Nov 1, 2023

Xenonauts 2 - DigitalEccentric

It's time for our regular Xenonauts 2 development update. Here's what the development team has been busy with this month!

Milestone 2

Our main focus this month has been Milestone 2, which is undergoing testing on the Experimental branches. This is now feature complete - we're concentrating on bugfixes and balance changes while we wait for a few more maps / art assets / research texts to be completed. We're expecting to be able to release it onto the default Steam branch a couple of weeks from now, about halfway through November.

Milestone 2 contains a lot of updates, including several new types of tactical mission, a new UFO type, and some significant changes to the early part of the campaign to expand the role of the Cleaners (there's more details about this in our previous development update).

Air Combat Rebalance

One thing worth mentioning in more detail is our rework of the air combat. We've implemented a more freeform equipment system for Xenonaut aircraft and then rebalanced the air combat itself so it rewards skillfully maneuvering your aircraft in a similar way to the original Xenonauts, while also trying to remove a few of the more abusable tactics (e.g. it's no longer possible to continually use evasive roll to circle-strafe around an enemy).

This means the overall balancing pass has touched almost every part of air combat. We've tried to create distinct identities for all the different types of weapons you can fit on your interceptors, make the different UFOs pose different challenges to the player, and added some new UFO weapons and aircraft equipment to increase variety.

Of course, many people prefer to simply autoresolve the air combat - and this is one of the ongoing balance issues we're aware of in Milestone 2. Making the game playable for people who only use autoresolve has led to the air combat being a little too easy for people who use only manual autoresolve, so we're going to be working to fix that over the next week or two.

AI Improvements

We've also started upgrading the AI this month. We begun by focusing on the civilian AI, as they currently don't behave in a very realistic way - as MANY players have noticed! I'm not sure if we'll have a patch ready for Milestone 2, but if not then we should have noticeable improvements in place for Milestone 3.

Additionally, many of the issues we've found with the civilian AI were caused by problems with the general AI model - which means fixing them will make the aliens a bit smarter too!

Loading Times & Unity Upgrade

Another thing we've been actively working on is improving loading times, with the eventual goal of reducing load times by roughly 50%. The good news is that we're making steady progress here, but the bad news is that players are unlikely to see any improvements until Milestone 3.

This month we experimented with stripping some further data out of our saved game format and found this sped up loading times by 25%-30% on our current (very outdated) version of Unity. However, when we tested this change in a more modern version of Unity, we found something interesting: load times were sped up by 25%-30% even if we disabled our change. It turns out recent versions of Unity have optimised that part of their loading process already.

As upgrading Unity will also bring a lot of other improvements to the game (e.g. better performance, proper support for borderless window mode, etc), we're planning to do that as part of our plans for Milestone 3. In the meantime, we're working on multithreading as a way to deliver the remaining ~25% loading time reduction.

Conclusion

Although there's plenty of smaller things I could talk about, I'll end things here. I think we've had a productive month overall, and personally I've particularly enjoyed seeing progress towards fixing some of the largest remaining problems raised by players at launch (slow loading times, bad civilian AI, the air combat needing more work).

As always, thanks for reading - I'll write another post next month!

Oct 26, 2023

Milestone 2.08 Experimental Released!

Xenonauts 2 - Goldhawk

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 2.07c to the Experimental Legacy branch and you can switch over if you want to keep playing that version.

