Danforth Update - v 1.0.58746 - 11/06/2020

[UnstableVoltage]

We’ve just pushed a small update: v1.0.58476.1 - which should resolve the issue some players are having when trying to enable the Blood and Titanium DLC after a fresh or reinstallation of the game.

Today we released our Danforth update which significantly updates some core game mechanics, adds mission and map variety, and addresses multiple bugs.

Feature Changes

Scavenging Sites Rework and Overgrown Environments

Scavenging sites are now bigger and split up into three types based on the objective.

• Recovering resources
• Rescuing soldiers
• Recovering vehicles

Players can encounter any one of these three types of scavenging site missions and they’ll have to complete the objectives while fending off against constant enemy reinforcements.

Later in the game, players will encounter the Overgrown variant of the scavenging sites which offer better rewards.

Pandoran Citadels Rework

Pandoran Citadels are now bigger and have a more labyrinthian design with high walls blocking the players’ line of sight.

Weapon and ammo crates can now be found in Citadels as well as alien structures.

Scylla Rework

The Scylla has more Hit Points and more armour on each body part. Disabling any of its body parts results in more stacks of Bleed damage.

Personnel Recruits

Players can now recruit soldiers from the Personnel section after researching Haven Recruitment Protocols. These soldiers won’t have armour or weapons and will refresh every 3 days.

Dismissing Soldiers

Players now have the option to dismiss any of their units at any time by selecting them through the Personnel screen

Haven Defense Resident Soldiers

When defending a Haven, players will now find resident soldiers fighting with the attacking forces. If a player unit comes close to a defending unit, the player will gain control of that unit for the rest of the mission.

Haven Defense Starting Mist

If a haven is covered by mist in the Geoscape then there will also be mist after loading into the map itself.

Status Effect Interactions

The following status effect interactions have been updated:

• Sirens and Priest units will lose mind control of all units as soon as they become dazed or paralyzed
• Daze and Paralysis remove the overwatch status from a target, as well as the ability to return fire
• Daze and Paralysis remove reactive abilities from enemies like the Triton’s chameleon ability, Scylla’s mist spawning torso, and the Sentinel’s Preparation ability
• Panic removes return fire, overwatch, and mind control
• A unit with overwatch set cannot return fire
• Turrets and vehicles are immune to paralysis, daze, bleed, and mind control
• Mind controlling a Siren removes its mind control of other characters
• Melee attacks don’t trigger return fire

Save System Updates

If changes to the game lead to a player’s Tactical saves being invalidated, they will instead receive a warning message and be returned to the Geoscape right before they started the mission.

Turrets and Spider Drone Updates

Turrets and Spider Drones can now be manually controlled by the player as long as they have a Technician or Infiltrator under their control. This control lasts as long as those units stay alive or do not become mind controlled. If the units leave the battlefield or become mind controlled then the turrets/spider drones will continue moving and shooting using their own AI.

Balance / Other

• The maximum Speed stat a soldier can have has been reduced slightly and levelling up the Speed stat costs more SP
• Vehicles and Mutogs have increased HP and Mutogs deal more damage making them more valuable to the player
• Changed the background colour of several Geoscape screens such as the Personnel, Equipment, Deployment, etc.
• Made changes to the explosive barrels so that only the largest explosive tanks will explode after getting hit

