiers along.
Enemy reinforcements now get to spend 50% of their TU moving after they spawn, rather than staying clumped together on their spawn point.
The "return camera to previous position after AI turn" is now a settings option, and is disabled by default.
Added some artwork for the strategic operations information UI panel.
Added research text for the Battleship UFO project.
Bugfixes:
Fixed strategic operations being broken.
Fixed a crash that would occur when trying to load part 2 of Operation Endgame.
Fixed a crash that would occur in certain tactical missions containing Mind Control-capable enemies.
Fixed Landed UFO missions incorrectly showing a Terror Site intro conversation at the start of the battle.
Milestone 5.9.0 Released! (Experimental)
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!
Gameplay Changes:
Added a progress bar for the Doomsday counter.
Removed the enforced camera tracking for moving soldiers.
Wraith and Eternal cloaking field ability now triggers when a unit takes damage, but deactivates when they next take damage (and then reactivates if they take damage again, etc).
Reduced the Daily Increase for the strategic operations.
Increased the cost of the Reduce Tension and Reduce Panic strategic operations.
The Intelligence Supporters now give +2 OP per day, with the Elite one giving +4.
Vehicle Cannons now cost slightly more Alloys and Alenium to upgrade.
Updated the descriptions of the alien interrogation / corpse analysis projects to reflect they now grant +10% damage.
The alien crews on the ENDGAME mission now change depending on difficulty setting. The previous crews were used for Veteran difficulty, and there will be fewer enemies on easier difficulties and more if you're playing on Commander.
Fixed some typos on the Supporter Information UI element, and the ATLAS Base mission intro conversation.
Bugfixes:
Fixed the Eternal Interrogation not unlocking after you capture an Eternal. This should fix existing saves - just load the save and accelerate time on the Geoscape, and it should unlock after an hour or two.
Fixed a crash that would occur if you gibbed a Biter with an explosive.
Fixed a crash that could (very rarely) occur when moving from the Geoscape to a tactical mission.
Fixed another instance of the 90% loading hang (affecting certain Terror maps).
Fixed soldiers not showing their Wounded / Injured durations on the mission debrief screen.
Fixed an issue in alien base / underground base missions where sometimes areas that shouldn't be visible would get revealed.
Fixed the first Destroyer UFO not spawning near the player's base.
Fixed the Data Raid mission rewards not accurately reflecting the rewards you could earn from the mission.
Fixed the Geoscape timers not correctly disappearing when they reached zero (only affected campaigns started in 5.8.0).
Fixed the abduction tubes incorrectly displaying beneath the shroud / fog of war.
Fixed the tooltip for the Doomsday Counter.
Fixed the Laser / Gauss / Fusion turrets not having a tooltip.
Fixed the mission briefing screen appearing for a split-second when loading the Main Menu after booting the game.
Fixed a fog-of-war issue with the water on the Polar / Dockyard maps.
Fixed enemy unit healthbars being revealed in Cleaner Base mission if you move a unit during the deployment phase (fixed for real this time).
Fixed the Chinook roof being set one level too low.
Fixed the Chinook dropshadow being missing.
Fixed several tiles in the Boreal maps that were protruding into neighbouring tiles, which could cause visual issues.
Milestone 5.8.1 Released!
This is a small hotfix for the 5.8.0 update released earlier today to fix a potential gameplay issue, plus some research updates.
Changes:
Fixed a potential issue that could cause various game objects to unlock too early.
Updated the strategic operations "Daily Increase" text to be more descriptive.
Added artwork for the Interrogation: Eternal research project.
Updated the text for the Interrogation: Eternal research project, and the Endgame intro conversations.
Milestone 5.8.0 Released! (Experimental)
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!
This update contains a number of changes that will break existing campaigns, so existing saves from 5.7.0 will not load in 5.8.0. However, if you'd like to continue your existing playthrough, version 5.7.0 is still available to play on the Experimental Legacy branch.
Key Changes:
Mind Control: several alien units (Psyon Officer, Psyon Leader, Eternal) are now capable of psionically Mind Controlling your troops. The chance of success is based on the Psi-Strength of the alien and the Bravery and Morale of the defending soldier, with the attack being more difficult with greater distance. The attack always occurs in the alien turn, and if successful then the aliens will immediately take control of your soldier - however, the soldier will only be able to attack during the next alien turn, after which they are immediately returned to Xenonaut control (so you only lose them for one turn).