Gameplay & Balance Changes:

Strategy:
- Updated research text for: Autopsy: Cleaner Agent, Autopsy: Cleaner Soldier, Probe UFO, Interrogation: General.
- The soldier portrait is now shown on hover on the Soldier Equip and Armory soldier lists.
- On the Soldier Equip screen, if you drag an item out of a slot and drop it into empty space, it now disappears and returns to the base stores rather than snapping back to its previous location.
- The "Commence Research" button on the Research screen is now visually disabled if you have no research available.
Tactical:
- Stun Damage now heals more quickly (the greater of 25% of current Stun HP, or 5 HP).
- Throwing a grenade through a window now shatters it.
- Added a 3D model for a military officer. One variant of this is used for The General in the ATLAS Base mission, while another is used for the Cleaner Leaders on VIP Elimination missions.
- The General now has a little bit of dialogue when you encounter him in the ATLAS Base mission.
- Updated the Combat Shield animations so it is held straight (especially when crouching).
Air Combat:
- Phantom Interceptor now correctly unlocks off the Destroyer UFO (alongside the Dragonfly), rather than the Abductor UFO.
- Angel Interceptor build cost reduced to $500,000 from $600,000.
- Phantom Interceptor build cost reduced to $800,000 from $1,000,000.
- Increased Damage on torpedoes.
- Slightly increased Armour Destruction on missiles.
- Decreased damage, firing arc and projectile speed on UFO Scout Beam.
- Decreased damage and projectile speed on Alien Destroyer Beam weapon.
- Decreased damage on Alien Fighter, Alien Interceptor, and Alien Probe Beam weapons.
- Decreased damage on Alien Bomber Fusion Artillery weapon.
- Decreased hitpoints on Alien Observer and Alien Bomber.
- Decreased armor on Alien Abductor.
- Rush replacement costs for interceptors reduced.
- Reduced cost of tier 1 interceptor equipment (e.g. Sidewinder Missiles) to $25,000 from $50,000.
- Reduced cost of tier 2 interceptor equipment to $100,000 from $120,000.
- Reduced cost of Laser Lance to $125,000 from $250,000.

Bugfixes:

Fixed clicking MARS during deployment phase crashing the game (should be fixed for real this time).
Fixed a crash that could occur when entering the air combat.
Fixed an issue where you could become unable to equip items on a specific plane.
Fixed the Ctrl+Shift shot preview mode being cancelled on hovering over an enemy.
Fixed teleporters triggering if you do not deliberately end your move on them.
Fixed the Counterfire achievement being unlocked by the aliens accidentally killing one of their own units with reaction fire.
Fixed the dropship icon on the Geoscape frequently not registering clicks properly.
Fixed the game displaying the rank of individually hired engineers / scientists as "ZIV."
Fixed several typos in the game text, including a broken link for Low Recoil on the Lasers Xenopedia project.
Fixed UFO Hull Plating unlocking two Alloy Plating projects.
Fixed the Flares not appearing for a soldier if you Tab to them after having a vehicle selected.

Oct 18, 2023

Milestone 2.07 Experimental Released!

Xenonauts 2 - Goldhawk

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!

Milestone 2 has now been released onto our Experimental branches for testing. This is a significant update that includes new content, new features, and many usability improvements and bugfixes - but we're awaiting several pieces of updated art / some new research text / additional maps, and the game balance may be worse than Milestone 1 right now!

Community feedback is important in making sure this build is stable, balanced and suitably polished when we release it onto the default Steam branches - so please let us know about any thoughts you have on the new mechanics, or about any gameplay issues you encounter!

Key Improvements:

Early Game Rework:

The opening phase of the game has been expanded to increase the role of the Cleaners, and you now spend a bit more time battling them before the aliens begin to show up in force. This increaes the playable campaign duration from 180 days to 200 days.
The new Probe UFO appears in the very early stages of the game. This is unmanned and does not create crash sites, but provides some early-game air combat practice and some research unlocks. As the invasion progresses it finds a new role as an early-game escort UFO that is eventually replaced by the Fighter UFO.
The game story has been reworked to fit the new opening phase (which means it's worth replaying the tutorial). The player character is now a silent protagonist, and we've introduced a new character in the early game called The General that uses the previous Commander portrait.
We've added several entirely new types of tactical mission to the game - Rescue Soldiers, Convoy Ambush, and Rescue VIP. We've also removed the standalone Cleaner Intel Hub and Cleaner Cell missions from Milestone 1 and turned them into generic Data Raid and Eliminate VIP missions that you may (or may not) encounter as part of the Cleaner activity on the Geoscape.

