Milestone 5 STABLE Released! (5.22.1) Milestone 5 has finally been released on our public branches and is ready to play! Please be aware that this update will break saves, and if you would like to continue playing your Milestone 4 campaign then you can do so by switching back to Milestone 4 on our Legacy branch (instructions on how to do so
here).
Developer Commentary This is a major update to the game which introduces several new Geoscape mechanics that add more depth and choice to the strategic layer, and also adds significant content to the end of the game (e.g. two new types of alien, a new UFO, three new plot missions, etc). It is now finally possible to unlock Operation Endgame and complete the campaign - something we'll further improve when the ending cinematic arrives in a future update! After that, we'll spend some time polishing and hunting bugs before launching into 1.0!
We're likely to do a balance pass on Milestone 5 in a few weeks, so if you've got opinions on the game's balance please let us know in the dedicated Milestone 5 STABLE
Balance & Feedback thread (there's also a few specific questions in there we're asking for player feedback on, such as squad sizes, the Colossus Armour, Wraith camouflage, etc).
Please do report any bugs you encounter in the bug reporting subforums, as we'll be watching them closely to ensure we fix any issues as quickly as possible. Finally, I just want to thank anyone who tested Milestone 5 while it was on the Experimental branch and gave us feedback / reported bugs - we really appreciate your help!
KEY CONTENT: *
Battleship UFO: the Battleship is the final alien UFO. It is extremely powerful in aerial combat and is a large multi-level UFO with a large crew of the most elite alien defenders in the tactical combat - successfully capturing one therefore provides the player vast quantities of Alloys and Alenium!
*
Operation Endgame: it is now possible to unlock Operation Endgame and complete the campaign with a high-stakes assault on the alien leaders. We made this a two-part mission in homage to the Cydonia mission from classic X-Com, and we created an entirely new set of terrain tiles for the first section!
*
Supporter System: each of the six funding regions on the Geoscape now contains four Supporters, representing important VIPs in the local area. There are several different types of Supporter that can be recruited by spending "Operation Points", each of which provides your organisation with a permanent bonus when recruited. Additionally, recruiting all the Supporters in a region also unlocks a unique Region Bonus. However, alien activity can also cause unrecruited Supporters to fall under alien control - becoming Infiltrators, who slowly raise Panic in the local area until you assign the resources required to eliminate them.
*
Strategic Operations: the same "Operation Points" can also be used for Strategic Operations, which provide an instant benefit such as an injection of cash or lowering Panic in a specific region. The value of these operations increases with time (resetting after use) - for example, the Raise Funds operation normally grants +$500,000, but this value increases by +$10,000 for each day since it was last used.
*
Invasion Phases: the campaign has been divided into five different phases that better explain the progression of the invasion, with some phases introducing or removing new mechanics to reflect the changing alien invasion strategy.
*
New Missions: two new plot-related tactical missions set on an alien orbital station take place towards the end of the game, adding more mission variety to second half of the campaign. One of these is an entirely new mission type - wave defence.
*
New Aliens: two new alien units have been added - the Eternal (the alien leader caste), and a small melee creature with a limited lifespan known as the Symbiote which certain enemies can fire at Xenonaut units as a form of living weapon.
*
Civilian Evacuation: civilians on tactical missions can now be interacted with to order them to evacuate. Doing this will cause them to run towards the evacuation zone (next to the Xenonaut dropship) and leave the map - assuming no aliens kill them on the way!
*
Mind Control: several types of alien are now capable of psionically Mind Controlling your troops for a short period of time. Bravery and Morale help defend against these types of attack.
KEY BALANCE CHANGES: *
Doomsday / Panic: Individual regions do not suffer Panic in the first phase of the invasion. Instead, there is a single global "Doomsday" counter which must be kept below 100. This is mostly for narrative reasons, but it also means the player has more time before needing to worry about keeping Panic down in each individual region (so building a second base becomes less urgent).
*
Base Regional Pricing: Xenonaut bases now vary in price between $500k and $1.5m depending where in the world you place them, with the optimal locations in terms of radar coverage (e.g. North Africa / Middle East, Latin America, etc) being more expensive. This means there are more viable strategies in terms of base placement, and also means new players end up with more starting funds if they unwittingly place their first base in a "bad" location.
