Xenonauts 2 News

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!

[h3]Campaign Incompatibility:[/h3]
Save games from 4.7.0 and earlier are not compatible with this update due to changes to the tech tree - if you'd like to continue playing an existing 4.7.0 campaign then please switch to our Experimental Legacy branches.
[h3]Gameplay Updates:[/h3]

• The Exosuit is now called the "Vanguard Battlesuit", and has updated research text that reflects the fact is is now the ultimate armour. The "War Machine" achievement now unlocks from equipping this rather than the Colossus.
  
• The Aerial Warfare research project now unlocks an "Aircraft Missiles" engineering project that grants unlimited quantities of the basic missiles and torpedoes, as many players did not realise earlier versions of Milestone 4 gave these items immediately on completion of the research.
  
• We've updated the click detection in the tactical combat so UFO hulls no longer block clicks, as it could sometimes be difficult to select soldiers near the UFO in earlier versions of Milestone 4.
  
• The cabbage field assets that were causing FPS drops have now been fixed (properly this time). We've also made some performance improvements to the tropical jungle tree clumps.
  
• Added new research text for the Colossus battlesuit.
  
• Added corpse analysis projects for the Cyberdrone.
  
• Added new artwork for the Andron and Cyberdrone corpses.
  
• Updated the Andron idle animations to look more robotic.
  
• Updated the animations for the Colossus battlesuit to make it look more robotic, and made some minor improvements to the model.
  
• Added a sound effect when you decomission an aircraft.
  

[h3]Balance Changes:[/h3]

• Wraiths seemed disproportionately strong compared to the other alien races, so their HP values have been reduced by 20% and their Cloaking Field now reduces Accuracy by -1.5 per tile (rather than -2).
  
• Colossus now sets the user to 100 Strength, rather than giving them a +25 Str bonus.
  
• Mentarch Corpse Analysis II and both Andron Corpse Analysis projects now require fewer corpses to complete.
  
• HEVY Launcher is now an arc-fire weapon rather than a direct-fire weapon and now has a maximum range of 25 tiles, which makes it significantly stronger (unless you're indoors). The scatter for missed shots has been updated to ensure they don't always catch the target in the blast area, particularly when shooting at long range.
  
• Slightly increased the fire costs on the shotgun (28% TU to 30%, and 40% to 43%).
  
• Reduced the range of the pistol from 12 to 10, but boosted hit bonus from +3% per tile to +4% per tile. It's therefore more accurate within 10 tiles, but less accurate beyond that.
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed several crashes related to Cyberdrones being killed.
  
• Fixed another crash related to throwing grenades.
  
• Fixed new suits of Colossus armour built after the Colossus Upgrade project still being the old non-upgraded Colossus version.
  
• Fixed Andron Praetorians not having visible weapons, having too little armour, and incorrectly looking like the basic Androns.
  
• Fixed the game playing some strange "weapon equip" sounds after throwing a grenade.
  
• Fixed research projects not showing a duration if the remaining time was between 23 and 24 hours.
  
• Fixed the Air Superiority achievement not unlocking correctly if you were using air combat autoresolve.
  
• Fixed the Angel incorrectly having an (oversized) F-16 icon in the air combat.
  
• Fixed another indestructible wall inside the Abductor UFO.
  
• Removed references to the integrated grenade launcher on the Colossus, as it can't actually use grenades,
  

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!

[h3]4.6.0 Reversion & Save Compatibility:[/h3]
We released 4.6.0 on Friday and decided to revert back to 4.5.0 roughly 12 hours later due to stability issues in the save / load system. This update fixes those stability issues and will allow players to continue campaigns from 4.5.0, but unfortunately any saves from 4.6.0 will be broken (which they likely were anyway). Nonetheless, if anyone really wants to continue playing 4.6.0 then they can do so on our Experimental Legacy branches.

Due to the reversion, the patch notes below also contain the changes that were originally made in 4.6.0.

[h3]Gameplay Updates:[/h3]

• Added research text for the Andron Autopsy research project.
  
• Expanded the Funding Report so it shows the base funding level for each region, plus the modifier based on the region Panic. All research projects and missions that increase funding now list these values in terms of base funding (the amount you'll actually get varies based on Panic).
  
• UFOs now have a limit on the number of times they can land in a single mission, and fixed some issues to do with the take-off process that should help avoid the situation where a UFO spends days flying around the Geoscape while repeatedly taking off and landing.
  
• The minimum hit chance required for units to perform overwatch is now 10% and soldiers will not fire their weapons at targets beyond the maximum range of their weapon (which would inflict reduced damage).
  
• Androns and other robotic enemies should now play an appropriately mechanical gib animation if they suffer overdamage.
  
• Updated the "construct building" sound on the Base screen.
  
• Added a sound effect when launching an aircraft onto the Geoscape.
  

[h3]Balance Changes:[/h3]

• Colossus Armour now reduces the wearer's Reflexes by 20.
  
• Sebillian Time Units increased to 75 (from 60), and Reflexes increased to 50 (from 25).
  
• Andron Strength increased to 80 (from 50), Reflexes decreased to 25 (from 50), and TU decreased to 55 (from 60).
  
• Stalker Armour cloaking field defensive bonus reduced to -1.5 enemy Accuracy per tile (from -2 per tile).
  
• You can no longer complete the Fusion Lance or Shielded Plating aircraft upgrade processes without completing the earlier projects in the sequence (making them consistent with the other aircraft upgrade projects).
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a crash in the load / save system (fix for a bug introduced in 4.6.0).
  