Aircraft Weight System:

Interceptors in Xenonauts 2 no longer have fixed weapon slots that can only take particular weapon types. Instead, we've introduced a more flexible system where they have several slots that can contain various different types of weapon or equipment. However, the aircraft now has an overall equipment weight limit that cannot be exceeded.

Heavy Armour Variants:

Each type of soldier armour in the game now has a "heavy" variant that can be enabled via a checkbox, which provides the wearer with improved protection at the cost of increased weight (and usually a small Accuracy reduction). This gives the player more choice when equipping their troops, particularly when using low-Strength soldiers. This system replaces the armour plate modules from Milestone 1.

New Maps:

The Dockyard and Jungle biomes have now been split apart, and we've created 5 new Crash Site maps for the Dockyard so we can support UFOs crashing in these regions.
We've also started creating additional map variants for the new map types. The opening mission (ATLAS Base Reclaim) has two entirely new maps, and we're working on additional variants for the Cleaner Intel Hub mission (now called the Data Raid mission).

Mod Management:

We now have a Mod Management panel accessible on the title screen, as we've completed the backend systems that allow the game to load and prioritise mods. We're therefore now at the point where it's technically possible to create mods for the game - but I wouldn't recommend trying it yet, because it's very complex and we're working on some tools that will make the process much easier.

Gameplay Changes:

Economy:

Money is generally a little tighter than before. It's now cheaper to build additional bases, but aircraft are more expensive - the idea is that the player shouldn't need a full squadron of 3 planes in a base until the midgame at the earliest!
Funding is no longer dependent on Panic level (unless the region is actually lost).
The starting base has one less Hangar and one less Angel interceptor.
Aircraft are more expensive to build, and you now have to pay for their equipment items indvidually.
Cost for constructing new bases has been reduced from $750k to $500k.
Soldier cost increased from $10k to $20k.
Upkeep on base structures and aircraft increased by 50%.
Upkeep costs for upgraded buildings (e.g. Alenium Generators) reduced to match those of their basic equivalent.

Alien Invasion:

Panic now falls by 10% of the current total in each region at the end of the month.
Shooting down a UFO now reduces Panic by -1, rather than -2.
The Cleaner Base no longer continually spawns Panic-raising anomalies on the Geoscape until destroyed. Instead, the Cleaners generate regular tactical missions on the Geoscape that will raise Panic if you do not complete them (these stop when the Cleaner Base is destroyed).
Most alien activity now occurs a couple of weeks later than it did in Milestone 1, as this makes space for the extra Cleaner missions. There's a couple of extra early-game research projects to fill this space.
The new Probe UFO is the first type of UFO to spawn. It is unmanned and so does not generate crash sites, and is weak enough that even a basic Angel can take it down relatively easily. Because the player only starts with one Angel and missiles / torpedoes now need to be researched, Scout UFOs are quite a lot more dangerous than they were in Milestone 1.

Air Combat:

Most weapon damage values have been changed to take into account the new slot system on the interceptors.
All aircraft equipment now has to be built individually for your aircraft, rather than being unlocked as a global upgrade.
Added two new equippable items for aircraft - Armour and Fuel Pods.
Missiles and Torpedoes are no longer starting items and need to be researched.
Updated the stats on various UFOs, and equipped some with new weapons. Certain UFOs now use a "hunter-killer missile" which is slow and can be dodged but contains enough fuel to loop back around and attempt to hit your aircraft a second time.
All UFOs now use a dynamic battlefield in the air combat, where it moves based on the position of the main UFO. This prevents them flying off the map entirely.
When an interceptor runs out of fuel and chooses to retreat from combat, it now does the updated Retreat action where it escapes after 3 seconds (rather than the old retreat action where they need to fly to the edge of the map).

