Xenonauts 2 — Patch 1.0

Released: 4/2/2026, 5:00:40 PM

Source: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/538030/view/511861099418616946

Summary (AI)

Xenonauts 2 patch 1.0 introduces significant gameplay adjustments, including revised alien ranks with new tougher Praetorians, updated enemy resistances, and changes to weapon damage and firing mechanics. Tactical maps, particularly Farm biomes, have been revamped alongside additions of new Scout UFO maps to reduce repetition. Performance improvements cover faster loading, save times, AI behavior, and strategy interface responsiveness. The update also integrates Steam Workshop support for mods and adjusts various UI elements and bug fixes for smoother gameplay. Additionally, progression tweaks affect research costs, equipment load limits, and mission rewards, while base defense missions now reward item loot from downed UFOs.

Tip: expand all for quick scanning.

Faster loading times (for both strategy layer and tactical combat)
Explosions in tactical combat should now calculate much faster
AI turns in tactical combat have been sped up - both in terms of improved AI calculation time, and reducing the number of unnecessary moves made by civilians
Much faster save speeds across all parts of the game, the biggest effect of which should be that autosaves should no longer lock up the game for 1-2 seconds. This will be especially obvious on Ironman mode, as the game frequently autosaves during tactical combat when Iron Man is active.
Commander difficulty no longer prevents the player from using Air Combat autoresolve, as the autoresolve rarely outperforms human players and the general feeling was that disabling it was simply making the Commander experience more repetitive, not more difficult.
Security Supporters now each grant -2 Panic in each region (Elite grants -4 Panic), but their Phase 1 Doomsday reduction values remain unchanged.
Cleaner Agents / Soldiers now grant +25 Operation Points on completion of their Interrogation project (down from +50). Cleaner Leaders now have their own Interrogation project, which grants +50 Operations Points (previously you gained +30 per captured Leader item).
You are now awarded the item contents of the attacking UFO if you win a Xenonaut Base Defence tactical mission, or if your base defence turrets shoot down the UFO as it tries to attack your base.
Unlocking the North America region bonus (+5 Soldier Starting Experience) now gives you an immediate free refresh of the soldier pool.
Battleship UFO side cannons can now fire immediately at the start of the battle - previously there was a 4 sec delay after the start of the battle where they were still reloading, which made the battle easier than it should be.
Gemini interceptor starting loadout now has two Armour items instead of the two Fuel Pods.
Reflexes Modifier has been re-added to weapons, which modify the soldier's reflexes by values ranging from 1.25x (shotguns) to 0.5x (shields). Be aware that the system always uses the lowest value from the main and offhand weapon, so it doesn't matter which weapon is set as the active weapon when moving.
UFO interior walls now have 50% more HP.
You can now force-fire at enemies using Ctrl even if there is a 0% chance of hitting them. You can already use force-fire to take 0% shots against terrain, so this makes the behaviour consistent.
Tweaked the vision-blocking and stopping chance values of certain terrain objects to improve consistency.
Updated a number of trees to have cover on the upper levels as well as the lower levels.
Aliens are now noticeably tougher, as in previous versions they weren't much of a step up from elite Cleaners:Sebillians now have 35% Energy resistance, but 0 Armour.Androns now have 35% Kinetic resistanceMost other (non-robotic) enemies have been given +20% HP
Sebillians now have 35% Energy resistance, but 0 Armour.
Androns now have 35% Kinetic resistance
Most other (non-robotic) enemies have been given +20% HP
The Psyon "Mesmerise" ability no longer checks against Morale, as it would very rarely succeed in M6. It now checks against Bravery, using a random 100 roll against this formula:(Bravery - 25) x 2Effectively this means soldiers have 2% resist chance against Mesmerise for each point of Bravery above 25, and they become entirely immune to Mesmerise at 75 Bravery.
(Bravery - 25) x 2
Effectively this means soldiers have 2% resist chance against Mesmerise for each point of Bravery above 25, and they become entirely immune to Mesmerise at 75 Bravery.
A bug in the Symbiote spawning logic has been fixed, meaning "miss" shots should now reliably spawn Symbiotes.
Cyberdrone / Heavy Cyberdrone now has two attack modes - the existing triple shot (80% TU) and a single shot (36% TU). This means Cyberdrones are extremely dangerous if given the opportunity to use their triple shot, but they are much less threatening if you can force them to move.