Strategic Operations Daily Increase: the value of strategic operations now increases with time if you do not use them (then resets to normal after use). For example, the Raise Funds operation normally grants +$500,000, but this now increases by +$10,000 for each day since it was last used.
Supporter Protection Level: each Supporter now has a "protection level", which changes every 10 days. There's a 50% chance this is just a normal value, but there's a 25% chance for the Supporter to have High or Low protection level. High protection makes recruiting / eliminating that Supporter 30% more expensive, and Low protection makes recruiting / eliminating them 30% cheaper.
Quickload and Continue Campaign now resets the game random seed like the Load Game menu does (if you were testing the randomness of shots using Quickload and were always getting the same result, this bug was why).
Gameplay Changes - Strategy:
The UFO Delegation system has been disabled until Milestone 6, as I think releasing it without the "Extended Mode" for people who really want to do lots of crash sites would be a mistake. However, we'll continue to balance the game assuming players will complete two crash sites of each UFO type (doing more will make the game quite a lot easier).
Revised a significant number of plot-related research text and character conversations, which should hopefully explain the narrative better.
Added three new research projects:
You begin the game with "The Cleaners" in progress, and this project explains a little about the Cleaners prior to the ATLAS Base mission.
"Autopsy: The General" is granted if you kill rather than capture the General in ATLAS Base. Both this and "Interrogation: The General" now grant some Operation Points on completion (the interrogation awards more).
"Quantum Waveform Analysis" is unlocked after ATLAS Base, and explains why the aliens are trying to be subtle at the start of the game but then move to outright invasion a few months later.
Added more Construction / Terror UFO missions to the timeline (i.e. UFO missions that spawn alien bases or terror sites if not shot down).
Interrogations and Corpse Analysis projects now both grant +10% damage bonus (for a total bonus of +20% damage), rather than +20% on Corpse Analysis and +15% on Interrogations (for a total of +35% damage).
Early Game Rebalance:
Phase 1 now lasts three months instead of two, with the third month including Destroyer UFOs and the Cleaner Base.
Infiltrators now only spawn on day 5 (along with a pop-up explaining that Doomsday is rising as a result). The Supporters that become infiltrators are now randomised, although it is still always one per region.
Reduced the starting quantity and daily gain of Operation Points due to the campaign now being longer.
Various Cleaner missions now grant Operation Points as a reward for side objectives (e.g. capturing Cleaner Data) rather than Doomsday Reduction.
A few research projects have been delayed slightly, such as Aerial Warfare now only triggering once you've shot down a Probe UFO.
Lots of minor changes.
Added new artwork for the Supporter Information UI panel, and new biome preview art for the UOO-1 missions, and Operation Endgame.
Added unique sounds for each of the strategic operations.
Africa now has an Elite Funding supporter.
Fusion Autorifle engineering project no longer requires the Gauss Autorifle to start.
Gameplay Changes - Air Combat:
Xenonaut aircraft no longer consume fuel when fighting in the air combat - this mechanic rarely came into play, and when it did it mostly seemed to frustrate people (or cause confusion by making autoresolve to fail unexpectedly).
Using Afterburners in the Air Combat now correctly blocks that aircraft from firing weapons. However, you now can use evasive roll while using afterburners (tooltips have been updated accordingly).
Gameplay Changes - Tactical:
All explosion damage now falls off linearly from 100% (explosion tile) to 50% (outer edge of explosion).
Units no longer turn to face their attacker if damaged by a friendly unit (which stops overwatch friendly fire costing you TU by rotating your soldiers).
We've thinned out the number of spawn points around the dropship on Terror maps.
Capturing the command room in an alien base now reveals the entire map. This now correctly triggers automatically at the start of each turn, rather than needing the player to move / rotate a soldier before it updates.
Balance Changes:
In addition to Mind Control, Eternals now also have the Mesmerise ability (3x per turn), Regeneration and Active Camo.
Increased the Accuracy penalty from wearing heavy armour from -3 to -5 for most armour types (and -2 to -3 for Warden)
Knife reduced from 8 weight to 6 weight, base accuracy increased from 60 to 65.
Alien Symbiote Launcher now does 35 damage (increased from 20), but only causes 3 Armour Destruction (down from 15).
Alien poison grenades now do Chemical rather than Thermal damage, and do 15 damage (previously 25)
Added brief character conversations to the start of both various tactical missions
The Eternal Archon on Operation Endgame part 2 now has a unique model with a custom helmet.