Heavy Armour:

All soldier armours now have a "Heavy Armour" checkbox that increases the protection offered at the cost of additional weight and a small Accuracy reduction.
Defender Armour has been removed, as it is now the heavy variant of the starting Tactical Armour.
Armour Plate modules have been removed, as this new system makes them redundant.

Tech Tree:

Autopsies are no longer autocomplete missions, and can be researched after completing Xenobiology.
Completing an autopsy research unlocks "Corpse Analysis" engineering projects for that alien species. This consumes corpses to provide a 10% and eventually a 20% damage bonus against that type of alien.
Added a new research project called Aerial Warfare that unlocks missiles / torpedoes for your aircraft.
Added new artwork for Reaper Interrogation research project.

Weapons & Equipment:

Ammo loaded into weapons now has weight. We have therefore also reduced the weight of all weapons by roughly the weight of their default ammo clip.
Stun Baton and Combat Knife are now 3x1 items rather than 3x2.
Rebreather module added as a starting item. This makes units smoke immune.
Stun Baton and Stun Gun are now starting items.
Machineguns now require 51% TU to fire the 3-round burst, not 50%.
HEVY now uses %-based fire modes, like all other weapon types.
HEVY has been reduced in weight.
HEVY grenades no longer inflict reduced damage if they miss the target and detonate beyond the maximum range of the gun.
HEVY Smoke Rounds no longer destroy enemy armour.

Tactical Combat:

Crouching now provides a 10% Accuracy bonus.
Units have their Accuracy reduced by 0.25% for each 1% of missing Health. This also includes soldiers who are sent into battle not fully healed!
Increased all alien HP by 20% to counterbalance them appearing later and the corpse analysis projects. (this has now been hotfixed to be a tiered increase, with early-game aliens getting no HP increase, the midgame aliens getting 10% extra HP, and late game aliens getting the full 20% increase)
On Xenonaut Base Defence missions, the player is now given vision on all alien units after 10 turns.
Units will now automatically path to the intended location if using a melee weapon or placing C4 from more than one tile away.
Time Units costs for fire modes now have a minimum of 1 Time Unit, as hugely overloaded soldiers were able to fire their weapons an unlimited number of times.
Time Units are no longer refunded if an overweight soldier drops an item to reduce their TU penalty, as this permitted an exploit where units could use multiple 51%+ TU actions per turn. However, overweight TU penalties are only applied when you close the inventory screen so you're free to shuffle items about as long as the weight is at acceptable limits when you close the screen.
Fleeing units now drop their Secondary weapon in addition to their Primary.
Berserking will now always choose a random inanimate object as a target if no alien is nearby, and the soldier may recieve some bonus TU that allows them to fire more than normal if they berserk.
Grenades now always damage shields if the unit carring the shield is in the blast radius.
Shields will offer protection from grenade damage, but only if they're facing towards the tile where the grenade exploded.
Jetpack move costs have been increased slightly, which means soldiers will now only use the jetpack if they cannot walk the path instead.

Usability / Visual Changes:

Strategy:

The icon for the Skyhawk dropship has been updated so it doesn't look like it is flying backwards.
Mission briefings now accurately display the turn limits / reinforcement timers for timed missions, even when this value is modified by the difficulty setting.
The "Items Arrived" popup will now split the list by base if items simultaneously arrive at multiple bases.
The Damage value for weapons on their tooltip is now modified by the ammo loaded (e.g. the HEVY shows 0 damage if loaded with smoke rounds).
The equipment selection menus on the Aircraft screen have been updated so they size themselves dynamically, which means they can display more weapons without having issues.
Tactical Soldier Inventory:
You can now scroll through soldiers using the left / right arrows, or by pressing the number hotkeys.
Scrolling past a vehicle without an inventory (e.g. MARS) now simply skips past it, rather than closing the inventory screen.
Added a "Reset Item Moves" button that resets all item moves and refunds all TU spent.
Added a new line that shows the current TU of the soldier.
Improved the way items stack when dropped on the ground (usually by a dead combatant).