Cyberdrone / Heavy Cyberdrone shields have been reworked to function like human shields - rather than granting extra Armour, they offer 100HP / 150HP extra health with a 75% blocking chance from the front (this reduces at the sides and falls to 0% from the back). We changed this because the +Armour rules for the previous shield were too complicated and didn't interact properly with explosions.
Zombies are now gas immune.
Symbiotes can no longer be Suppressed, but can also no longer vault or climb.
Grenades can now only scatter half of their intended throw distance, which should make it impossible for soldiers to drop grenades at their feet when throwing more than a few tiles.
Suppression values for all weapons have been unified into a consistent pattern. Previously most Fusion weapons and some Laser weapons were doing less suppression than expected, but the Gauss / Fusion Shotguns were doing MUCH more Suppression than intended (almost 10x more).
Heavy Armour now causes a -10% Accuracy penalty (previously a flat -5 Accuracy). Except for the basic Tactical Armour, the light armour variant now grants roughly 65% of the armour of the heavy variant (previously 50%).
The Guardian Armour protection upgrade engineering project now unlocks earlier - off Alien Electronics (Observer UFOs) rather than Advanced Alloys (Abductor UFOs). The upgraded armour now provides 25/38 Armour and 12 Hardness (up from 24/36 and 10).
Stalker Armour now offers 25 Armour in its light variant, but has no heavy variant. This means it offers good protection for 8 Weight (and no Accuracy penalty), although it is not as protective as the heavy variant of the upgraded Guardian Armour.
Enemy AI no longer considers the cloak effect of Stalker Armour soldiers when choosing their shots (they use the non-cloaked hit chance instead). This means the AI will now take more low-accuracy shots at cloaked soldiers and will therefore miss more often.
Reflexes penalty is now a 0.5x multiplier (previously a flat -20 Reflex penalty)
C4 Charge item has been removed. This item was always meant to be superseded by the Demolition Grenade, which is why it doesn't receive any in-game upgrades and the UX for using it is so janky. We're planning to add support for timed fuses on grenades in a future update, which will allow the Demolition Grenade to fully replace the C4.
Transparent objects (abduction tubes, cloaked Wraiths, etc) no longer draw underneath the shroud.
Particle effects (smoke, fire, etc) no longer draw underneath the shroud.
Certain types of corner tile (e.g. ATLAS Base rooms, certain cliffs) are now revealed correctly when units look at them.
Terrain objects in the first tile of unrevealed shroud should no longer incorrectly show their 3D models before they are revealed.
You can now manually trigger a teleporter with right-click if a soldier is standing on it. This costs 4 TU.
Xenonaut units will now automatically choose move paths that do not contain dangerous hazard tiles (e.g. smoke, fire, poison), provided the alternative path does not cost additional Time Units. If the safer path does cost additional Time Units, players will need to manually path around the hazards.
Smoke and poison gas (but not fire) can now spawn over water tiles.
Right-clicking a door to open it will now only take precedence over right-clicking to rotate a soldier if the soldier is in an adjacent tile to the door. At longer ranges, the soldier will now rotate as normal.
Aliens should no longer attack mind-controlled Xenonaut soldiers.
Civilian AI has been tweaked so they should be more reluctant to move near alien units when running to their next move point (note this does not affect civilians you have ordered to evacuate, who will always sprint towards the exit using the shortest possible route).
Thrown grenades and alien Symbiote projectiles now have a slight visual "trail" that makes them easier to see as they fly through the air.
You now get a pop-up warning you if try to start a tactical mission with a deployment area without having moved your soldiers.
Throwable items like grenades now correctly dim their sprite image when you don't have enough TU to use them (this mirrors the behaviour of items in the primary / secondary slots).
If a weapon has no clip loaded, it instead displays "No Clip" on the fire cursor rather than a 0% hit chance percentage.
The game will now notify the player if a unit is unable to reach the target tile because it is unable to climb (i.e. it's a vehicle, or is using a Shield or wearing Colossus armour).
Made another row of tiles at the front of the Battleship UFO exterior walkable, making the front door more accessible.
The AI should now better plan its move back into cover after taking a shot, leading to fewer cases where it is stranded in the open. Previously it was assigning a certain portion of its TU to attacking and a certain portion to moving to cover, rather than considering both actions together.
The AI should now turn to face expected danger after making a move, which should prevent examples of the AI staring into corners etc after movement. However the code has been updated so the AI will only consider "known" Xenonauts when doing this.
