18:00 You have pressed on an option "Keep enough Time Unit for making a burst shot" (which would be 40 based of what i can see on this screen) with this soldier. (Something that was present in the classic XCOM/Xenonaut 1. 18:17 "Remaining Time Units have been reserved for shooting" appeared on your screen It's something that you can activate individualy to each soldiers to make sure you have enough TU for perform certain action (like crouching, or snap/normal/aimed/burst shots) during the player turn. It could also used to stop you from using all their TU during player turn, and that they have enough TU for reaction shots during the enemy turn.

When I saw that scientist and the text bubble. I immediately thought 'okay Dr Vahlen the psycho sadist that she is is suddenly not so bad'

"Take as many explosives as you can carry" - yep, that sounds like UFO95 allright.

The time unit system with the percentage cost is actually the way the old games work, but to give a good comparison it is actually also used by Phoenix Point. Phoenix Point just breaks up the overall time unit bar into segments that represent the common break points for how many are used by various items.

2:14 We're only a few minutes in and we're already starting your character development into becoming a dispassionate and near-sociopathic commander. I love that.

One of the ways in the very first xcom to make money was to make laser rifles and then sell them as they didn't require rare materials. I remember having 1 base that was pretty much only 1 radar, 1 hanger for air defense, just enough storage and civilian quaters and the rest of the base was full of workshops and engineers. They made the rifles VERY quickly.

I like the idea of losing units in missions and it not being the end of your campaign like it really can be in XCOM

I'd most certainly watch a full let's play of this ! (as long as it's edited). I really like the vibe you give to this kind of game.

As a veteran of Xenonauts 1 (and Xenonauts 2 is kinda like an upgrade of Xenonauts 2), you can definitely rush a lot of missions. The exceptions however, should definitely be terror, alien base attack, and any mission you might think the zombie creators (Reapers in Xenonauts 1) might be on. You need to be on alert for them at all times, and alien bases are likely to be just as labyrinthine with teleporters. Terror missions also deploy a lot more aliens than usual. Never assume an area has been cleared and you don't need to look back or to the sides occasionally on these missions. On the note of the base attack occurring, yes, that is absolutely technically your fault (or likely to be). In Xenonauts 1, performing too well on intercepting their craft pretty much frustrates them, and they'll try to take you out. I do hope the air combat will be just as good as in Xenonauts 1 though, can't wait to take out a medium/large with the initial 2 Condor-equivalents. I would definitely suggest building an additional hangar btw, getting 3 in a squad is ideal. If you were offered an aircraft that you could build and didn't, that's definitely not good. The initial deploy limit being moved up to 9 from 8 is good, but it does make me concerned about upkeep on troops and the cost of them, as that may have prevented you from progressing as far as you'd like. Yes, troops are expendable, but don't throw them at the enemy, they do cost and them gaining promotions really helps. Especially when it comes to getting better armour, troops without experience may struggle to move far enough when weighed down. Cover seems improved at least. I definitely do agree on the production of individual weapons point, especially if you don't have enough engineers and/or workshops.

Glad to see you back man! Also really hyped about xenonauts 2:)

I'd like to see a playthrough of this

I love that you have to explain stuff like time units vs action points, the fact that you have to use TUs to crouch (as opposed to it being done automatically) etc. We have come a full circle since XCOM Ufo Defence and TFTD.

Keep making content Drifter. Always an excellent time watching your vlogs or runs

I for one would love to see a full playthrough of this, it look like a lot of fun!

You should be looking at the TU system as movement range upgrades, akin to when the new XCOMs give your soldier a flat +1 to squares they can cover in a move action. More TUs also make them less likely to take reaction fire from hidden aliens while scouting, as Xenonauts does a flat check against the number of TUs the alien had vs your soldiers. Percentage based attacks keep the action economy from tipping insanely in the player's favor towards the endgame, while at the same time letting you increase the pace of encounters and be more aggressive. It's actually pretty elegant of a system. tl;dr more TUs = better scouting + better reaction fire, percentage TU actions = action "blocks"

I feel the original 90s Xcom vibes again.