Tactical:

Move paths for jetpack-equipped soldiers now display properly.
Fixed various issues with the TU reserve system (which can be accessed by right-clicking the various weapon fire modes).
Combat Shields now play an appropriate impact sound if hit by enemy fire, and a destruction sound if destroyed. They also play a spark visuel effect if they absorb all the damage, rather than a blood splatter.
C4 now shows its blast radius once laid if you hover over the detonator, and will display a "Are you sure?" popup if you try to detonate it with a unit in the blast radius.
Using Tab or Next Soldier to cycle through your soldiers now works correctly with soldier number 10 (who was previously being placed last).
The combat camera zoom now switches between five preset distances, and the alt+scrollwheel zoom shortcut should now work correctly.
The 3D models of dropped items are now placed within the tile to look like they are laying on the ground. Weapons in the hands of dead bodies are now also hidden (as those weapons are being shown as an item on the ground).
Healing stun damage with a medikit now displays "Stun: -X" rather than "Stun: X", as some people thought the medikit was causing stun damage.
Fixed several visual issues with the Alenium Generator objects in the Xenonaut Base defence missions.

Bugfixes:

Strategy / General:

Fixed a cursor offset bug that could occur if you tried to switch Xenonauts 2 between multiple monitors with different screen resolutions.
Fixed various issues with the following achievements: First Contact, Counterfire, Unfriendly Fire, Welcome To Earth, Future Warfare.
Fixed various visual issues with the hair / jaw of certain soldiers and the collars of certain types of armour.
Removed the "do you want to save?" popup on quit if the player is playing Iron Man mode.
Fixed an incorrect error message when trying to build the Gauss Blaster without completing Accelerated Cannon first.
Fixed the visual highlight when hovering over the names of unassigned wounded soldiers.

Tactical Combat:

Fixed smoke and suppression damage incorrect passing through undamaged solid walls or closed doors.
Fixed Combat Shields not functioning correctly or displaying correctly if picked up off the ground.
Fixed the Secton glowing eyes that indicate Psionic Triangulation being active not triggering correctly.
Fixed aliens and humans being revealed if they are stunned when the player does not have line of sight on them.
Fixed dead soldiers sometimes surviving even when the player has a 0% survival chance.
Fixed moving items around the inventory incorrectly not deducting TU in some cases.
Fixed units being able to shoot themselves when using Ctrl+Shift to preview move & shoot actions.
Fixed various issues that would occur when you pick up and drop corpse items, as sometimes the game was not properly reflecting the new location of the body (both visually and mechanically).
Fixed units not playing their death animation correctly if they are stunned, then revived, then stunned / killed again.
Fixed fleeing units dropping their weapons but their 3D model not updating to show they are now unarmed.
Fixed revived units still visually holding the weapon they were carrying when they were stunned, despite them being unarmed and the gun being on the floor.
Fixed HEVY soldiers incorrectly using 1-handed weapon animations if they switch to a pistol and then back to the HEVY.
Fixed the 3D models of items on the ground not being removed if an explosion destroys those items.
Fixed a misleading error message about uncrouching.
Fixed blood puddles not correctly hiding when you changed camera level.
Fixed camera incorrectly snapping to an alien the player cannot see going through a teleporter.
Fixed an issue where an unloaded weapon would display 0/0 ammo, rather than 0/X.
Fixed melee weapons causing the target to play their injury sound twice.
Fixed the player gaining 50 Alenium simply by visiting an Alien Base and aborting the mission.
Fixed hitbox issues with the main door on some of the larger UFOs (from Observer up).
Fixed an issue with the Observer UFO sometimes having invisible terrain objects near its front door.
Fixed destroyed doors in the Alien Base maps still showing the open / close door icon.
Fixed the Electroshock Rifle having the incorrect silhouette in the minitabs at the top of the screen.
Fixed melee attacks not causing units to rotate to face the attacker.
Fixed AI units that are able to crush objects by walking through them absolutely trashing the interior of their UFO / base as they patrol around.