Bug Fixes

• Enemies stuck in the environment will now die if they can’t move at the start of their turn
• Fixed a hang when disabling one of the Chiron’s legs
• Fixed an issue where after loading a Geoscape save the player wouldn’t be able to move their selected aircraft
• Fixed a hang after a Mutog attacked an enemy close to an exploding barrel
• Fixed a hang after a friendly soldier died from bleeding out
• Fixed a hang after a Mindfragger attempted to mind control a vehicle
• Fixed a hang after a Triton was hit by a fire grenade
• Fixed a hang after a friendly unit was killed by a melee attack and the unit dropped a specific item
• Fixed a hang after an enemy moved and discovered several units and objectives
• Fixed a hang after an overwatch shot destroyed an enemy unit’s weapon
• Fixed a hang after an enemy tried to heal an ally that was killed by an overwatch shot
• Fixed an issue where landing with a Jet Jump on certain platforms would instantly kill the player’s unit
• Fixed an issue where the player’s containment was emptied after loading a Geoscape save
• Fixed an issue where Mindfraggers would lose their collision after attaching to a unit
• Fixed an issue where enemies would spawn inside certain environments’ props
• Fixed an issue where vehicles had no collision with certain environments’ props
• Fixed an issue where destroyed havens would remain in the Geoscape’s objectives
• Fixed an issue where the remove Mindfragger ability can take upwards of 15 seconds to complete
• Fixed an issue where certain weapons couldn’t reload even if the unit has ammo in its inventory
• Fixed an issue where switching from the Equipment to the Manufacturing screen and then to the Personnel screen would cause certain pieces of equipment to disappear
• Fixed an issue where the Yugotthian Entity can cause 0 damage with its Mark of the Void ability
• Fixed an issue where the research for Alien Citadels was unlocked by destroying a Nest
• Fixed an issue where the objective buttons in the Geoscape were smaller than their icons
• Fixed an issue where the “Tab” key didn’t work in the Free Aim mode
• Fixed an issue where a character info screen with random characters and symbols would randomly appear in the tactical portion of the game
• Fixed an issue where loading a save during the Geoscape tutorial would not update the objectives and the tutorial couldn’t be finished
• Fixed an issue where a Scylla’s movement can be heard during the cinematic after loading into the mission
• Fixed an issue where the evacuation zone for some Synedrion maps was placed in the middle of the map
• Fixed an issue where the “Replenish All” button wasn’t greyed out after replenishing all of the items
• Fixed an issue where the right Ctrl button couldn’t adjust the overwatch’s width
• Fixed the “Hide Helmet” text not fitting in its UI box within the Customization screen
• Fixed an issue where the “Will Points” text spilt out of its UI box in certain languages

[UnstableVoltage]

Previous Patch Notes

Hotfix - v1.0.57630 - 12/05/2020

BUG FIXES

• Fixed a hang when using Rage Burst with certain weapons
• Fixed a hang caused by loading a Tactical save and attempting to move civilians
• Fixed a rare hang that occurred when an enemy was panicked, bleeding and enemy reinforcements spawned on the map
• Fixed an issue that caused more Spider Drones to spawn when using their weapon
• Fixed an issue where weapons and equipment would have their icons duplicated in the selected weapons UI
• Fixed an issue with the “Replenish All” button remaining clickable even after all of the equipment had been replenished
• Fixed the UI not showing that mounted weapons don’t have full ammo before a mission
• Fixed an issue that caused items to remain selected after dragging them with the mouse
• Adjusted the music levels and several unit barks as some of them were louder than intended

Patch Notes - v1.0.57335 “Derleth” - 28/04/2020

Features

• Changed the Lair missions’ layout and objective. Players now have to evacuate all of their units after destroying the Spawnery.
• Units are no longer interrupted while they are using the Dash ability.
• Added a new model for the Scavenger Sniper.
• Added projectile penetration to all weapons. Now if a projectile hits and destroys a wall or body part the projectile will continue flying with the remaining damage.
• Virus damage ticks on the affected target’s turn just like other damage over time effects.
• Added event filters that trigger music according to the missions and factions related to them.
• Added new tactical music.
• Balanced sound levels for most of the tracks.
• Added an HP bar to weapons that appears when you select a weapon that is damaged while in the Tactical layer.
• Added a character info tooltip when hovering over a character that is not currently selected by the player.
• Replenish screen now gives the option to replenish ammo for weapons that don’t have any magazines in storage.
• Partially full magazines will not be visible in the equipment section of the Personnel tab. They will be used to automatically refill their respective weapons after a Tactical mission.
• Added more recruit info in Haven screens showcasing the recruit’s skills, stats and weapons.
• Havens with recruits now have an icon next to them showing the recruit’s class.
• Added a new trading interface accessible from Geoscape without going into Haven info that has a slider and trade all button.
• Added a new set of encounters when a player becomes Supportive, Aligned, or Allied with any faction.

