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!

We're hoping this is the final experimental build of Milestone 2, and unless people find significant numbers of bugs then we'll release it onto the public branches in the next few days. So please make sure you report any issues you encounter!

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

• Added research art for the captured General interrogation project.
  
• Fixed torpedoes incorrectly being able to turn fast enough to hit evasive roll UFOs.
  
• The random Cleaner missions on the Geoscape are now split up into two groups, so instead of randomly picking one of four mission types each time it now picks from two groups of two possible missions. This ensures you'll never get the same Cleaner mission twice in a row.
  
• Updated the Xenopedia projects for aircraft to show their Payload (the new name for Weight Capacity), and for Armour to show their light and heavy armour variant values.
  
• HEVY loaded ammo image slot in the tactical UI is now displayed larger and more clearly.
  
• Removed the outdated Defender Armour starting Xenopedia project, and updated the text on the Tactical Armour starting Xenopedia project.
  
• The Psionic Triangulation ability for Sectons is now shown on the Psyon Xenopedia project (as it now only triggers when near Psyons).
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Injured / wounded soldiers no longer always show "5 days" until recovery after battle.
  
• Fixed players being unable to move multiple soldiers simulataneously, which has involved reverting the improved camera tracking when units change height level as part of a move (this will return in Milestone 3 once we've fixed the issues).
  
• Fixed base structures displaying their construction time with lots of extra zeros.
  
• Fixed recovering soldiers displaying their healing time with lots of extra zeros.
  
• Fixed the objective lines in the bottom left sometimes displaying two copies of the same line.
  
• Fixed the new Probe UFO being called the Mimic in some places.
  
• Fixed an issue in the tutorial where you were expected to hold Ctrl to force fire at some crates, but the game was requiring a Ctrl press followed by a click instead.
  
• Fixed various visual issues on the new ATLAS Base map.
  
• Fixed some floating crates in the Boreal VIP Extraction map.
  
• Fixed there being a floating walkable tile in the air next to the caravans on the Desert maps.
  
• The radar and other large props in the Xenonaut base (like base defence turrets) can no longer be walked inside once they'd taken enough 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!

We're planning to release Milestone 2 onto the standard Steam branches for everyone next week. If all goes well this may be the final Experimental build for Milestone 2, so please give it a test and let us know if you encounter any issues! This update breaks save games so if you want to keep playing 2.10, please do so on the Experimental Legacy branch.

[h3]Gameplay Changes:[/h3]

• Convoy Ambush and Extract VIP tactical missions now support all potential biomes, rather than always using a fixed map. We've therefore added 12 new maps to the game to allow this.
  
• Added research text to the Mantid Interrogation and the Wraith Interrogation. This means all research projects now have research text (although I need to do a quick second pass on a handful more before I call this work totally done).
  
• The game now displays "Game Loss" as a failure effect on the initial ATLAS Base Reclaim mission.
  
• You can no longer access the VIP's inventory on the VIP rescue missions.
  
• Revised some of the objective text lines (that appear in the bottom left of the Geoscape) to reflect changes to the research tree.
  
• Aircraft screen now has tooltips for the Weight Capacity and Hardpoint Capacity.
  
• Beards should no longer disappear when you equip the heavy armour on soldiers.
  

[h3]Balance Changes:[/h3]

• Reapers now have 70TU (from 60) and 75 Reflexes (from 50).
  
• Sebillian Bravery increased to 70 (from 50).
  
• Wraith Strength reduced to 55 (from 60) and Bravery increased to 60 (from 50).
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where soldiers that have been removed from dropship (due to injury or being MIA on a mission) are added back in with a broken loadout (this could cause crashes in some circumstances).
  
• Fixed an issue where the game would fail to boot for people using the save game folder directory override.
  
• Fixed some Landed UFOs never taking off again.
  
• Fixed the Ammo Recharge upgrade for the Lasers leaving them with no ammo.
  
