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!

This patch contains quite a few balancing changes and it might cause some weirdness in campaigns from 5.15.0. If that happens to you, I've set 5.15.0 live on the Experimental Legacy branch so you switch back to it and finish your campaign.

[h3]Balance Changes:[/h3]

• Rebalance of Operation Points values. You start with more OPs and lower Doomsday, but Supporters now cost about 60% more (a basic supporter is now 250 OP rather than 100 OP, etc). Strategic operations now have longer cooldowns, and Request Alenium has been buffed a little.
  
• Phase 4 (and the Orbital Bombardment mechanic) has been moved forward about one month, and the first Harvesters have been moved forward two weeks. However, the second UOO-1 mission can now not be unlocked until roughly a month after Phase 4 starts. This improves the pacing at the end of Phase 3, which previously had about a month of dead time immediately followed by two UOO-1 missions in quick succession (causing a very short Phase 4).
  
• Xenobiology research now also requires Waveform Analysis research to unlock.
  
• Added an engineering project which allows Phantom interceptors to be upgraded to the speed of Gemini interceptors.
  
• Added a Corpse Analysis project for the Eternals.
  
• Construction times increased on Gemini / Pegasus aircraft, and on Gauss / Fusion weapons.
  
• Cruiser UFOs now have a slightly lower top speed, as Phantoms could often struggle to catch them.
  
• Interceptor UFOs now have a much higher turning rate and turn acceleration.
  

[h3]Content Changes:[/h3]

• Added translations for most of the new Milestone 5 text.
  
• The region information minibars on the Geoscape (that show the Supporters) are now hidden until Operation Points are unlocked after the ATLAS Base mission.
  
• Updated the various Geoscape objective strings to fit the new story research chain.
  
• The second UOO-1 mission now has much clearer objective text that includes the timing of the enemy reinforcements, plus a custom "end mission" effect that reflects the fact the space station is exploding.
  
• The "Sell Junk" button in the base stores is now disabled if there's no junk to sell.
  
• The "region bonus unlocked" popups now display a more informative text line about what you've unlocked.
  
• Removed the duplicate "Eternal Interrogation" project unlocked after capturing an Eternal, as it didn't do anything (the Eternal Observation project worked as intended and is still in the game).
  
• Reworked one of the Cruiser UFO interior variants to improve gameplay.
  
• UFOs now contain the final props for the Alien Singularity Core and Alien Antigravity Generator, which are both also now animated.
  
• Added artwork for the Request Alenium strategic operation, so each strategic operation now has unique artwork.
  
• Added artwork for the Andron Praetorian corpse.
  
• Added correct preview artwork for the Fusion Grenade engineering project.
  
• Fixed some typos in the Operation Endgame research project.
  
• Set the AI to avoid crushing various types of alien walls that Androns were previously just smashing through for convenience.
  
• The  campaign defeat / campaign victory screens now play their custom music correctly.
  
• Added injured / wounded text colouring on the Soldier screen soldier list.
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a crash that could occur in the AI turn of the tactical combat linked to Mind Control.
  
• Fixed the alien base large doors incorrectly autoclosing when a unit tries to move through them, and fixed the MARS being unable to path through them.
  
• Fixed the Orbital Bombardment timer (the UI element in the bottom left) not visually updating after the UOO-1 Sabotage mission is completed, and then disappearing entirely after the first bombardment occurs.
  
• Fixed the ammo capacity tooltip being broken when comparing items on the Soldier Equip screen.
  
• Fixed fast interceptors getting locked into a pattern of overshooting UFOs when speed is flowing at max speed and failing to engage them.
  
• Fixed the Doomsday Counter tooltip bugging out if the Doomsday daily gain turned negative.
  
• Fixed Androns crouching after spawning as reinforcements (they shouldn't be able to crouch).
  

Hello everyone - we're now into March, so here's our regular update on what we got done during February!

[h2]Milestone 5 Progress[/h2]
As always, our focus has been on getting Milestone 5 ready for public release. I said in the last update that we're hoping to do this in March and we're still on track for that, although the exact date depends on how smoothly the bugfixes go over the next few weeks, and whether there are any other things worth thinking about in terms of the best timing for the update.

In coding terms, a lot of this month was spent ironing out gameplay / stability issues and tidying up some loose ends regarding new features added in Milestone 5, so although our programmers have done a lot of work there's not much in the way of exciting new headline additions for me to talk about here. However, we did find a few days to improve the shooting path calculations in the tactical combat so the permitted fire paths better match what the player would expect, particularly around doorways and corners, as community feedback suggested this area needed more polish (turns out the system had a couple of subtle bugs that needed fixing).

[h2]Writing & Art[/h2]
Last month was a big month on the writing front - the writing in the game is now largely complete. This means that all research projects now have research text, the phase briefings have been revised, more tactical missions have introductory character conversations, and there should be a more consistent narrative thread running throughout the whole game. Hopefully it's now much clearer why all the factions in the game are acting the way they are.

Finishing this allowed us to send all the new game text off for translation, and we should have localised text ready for Milestone 5's public release (this was another factor that influenced the timing).

We've added some new illustrations to the game over the past month, most of which are just adding flavour art to the new UI popups related to the new Geoscape mechanics in Milestone 5. In our recent 5.13 Experimental update we also added unique illustrations for three of the five strategic operations (which should make it easier to tell them apart) and we're expecting to have the remaining two done shortly.

[h2]Community Suggestion Review[/h2]
Once Milestone 5 is done we'll start looking at what's next. Alongside the last remaining features on our roadmap (Air Combat Revamp, Ending Cinematic, Soviet Town Biome, Mod Tools) we've been reading through the many, many community suggestions that have been posted on Steam, our Discord and our forums during the Early Access period.