• Fixed a crash in the air combat that could occur if you accidentally right-clicked on one of the Evasive Roll buttons.
  
• Fixed a crash in the tactical combat that would occur if you pressed Esc while hovering over a grenade tile.
  
• Fixed another crash that could occur during the AI turn.
  
• Fixed the Abduction mission on day ~55 incorrectly spawning twice.
  
• Fixed a visual issue on the soldier equip screen where items in the Primary / Secondary would appear doubled when equipping a new loadout (fix for a bug introduced in 4.6.0).
  
• Fixed alien / Cleaner weapons being loaded with duplicated ammo clips, making their weight incorrect if you picked them up in the tactical combat.
  
• Fixed the You Sunk My Battleship achievement not unlocking after shooting down a Battleship UFO (which won't arrive until Milestone 5).
  
• Fixed some indestructible walls in the Abductor UFO.
  
• Fixed an issue with a climbable cliff on a Polar map being too close to a building and causing the pathfinding to think units could walk through the air onto a building roof.
  
• Fixed some animation issues with the unarmed Colossus armour.
  

Hello everyone - it's pretty clear that our Milestone 4.6.0 patch on the Experimental branch is actually less stable than the 4.5.0 patch it replaced, so we're temporarily reverting the Experimental branches back to 4.5.0 while we work on some fixes. Apologies to anyone affected by these issues.

Please be aware that any 4.6.0 save games will not be compatible with the older 4.5.0 version, so players will either need to revert to an older save from 4.5.0 or wait for us to release 4.7.0 next week if they want to continue an existing campaign.

If you do want to continue playing 4.6.0 (and I wouldn't advise this given the number of crashes being reported), then you can still access it on the Experimental Legacy branch.

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!

[h3]Gameplay Updates:[/h3]

• Expanded the Funding Report so it shows the base funding level for each region, plus the modifier based on the region Panic. All research projects and missions that increase funding now list these values in terms of base funding (the amount you'll actually get varies based on Panic).
  
• UFOs now have a limit on the number of times they can land in a single mission, and fixed some issues to do with the take-off process that should help avoid the situation where a UFO spends days flying around the Geoscape while repeatedly taking off and landing.
  
• The minimum hit chance required for units to perform overwatch is now 10%, which should go some distance towards stopping units firing at extreme long range.
  
• Sebillian Time Units increased from 60 to 75, and Reflexes increased from 25 to 50.
  
• Andron Strength increased from 50 to 80, and Reflexes decreased from 50 to 25.
  
• Stalker Armour cloaking field defensive bonus reduced from -2 enemy Accuracy per tile to -1.5.
  
• You can no longer complete the Fusion Lance or Shielded Plating aircraft upgrade processes without completing the earlier projects in the sequence (making them consistent with the other aircraft upgrade projects).
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed another crash that could occur during the AI turn.
  
• Fixed alien / Cleaner weapons being loaded with duplicated ammo clips, making their weight incorrect if you picked them up in the tactical combat.
  

May has been another month of progress for Xenonauts 2. We released the first experimental version of Milestone 4 a couple of weeks ago, an update which brings a lot of new improvements and features to the game. You can read the initial (very long) changelog here, but our work isn't complete yet - we'll be continuing to add new content and fix bugs until we feel the update is ready for general release on the standard Steam / GOG / Epic branches.

As always, we greatly appreciate the feedback from members of our community who have played the new version. This help has been invaluable in finding and fixing bugs, and ironing out problems with the game balance. We've got most of the stability issues under control now, which means it's a good time for anyone interested in playing the Experimental build to dive in - and please let us know any thoughts or issues with the game balance in the dedicated Milestone 4 Balance thread!

[h2]Campaign Balance & Stability[/h2]
Over the last month we spent a great deal of time playing the campaign in an attempt to get the game balance into reasonable shape before the Experimental release. This seems to have paid off, with the update getting a positive reaction from the community so far. There's not really space to go into specifics about what we've changed (we've tweaked the numbers in a LOT of different places), but the overall difficulty progression and campaign pacing should feel smoother than in previous versions.

We've also spent a lot of time fixing bugs. Most of the crash bugs in Milestone 4 have now been fixed, and we're continuing to work through fixes for the other bugs introduced by the new content. In addition to this, we've been working through our backlog of historical bugs (some of which date back to the original Early Access launch), and we've now fixed quite a few of the more serious historical issues too.

[h2]New Content[/h2]
We added new content in a few areas last month. Our new sound designer provided a number of new sounds for various parts of the game, such as the soldier equip screen where moving weapons and equipment in soldier inventories previously played no sound. There's now unique sounds for picking up and putting down all sorts of items (also played when switching weapons in the tactical combat), which makes the screen feel much more satisfying to use.

We've also added some new 3D models for certain alien variants, some of the human Fusion weapons, and some new terrain pieces for new biomes that will appear in a future update. Our level designer has also continued to create new maps for the game; I think we're getting to a pretty good place in terms of map variety now.

As per usual, we've added a number of small usability features too - but there's too many of those to list, and individually they're not that exciting. Hopefully you'll notice one or two when you next play the game though!

Finally, there's a new bug reporting tool in Milestone 4 that makes it easier for players to report bugs, which can by accessed by pressing F11 and appears automatically after a crash. This just provides a handy zip file of all the files we need to track down bugs, which should make squashing the remaining bugs in the game more straightforward!

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
Our priority for this month is to finish up Milestone 4 and push it out for general release - although we're not exactly sure when this will happen, because a lot depends on what feedback we get from our testers and how many bugs we need to fix. However, we'll let everyone know as soon as we're able to set a launch date!