• Fixed an issue where a soldier caught in multiple simultaneous explosions (e.g. several vehicles chain-exploding) would sometimes only suffer damage from one of them.
  
• Fixed surviving soldiers being labelled as "Wounded" rather than "Survived", and not showing a recovery time.
  
• Fixed smoke tiles being visually duplicated (so looking much thicker) after loading a saved game.
  
• Fixed the sorted column header still being selected on the Soldier screen when you leave the screen and re-enter.
  
• Fixed the mods panel buttons all generating unnecessary popups.
  
• Updated the weight icon on the Aircraft loadout screen to be correct.
  
• Fixed some issues with the dockyard warehouse rollerdoor being able to get into a broken state once opened.
  
• Fixed the petrol station columns still being 100% blocking in their destroyed states.
  
• Fixed a typo on the Xenonaut base defence mission briefing.
  
• Time estimates for research / engineering projects that are not in progress should now always be consistent, as previously they could change by up to an hour (depending if you were closer to the start or end of the current hour).
  

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!

Although we'll likely be releasing a few hotfixes this week and adding in the final pieces of art and research text, we're hoping this is the last major update for Milestone 2 before we release it onto the main Steam branches.

[h3]Research Tree Update:[/h3]

• Cleaner Agent Autopsy (new artwork)
  
• Cleaner Soldier Interrogation (text finalised)
  
• Cleaner Agent Interrogation (text finalised)
  
• Sebillian Interrogation (text finalised)
  
• Psyon Interrogation (text finalised)
  
• Reaper Interrogation (text first draft)
  

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

• The UFO health balancing system that would occur based on the number of aircraft in your squadron has now been disabled, as it seems too easy to exploit. Let us know if that causes any major spikes in the air combat difficulty!
  
• If you have multiple soldiers selected on the Soldier screen, clicking either the Loadout dropdown or Role dropdown will attempt to assign the new value to all selected soldiers.
  
• Updated the aircraft weapon tooltips, and fixed most of those tooltips incorrectly displaying 0 for the weapon's Ammo Capacity.
  
• Cleaner Agent Interrogation now correctly unlocks when you capture a Cleaner Agent (previously it was unlocking off the Cleaner Soldiers).
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a crash that could occur at the end of a tactical mission.
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur after completing the Rescue Soldiers tactical mission.
  
• Fixed a crash that would occur on the Eliminate VIP missions due to the VIP not spawning correctly.
  
• Hopefully fixed the issue where grenades / medikits would show 0% hit chance and become unusable (this would occur after using the move-shoot preview mode).
  
• Fixed a bug where the new autoresolve weapon damage balancing was also being applied in manual air combat, which caused certain alien weapons to inflict enormously reduced damage on your interceptors.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Cyberdrone frontal shield was not correctly suffering Armour Destruction.
  
• Attempted another fix for shooting through adjacent crouched friendly soldiers sometimes hitting the crouched soldier (which it should not do).
  
• Fixed a bug where you could go overcapacity when hiring scientists / engineers if you had free space of the appropriate type at a different base.
  
• Added a bit more logging to try and catch the rare crash that sometimes occurs when exiting the Soldier Equip screen.
  

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 build breaks save games, so you'll need to start a new campaign. If anyone wants to continue your current campaign, I've switched 2.08d to the Experimental Legacy branch and you can switch over if you want to keep playing that version.

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

• Updates to the research tree:
  
  • Split out the Cleaner Interrogation research into seperate Cleaner Agent and Cleaner Soldier interrogation projects
    
  • Cleaner Agent Interrogation has new artwork / text
    
  • Cleaner Soldier Interrogation has new artwork / text
    
  • Xenobiology has updated artwork / text
    
  • General Interrogation has updated text
    
  • Probe UFO has updated text
    
  • Fighter UFO has updated artwork
    
  • Fusion Explosives has updated text
• Minor styling updates to the Aircraft screen on the new UI elements added in Milestone 2 (Weight / Hardpoints)
  