Balance changes

• Disabling certain Spawnery body parts now causes the target to receive more bleed damage per turn.
• All mind control abilities can be used only once per turn.
• Reduced the damage on alien enemies’ acid weapons and attacks:
• Siren Acid Spray reduced from 40 to 30 acid per tick
• Acid Grenade Arthron reduced from 20 to 10 acid per tick
• Elite Acid Grenade Arthron reduced from 30 to 20 acid per tick
• Acid worm explosion reduced from 50 to 30 acid per tick
• Chiron acid mortar reduced from 20 to 10 acid per tick

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that was causing only a smaller portion of the maps to be generated.
• Fixed a series of hangs that were caused by various edge cases involving the Panic status.
• Fixed a hang when Overwatch fire destroyed an enemy’s weapon right as they were about to shoot with it.
• Fixed an issue with the Microsoft Store version of the game causing users who edited their keybinds to have their UI corrupted after loading a saved game.
• Fixed a hang when the Scylla used abilities related to the Spitter Head body part.
• Fixed a rare hang that occurred when Spider Drones tried to move when they had few AP remaining.
• Fixed a rare hang that occurred after successfully defending a haven with low population numbers.
• Fixed a rare issue that caused the player-controlled aircraft to freeze mid-flight.
• Fixed an issue where the player’s aircraft couldn’t move after acquiring more than 10 total ships.
• Fixed an issue that made the overwatch cone bigger at night despite the player’s units having reduced perception.
• Fixed an issue with Gungnir SR-2’s overwatch cone being too short.
• Fixed a performance issue before activating the Dash ability on certain maps.
• Fixed an issue where players weren’t receiving the damage bonuses from certain alien vivisection researches.
• Fixed an issue which caused the camera to focus on the Pacific Ocean when loading a Geoscape save.

Patch Notes - v1.0.56617 - 31/03/2020

GAMEPLAY

• Fixed a rare problem with the game hanging after loading a game
• Fixed an issue where soldiers come with armour when being recruited on Legend difficulty
• Fixed an issue with The Pure not being deactivated after the final mission
• Fixed an issue with “Replenish all” functionality cost
• Fixed a rare issue where a site could not be explored
• Fixed a hang after successfully completing a mission
• Fixed a small issue with resource icons when scrapping items
• Fixed an issue where repair button would remain in the personnel screen after repairing a bionic augmented soldier
• Fixed an issue with gamepad controller where the ability switching in tactical battle won’t work while the Free camera is turned ON
• Fixed an issue where loading autosave right after the battle will not reward skill points to the soldiers
• Fixed a hang in tactical battle during the enemy turn caused by AI
• Crossbows are now recognised as silent weapons

TIME-LIMITED EVENTS

• Added a Geoscape timer to show when time-limited events expire

SOUNDS

• Added some missing UI sounds
• Adjusted audio levels for Blood & Titanium events

Hotfix Patch - 1.0.56200 - 13/03/2020

• Fixed an issue where Microsoft Store users’ saves weren’t shown in the Load Game section
• Fixed an issue where entering any Tactical mission with torso attachments caused the game to hang in the loading screen
• Fixed a hang after completing a Phoenix Base defence with damaged structures
• Fixed a hang related to deploying a turret damaged by acid
• Fixed an issue where the Schism mission on the Disciples of Anu progression track couldn’t be started
• Fixed a visual issue where units were shown not to be proficient with weapons from other classes
• Fixed an issue where recruits could have Priest mutations
• Fixed an issue where the Repair button couldn’t be used inside the Bionics tab
• Fixed an issue where the confirmation pop-up remains after attempting to repair a broken augmented body part
• Fixed an issue where certain Bionics could be applied without the necessary resources

Hotfix Patch - 1.0.56083 - 06/3/2020

• Fixed an issue where people with certain saves couldn’t load them.
• Fixed a hang when the Acid Mortar Chiron was firing while burrowed.
• Fixed an issue where vehicle body part damage wasn’t repaired when returning to Geoscape.
• Increased the speed of the camera movement when scrolling with the mouse cursor in Tactical.

