r/Xenonauts

And how do you handle base upkeep? i make so little money and my base isnt that big, when i build a second one im gonna go on the red

I did three battleship runs so far.

First one I accidentily killed by a heavy's salvo. My bad.
Second one I wittled down to ~60HP, before he killed (took over) all relevant team members one by one. (After the sixth loss in that one room, several killed by their own people, I have to admit I save scummed. Killed the Eternal instead and survived with only 3 dead.)
Third one was going splendidly, until the moron came out of the door, shot at me, and got killed by reaction fire.

I never have the opportunity to stun him. Smoke, stun grenades, assaults with electro rifles...
Any more good advice?

PS: Thanks! The very helpful thing I did not know (because I didn't read properly) was: Colossus Armor's melee attack stuns! Lost another sniper colonel, but finally got the mission.
It tanked three (3) stun grenades, two shots with the electro rifle, but fell after a few rounds of colossal slappings.

Just came back from having my main ground team wiped, twice, due to these ~200hp Sebillians that regen ~50hp per turn. I'm able to take down one with most my team, but once there are 2-3 of them, my teams just get slaughtered. There needs to be a way to deal more damage short term, or preferably negate their heal. Pretty disappointed this was missed during early access; my run is over as a result.

Is it just normal and expected to get nearly one shotted a lot of the time?

New to the games. Playing 2. Full squad of 10 Colonels with high stats 90+ in almost everything. Researched Colossus armor, put it on thinking I could finally take a few hits perhaps. Immediately one shot by a Sebillian Warrior very first mission.

What's the point of armor if most things kill you in one shot anyways? The only way to reliably play seems to bunker down, move extremely slowly, and wait for the enemy to come to you and die to overwatch from 4-5 shots.

Feels like it cheapens the game and combat. Was having a blast and immediately quit and haven't turned it back on for a few days.

Just unlocked laser weapons and from looking at the weapon stats I don't see any difference other than more armour destruction and less ammo and armour pen. When I unlocked them I remember the report saying they're more accurate but I don't see that reflected in the stats. The basic, accelerated and laser rifle all show the same hit bonus %.

Is it worth making these over the accelerated weapons?

I recently completed Xenonauts 2 and after using a LOT of smoke, I thought it would be interesting to have a thermal goggles module or something to that effect.

Benefits could include not losing accuracy through smoke and giving you extended vision in night missions or in bases. Debuffs could include something like a flat 20% accuracy debuff (I imagine you lose some visual detail wearing the goggles), in addition to it taking up space and weight in your inventory like the gas mask.

Would this module be broken? Useless? What do you all think?

Yes I save scummed, and I'm glad I did because you have to use completely different strategies on Commander. (I needed the trial and error to figure it out.) Just getting out of the Skyranger is a struggle on most maps, you have to immediately kill whatever enemies are super close and then pop several smoke grenades to allow your guys to get out.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or what, but I never saw enough reapers to get the corpse analysis. Did the game decide reapers are too easy for me? Side tangent, they're such a neat enemy, I don't know why people hate them so much. Newfoundland is such a memorable mission in Firaxcom, I don't know why my fellow Kickstarter backers kept voting against the reaper hives. Also the end mission of Xenonauts 1 seemed more impactful to me with the threat of Earth being overrun with reapers if you lose, and the endless waves of reapers if you take too long.

Back on topic, with the exception of the game being unwilling to let me fight reapers, Xenonauts 2 is better than 1 in every way. I think this is my new favorite "XCom like." There's so many impactful decisions.

The early timed missions (abduction, timed cleaner missions) you should go half assault half riflemen since you need to be running and gunning as fast as possible to maximize rewards, and you've got starter equipment anyways so it doesnt matter that you haven't built x gun for that weird loadout. It helps that the basic cleaners don't do too much damage, you just have to be prepared to have your squad spend a long time in medbay afterwards.

My tactical combat could certainly use some work, but I think I've nailed the geoscape portion. I bought all armor levels but skipped Accelerated and Gauss weapons. Laser is simply too good, between the armor destruction and aim bonus. Plus when you get the regenerating ammo that really helps you never run out on non timed missions, and save on inventory.

For the bases, main base should have 5 hangars, 4 reactors, 3 radars, 1 storage, 1 medbay, 2 training, 2 workshops, 5 crew quarters, 4 labs, and 2 batteries.

Second base should have 4 hangars, 1 storage, 4 workshops, 3 crew, 4 reactor, 3 radar, 2 batteries, and a training facility. I think you can skip medbay here since you shouldn't be deploying from here and you shouldn't be fighting that many base defense missions or you're doing something wrong.

For the air war, I built an additional MiG, then 2 X55, then I built out a full fleet of X120 and scrapped the old fighters as I could. I did not buy the engine upgrades, they suck down too much Alenium that's better spent on more X120.

Played through till part way through the main invasion, and I can feel myself losing control of the air war, I only had 3 interceptors for 2 bases and neglected my laser interceptor weapons. Going to restart, and want to optimize a few things

• When do I build a 2nd base? I kind of rushed mine and it took a long time to get operational
  • SPeaking of bases, is it better to get a cheaper 1st base with less coverage, or the middle-east base that can eventually cover everything?
• Ops wise, is it best to focus on one continent, focus on all the ops generators, or focus on the cheap green ones?
  • And do I prioritize taking out infiltrators, or securing my own supporters?
• How much of an improvement is the next-gen interceptor? It costs a lot of alenium, and waiting to build my 4th interceptor for that is what tanked me this round
  • Am I intended to be spending ops on crashed UFOs to get said alenium
• Do plot researches advance the plot? I spaced out my plot researches thinking it would cause stronger enemies to appear, but it seems to all be time-based
• Am I intended to be ditching the crappier soldiers and recruiting better stated ones?
• How do I clear shrubs? I keep dropping demo charges and grenades expecting cover to go away, and it's always the weird bush or waht not that just will not be destroyed

Hi,

I did a cleaner mission today. A convey with three trucks. I killed all guards and all three trucks weren't damaged, but I didn't get any money after the mission (100k per truck were promised).

Should I have done something to get it?

Thanks.

I keep changing my mind what stats to prioritise. I often pick people who basically fall into the category of "not shit at anything in particular", a jack of all trades but master of none.

What do you guys look for in your new recruits? I feel like I should be prioritising certain stats but I don't know what's optimal.

I have yet to capture the main alien leaders, but every lesser alien species I capture does not give me any flavor, they just tell me what I already know about them, I wish I could know more about what their life under their alien regime is like.

instead I just have a simple "this alien is strong and intelligent, 10% damage bonus"

I'm playing on Commander difficulty, if it matters.

I have some simple plans for fighting each UFO in the early game to delay upgrading my air capability as much as possible because I always feel behind on tech and resources in the ground battles.

Probe - Barrel roll the first shot at the last second, which also dodges the second shot. Get hit by the third shot, roll the fourth, and now the probe is dead to your autocannons.

Scout - Get behind the Scout, then it can't turn as fast as your Angel, which gets free damage until the Scout is dead.

Destroyer - Come in at the side, then hug its side. It cannot turn faster than you can manuever, but you may need come in and out of range sometimes so that you don't run into the destroyer.

Fighter is the first UFO that I realize I can't defeat with Angels and Autocannon, and I'm realizing that lack of alloys and alienium throttles my development at that point in the game. I know that at this point in the game, you *can* have a lot of tech, but I want to know what the bare minimum of tech is so that I can invest minimally in air that stage of the game.