*
Panic & Lost Regions: Lost regions will now re-join the Funding Council if their Panic level is below 100 when the funding report arrives at the end of the month. It's worth noting here that the Reduce Panic strategic operation can be used on lost regions!
*
50%-150% Damage Randomisation: In Milestone 4 both human and alien weapons inflicted between 50%-200% of their Damage value when they hit the target, but this has now been reduced back down to 50%-150%. This makes armour a bit more effective at stopping units being instantly killed by a single enemy hit.
*
Explosion Drop-Off: Explosion damage now falls off linearly from 100% (explosion tile) to 50% (outer edge of explosion), instead of inflicting full damage right to the very edge of their blast area.
*
Destructible Roofs: Destructibility has been enabled on building roofs, along with falling and fall damage for objects / units standing on them (unless they have a jetpack).
*
Reinforcements Move: Enemy reinforcements now spend 50% of their TU on movement after they spawn, and then go into overwatch. Previously they would stay clumped on their spawn point and be easy prey for explosives.
Full Gameplay Changes Strategy: * The strategy layer should now be properly deterministic, so if you load a save and choose not to reset the game seed (by default it does reset) then events should play out exactly the same way every time. This might be useful for tracking down some of the more elusive Geoscape bugs!
* As covered in the Key Changes section above, we've added several new strategic mechanics such as Strategic Operations, Supporters, and the Invasion Phase system. Additionally, the Base Regional Pricing and UFO Delegation system significantly change the game balance.
* A new "Geoscape Timer" UI element has been added, which tells you how many days until your next Funding Report and any other upcoming events.
* The Campaign Victory / Campaign Loss screen has been updated with proper artwork, flavour text and music. The full campaign stats (e.g. total aliens killed, etc) are now shown for both victory and loss.
* Items now regain part of any lost sale value at the end of each month.
* The introduction of Phases (see Key Changes section) has led to a rebalance of some parts of the invasion:
-- A global Doomsday counter has replaced individual Regional Panic values for the first three months of the campaign.
-- Monthly funding is much lower at the start of the game, but increases significantly once Phase 2 begins.
-- Infiltration UFO missions no longer cause Panic, but instead convert neutral Supporters into Infiltrators that generate Panic each month. Infiltrators can be eliminated by spending Operation Points.
-- Alien materials are now more plentiful in the second half of the game.
-- Added more Construction / Terror UFO missions to the timeline. These are UFO missions that will spawn alien bases or terror sites if not shot down.
-- Failing a terror site now causes -35 Panic rather than -20 Panic.
* Various updates made to the tech tree:
-- Research speed is 10% faster on Soldier and 20% faster on Recruit
-- Research project durations have been decreased by 10%-20% for projects in the second half of the game on all difficulties.
-- Added a number of new narrative research projects at the start of the game: The Cleaners, Waveform Analysis, and General Autopsy / Interrogation (depending on whether you capture him alive).
-- Added a number of research projects at the end of the game. Some of these are related to the Battleship UFO, but most are the plot-related research required to complete the game. The placeholder plot research from older versions of the game (Alien Officer Interrogation / Alien Leader Interrogation) have been removed.
-- The second-stage Corpse Analysis engineering projects have been removed, meaning there is now a single Corpse Analysis that grants +10% damage for each alien species. Interrogation research now also grants +10% damage against that species, giving a cap of +20% damage (previously +35%).
-- Engineering projects have been added to upgrade the speed of Angel interceptors to match that of Phantom interceptors, and to upgrade the speed of Phantom interceptors to match that of Gemini interceptors.
-- An engineering project has been added to improve the protection of Guardian Armour (unlocked by researching Alien Plasma Weapons). As both Stalker Armour and Colossus Armour are somewhat specialised, Guardian Armour remains the mainline armour for quite a while!
-- Added an upgraded variant of the Stun Baton called the Electroshock Baton (unlocked from Advanced Stun Weapons research).