Leviathan 1.0.56049 - 04/3/2020

Armor Changes

• Acid damage application now works like poison (the acid damage is subtracted from the armor each turn and then the amount of damage is reduced by 10). This increases the potency of acid by a lot but is still not a one shot mechanic.
• Re-adjusted acid values on different items to match the new damage application.
• Shred on weapons is increased across the board with notable mentions of Assault Rifles having base shred of 1 so that they are no longer ineffective against armor. Grenades will now have 10 Shred up from 3. Shred for the Pandorans is not increased but this change will affect human enemies.

Weapon Rebalancing

• Odin Grenade - Shredding changed from 3 to 10
• Purification Grenade - Added 5 Shredding
• Ares AR-1 - Added 1 Shredding
• Hel II Cannon - Shredding changed from 10 to 20
• Goliath GL-2 - Shredding changed from 4 to 10
• Gemini V - Shredding changed from 4 to 20
• Bulldog AR-50 - Added 1 Shredding
• VDM Defender - Added 1 Shredding
• Deceptor MG - Shredding changed from 2 to 3
• Fury-2 - Shredding changed from 4 to 10
• Watcher AT - Shredding changed from 2 to 3
• Hailstorm GT - Shredding changed from 2 to 5
• Thor AML - Shredding changed from 6 to 20
• Archangel RL1 - Shredding changed from 5 to 15
• Mjolnir Grenade - Shredding changed from 20 to 30
• Destiny III - Damage changed from 60 to 80
• Ragnarok - Shredding changed from 30 to 40
• Dagon’s Tooth - Damage changed from 100 to 120
• Scion of Sharur - Damage changed from 80 to 100
• Marduk’s Fist - Damage changed from 140 to 160
• Imhullu Grenade - Acid changed from 50 to 20
• Nergal’s Wrath - Added 10 Shredding
• Redeemer - Viral changed from 3 to 5
• Subjugator - Viral changed from 6 to 10
• SDeimos AR-L - Added 1 Shredding
• Hera NP-1 - Paralysing changed from 5 to 7
• Yggdrasil Grenade - Virophage changed from 40 to 60
• Gungnir SR-2 - Virophage changed from 60 to 110
• Athena NS-2 - Paralysing changed from 15 to 20
• Yat AR - Added 1 Shredding
• Uragan MG - Shredding changed from 2 to 3
• Venom Torso Arm Mutation- Changed Damage from 30 to 40 and changed Poisonous from 40 to 50.

Evolution System

• The evolution system progression was advancing too rapidly from tactical battles and less from with time - we are changing this to be weighted more towards the time component making the whole progression a bit smoother.
• We are adding a difficulty component to evolution progression effectively slowing down Pandoran evolution (encountering elite units) for easier difficulties.

ODI

• We have made changes to the ODI to increase the pressure on higher difficulties.
  • If the player does nothing to stop the pandorans:
    • Easy - The game should end in 6 months ingame
    • Normal- The game should end in 5 months ingame
    • Hard - The game should end in 4 months ingame
    • Very Hard- The game should end in 3 months ingame

Dynamic Difficulty

• Changed the way mission success/fail is evaluated.
• Change the expected outcome in favor of the player.
  • These changes mean that the player performance during missions will need to be higher (fewer casualties) for the difficulty to increase.
• Changed the effect of Dynamic Difficulty based on game difficulty (On Easy it will be much more forgiving).

Training and Soldier Progression

• Soldiers will gain fewer Skill Points (SP) when they level up (20 down from 50) but will gain 10 SP for every successful mission.
  • This will make soldiers levelled solely with training facility less efficient then battle experienced soldiers.
• Soldiers will continue to receive SP even at max level making maxing out a souldier possible (it will still take a lot of missions to do so).

Pandorans

• Tritons will be able to use Priest weapons (Viral Weapons).
• New acid mortar Chiron body part.
• New normal/elite acid grenade launcher bodypart for Arthrons.
• New normal/elite viral machine gun launcher bodypart for Arthrons.

Phoenix Base Attacks

• You will now have a minimum of 12 hours to prepare and respond to an attack on one of your bases.