The AI now makes better decisions when the optimal course of action is to shoot from its starting position and then make a move. Previously it would always move first and then shoot.
Enemy AI no longer has access to the Bravery and Morale of your soldiers when choosing targets for Mind Control, as previously they would always focus in on the most vulnerable units and ignore those most likely to resist.
Roof destruction "frills" have been implemented for most types of roof - these are the irregular "edge" tiles that get placed around the sides of destroyed tiles to make the destruction look more natural (as blowing a perfectly square hole in a roof tends to look a bit odd).
Symbiotes now perform a proper "hatch" animation when they spawn.
Sebillian death animation now largely fits inside a single tile, which should stop the legs of dead Sebillians sticking through UFO walls.
Extract VIP (escort) - the VIP will now create a body item if stunned or killed. This means you can physically pick him up and carry him to the extract area to win the mission if he becomes stunned.
Abduction - local forces / armed civilians no longer spawn on Abduction missions, as the fact that they look identical to the civilians the player is meant to be protecting was proving confusing for some players.
Terror Sites - aliens now start using Fusion weapons at roughly the same time that they appear within UFOs (previously they were getting them later, and some species not at all).
Terror Sites - terror sites spawned from Terror UFOs that are not shot down (as opposed to "normal" sites that do not spawn from UFOs) now have an alien crew of appropriate difficulty. Previously these Terror Sites were significantly harder than they should be.
Terror Sites - tier 1 Psyon terror sites (about day 180) now have one fewer Cyberdrone in them on Veteran difficulty and above.
Xenonaut Base Defence - you are now awarded the item contents of the attacking UFO if you win a Xenonaut Base Defence tactical mission, or if your base defence turrets shoot down the UFO as it tries to attack your base.
Mantids with the upgraded Symbiote launcher weapon should now be more common in late-game missions, as there was a few mission types where they were almost all using standard Plasma / Fusion weapons instead.
When reinforcements spawn on night missions, the tiles on which they spawn are now temporarily illuminated so you can actually see them appear. Previously the camera would focus on the area, but no enemy activity could be seen in the darkness.
The campaign difficulty settings now have a wider array of possible values in many of the dropdowns. Although none of these are used by the default difficulty settings, they permit players more options when customising their campaign difficulty.
The Doomsday bar now has a more stylized appearance.
Hotkeys 1-9 have been set up for strategy navigation. Key "1" is the Geoscape, "2" is the Main Base screen, etc.
Engineering project item costs now show the quantity available in stores for all item types (previously this was only showing for Alloys / Alenium).
Engineering upgrade projects now have more informative descriptions that provide specific numbers for what is being upgraded.
Base Stores Sell / Transfer screens now both have progress bars that visualise the available storage capacity at the selected base(s).
When switching armour on a soldier, the "Jetpack" toggle state is now remembered (previously it would reset to "off" whenever the armour changed).
Launch Aircraft mode now has a unique cursor to make it more obvious when that mode is active.
If Operation Points fall below 0, the number is now shown in red.
The soldier image on the Armory screen no longer flickers when you change soldiers.
Aircraft now display accurate values for speed and range in the Xenopedia, on the Aircraft screen, and when in flight on the Geoscape.
Base "Detection Range" on the Base screen is now called "Detection Radius", and the stated range is now much closer to real-world distances.
Panic levels are no longer shown in the topbar when hovering over a region in Phase 1.
Updated the position of the UFO name / hp / armour text rows in the air combat, as in many cases they were drawing on top of the UFO sprite and were difficult to read.
Retreating aircraft will no longer switch targets automatically if their target is destroyed. This means they won't turn around and start flying back towards the combat area - previously this could be a problem for interceptors tasked with firing a barrage of missiles at long range and then retreating!
The UOO Bridge Assault green tiles around the mainframe (which show the tiles you are trying to defend) are now always visible, not only when in line of sight.
Cyberdrones now perform an additional visual-only explosion when destroyed. Normally this cannot be seen due to the actual death explosion, but it prevents things looking silly if the Cyberdrone is killed by burst fire (as the actual death explosion can only occur after the burst has finished).