Fixed a number of spawning issues with the alien reinforcement gateways on the UOO-1 Sabotage mission.
The underground military base tileset now has pillars on the rock wall corners, which means they now block vision. This should helpfully clear up some of the line-of-sight issues in the ATLAS Base and the Cleaner Base missions.
The UFO Scout landed variant no longer has a low-res texture compared to other UFOs.
Bugfixes:
Fixed a crash that could occur if the HEVY caused enemy units to fall onto a ground tile that was also destroyed.
Fixed an AI hang that could occur if a Biter spawned on top of another enemy unit.
Fixed the bug where doors would visually get out of sync with their actual state, and look open when actually closed (or vice versa).
Fixed soldiers being able to run inside solid UFO hulls if the movement started before the UFO hull was revealed from the shroud.
Fixed the Orbital Bombardment timer not visually updating after the UOO-1 Sabotage mission delayed the bombardment.
Fixed the typewriter sound sometimes not stopping after using Esc to exit the Phase screen early.
Fixed enemy HP labels being revealed if you move any unit in the deployment phase of the Cleaner Base mission.
Fixed an issue where destroyed roofs would sometimes appear not to be destroyed after loading a saved game.
Fixed the empty spaces between platforms on the UOO-1 Sabotage mission becoming walkable if caught in a nearby explosion.
Fixed drag-and-drop reloading being broken for the Colossus.
Fixed the dynamic mission briefing text (e.g. text that displays turn limits) being broken when shown on the loading screen.
Fixed Sebillian regeneration being visible in the fog of war.
Fixed units being able to run off the map if certain cliff tiles were placed on the edge of the playable area.
Fixed aircraft not showing the evasive roll animation in air combat.
Fixed the star skybox not always displaying correctly on the UOO-1 Sabotage mission, and made it a little less contrasty.
Fixed weapon shots and move paths etc rendering under the shroud in certain areas of the UOO-1 Sabotage mission (again, this was a skybox interaction).
Fixed units being able to activate alien / cleaner consoles through solid walls.
Fixed spacebar selecting the next soldier not working for several seconds after pressing C to crouch a soldier.
Fixed the Alien Magnetic LMG not using the correct artwork.
Fixed red text flashing up when right-clicking equipment on the Soldier Equip screen.
Fixed a bug where the Large / Small body size hit chance modifiers were only causing a tiny effect.
Xenonauts 2 Monthly Development Update!
Hello everyone - hope you all had a great Christmas and a happy new year. January is now over, so it's time for an update on what we worked on!
Milestone 5
Work is continuing on Milestone 5 over on our Experimental branch. This month we released three stability hotfixes for Milestone 5, and we've spent the last three weeks working on a major gameplay update. Our initial plan was to release this a couple of weeks ago, but some of the changes we're making break existing campaigns and we wanted to avoid doing that more than once. We've therefore rolled the changes into one big patch which should be coming out on the Experimental branch in the next few days.
Our goal is to lock down Milestone 5 so the translators can begin work translating all the new text later this month, which will allow us to plan the final public release of Milestone 5.
Mind Control
The first new addition is the alien psionic ability Mind Control, which has been granted to Psyon Officers, Psyon Leaders, and Eternals. This formula takes into account the psionic strength of the alien versus the Bravery and Morale of the defending soldier, with greater distance making the attack easier to defend against. This should make alien Eternals a bit more intimidating than before, as they have very high psi-strength!
As we've experimented with several iterations of Mind Control since our original Kickstarter, for clarity -- the older alien "Mind War" ability has been removed, and the Psyon Mesmerise ability no longer has a chance to Mind Control the attacker on a critical fail. The new Mind Control ability is the only way the aliens can take control of your soldiers.
Strategic Operations / Supporters
We've also expanded the Strategic Operations and Supporters systems to address feedback about the choices becoming predictable after a few hours of play. Strategic Operations now become more effective each day they are not used - for example, the Raise Funds operation usually grants $500,000, but this increases by $10,000 for each day the operation is not used (once used, the value resets back to the default value).
Supporters have also been tweaked slightly. Each supporter now has a "protection level" value that controls how expensive it is to interact with them - if they have high protection the cost of recruiting / eliminating them is increased by 30%, whereas if they have low protection then the cost is reduced by 30%. This value changes every 10 days, with supporters having a 50% chance of being in a normal state and 25% each for high / low protection.
