Xenonauts 2 News

[p]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![/p][p]Balance Changes:[/p]

• [p]Xenonaut Shields were previously a bit overpowered as they blocked all damage in the frontal 180-degree arc of the carrying soldier. They now only offer 100% protection in the frontal 90-degree arc, and the protection now linearly drops off from 100% down to a minimum of 20% as the angle approaches the edges of the frontal 180-degree arc.[/p]

[p]Changes:[/p]

• [p]Various visual updates to the new ARES model to reintroduce the engine glow and heat haze etc.[/p]
• [p]Soviet Town terror sites now have Alenium Bombs like the Western Town maps do.[/p]
• [p]Updated the "wingover" icon in the air combat interface.[/p]

[p]Bugfixes:[/p]

• [p]Fixed a crash that could occur at end of turn in the tactical combat on the Soviet Town biome.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a crash clicking the supporter regions / supporter icons on the Geoscape if you loaded an old save from 6.10.0.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a crash during the tutorial.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the Cleaners getting stuck while moving into position in the tutorial.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the ARES weapons being invisible.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the MARS tracks flickering during the fire animation, and if the vehicle moved more than one tile.[/p]
• [p]Fixed fire / smoke effects sometimes spawning in the very corner of the map, rather than their intended tile.[/p]
• [p]Another attempted fix for the camera sometimes incorrectly snapping to a moving unit after you've manually taken control of the camera (which should stop any attempted camera tracking).[/p]

Earlier today, we shared our monthly development update for Xenonauts 2, outlining everything we've worked on in the past month. From ongoing updates to the Milestone 6 Experimental branch and a new ending cinematic and to an air combat update and an alternate Soviet Town biome for terror missions, we've been busy!

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[p]Hello everyone - we're now into October, so here's our monthly development update covering everything we worked on over the past month.[/p][h3]Milestone 6[/h3][p]After releasing Milestone 6 onto the Experimental branches last month, we continued to release updates for it this month. Having completed all three of the remaining gameplay tasks on our Early Access roadmap, we're now focused on stability and bugfixes.[/p][p]We're still aiming to have the full release for Milestone 6 in the next two to three weeks - although estimating how many bugs our testers will find (and how long it'll take us to fix them) is tricky, so that date may move if we encounter a lot of problems![/p][h3]Ending Cinematic[/h3][p]The first completed item on our roadmap was the ending cinematic, which is a short epilogue cutscene in the same style as the opening cutscene. This has now been fully implemented in the game and plays after completion of the final mission. There's not really much more to say here, but I hope players feel it's a fitting way to close out a successful campaign.[/p][h3]Air Combat Tutorial & Gemini[/h3][p]Next was the "Air Combat Update" roadmap item, which contains all our previous work on the air combat interface refresh (plus the new side-on art for all the aircraft weapons) and now also contains the air combat tutorial. This has been integrated into the existing tutorial, and is aimed to be a brief explanation of the key interception combat mechanics, giving the player just enough information that they can figure out the rest by themselves.[/p][p]The Gemini interceptor has also had a bit of a refresh over the past couple of months, having morphed from a fighter that simply had better stats than its predecessors to a craft capable of performing some unique combat maneuvers. We recently added the "wingover" manevuer for that aircraft, which flips the plane through 180-degrees and can be rather helpful in a dogfight. This should help keep the tech progression interesting.[/p][p]We'll continue to tweak and refine the gameplay and balance of the air combat in Milestone 7, but we're now relatively happy with the overall state of the air combat.[/p][h3]Soviet Town Biome[/h3][p]The final completed item on our roadmap was the Soviet Town biome - an alternate biome for terror missions that is used in certain parts of the world. Adding a new "town" biome always takes a long time, but I'm pleased with the way it has come out. There's a nice contrast between the Western Town, which is mostly commercial buildings, and the Soviet Town being a mixture of residential, government and industrial buildings. That should help keep Terror missions feeling fresh.[/p][p]At present we've only added the five small Terror maps to the game, but the remaining three medium Terror maps are mostly complete and should be fully finished in the next week or so.[/p][h3]Miscellaneous[/h3][p]We've also added a few other smaller pieces of content this month. There's three extra strategy and three extra tactical music tracks (which almost doubles the amount of music in the game), plus updated models for the MARS and ARES vehicles, and some Xenopedia rewrites to reflect the new mechanics and gameplay changes added recently. And, as always, there's a long list of minor improvements that are too small to be worth mentioning.[/p][p]I think that's everything. Thanks for reading, and I'll be writing another post in a month's time![/p]

[p]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![/p][p]We decided not to release 6.11.0 last night due to discovering another serious bug during our testing, so we fixed that and skipped straight to 6.12.0.[/p][p]Changes:[/p]

• [p]Added a new combat maneuver for the Gemini interceptor: the wingover (which is effectively an instant 180-degree spin).[/p]
• [p]Gemini now plays a little "teleport" visual effect when it performs any combat maneuver, as it performs them all instantly.[/p]
• [p]Added updated 3d visuals for the advanced MARS weapons. The upgraded rocket pods now have unique visuals that reflect the upgraded rockets too.[/p]
• [p]Slightly updated the air combat UI so it's more obvious which of the aircraft infopanels on the right is currently selected.[/p]
• [p]Added some new sound effects to the air combat cannon weapons.[/p]

[p]Balance Changes:[/p]

• [p]Upgraded vehicle armour now has scaling Hardness values in the same way infantry armour does, which should make vehicles much more resilient in the mid / late game.[/p]
• [p]Melee units are now more aggressive. This should make Reapers more likely to aggressively close, rather than passively milling around.[/p]
• [p]Improved the way that the AI handles burst fire weapons, which fixes various instances where Sebillians and enemy Sentry Guns would not fire their weapons despite having a relatively good shot available.[/p]

