Xenonauts 2 News

Milestone 2.19 STABLE Released!

This is a stability and minor balance fix that we're pushing out to all players on our default Steam branch.

The consolidated changelog for this update is below, representing all changes from Milestone 2.17 to Milestone 2.19 on our Experimental branch. We will be continuing to patch Milestone 2 to fix any stability issues that people encounter so please continue to report any issues! (we're working on a fix for soldiers getting stuck in the recovering state right now)

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

Reduced the manufacture times of all aircraft equipment. Reduction is greatest for the starting items (where it is close to 50%).
Stun Gun is now correctly sellable / transferrable.
Reload time for Sidewinders and other light missiles in air combat reduced from 6 seconds to 3 seconds.
Added "Planned Loadout" label when viewing unassigned soldiers, and added a pop-up notification to explain the concept (which is that soldiers only claim items when assigned to a dropship, so unassigned soldiers instead have a "planned" loadout) as this was confusing many players.
This feature exists to minimise busywork for the player - soldiers automatically return all items to the stores when removed from a dropship for any reason (e.g. getting wounded), but still remember their previous loadout and automatically try to re-equip it when reassigned.

[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 back into the base stores.
Fixed a crash that could occur at end of turn after manually reloading an Advanced Laser Weapon.
Fixed a crash that could occur if you failed in an assault against a Landed UFO, then later attacked a Crash Site from the same UFO.
Fixed a crash caused by players putting ^ characters in soldier names and then attempting to start a tactical mission (this character is no longer permitted in names).
Fixed the Phantom interceptor not regenerating its own basic armour unless it has an Armour item equipped.
Fixed several issues with building adjacency bonuses that could occur when building upgrades happened, which caused them to be lower than they should.
Fixed aircraft losing their firing targets (and therefore refusing to fire missiles) if you clicked on the targeted UFO a second time.
Fixed Automed Unit regeneration incorrectly occurring after bleeding wounds inflicted damage.
Fixed soldiers with the combat shield not using the correct animation set if their other hand has a melee weapon or is empty, as opposed to carrying a pistol.
Fixed fleeing soldiers visually carrying their primary weapon as they run, even though they'd already dropped it.
Fixed buildings in destroyed bases still costing upkeep.
Fixed various sections of the text incorrectly displaying in English even when you had a different language enabled.
Fixed ammo quantity for equipped weapons on the Soldier Equip screen not being shown.
Fixed the Cleaner Soldier autopsy research report showing the interrogation image instead.
Fixed the Rescue VIP missions displaying the objective "Make contact with VIP" when the VIP now starts under your control already.
Fixed various UI issues that could occur if you destroyed a lab / workshop in a base, and tried to go down to 0 scientists or engineers.
Fixed an issue where manually reloading a weapon with an empty clip in the tactical inventory would give you back the old clip with 0 shots.
Fixed a minor bug that could cause soldiers who had been hit with several attacks to sustain extra bleeding wounds.
Fixed stacked containers having an upper container with a destroyed state that could be left hovering in mid-air.
Fixed the air combat target image for each interceptor not always updating correctly at the start of the battle.
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.

Milestone 2.19 Released! (Experimental)

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]Changes:[/h3]

Added "Planned Loadout" label when viewing unassigned soldiers, and added a pop-up notification to explain the concept (which is that soldiers only claim items when assigned to a dropship, so unassigned soldiers instead have a "planned" loadout) as this was confusing many players.
The above feature exists so soldiers can automatically return all items to the stores when removed from a dropship for any reason (e.g. being wounded), but will still remember their previous loadout and try to re-equip it when reassigned.
Fixed a crash that could occur if you failed in an assualt against a Landed UFO, then later attacked a Crash Site from the same UFO.
Fixed aircraft losing their firing targets (and therefore refusing to fire missiles) if you clicked on the targeted UFO a second time.
Fixed Automed Unit regeneration incorrectly occurring after bleeding wounds inflicted damage.
Fixed soldiers with the combat shield not using the correct animation set if their other hand has a melee weapon or is empty, as opposed to carrying a pistol.
Fixed buildings in destroyed bases still costing upkeep.
Properly fixed the issue with advanced laser weapons potentially causing crashes at end of turn when manually reloaded.

Milestone 2.18 Released! (Experimental)

Reload time for Sidewinders and other light missiles in air combat reduced from 6 seconds to 3 seconds.
Fixed a crash that could occur at end of turn after manually reloading an Advanced Laser Weapon.
Fixed various sections of the text incorrectly displaying in English even when you had a different language enabled.
Fixed an issue where upgrading to advanced workshops / labs could cause you to lose the adjacency bonuses, and actually reduce your output.
Fixed ammo quantity for equipped weapons on the Soldier Equip screen not being shown.
Fixed the Cleaner Soldier autopsy research report showing the interrogation image instead.
Fixed the Rescue VIP missions displaying the objective "Make contact with VIP" when the VIP now starts under your control already.
Fixed various UI issues that could occur if you destroyed a lab / workshop in a base, and tried to go down to 0 scientists or engineers.
Fixed an issue where manually reloading a weapon with an empty clip in the tactical inventory would give you back the old clip with 0 shots.
Fixed a minor bug that could cause soldiers who had been hit with several attacks to sustain extra bleeding wounds.
Fixed stacked containers having an upper container with a destroyed state that could be left hovering in mid-air.
Fixed the air combat target image for each interceptor not always updating correctly at the start of the battle.

Milestone 2.17 Released! (Experimental)

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.

Xenonauts 2 Monthly Development Update!

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!