I have to say, this is looking remarkably similar to the first Xenonauts. Subtle changes to be sure, but it gives me the impression that the developer just wants to make some upgrades here. Not that is a bad thing, the first was a pretty fun game. This just feels, and looks very similar.

I would love for a full run of this game

13:50 I guess they wanted to avoid a situation where only a single stat of a soldier matters? Timeunits already sound alike a priority for recruitment, and units with few timeunits will be picked less.

I think the soldiers need a little bit of spice to them, because as is there is no reason to avoid optimizing the fun out of the game. Nothing as complex as modern Xcom but maybe something simple like "You have 5% more accuracy with shotguns and 5% less with snipers." or "You are an expert at throwing grenades doing +1 damage on direct impact by hand." When soldiers are fragile and disposable using optimal gear is important to compensate for when they die so everyone can pick up the slack. It encourages lack of freedom. Make it so a soldier is slightly better with X and people won't need to rely on that. You can even limit people abusing this by limiting it to a soldier till only share a trait with 1-2 others. Just enough to have a few duplicates but not enough so you have a perfect team.

I love the TU system. A burst from an LMG is going to take the same amount of time and fire the same amount of rounds no matter who does it. But quicker soldiers can do additional actions like move, crouch, reload etc. I agree it doesn't make as much sense with a grenade, and adds an unfortunate level of complexity to planning your turn.

They shouldn't be only percentages, but a smaller percentage with some flat number when it comes to Time Units usage. Example: Shooting a pistol could be: 5 + 10% of the TU total, so there is still some room for improvement, as a 50 TU soldier could shoot 5 times, and a 80 TU could shoot 6 times.

The percentage cost is intended to reflect things that aren't directly impacted by the soldier. Most of those things that use the system are largely mechanical limitations, more than reflex-limited ones. Being faster isn't going to make a grenade's fuse count down faster, or cause a bullet to fly faster, or make the next round chamber any faster. All of that stuff happens at a fixed rate, completely independent of the soldier's speed, so if each turn represents a 5-second slice of time, for example, then a gun that requires a second to fire, expel the spent casing, and chamber the next round would use up 20% of that soldier's turn, no matter you divided that turn up. (If a second sounds like a long time, the 5 seconds was just an example, and reacquiring the target, after recoil is likely factored into that calculation, as well, which could be impacted by reflexes, but it's also already weighted into accuracy and would only deepen the divide between rookies and experienced soldiers, in a game where the _are_ supposed to be expendable.)

Things I like here: No mission timer. This let you use the tactical level to your best ability. No need to care about civi. Civi doesn't matter. Infact, killing civilians is useful as it stop some enemy from multiplying and keep them out of your way. Capture system. I missed this more than I thought. Loadout, training and weapon system.

Oh, classic X-COM with all the micromanagement and meat grinder combat and multiple bases and everything we loved that the modern XCOMs don't provide? Sign me the heck up!

As a backer that got to play the alpha over the last few years it seriously has changed alot and the devs have experimented with several ideals

Also here to say that a full playthrough would be great, maybe some challenge runs later on

it's good ur back man, but remember, your well being and health is more important than putting out content!

oh no i been waiting for this half a decade, are you telling me it will release in 65% finished. oh no i will buy it

This looks really good! Never got into Xenonauts "1" myself, but this brings back memories. Do hope someone attempts to remake XCom Apocalypse (my fav from the series) in a modern style at some point!

Ngl, I'd love to see an X-COM that has the graphics and controls of the newer games but the open world-ness of the original ones.

This game seems much more like the original xcom, watching game play brings back he nostalgia of getting brutally demolished because i didnt understand conserving time units. While i do enjoy modern xcom and xcom 2 this game seems like a much steeper learning curve like the original was. Looking forward to the release and will definetly be picking it up when i have the spare cash.

Hey just wanted to let you know that your xcom 2 videos are the best!!!!

Welcome back brother, I miss that accent

Xenonauts 1 was cool, but a bit difficult because I always seem to take too long to make decent progress. Soldiers are somewhat expendable, you still want people with good stats to survive. They do level up their stats if they do stuff - like more strength for heavy equipment, if they carry around a lot. So it's best to give them one combat role and stick with it. I wouldn't mind a normal let's play with Xenonauts 2.