[p]Bugfixes:[/p]

• [p]Fixed a crash that would occur at the end of a combat mission if you loaded a save during that mission.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a crash that could occur if a terror site spawned in certain locations on the Geoscape.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug where killing Infiltrators would not reduce the daily Doomsday gain.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where if a unit was given an attack order when moving, it would sometimes run back to the start of their move instead of attacking.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where Psyons would sometimes shoot Xenonauts dead immediately after Mind Controlling them.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the aircraft weapon tooltip incorrectly displaying a "0" value for all missile Turn Rates.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a small timing issue at the end of the ending cinematic.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the MARS / ARES and the Mentarch movement animations sometimes taking too long to finish playing the movement sound and begin the next action.[/p]
• [p]Fixed some mis-set translation strings for the Chinese translations.[/p]

[p]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![/p][p]Unfortunately this update once again breaks save game compatibility, so I've moved 6.9.1 to the Experimental Legacy branch. It's annoying we have to keep doing this, but this time it is because we needed to update the way the Infiltrators worked to properly switch from Doomsday to Panic generation in Phase 2. This fixes the issue of massive unexplained Panic gain at the end of each month (which was being caused by a bug with the Infiltrators).[/p][p]Changes:[/p]

• [p]The ending cutscene has now been added to the game.[/p]
• [p]The Soviet Town biome has been enabled. For now we've only added 5 Small Terror maps, but we'll also add three larger maps in the near future.[/p]
• [p]Added a campaign option for the UFO Delegation system, so players can disable if it they want. Note that this also disables the monthly funding increase that occurs when you delegate a UFO, so you'll have lower monthly income than a normal player in exchange for the ability to run more crash site missions.[/p]
• [p]Added three additional strategy layer and three more tactical mission music tracks, going from three to six tracks in each section of the game.[/p]
• [p]Infiltrators now correctly display that they generate +1 Doomsday per day in Phase 1, then switch to +2 Panic per month in Phase 2.[/p]
• [p]New models have been added for the MARS / ARES, and for the Mantid alien.[/p]
• [p]You're now able to fire cannons and perform Evasive Roll while retreating in the air combat, and the tooltip for the Retreat button has been updated to reflect the new retreat mechanics for this Milestone.[/p]
• [p]The air combat UI has been updated so that the selected aircraft now shows a selection ring at all times, as previously it was a little difficult to spot which aircraft was actually selected.[/p]
• [p]The Operation Point generation UI in the bottom left now correctly shows decimals.[/p]
• [p]Rewrote a number of Xenopedia entries to reflect mechanical changes made in Milestone 6 (e.g. dropship capacity, Gemini jump capability, Endgame teleporter, etc). The Gemini and Pegasus entries have been rewritten entirely.[/p]
• [p]Updated the Boreal sawmill to have some additional window variants.[/p]
• [p]Improved the destruction state on the ATLAS Base command room table.[/p]

[p]Balance Changes:[/p]

• [p]Commander difficulty: enemies now have a 1.1x Accuracy modifier (down from 1.3x) and there are now 7 starting Infiltrators (down from 8). Although Commander is supposed to be difficult, the Accuracy bonus in particular seemed to be so high that you couldn't play the game "properly" that difficulty setting due to aliens basically being able to ignore key game mechanics like cover / smoke due to having such high hit chances. We'll think up a better way to increase difficulty instead.[/p]
• [p]Mimics now grant a minor Panic decrease if shot down in Phase 2, like other UFOs.[/p]
• [p]ENDGAME mission now supports 4 vehicles (previously 3). [/p]
• [p]Pegasus dropship now supports 3 vehicles (previously 4).[/p]
• [p]A couple of changes to make Psyon / Secton crews a bit less common in the early stages of the game - firstly, the initial Destroyer (which spawns near your base) now always contains Sebillians. Secondly, the third Abduction Site now always contains Wraiths.[/p]

[p]Bugfixes:[/p]

• [p]Fixed a crash when hovering over certain tooltips in German language.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a crash that would occur if you tried to remove the target soldiers from your dropship when preparing for a Rescue Soldiers mission.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a crash that could occur when loading a manual save made immediately after an air combat battle.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a crash that would occur at the end of the UOO Bridge mission if you loaded a save during that mission.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug where Infiltrator Supporters were causing +4 global panic per month each, rather than +2 panic in their local region.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a number of issues with the obstruction shader (shown when a unit is behind an object) not correctly drawing over the shroud.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the aircraft information panel on the Launch Aircraft panel being hidden or misaligned on non-1080p resolutions.[/p]
• [p]Fixed grenades and explosives applying damage through indestructible floors (such as within UFOs).[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where it became impossible to heal an unconscious soldier, or move into their tile.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug where completed non-repeatable research projects triggered by sellable items (mostly Autopsies and Observations) would incorrectly trigger a "new project available" pop-up when recovering more of the trigger item.[/p]
• [p]Fixed Wraith units flickering during their injury / death animation if they had their cloak active.[/p]
• [p]Fixed Sebillians T-posing before and after their melee anmation.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug where units transformed into Reaper Zombies would spawn a corpse (despite the zombie being their corpse).[/p]
• [p]Fixed the player not getting a "VIP spotted" toast if the VIP was spotted during the enemy turn.[/p]
• [p]Fixed soldiers spawning off-center from their teleport pads on the UOO Bridge Assault mission.[/p]