We're now reviewing all these suggestions as a team and looking at which ones we can include in the next major update. Although we can't add every suggestion to the game, there's a lot of good ideas here and we want to thank everyone who has given us feedback and suggestions during development - we may not always have responded immediately, but we did read them all eventually!

That's everything for this update - thanks for reading, and hopefully we'll have a big announcement in the next few weeks about the public release of Milestone 5!

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]Changes:[/h3]

• Fixed a crash that would occur accessing the Soldier Equip / Base Stores / Aircraft Equip screen after you'd completed a Corpse Analysis engineering project that marked the corpses as "Junk". Unfortunately, we can't fix corrupted saves here - you'll need to revert to a previous save from before you completed the Corpse Analysis project.
  
• Fixed an issue where Biters could spawn on the other side of walls from the impact point.
  
• Fixed the Aerial Warfare project not giving a "project available" popup when it is unlocked.
  
• Fixed the Pegasus doors misbehaving.
  
• Fixed the colour-coding for wounded / injured soldiers in the bottom left soldier list on the Soldier Equip screen, as it was getting out of sync in some situations.
  
• Fixed the Rush Replace aircraft button having unreadable black text rather than white.
  
• Updated the styling of the Doomsday counter tooltip to make it a bit more readable.
  
• Added artwork for the Andron Praetorian corpse.
  

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 Changes:[/h3]

• Blast doors in the military base biome can no longer be manually closed. They now act like alien base doors - once opened, they remain open until the start of the next player turn.
  
• ENDGAME part 1 alien reinforcements now spawn on a 3-turn cycle (rather than a 2-turn cycle).
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed the air combat autoresolve causing a hang on the Geoscape.
  
• Fixed a crash related to alien mind control.
  
• Fixed being unable to path through multi-tile doors without needing to open them first.
  
• Fixed multi-tile doors incorrectly closing after every use, requiring soldiers to waste lots of TU when going through them.
  
• Fixed ENDGAME part 1 mission objectives incorrectly reporting that the enemy reinforcements would be coming a turn later than expected.
  
• Fixed Abduction Tubes drawing under the shroud again.
  
• Fixed an issue where the teleport particle effect on enemy reinforcements on UOO / Endgame missions was incorrectly playing after they had spawned and run off into the shroud.
  

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 Changes:[/h3]

• Added unique art for the first two strategic operations (Raise Funds, Reduce Tensions).
  
• We've made a number of fixes / updates to the shooting mechanics, which should hopefully reduce instances where shot paths seem to pass through solid walls or at unrealistic angles through doors or around corners etc. 
  
• Open doors now act as physical objects that block movement, vision and shooting. Units pathing through an open door (not an open doorway) will automatically close it so they have a clear move path.
  
• Weapons now have a minimum fire range in the air combat, which compensates for the fact that weapons actually fire from the center point of all aircraft / UFOs. This shouldn't have much of an effect on Xenonaut interceptors (basically their weapons can no longer attack if the target is past the nose of the interceptor), but it should make a big difference against large UFOs with powerful frontal weapon - previously these would fire as soon as an interceptor flew across the centerpoint of the UFO (usually because the interceptor overshot when approaching from behind), dealing massive instant damage that was impossible to evade.
  
• Completing the Corpse Analysis engineering projects will now mark the appropriate corpses as "junk" on the Base Stores screen.
  
• The Panic bar is not shown on the Geoscape region info pop-up in Phase 1 any more. It appears in Phase 2 when the Panic mechanic is introduced.
  
• The Capture Resources / Eliminate VIP mission briefings now correctly refer to bonus Operations Points, rather than Doomsday decreases. The Cleaner Leader on the Eliminate VIP mission now grants 30 Operations Points if stunned and captured alive.
  
• Cyberdrones should actually now be unable to perform reaction fire.
  
• Alien Magnetic LMG now has a 3d model that matches the 2D art.
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a crash that could occur after killing an alien unit that mind controlled your soldier.
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur after the UOO-1 Sabotage mission.
  
• Fixed a rare crash that could occur if an offscreen bullet hit a target while the camera was still trying to pan to track it.
  
• Fixed a bug where strategic operations could get stuck in the cooldown state.
  
• Fixed a bug where AI units would go into "combat mode" on sighting a dead enemy unit. We think fixing this may help address the alien units in terror missions being incredibly aggressive, as those maps contain lots of civilians and even a dead civilian would trigger the alien to think it was in active combat.
  
• Fixed a bug where certain aliens (e.g. Psyons, Reapers) had issues climbing ladders, sometimes ending up hovering in the air or stuck inside walls. 
  
• Fixed the wage expense for scientists / engineers being incorrect on the Hire Scientists / Engineers screen after having unlocked the appropriate region bonuses.
  
• Fixed the Phase 4 timer ("UOO-1 Completion") being set to finish at the wrong point.
  
• Fixed some non-functional teleporters in one of the Cruiser UFO map variants.
  
• Fixed one of the Battleship UFO map variants having missing internal walls in one section of the Battleship.
  
• Another attempt at fixing the issue where enemy units are revealed when you move a unit in the deployment phase before the Cleaner Base mission.
  
• Fixed the "release captured civilians [x/10]" objective always being ticked in an Abduction mission, rather than only becoming ticked when you'd opened all the tubes.
  
• Fixed Cleaner reinforcements getting stuck in one of the boreal VIP extraction map.
  
• Fixed a number of visual issues with the white walls in the UOO-1 Bridge assault mission.
  
• Fixed the alien grenades and MARS Smoke Launcher having projectiles that did not match their art.