Xenonauts 2 News

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!

[h3]Balance / Gameplay Changes:[/h3]

• Reduced the manufacture times of all aircraft equipment. Reduction is greatest for the starting items, where the reduction is just over 50%.
  
• Stun Gun is now correctly sellable / transferrable.
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a crash that would occur on the Geoscape if you ended a month with negative cash balance due to upkeep costs.
  
• Fixed a crash that would occur if you tried to drag a "ghost" item on an unassigned soldier into the Armory.
  
• Fixed an issue where soldiers could get stuck in the "Recovering" state.
  
• Created a custom character blacklist for the text input fields in the game, as putting ^ characters in soldier names will cause the game to crash loading a tactical mission.
  
• Fixed several issues with building adjacency bonuses that could occur when building upgrades happened, which caused them to be lower than they should.
  
• Fixed the Phantom interceptor not regenerating its own basic armour unless it has an Armour item equipped.
  
• Fixed fleeing soldiers visually carrying their primary weapon as they run, even though they'd already dropped it.
  
• Fixed a minor issue in the tutorial where the Soldier Equip screen was interactable even though it shouldn't be.
  
• Fixed a number of visual issues with walls / props in the underground military base tileset that would occur when those assets were partially in the shroud.
  

Hello everyone - we've reached the end of November, so it's time for our monthly development update. This month has been fairly intense but once again the project has made good progress.

[h2]Milestone 2[/h2]
The biggest news is the official release of Milestone 2, our first major update since the game's Early Access launch. I discussed the many upgrades made in Milestone 2 here so I won't cover them again, but getting everything ready for this release took up most of the month.

Our thanks go out to all the testers who were reporting bugs and giving gameplay feedback on the Experimental branches over the past couple of months, as it has been incredibly valuable!

Broadly speaking, all this testing meant Milestone 2 launched in pretty good shape - but we've already patched a few major bugs and put out a fix for the funding situation being overly restrictive on the easier difficulty settings. We're continuing to monitor stability and balance issues, so please do let us know if you're encountering problems and we'll consider further patches!


[h2]Milestone 3[/h2]
Although Milestone 2 is barely out the door, we're already hard at work on Milestone 3. This update contains the alien Cruiser UFO, which is crewed by aliens carrying deadly Fusion weapons. If you can successfully capture one of these Cruisers, you can unlock the final interceptor and dropship aircraft, plus another tier of infantry weapons and an upgrade for the MARS that turns it into a hovertank.

We'll also be continuing to work on the alien AI and the air combat, and we're hoping to add various community-requested features into this update too (e.g. the ability to autosell "junk" items after combat). Finally, we're expecting Milestone 3 will have significantly improved loading times compared to earlier versions of the game!

[h2]Unity 2022 Upgrade[/h2]
These faster load times will be happening partly because we're in the process of upgrading from Unity 5.5 to Unity 2022. We've already done the necessary technical work for this, but there's always teething issues with a major engine upgrade, so I expect we'll have to spend a couple more weeks fixing things up before things are fully back to normal.

Players should see faster load times and better performance when this work is complete, along with proper support for multiple monitors and borderless windowed mode etc. It will also make development work more efficient, as the codebase compiles much more quickly etc. Finally, it'll also bring us one step closer to mod tools - as some of the work we'll be doing upgrading our internal editor tools could be re-used to create a more effective mod editor.

I think I'll wrap things up there. If all goes well, we might have an early prototype of Milestone 3 ready for people to play on the Experimental branch by mid-December (if not, it'll be early January). Thanks for reading!

Milestone 2.15 unfortunately contained quite a serious bug, so this is a quick patch for both the standard branches and the Experimental branches to fix it.

We'll be keeping a close eye on the bug forums today so if you encounter any further major issues please let us know and we'll get another patch out!

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a bug where attempting to start a VIP rescue mission would cause the game to crash.
  
• Fixed a crash where wounded soldiers could incorrectly end up assigned to a dropship and then sent to a mission.
  

This is a patch for our recent Milestone 2 update that attempts to address some balance issues, and fix a few bugs.

[h3]Balance / Gameplay Changes:[/h3]

• Soldiers once again only drop their Primary weapon if they Panic.
  
• VIP should now start under the player's control on the Extract VIP missions.
  
• Starting funding increased by $500k on all difficulties except Commander.
  
• Base monthly funding increased by ~10% per region, which increases the post-expenses monthly income by ~20% at the start of the game.
  
• Monthly funding multipliers for Recruit difficulty have increased from 1.2x to 1.25x, and have decreased from 0.9x to 0.8x for Commander difficulty (so funding remains similar to the current build on Commander).
  
• Alien weapons recovered from the battlefield now award 1 Alloy each instead of 2 Alloys, and the Alloys awarded from capturing UFOs have been reduced by 20%.
  
• Scout UFO now awards slightly more Alenium when captured.
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Attempted to fix a display bug that could occur if players have two monitors, and have their second display set as their primary monitor in Windows.
  
• Fixed the UI not updating correctly if you switch a HEVY out of the Primary slot, causing the new weapon to display like it was loaded with HEVY ammo.
  
• Zombies (and other units that are immune to stun damage) now display a "0" above their heads when they would normally suffer stun damage.
  

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!

This is a patch for our recent Milestone 2 update that attempts to address some balance issues, and fix a few bugs.

[h3]Balance / Gameplay Changes:[/h3]

• Soldiers once again only drop their Primary weapon if they Panic.
  
• VIP should now start under the player's control on the Extract VIP missions.
  
• Starting funding increased by $500k on all difficulties except Commander.
  
• Base monthly funding increased by ~10% per region, which increases the post-expenses monthly income by ~20% at the start of the game.
  
• Monthly funding multipliers for Recruit difficulty have increased from 1.2x to 1.25x, and have decreased from 0.9x to 0.8x for Commander difficulty (so funding remains similar to the current build on Commander).
  
• Alien weapons recovered from the battlefield now award 1 Alloy each instead of 2 Alloys, and the Alloys awarded from capturing UFOs have been reduced by 20%.
  
• Scout UFO now awards slightly more Alenium when captured.
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Attempted to fix a display bug that could occur if players have two monitors, and have their second display set as their primary monitor in Windows.
  
• Fixed the UI not updating correctly if you switch a HEVY out of the Primary slot, causing the new weapon to display like it was loaded with HEVY ammo.
  
• Zombies (and other units that are immune to stun damage) now display a "0" above their heads when they would normally suffer stun damage.