Stealth

• Enemies are revealed in 5 tile radius (if they’re in LOS).
• Attacking without a silent weapon reveals the actor if in LOS.

Factions and Missions

• New subfaction - The Forsaken
  • Appears after Anu researches the mutation tech .
  • Can have all classes Anu have unlocked.
  • Can have all weapons Anu have unlocked.
• Missions
  • Forsaken can appear in Havens attack missions of all factions.
  • Forsaken can appear in scavenging missions and ambushes.
  • Anu/NJ/Syn can appear in scavenging and ambush missions if at bad relations with the Phoenix Project and if they Havens close to the site.
• Factions War
  • Reduced the rate of attacks.

Controls

• Enabled rebindable keys.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a hang when using Electrical Reinforcement on certain maps.
• Fixed a hang when loading certain saves for the Microsoft Store platform.
• Fixed a hang when a Scylla uses the Mist Bomb ability.
• Fixed an issue where Facilities were powered off after loading a save.
• Fixed an issue where an Exit Zone was sometimes placed in the middle of the map.
• Fixed an issue where Adrenaline Rush’s effects were duplicated when loading a save in the Tactical layer.

Hotfix Patch 1.0.55275 - 02/2/2020

• Fixed a bug where players without Storage Facility in one of their bases lost all items in their inventory
  • Players will have to load a game save that was saved prior to items disappearing to retain their inventory
• Fixed a bug that caused Geoscape scans never to complete

Patch Notes 1.0.55225 “Miskatonic” 31/1/2020

MAJOR FIXES

• Fixed a hang when using the Technician’s Manual Control ability on a structural target
• Fixed a hang when a Technician’s turret returns fire and kills an enemy
• Fixed a hang when entering the Scarab in the first Tutorial mission
• Fixed an issue where the player’s units could be deployed inside of walls on some story missions
• Fixed an issue where the Spider Drone Pack ability claimed the player didn’t have enough ammo
• Fixed an issue where loading a game with the bonus power research caused the player’s facilities to power down
• Fixed an issue where Dash, Jet Jump, Deploy Turret, and Vanish couldn’t be used on specific maps
• Improved the Scylla’s AI so it no longer spawns Mindfraggers inside environmental objects
• Fixed an issue where the player’s units couldn’t navigate certain parts of the Moonshot mission

OTHER FIXES

• Fixed an issue where Synedrion Research maps didn’t spawn enough consoles for the player to hack
• Fixed an issue where vehicles and Mutogs couldn’t navigate Phoenix Base maps
• Fixed an issue where units could walk inside certain walls of the Phoenix Base maps
• Improved the collision box of certain environmental elements inside Alien Bases which blocked shots
• Fixed an issue where certain cover spots in Synedrion maps weren’t shown by the UI
• Fixed an issue where units couldn’t vault over some windows in New Jericho maps
• Improved the transparency effect on certain buildings inside Synedrion maps
• Added enemy reinforcement icons to Ambush maps
• Fixed an issue where the player’s units couldn’t jump through circular windows on the roofs of Disciples of Anu maps and destroying the window broke the whole building
• Fixed several issues where environmental props remained floating in the air when the floor beneath them had been destroyed.

Patch Notes 1.0.54973 “Dunwich” - 16/1/2020

Ability Changes

• Rage Burst - Reduced to 5 bursts maximum with 50% accuracy penalty - We want to reduce the effectiveness of the ability while retaining its usefulness against big targets
• Mind Control - Cost increased by 1 AP - Mind Control without any AP cost requirement was making the ability too versatile and, in some cases, too powerful when used by Pandorans.
• Mind Crush - Cost increased by 1 AP - The ability was too strong against groups of enemies, allowing for chain use (as long as enemies die in the process). We are keeping its power effect, but limiting the number of its uses per turn.
• Master Marksman - Accuracy bonus is reduced from 50% to 30%. The ability is too versatile (useful with highly inaccurate weapons) so it needed a bit of tweaking downwards.
• Quick Aim - No longer gives bonus accuracy. The ability is mainly used for its cost reduction component and the added accuracy bonus made it too good.
• Dash - Now costs 1 AP but the range of the ability is increased from 50% to 75% of movement range. Dash is one of the most abused abilities in the game because of its versatility. We do not want to reduce the fun factor of the ability or reduce its power but we want to limit the situations in which it is used. Before the change with 4 dashes a character’s movement range was 100% + 4 x 50% = 300%; after the change 0% + 4 x 75% = 300%. Mobility wise the ability is the same but provides less versatility when it comes to shooting and can effectively be used about 2 times per turn.
• Induce Panic - Cost increased from 2 WP to 3 WP and 1 AP. The ability cost was way too low for its effect and the fact that it had no AP requirement made it spammable.
• Bloodlust - Bonus speed and damage is capped at 50% bonus. The previous bonus of 100% was too strong and was leading to undesired exploits.

