Beginner's Guide

Strategy layer

The world is divided into 6 regions: Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, North America, Soviet Russia and Africa & Middle East. Each region has a panic level ranging from 0 to 100. If panic level is 100 at the end of a month the region will surrender to the aliens.

The strategy layer can run at the following speeds:

• Slow: 5 seconds pass every real world second.
• Normal: 5 minutes pass every real world second.
• Fast: 20 minutes pass every real world second.
• Fastest: 100 minutes pass every real world second.

The blue circle around a base indicates its radar range. If a UFO flies over a base's radar range it will be detected and can be attacked using interceptors. Shooting down a UFO will prevent it from causing Panic in the local region. Once a squadron reaches an UFO it will bring the following options:

• Commence Attack: Starts an air battle between the interceptors and the UFO.
• Autoresolve Attack: Automatically resolves the air battle between the interceptors and the UFO. If the outcome is not desired the battle can be tried again as a regular air battle.
• Tail Target: Interceptors will follow the UFO until they run out of fuel and can attack at any point.
• Tail Until Over Land: Interceptors will follow the UFO until it travels over land and then re-engage the UFO.

If an UFO is shot down over land it will enable a Crashed UFO mission that allows recovering valuable alien technology. The mission is valid for 3 days and if not undertaken it will grant Funds scaling with the size of the UFO.

Air combat

Air combat takes place in real-time. Interceptors can execute the following maneuvers.

• Evasive Roll: Interceptor attempts to dodge incoming weapons fire. Certain weapons prevent the interceptor from rolling.
• Afterburners: Increases movement speed but disables weapons and evasive rolls.
• Retreat: Interceptor flies away from the UFO until it escapes the combat map.

Land combat

Land combat consists of turns during which each team chooses what actions its soldiers will take.

The green bar below a unit's health shows its Time Units, or TU, the starting amount depending on the soldier's Time units attribute. Each action consumes Time Units. Moving, rotating, crouching and uncrouching consumes a fixed number of TUs and most attacks consume a percentage of the TU bar. This means soldiers with higher TU are more mobile and versatile but cannot fire more times per turn. Any TU left at the end of the turn will be spent on Overwatch Fire during the opponent's turn. Time Units are replenished at the start of each turn.

Weapons inflict between 50% and 200% of their Damage value each time they hit, depending on the body part hit. Each weapon has a maximum range, visible during combat with green squares when targeting an enemy. It is possible to fire beyond a weapon's maximum range but its damage and hit chance will be reduced.

Most weapons have multiple fire modes, with varying Accuracy and TU costs. The most expensive fire mode is selected by default but can be changed by right-clicking on the target.

Most forms of cover are destructible. Free Fire mode can be used to manually attack pieces of cover and destroy them.

Interceptors

Interceptors are used to attack UFOs. Up to 3 interceptors can be assigned on the same attack. Interceptors can be equipped with various weapons.

Weapon	Damage	Penetration (armor)	Destruction (armor)	Reload Time (sec)	Range	Fire Arc	Ammo	Evasive Roll	Production cost
Autocannon	5	0	-0.5	0.25	3	30	40	Enabled	Free
Sidewinder Missile	25	0	-1	0.25	5.5	25	4	Enabled	100000 Funds
Skylance Torpedo	30	20	-10	1	7	12	2	Disabled	100000 Funds
Accelerated Cannon	7	1	-0.5	0.25	3	20	40	Enabled	120000 Funds 10 Alien Alloys
Alenium Missile	40	0	-2	0.25	5.5	25	4	Enabled	120000 Funds 8 Allenium
Alenium Torpedo	50	25	-15	1	7	12	2	Disabled	120000 Funds 10 Allenium

Mission types

Xenonauts 2 features the following mission types:

Mission type	Time (days)	Rewards	Objective
Abduction	3	-10 Global Panic Level 5 Alien Alloys per deactivated abduction tube 3 Alenium per deactivated abduction tube	Rescue at least 5 civilians from abduction tubes within 7 turns
Crashed UFO	3	Alien alloys Alenium if UFO was Destroyer or larger Alien Hyperdrive if UFO was Destroyer or larger	Eliminate all hostile units within the UFO and hold it for 3 turns
Terror	1	-30 Region Panic Level	Eliminate all hostile units
Cleaner Operations Site	Persistent	250000 Funds	Eliminate all hostile units