-- The Quantum Laboratory and Nanotech Workshop upgrades now require Alien Electronics in addition to completion of the Cleaner Base mission (meaning they arrive a couple of months later).
-- The research projects for Cleaner Autopsy and Cleaner Interrogation now autocomplete and grant extra Operations Points, as the Cleaner damage bonus becomes obsolete before most people complete them. The Cleaner Corpse Analysis engineering projects have been removed for the same reason.
-- Engineering construction times increased on Gemini / Pegasus aircraft, and on Gauss / Fusion weapons.
* Various updates made to the power consumption of various base structures:
-- Power consumption of many buildings has been slightly increased, including the Hangar and Living Quarters (which previously did not require power).
-- Power production of the Access Lift and the basic Generators has been reduced (Alenium Generators remain unchanged). Your starting base now contains an additional Generator to compensate.
-- The overall effect of this is that new bases can only construct a single Hangar and Radar with the power from the Access Lift, and expanding the base further requires construction of additional Generators.
* Various updates made to the aircraft and air combat:
-- Xenonaut aircraft no longer consume fuel when fighting in the air combat (they still consume it flying on the Geoscape). The fuel mechanic rarely came into play during the air combat itself, and when it did it mostly seemed to frustrate people (or cause confusion by making autoresolve fail unexpectedly).
-- Using Afterburners in the Air Combat now blocks that aircraft from firing weapons. However, you can use evasive roll while using afterburners.
-- Torpedoes are now faster and Missiles are now slower, so the Torpedoes will hit the target first if both are fired at the same time (usually desirable because they are very effective at destroying Armour, allowing subsequent Missile hits to inflict higher damage).
-- Evasive Roll now travels a consistent distance whatever speed the air combat is set to.
-- Weapons now have a minimum fire range in the air combat, correcting for the fact that weapons actually fire from the center point of all aircraft / UFOs. This doesn't really affect Xenonaut interceptors, but it should make a big difference against large UFOs with powerful frontal weapons - these would sometimes fire when interceptor flew across the middle of the UFO, instantly causing massive damage that could not be evaded.
-- Increased the acceleration values of all aircraft in the air combat, as they were set to about 10% of their intended values (which made aircraft speed up far too slowly).
-- Cruiser UFOs now have a slightly lower top speed, as Phantoms could often struggle to catch them.
-- The weapons on the Cruiser / Abductor UFOs now do reduced damage and have smaller fire arcs.
-- The Interceptor UFO now has 20 Armour instead of 2 Armour, and has a much higher turning rate / turn acceleration.
-- All UFOs should now regenerate 1 Armour per hour on the Geoscape if damaged but not destroyed in combat (previously they would regenerate HP but never repair their damaged Armour).
* Various usability / UI changes:
-- Geoscape: Slightly increased the range of dropships to ensure they can reach anywhere in the world, as there were a few places you could put your base where it was not possible to reach certain missions.
-- Base Stores: The "Sell Junk" button is now disabled if there's no junk to sell.
-- Base Stores: Completing the Corpse Analysis engineering projects will now mark the appropriate corpses as "junk" items.
-- Soldiers: Added injured / wounded text colouring on the soldier list.
-- Xenopedia: Updated various autopsies to better display the weapons of units with integrated weapons (e.g. Mentarch).
[continues] [continued] Tactical Combat: * The Civilian Evacuation system allows you to click on a civilian from an adjacent tile, which causes them to path towards the evacuation zone near the dropship as quickly as possible. This does not cost TU to use. Note that evacuating civilians will ignore any hostile units they encounter, so make sure their escape route is safe!
* Open doors now act as physical objects that block movement, vision and shooting. Units will automatically close open doors that are interfering with their move path.
* Suppressing a unit now reduces their Reflexes by 50%, which makes them easier to hit with melee weapons.
* Various fixes and updates have been made to the shooting mechanics in an attempt to reduce the number of instances where shot paths seem to pass through solid walls or travel at unrealistic angles through doors / corners etc.