Weapons

• Grenade Launcher - Accuracy increased. This change will reduce the frustration of players not hitting anything they want to.
• PRCR Sniper - Damage reduced from 130 to 120. Statistics show that piercing weapons are overused because their power level was not on par with other weapons of the same tech level.
• PRCR Assault Rifle - Damage increased from 30 to 40, burst reduced from 5 to 4, pierce value reduced from 20 to 10 and ammo capacity reduced from 40 to 32. Statistics show that piercing weapons are overused compared to other equivalent tech.

Pandorans

• Mortar Chiron - Reduced explosive power from 60 to 50. Damage was reduced because on some maps players weren’t able to find cover fast enough.
• Spawnery - Hit points are nearly doubled. It was too easily destroyed on Lair missions

Misc

• Mutog Recruitment - Cost of recruitment has been increased significantly. The previous cost was unintentionally low.
• Human Enemies - Generally have more stat points, because they were too easily mind controlled or killed with one shot.
• Medical Bay - Heals not only soldiers but Mutogs too for 4 hit points per hour. Before mutation lab construction there was no chance for the player to heal Mutogs.
• Environmental Destruction - Floors and roofs can be partially destroyed by grenades now.

Major Fixes

• Fixed a hang when a Mindfragger tries to mind control a decoy.
• Fixed a hang when using the flamethrower near the edge of Alien Lair maps.
• Fixed a hang when a Scylla used the Sonic Blast ability right after using the Mist Launcher.
• Fixed a hang when breaking an Arthron’s gun arm while the enemy was stepping out of cover.
• Fixed an issue where the player’s units could be deployed between impassable cover on some Disciples of Anu maps.
• Fixed an issue where units would fall through stairs and die.
• Fixed an issue where the player’s soldiers could deploy in the walls of a Phoenix Base mission.
• Fixed an issue where vehicles couldn’t reach the evacuation zone on some maps.
• Fixed an issue where the environment was blocking the passage to the Spawnery in Alien Lairs.

Other Fixes

• Fixed an issue where vehicles had no collision with some unbreakable pillars.
• Fixed an issue where enemy vehicles could be deployed on the roofs of buildings.
• Fixed an issue where enemy Pandorans could not move from their initial deployment in Alien Lairs.

Hotfix Patch Notes 1.0.54861 - 9/1/2020

• Fixed a game crash in battles during the enemy turn when the enemy is panicked and could be caused by return fire, overwatch, and/or exploding barrels.
• Fixed a game crash when leaving a tactical mission, which was caused by trying to retrieve weapons that are actually body parts of Mutogs, turrets, etc. These will no longer be recoverable.
  • Also, prevents recovering mutated body parts as equipable items.
• Fixed a bug that corrupted saved games that are saved during a battle after a Scylla is killed with the belcher abdomen.
  • Note: this will not retroactively fix already corrupted saved games
• Fixed a hang when loading a saved game where someone was hit by a weapon that causes bleed (e.g., Slasher Siren, Anu Blade) which caused the unit to die from the bleed damage next turn.
• Fixed a bug that doesn’t allow the game to start if you have corrupted save games.
• Fixed a bug that caused the final boss to not play its sounds.

Hotfix Patch Notes 1.0.54580 - 19/12/2019

• Fixed a crash that occurs when launching the game with certain locales.
• Fixed an issue with invalid targeting when behind cover.
• Fixed various sound issues.