Oct 5, 2023

Xenonauts 2 September Development Update!

Xenonauts 2 - DigitalEccentric

September is over and it's time for our monthly development update. This month we've largely been working on Milestone 2, which is taking a while to arrive because it has slowly morphed into a rather substantial update!

However, we did release several early test builds of Milestone 2 on our Prototype branches this month so we could gather early community feedback on our ideas. The build is now shaping up nicely and we're expecting to move it over to the Experimental branches in the next week or two, where we'll continue to fix bugs and polish it until it's ready for general release.

Artist Recruitment

Before I start talking about the new features, I quickly want to mention that Goldhawk is hiring a couple of additional 3D artists for Xenonauts 2. If you are potentially interested in joining our team as an Environment Artist or a Character Artist / Animator, please check out the posts below!

Recruitment - 3D Environment Artist (Remote, full-time / part-time)
Recruitment - 3D Character Artist / Animator (Remote, full-time / part time)

New Missions & Early Game Update

Two common issues raised in player feedback about the Early Access launch version of Xenonauts 2 were that the pacing of the campaign could be improved, and the role of the Cleaners (and their storyline) could be expanded.

We therefore added quite a lot of new content to the opening section of the game in Milestone 2. There's now more Cleaner missions in the early game, including three new mission types - Rescue Soldiers, Convoy Ambush, and Rescue VIP - and the process of locating the Cleaner HQ has become more organic. Now you gain progress toward the HQ location simply by winning the Cleaner missions that spawn on the map, with extra progress earned if you capture prisoners for interrogation or if you recover optional Cleaner Data from the map.

I've also rewritten the dialogue around the tutorial and opening section to make the plot more interesting (and do a better job of involving the Cleaners), and I'll be continuing this process while Milestone 2 is on the Experimental branch.

Soldier Armour - Heavy / Light Variants

We playtested a number of changes to soldier armour in the prototype builds, but the only improvement we decided to keep was creating Light and Heavy variants of each type of soldier armour. This replaces the existing ballistic plates modules from Milestone 1 with a checkbox that toggles between these heavy / light variants.

Heavy armour simply weighs more, but offers greater protection that the lighter variant. This gives the player a lot more flexibility, and avoids the situation where your newly researched advanced armour is actually worthless because it's too heavy for many of your soldiers to use (as they can just use it in the lightweight configuration if needed). Feedback so far seems to suggest players consider this a big improvement over what we had before.

Interceptor Weight System / Air Combat Rebalance

We've also taken a look at the air combat in Milestone 2. The biggest change is to how aircraft equipment works, as aircraft slots can now hold any type of item / weapon but each aircraft has an overall weight limit that the equipment loadout must stay below. We've also added a fuel pod item that boosts the aircraft range, and an armour plating item that boosts survivability. The UI for this system still needs work, but overall it feels pretty solid already.

Some work has also been done on the UFOs themselves. We've introduced a new early-game unmanned UFO called the Probe, which is much weaker than the Scout and initially serves as a basic introduction to air combat before being used as the first type of escort craft for larger UFOs (as Fighter UFOs are too deadly to use as escorts early on). The existing UFOs have also been rebalanced to try and make them more distinct from one another.

New Maps

Our new level designers started work in September, and their first task was to address the lack of UFO crash site maps in the Dockyard biome. We've now got five new maps to support this, and we're working on expanding the number of Jungle maps too. After that, we'll get to work creating more maps for the new mission types added in Milestone 2.

(Community) Mod Tools

We've also continued to develop the foundations for modding. We've finished implementing the mod management systems, and the "mods" panel is now accessible from the Main Menu screen in Milestone 2. Unfortunately the modding tools themselves require more work at our end than we expected, so we're still in the process of planning that out. We're making steady progress, though, and the game should have a solid set of modding tools in place before launch.

Thanks for reading, and I'll write another progress update at the end of the month!