The purpose of these changes is to make these systems less static. Instead of just waiting until you have 150 Operations Points so you can recruit a new Supporter, the player might now want to evaluate which Supporters are lightly protected and which Strategic Operations look good value.
Writing
Over the past week or two I've been working on the plot-related writing, which has become a bit disjointed since the introduction of the plot-related missions and the Phase system in Milestone 5. We have added several new early-game research projects to ensure that the player is better informed about why the aliens are acting the way they are with regards to the invasion (mostly better explaining the limits within which they are operating), and also who the Cleaners are and why they acting the way they do.
Later in the game, I've added research text to the various projects related to UOO-1 and we've also added little intro conversations to those missions as well. I'm currently working on the research text and intro conversations for Phase 5 and Operation ENDGAME, which are the last remaining placeholder research reports in the game. I'm hoping to have that completed this week.
Early Game Rebalance
Finally, we spent a fair bit of time this month fixing some of the balance issues reported by people in the feedback threads we provided, so thanks to anyone who contributed to those whether on Steam, Discord or our official forums. One of the most common pieces of feedback was that the early game (i.e. Phase 1) felt too compressed, so we have extended this by an additional month (up to three months) and moved the Cleaner Base mission forward from early Phase 2 to the end of Phase 1.
We'll be doing another pass on game balance after we release the next beta patch, as it's quite likely that the additions from earlier in the post will affect the balance. Please keep the feedback coming and we'll do our best to improve the gameplay as we finish up Milestone 5 for general release!
That's it for this month - I'll write another update next month!
Milestone 5.7.0 Released! (Experimental)
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!
I would not recommend starting a new campaign playthrough on this update, as I'll be releasing a more significant balance update later this week that will require starting a new campaign to see the changes. If you're thinking about starting a new playthrough, probably best just to wait for that one!
Bugfixes:
Fixed another example of the 90% loading hang / crash bug, again linked to specific jungle maps.
Fixed another example of the AI turn hang, this time related to Symbiotes spawning on tiles with other units.
If you hover over a soldier minitab at the top of the tactical UI, pressing C to crouch will now correctly cause the selected soldier to crouch (not the one you're hovering over).
Gameplay Changes - Strategy:
Soviet Union region bonus is now a -25% Upkeep reduction (down from -30%)
North America region bonus is now +10 Soldier Starting Experience (up from +5)
Failing a terror site now causes -35 Panic, not -20 Panic
Gameplay Changes - Tactical:
Wraith cloaking is now inactive by default, and activates if the Wraith takes damage. The defence bonus per tile has increased to 3 per tile (from 1.5 per tile). This should make Wraiths a bit easier to deal with - but more importantly, it should now be possible to distinguish between different ranks of Wraith on the battlefield.
The Cyberdrone weapon is once again a direct-fire weapon rather than an arc weapon, which means it will lose accuracy if fired through smoke. The weapon is also now not capable of performing reaction fire.
All thrown grenades now have -2 tiles of range.
Smoke grenades of all types now generate a substantially larger cloud of smoke.
Fixed Cleaners attacking civilians on the Rescue Soldiers mission.
Added updated movement sounds and attack sounds for the Symbiote.
Milestone 5.6.1 Released! (Experimental)
This is a small hotfix for the 5.6.0 update released yesterday, fixing an important gameplay issue and a couple of other minor issues.
Changes:
Fixed being unable to transfer aircraft between bases.
Exploding vehicle damage is no longer subject to damage randomisation, so exploding vehicles should now inflict a maximum of 50 damage on anyone in the blast radius.
On Abduction missions, the "Eliminate all hostile combatants" objective line is now marked as complete (with a green tick) if you eliminate all enemy units before the mission ends.
Milestone 5.6.0 Released! (Experimental)
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!
This update is another stability fix for Milestone 5 that hopefully fixes most of the remaining stability problems. Although we will continue to fix any bugs reported by the community, our plan is to start reviewing all the player feedback and begin making balance changes in the next hotfix.
Please note that this update contains a number of fixes for tactical maps. Geoscape saves from 5.5.0 and earlier should work fine, but some tactical saves from 5.5.0 will not load correctly. If you're having this problem, please load an earlier Geoscape save!
Gameplay Changes:
The Command Points UI in the bottom right of the Geoscape is now hidden until the Strategic Operations are unlocked after the ATLAS Base mission is completed.
The Operations Points cost for doing additional crash sites once that UFO type has been delegated now functions correctly (previously it wasn't actually deducting the cost).