• Cash can now go negative on the strategy layer due to upkeep / wage costs
  
• Reduced weight of the Stun Gun battery to match that of pistol ammo
  
• Added unique artwork for all the different Gauss weapon ammo magazines
  
• Advanced LMG weapons now have 2x1 ammo magazines, like the basic LMG does
  
• Added the art for the HEVY Alenium Rounds
  
• Phantom equipment slots now placed along the bottom of the screen (to match the Angel)
  

Air Combat:

• The damage inflicted by UFO weapons in air combat (both manual and autoresolve) is now modified by the difficulty setting, ranging from 80% of normal on Recruit up to 120% of normal on Commander.
  
• When autoresolving air combat, certain weapons now inflict reduced damage against targets that can do an evasive roll manuever. For players this mostly affects Torpedoes, which have zero autoresolve strength against enemies that can roll. However most alien weapons that can be dodged using evasive roll also now do reduced damage in the autoresolve calculation.
  
• Updated the UFO Hunter Killer missiles to have a visually larger projectile
  

Tactical Combat:

• We've made some AI updates to make civilians less suicidal
  
• Secton Psionic Triangulation now triggers off nearby Psyons, not other nearby Sectons. This makes the first mission vs aliens less dangerous.
  
• Added some additional map variants for the Cleaner Data Raid mission, and also added some internal randomision to the building on those maps.
  
• Rescue Soldiers mission now draws from the entire pool of Raid maps, not one single Polar map.
  
• If you don't have enough space in the dropship to rescue the soldiers in Rescue Soldier missions, the game is now a bit smarter about who it recovers:
  
• Firstly, rescued soldiers can now fit into slots in the dropship vacated by KIA soldiers who failed their post-battle survival roll
  
• If there's still not enough space to bring back the rescued soldiers, the game will now always prefer living soldiers (so if you want to recover one soldier in particular, you can shoot the others).
  
• Fixed some tall props that incorrectly had 30% Stopping Chance, which should have been 50%
  
• Updated Abduction Tubes to be worth 2 Alloys (from 0), and updated the briefing accordingly.
  
• Camera Rotate buttons are no longer reversed, and now show the correct keyboard shortcut keybinds on the tooltip
  
• Fixed the click hitbox on the "Visible Enemy" head icons being too large.
  
• Pressing C when a unit is in motion will correctly queue up a crouch icon (as if you clicked the Crouch button)
  
• The orange TU reserve overlay is now shown on the soldier minitabs at the top of the screen when TU are being reserved by a soldier.
  
• Updated the human Pistol animations, making it more obvious that the unit is armed with a pistol
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a Geoscape crash linked to upgrading items in the workshop
  
• Fixed jetpack 3d models not displaying in tactical combat
  
• Fixed the Exosuit heavy armour variant looking like Tactical Armour in combat
  
• Fixed The General displaying like a civilian in the first mission
  
• Fixed hair clipping through helmets for Unassigned soldiers
  
• Fixed some UFO walls on certain variants of the Destroyer / Observer / Abductor being indestructible
  
• Fixed aliens spawning within UFO walls on some of the new Dockyard crashsite maps
  
• Fixed some wall tiles being invisible in the Xenonaut base defence Medical Room
  
• Fixed the generators in the Xenonaut base defence Generator Room not allowing units to path through them once destroyed
  
• Fixed some missing shelf ends on the dockyard VIP Elimination missions
  
• Fixed you getting duplicate soldier hotkey numbers if you already had soldiers assigned to keys 7-9 when you go on the Soldier Rescue mission
  
• Fixed the human Combat Shield jetpack animations so the shield doesn't clip through the body at a 90-degree angle when in flight
  
• Fixed the combat shield clipping through the ground if dropped on the floor
  

Another very small hotfix for 2.08 to address a crash bug some players were encountering.

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed the game crashing on after a tactical mission if a soldier had suffered enough damage to be wounded, but was not killed.
  
• Fixed red debug error text flashing up every time a crouching soldier was given a move order.