Xenonauts 2 tips to stop you from making the silliest mistakes in this XCOM-alike
8.15.2023
By Julian Benson, Contributor
If you’ve played Firaxis’ XCOM, the reboot of the similarly-named 1994 classic, then you will be familiar with the setup; however, you may not be used to Xenonauts' complexity. The original X-Com was much more demanding in its tactical battles than its reboot, offering you many more ways to mess up, and that's exactly what Xenonauts 2’s developer Goldhawk Interactive captures in this spiritual successor.
While you will learn hard lessons no matter how much you prepare for your Xenonauts 2 campaign, the tips below will stop you from making some of the sillier mistakes.
Always sweep your landing zone
Don’t be fooled by your dropship’s big rear-facing off-ramp. Yes, it may point out into unknown territory that’s full of enemies champing at the bit to kill you, but your aircraft has side doors for a reason.
Remember, in every mission, you’re landing in enemy territory. Even though you will land near the edge of a map, the space between your dropship and the closest edge is not guaranteed to be empty—your foes can be waiting all around you.
Because of this, you should make sure to sweep your landing zone in order to prevent hiding aliens from attacking you from your flanks and rear.
Master overwatch
In Firaxis’ XCOM reboot, overwatch is an ability that you activate that allows your soldiers to fire on enemies that cross their sightlines. When used right, it’s a powerful way of punishing enemies that advance on your position. In Xenonauts 2, every unit in the game will automatically enter the counterattack state at the end of their turn. So long as your soldiers have enough Time Units (TU) to fire their weapons, they will shoot any enemy who passes them.
Overwatch rewards cautious play. If you suspect the enemy is near but don’t want to risk stumbling into them while scouting ahead, you can set your soldiers up in defensive positions and wait for your foe to come to you. However, there are important details you must keep in mind.
Your soldiers must have enough TU to use their weapons in overwatch. Before confirming a move order, check how much TU your soldier will have left over; ideally, you want enough for them to fire their weapon. The icon above the picture of their gun on the bottom section of the screen shows how much TU they need to attack. Your troops will automatically use the highest accuracy attack they can. Usually, this means they can only use overwatch once. However, if a soldier hasn’t moved at all and their weapon uses only a little TU, they might fire multiple times.
Secondly, you should remember that all the rules about overwatch also apply to enemy units. When advancing, remember that if your foe’s waiting for you, they will likely shoot at every soldier you move into range. Enemy overwatch makes breaching UFOs particularly dangerous. There are often many aliens in cover with their gun sights trained on the ship’s entrance, and they're not going to hold back if you walk into their trap.
Flashbangs are particularly useful for breaching because they sap affected targets of TU – significantly reducing their ability to use overwatch. However, they only do minor damage, so keep that in mind.
Send the robot first
It’s wise to research and build MARS units early in your campaign. These remote-controlled tanks can move long distances, carry big guns, and—most importantly—go into dangerous locations first.
In the early game, MARS are much stronger than your standard soldiers, which means they can level the playing field against the better-armed aliens. Lean on them to scout ahead of your soldiers in order to spot enemies and draw out their overwatch fire—each robot's steel skin is far more expendable than your fleshy marines. If you lose a MARS, your engineering team can rebuild it for half its initial purchase cost.
MARS are more than just a weapons platform; the robots can drive straight through walls and cover, so if you want to open a new door into a building, simply order them to plow through the masonry. DIY doorways are a great way to flank your enemies or create a more direct escape route.
However, while it can be tempting to have your MARS do all the heavy lifting, try to ensure your human soldiers finish off enemy troops. The robots can’t gain experience or level up, whereas human units get a healthy XP bonus for every kill.
Friendly fire
Next to the aliens invading Earth, the next biggest threat to your soldiers is their squadmates. Friendly fire is all too possible in Xenonauts 2, and if you’re not careful in placing your troops and lining up your shots, you will do yourself a massive amount of preventable damage.
Any time a soldier fires past a squadmate at a target, there is a 25% chance they will hit their friend. With oversized units, like the MARS robots, it increases to 50%. With guns that fire multiple rounds, such as machine guns and shotguns, every round has to pass the percentage check. This means that a ten-shot burst of machine gun fire is almost guaranteed to hit your own soldier at least once.
There are ways to avoid (or at least minimize) friendly fire, but you have to be smart. For a start, you can shoot over kneeling soldiers without a penalty. So, if you have multiple rows of soldiers, ensure the front row kneels by the end of their turn. And remember, even if you don’t order your soldiers to shoot over their friends, they may do it automatically because of overwatch. There’s almost nothing more facepalm-inducing than your sniper shooting your shotgunner in the back of the head instead of the alien charging your front line.
One way to reduce friendly fire when advancing on a target—like a crashed UFO—is to move your troops according to their weapon range. First, you move your snipers to their distant positions first, which gives them a clear line of sight with their long-range rifles. Then, your riflemen move forward with their mid-range assault weapons, and your shock troops come in front with their shotguns and machine guns. This way, no one is shooting through a comrade as they advance.
Above all, make sure your troops don’t end up in a crossfire situation. Flanking your enemy is a good idea, but think about where bullets will go if your shots miss. In Xenonauts 2, bullets only stop when they hit something—if that’s not your target or a piece of cover, it may be one of your soldiers that gets grazed.
Don’t panic if your soldiers panic
Your soldiers will suffer morale hits if they’re shot outside of cover, surrounded, or see their friends die. This can even make them panic, which means they throw down their weapon and retreat as far as their TU will allow. While this isn't great, they can return to the fight after a one-turn breather.
If you can navigate the scaredy cat to where they dropped their weapon, soldiers can pick it back up again. Click the backpack icon on the bottom right of the HUD to access any objects on the floor, and just drag it back to their primary weapon slot.
Always carry medkits
Giving your soldiers a sidearm instead of a medkit can be tempting—after all, you don’t want your sniper caught short at close range, do you?
While that makes a sort of sense, it's actually way worse when one of your soldiers suffers a gunshot wound and you have no way to staunch the bleeding. A good rule of thumb is to have at least one medkit for every three soldiers.
Build medical and training facilities
No matter how good a commander you are, stray bullets, plasma, and grenade fragments will eventually send your soldiers to the medical bay, which may leave you short-staffed in the muscle department.
One of the best investments you can make early in your campaign is building a medical center. When it’s up and running, it increases the healing rate of your injured soldiers, and it gives downed troops a greater chance of being wounded rather than killed in action.
You should also build a training facility. While your soldiers learn best in active combat, they can level up their stats safely if they have somewhere to practice their skills during downtime.
Base building isn’t covered in the tutorial, so it can be easy to miss. When you’re in the strategy layer, you can access the screen by clicking the base symbol on the top bar between the world map and research screen icons.
Take your time
This applies both in battle and in the campaign. You rarely have a time limit in battle, so advance with caution and force your enemy to come to you wherever possible. Every time you move into the unknown, you are taking a risk that could lead to a soldier dying.
Also, while it's tempting to down every UFO and battle every crash site, you don’t have to take on every mission. If you need the short-term resources or to capture an alien, then take on the task, but you should know that every encounter carries risks. When you shoot down a UFO, you can earn money by letting the nation where it crashes loot the site instead—sometimes, that's the sensible choice.
Embrace loss
Xenonauts, like X-Com and XCOM, is a game about the challenge and the constant threat of failure.
Some of these games' best moments come from loss. A failed mission leaves you with too few soldiers to field an entire squad, but you manage to pull a win out of the bag, making you feel a darn sight heroic. So, when a turn doesn’t go your way, and your finger twitches toward the quick load menu, maybe live with the loss and see what happens next.