The Doomsday Counter should now warn you when you go over 100 and give you until the end of the day to fix it, rather than instantly ending the game (the warning previously wasn't triggering if the passive increase at the end of the day took you above 100).
Living Quarters now consume power as intended.
Evacuating civilians will no longer path through fire and poison gas.
Added corpse artwork for the Symbiote, so they no longer use the dead Cleaner artwork.
The UOO Bridge Assault mission objective timer (defend the mainframe for X turns) is no longer modified by campaign settings, as people who wanted to effectively remove mission timers by using the +99 turns setting were being forced to defend the objective for over 100 turns.
Slightly increased the range of dropships to ensure they can reach anywhere in the world, as there were a few places you could put your base where it was not possible to reach certain missions.
The roofs on the Desert construction site buildings should now be properly destructible.
The strategic operations button cooldown overlay has now been inverted; it's shown fully greyed out when first activated and the grey overlay shrinks towards the bottom as the cooldown decreases.
Bugfixes:
Fixed an AI hang that could occur when heavy alien units tried to crush a wall and discovered an enemy unit stood directly behind it, preventing them from being able to complete their move.
Fixed another example of the 90% loading freeze on tactical missions, this one related to certain Tropical maps.
Fixed a crash that would occur if you cancelled the Reduce Panic strategic operation while choosing which region to target.
Fixed a crash that could occur during the AI turn if an explosion went partially beyond the playable area.
Fixed a crash that could occur when dragging items on top of other items in a soldier's backpack.
Fixed a crash that could occur if a UFO destroyed an undefended Xenonaut base that had soldiers / personnel / items midway through being transferred to it.
Fixed an issue where the Phase 5 timeline (which contains Battleship UFOs) would not trigger correctly if you completed the UOO Bridge Assault mission at a certain time. This fix will unfortunately not help anyone who is already in this situation.
Fixed the walkable tiles on top of shipping containers and certain vehicles being destroyed by grenades, which could cause units to fall inside the shipping containers and get stuck.
Hopefully fixed the issue where enemy reinforcements would sometimes be invisible.
Fixed the spawn locations on ENDGAME part 2 so units can no longer spawn inside objects.
Fixed the UOO Sabotage and UOO Bridge Assault missions not showing the post-mission debrief screen.
Fixed the move+shoot preview calculating TU costs slightly wrong on Soldier or Recruit difficulty if soldier rotation was part of the shot.
Fixed the Harvester UFO triggering the "capture" victory condition before the upper bridge level had been cleared.
Fixed units with jetpacks being able to fly out the top of the upper level rooms on the larger alien base maps.
Fixed achievements for completing the campaign not triggering.
Fixed "Ultimate Power" achievement unlocking if a single Colonel was present on the team, rather than requiring all soldiers present to be Colonels.
Fixed dead civilians incorrectly still showing the "evacuate" hover cursor.
Fixed the VIP minitab in the tactical UI not showing the HP and TU bars.
Fixed the Alien Symbiote Launcher weapon incorrectly being called the "Alien Symbiote Clip" in the base stores, and not being marked as junk.
Fixed the dockyard water edge tiles being destructible, and turning into walkable tiles when destroyed.
Fixed one of the alien consoles not visually disappearing when destroyed.
Fixed the roofs of the Boreal buildings.
Fixed the crashed Observer UFO hull not having a drop shadow.
Fixed the corner tiles in the alien base hangar rooms not revealing from the shroud.
Fixed an incorrectly rotated floor tile in the Destroyer UFO.
Hopefully fixed the issue that was causing certain user bug reports to contain only a single file.
We've removed the parked Scout UFO from the UOO Sabotage mission, as it was just causing confusion and also caused some gameplay problems.
Fixed the Geoscape timers on the left of the UI going offscreen on non-1080p screens.
Fixed the North American region displaying Infiltration rather than Panic on hover.
Fixed the Rush Replace button always displaying the cost as $30,000.
Fixed typos in the Fusion Weapon Upgrade project.
The MARS / ARES "Plasma Cannon" is now correctly called the "Fusion Cannon", and should have green rather than blue artwork and should fire green projectiles.
Save 35% on Xenonauts 2
In Xenonauts 2, you command a global defense organization tasked with intercepting alien threats and leading tactical ground missions. Build your base, manage resources, and engage in turn-based combat to protect humanity, now 35% off.