* Sloped building roofs now correctly block line of sight and shots / throwable objects from all angles. All building roofs are now destructible, and units / objects will fall down to the level below if the floor beneath them is destroyed. Units suffers 25% of their max HP in damage for each level they fall, and 10% of their max HP in Stun Damage. Any unit they land on will be immediately knocked out.
* Units now only rotate to face their attacker when damaged during the enemy turn. Having rotation occur in the player turn could be frustrating, as soldiers hit by reaction fire would rotate towards their attacker and sometimes be left without enough TU to complete their planned actions.
* Performing melee attacks on hostile units now grants attribute progress towards improving Reflexes.
* Hay now costs additional TU to move through, and is crushed the first time any unit moves through them. This penalty does not apply if the unit doing so is Crushing (e.g. vehicles, Colossus Armour).
* Capturing the command room in an alien base now reveals the entire map. This now correctly triggers automatically at the start of each turn, rather than needing the player to move / rotate a soldier before it updates.
* Various updates to aliens:
-- Eternals have been added to the game on Battleships and inside the largest Alien Bases. These powerful alien units have a number of different abilities, including Mind Control.
-- Mind Control is now active on Psyon Officers, Psyon Leaders and Eternals. The chance of success is based on the Psi-Strength of the alien and the Bravery and Morale of the defending soldier, with the attack being more difficult with greater distance. The attack always occurs in the alien turn, and if successful then the aliens will take control of your soldier for one turn. Mind Control is broken if the alien responsible is killed or stunned.
-- Psyon "Mesmerise" ability can now only be used once per turn by each Psyon.
-- Killing a Psyon providing a Psionic Triangulation link to a Secton now suppresses the Secton, rather than causing a morale break (e.g. flee / panic / berserk). This should be easier to understand, and should provide the player more tactical benefits due to Suppression also removing 50% TU the following turn.
-- Some Mantids now carry Symbiote Launchers, which fire eggs towards their enemies that hatch into Symbiotes - small, aggressive melee aliens with low HP and a lifespan of only three turns. Pistols are particularly useful against them due to their low TU costs.
-- Sebillians now carry LMGs instead of Rifles, and some been issued with a special type of grenade that spawns large clouds of poison gas.
-- Wraith Cloaking Field is now inactive by default, and activates if the Wraith takes damage. It then deactivates again if the Wraith takes damage, and so on. The defence bonus per tile has increased to 3 per tile (from 1.5 per tile). This should make Wraiths a bit easier to deal with - but more importantly, it should now be possible to distinguish between different ranks of Wraith on the battlefield.
-- Wraith Cloaking Field is now disabled by stun damage (as well as normal damage).
-- Wraith soldiers now have a 30% chance of spawning with a grenade.
-- Cyberdrone cannon is now an AOE weapon that fires 3 explosive shots (damage per shot has been reduced).
-- Androns and Cyberdrones should no longer seek cover, nor back off if facing large numbers of hostile units.
-- Androns should no longer crush alien doors or walls when moving around UFOs / alien bases.
-- Cleaners are no longer hostile to civilians / local forces on certain map types.
-- AI units of all kinds should no longer clump together quite as much as before.
-- Alien units should hopefully be a bit less aggressive on Terror Missions, as we fixed a bug where seeing dead civilians would trigger them to think they were in active combat.
* Various updates to weapons and armour:
-- Increased the Accuracy penalty from wearing heavy armour from -3 to -5 for most armour types (and -2 to -3 for Warden)
-- The maximum deviation on a missed shot is now 10 degrees. As well as looking more realistic, this makes the HEVY more effective.
-- A couple of bugfixes related to the way corners (e.g. walls, doorframes) and fire arcs work for missed shots have made the HEVY less likely to unexpectedly blow up the user.
-- All thrown grenades now have 2 tiles less range.
-- Smoke grenades of all types now generate a substantially larger cloud of smoke.
-- Demolition grenades now spawn smoke and fire on detonation.
-- Cleaner Accelerated Rifle now has identical stats to the Accelerated Rifle.
-- Knife reduced from 8 weight to 6 weight, base accuracy increased from 60 to 65.