I'd want to see a full playthrough

Would love to see a full play through 👍

Noice. But don't know if I prefer this or OpenXcom Harmony. Graphics here are definitely better, but Harmony mod is so well polished and expands vanilla so much. I wouldn't say that soldiers are expendable. Maybe they don't have skills like in modern xcom, but they have stats they develop with experience and those absolutely matter. So, throwing rookies into the fray seems cool, but as they get promotions I would consider keeping the good ones slightly behind so the meat gets the hit ;)

This looks like it could be a really good game as long as they don't make it a headache to micro manage stuff.

Full game yes!

I’m glad to hear about the lethality of fights in xenonauts 2 , it always annoyed me how powerful my soldiers were in the first game

20:00 not sure if you've seen or heard or if it's been fixed, but there had been reported a memory leak in the game, which had been looked at, not sure what the progress on it was though, that's why the game started getting rough over time...

Much of it sounds like an upgrade from Xenonauts 1 - itself effectively a successor to classic X-Com. Not entirely the most exciting initial pitch, but simultaneously there was nothing wrong with classic X-Com either, except for the Submarine interface and outdated design choices. Let's see how it goes.

Full playthrough vote... After Phoenix point narrative campaign which is amazing

I tried to play Xenonauts the other day since it was 6$ and idk if I missed the option for a tutorial since I picked normal difficulty but the UI confused me a lot and I felt pretty lost. Like Drifter mentioned as well the sprites and animations really threw me off, I wont lie, the 3d graphics and camera work in Xcom1/2 is a huge factor in the hundreds of hours I put into each game. The final nail in the coffin for me was the 3 CTDs I got in just an hour of playtime, it's probably a Windows 11 issue, but that was enough to make me get my 6 bucks back lol. Xenonauts 2 looks pretty promising, I like the idea of a more hardcore sim of an alien invasion and 2 seems to make the game more accessible and prettier to look at. Also I dunno if I missed this option again but I hope the sequel has music, in X1 I was playing in dead silence the entire time just the sounds of gunfire and my troops dying

I'm excited as heck for this, I really wanted to like the first Xenonauts, but 1. It would crash frequently, and 2. No borderless Full screen is a huge turn off for me. I'm hopeful this one will fix both of my issues :)

Oh yeah more xc- hang on a minute, this is checking all the boxes but it's not quite there. The War's still not quite Long enough...

Ive been watching Metal Canyon's old Xenonauts videos and I'm so glad someone made Xenonauts 2. Everytime i looked up Xenonauts XCOM would pop up which is actually how I found drifter but I hate the way XCOM plays sometimes. Really 70 percent shots are almost always missed and 99 percent shots are always misses as well. Your telling me I can only move then fire. And your seriously telling me the world is at stake of losing everything and humanity may end and u send 4 people with pink mustaches and pistols to save us all. Oh and you can only respond to one thing at a time. Millions of dollars in RnD and recruitment and the best you can do is one sky ranger or something when the entire world is relying on you to not fail.... Thats why I prefer Phoenix Point and Xenonauts. The action points make more sense and Xenonauts in particular has so many finer details and features that make it never get old for me. Even the old Xenonauts one.

I reckon what upped your difficulty curve was your second base - it's not uncommon for AI to be programmed that when YOU expand, so do they.

Can you beat Xenonauts 2 with only Riot Police vid incoming!

Okay TDB, no troops lost run when???

Still the removed helmets. I hate that so much. They had them in the early versions. Special forces dont go in without helmets

Full play full play do it!

The name of this game reminds me of XENOWORK

the thing about getting attached to your soldiers and watch them die is what makes the best art great, movies, books ... look how much the new xcom games completely missed the point.. its pandering to people that dont want to take chances and is afraid of loosing. getting emotionally attached is what makes art go down in history

My biggest problem with this game: It looks exactly like Xenonauts 1. The only difference being the ability to rotate the map. Very underwhelming.

I would love to see a playthrough