* Various UI / usability changes:
-- Settings: There's now an option in the settings to force the camera to return to its previous location or move to the currently selected soldier once the AI turn is finished.
-- Tactical: Pressing R will now reload your weapon.
-- Tactical: We've added an "abort mission" button to the tactical combat UI, as not everyone was aware you could access it through the Esc menu.
-- Tactical: The soldier minitabs along the top of the tactical UI now also display the secondary weapon if the primary weapon is a combat shield.
-- Tactical: Mind controlled units remain in the topbar minitabs (but cannot be interacted with, as if the soldier was dead).
-- Tactical: You can now set a move path to an obstructed tile that contains a unit or a terrain object under the shroud, although unit movement will end once the obstruction is revealed (this prevents players "scanning" the shroud to identify what is there).
-- Tactical: The currently selected soldier now displays with orange shading if obstructed, whereas all other friendly units display in green. This makes it much easier to see which soldier in the dropship is currently selected.
-- Tactical Inventory: Scrolling between soldiers can now be done using up / down, as well as left / right (this mirrors the Soldier Equip screen).
-- Tactical Inventory: You can now click outside the inventory panel to accept the changes and close the panel.
-- Mission Debrief: Added tooltips to the post-mission debrief screen for the soldier promotion icon, and the soldier kills icons.
* Various updates to different mission types:
-- Ambush / Cleaner Base / Base Defence: Pressing the "Commence Mission" button at the end of the pre-mission deployment phase no longer softlocks the game for a couple of seconds.
-- Ambush: These missions now reveal the position of all enemies during deployment, so you can better choose where to deploy your soldiers.
-- Data Raid: If you return all the soldiers to the dropship without having sabotaged enough computers for the mission to count as a victory, the game will now spawn a pop-up telling you this and asking if you want to end the mission anyway.
-- Data Raid: Updated the objective text to be slightly clearer about how many computer desks need to be interacted with for victory.
-- Abduction: Updated objective text so the "Eliminate all hostile combatants" line is now marked as complete if all enemy units are eliminated before the mission ends.
-- Rescue Soldiers: Added camera scroll from the target soldiers to the rest of your team at the start of the mission.
-- Terror Site: We've thinned out the number of spawn points around the dropship on most Terror maps.
-- The underground military base tileset now has pillars on the rock cave wall corners that block vision. This should helpfully clear up some of the line-of-sight issues in the ATLAS Base and the Cleaner Base missions.
Visual / Audio Updates: * Fixed various kinds of minor visual issues in lots of different tactical maps.
* Added various new terrain tiles for the tactical combat. These are mostly alien tiles related to the new missions (e.g. Operation Endgame, Battleship UFO, the alien orbital missions, etc) but there's some visual updates to the Farm biome, new Alien Singularity Core and Alien Antigravity Generator models inside the UFOs, and a new oil pumpjack prop for the Desert biome.
* Added new 3d models for the Wraiths, including entirely new designs for the heavily-armoured elite Wraiths.
* Added Soldier Equip screen paperdoll artwork for the various advanced MARS / ARES weapons.
* Alien Magnetic LMG now has the correct 2D art, and has a new a 3d model that matches it.
* The MARS / ARES "Plasma Cannon" is now correctly called the "Fusion Cannon", and should have green rather than blue artwork and should fire green projectiles.
* MARS Smoke Launcher now has a sound / projectile / visual effect that is more appropriate for a smoke launcher.
* Alien grenade projectiles now match their artwork.
* Added artwork for the Andron Praetorian corpse.
* Updated inventory artwork for the Reinforced Shield.
* Updated preview artwork for Fusion Grenade engineering project.
* The landed variant of the UFO Scout no longer has a low-res hull texture compared to the crashed variant.
* Removed a duplicate soldier role icon.
* Added new or updated sound effects for:
-- Ambient sounds for various tactical biomes and strategic UI screens
-- Winning or losing a tactical mission
-- Accelerated and Gauss weapons
-- Alien Fusion weapons
-- MARS / ARES / Sentry Gun movement and death sounds
-- MARS / ARES rocket turret weapon
-- Dropship take-off sound on the Geoscape
[concludes] 
