History VideoGame / Xenonauts

* Unobtainium: Played straight then subverted. Alien alloy and elerium are needed to make higher-tier equipment but you can only get them from the aliens. However, later on you can research methods to synthesize these material yourself. However, while it is possible to make them yourself, they are still very expensive and slow to manufacture manually.

* [[DoNotRunWithAGun Do Not Teleport With a Plasma Gun]]: [[TeleportersAndTransporters Wraiths]] are unable to teleport and fire on the same turn.

* LampShadeHanging: The Head Scientist enjoys this. Inspecting an Andron wreck will make him comment about its bipedal design (seen below), and he explains *why* you cannot store alien weapons as loot, or why aliens don't attack with their whole fleet.

* RenegadeSplinterFaction: The Cleaners were originally EXDEF, a joint Western and Soviet initiative meant to combat extraterrestrial threats, before going rogue and seemingly [[BecomeTheirOwnAntithesis becoming the aliens' proxies]].

* MauveShirt: Your xenonauts definitely feel like this when you begin the game.

* Unobtainium: Played straight then subverted. Alien alloy and elerium are needed to make the higher tier equipment but you can only get them from the aliens. However, later on you can research methods to synthesize these material yourself. However, while it is possible to make them yourself, they are still very expensive and slow to manufacture manually.

* BadassNormal: Xenonauts are essentially this. They are average soldiers who initially goes off to fight aliens with modern day weapons. Also, armed civilians and soldiers that appear on certain maps also count.

* LesCollaborateurs: The enigmatic Cleaners, who seem to be working with the aliens, are human enemies that the Xenonauts have to contend with. They are later revealed to be EXDEF, formerly a group formed by the west and the Soviets in collaboration to combat the alien threat.

* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: The Xenonauts had to flee CENTRAL after an alien assault, forcing their relocation to the abandoned missile silo in Iceland that is ATLAS Base.

* LesCollaborateurs: The enigmatic Cleaners, who seem to be working with the aliens, are human enemies that the Xenonauts have to contend with.
* TheMasquerade: Aliens have been secretly manipulating the two superpowers into nuclear war, while a covert organization called the "Cleaners" keeps any extraterrestrial evidence (and [[KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade potential loose ends]]) buried. By the time the game starts, however, it's mentioned that this status quo is breaking down as the aliens start losing their patience.

** Doors (including [=UFO=] ones) can now be opened while standing one square to their left or right, making breaching a far less traumatic experience.

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Female Xenonauts can be shown to have been recruited from special forces units that don't allow women in their ranks, such as the U.S. Navy [=SEAL=]s. The prequel novella provides what could be considered a handwaved justification: The SoleSurvivor of the team sent in during the Iceland Incident was a woman (albeit one who [[AnArmAndALeg lost both legs]] in the process).

* HundredPercentAdorationRating[=/=]ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Each of the world's ten regions has a separate relation rating to the Xenonauts. Successfully protecting the regions improves their relation and funding. When the region's funding drops to zero, it stops supporting the player and surrenders to the aliens.
* ActionSurvivor[=/=]BadassBystander: Unlike ''X-COM'', some of the civilians are armed, which can lead to things such as a police officer suppressing an alien with his pistol, or a farmer killing an alien with his shotgun.

* TheMasquerade: Aliens have been secretly manipulating the two superpowers into nuclear war, while a covert organization called the "Cleaners" keep any extraterrestrial evidence buried. By the time the game starts, however, it's mentioned that this status quo is breaking down as the aliens start losing their patience.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Soldiers are promoted to higher ranks based on the number of skill upgrades they achieve through training.

Goldhawk have stated that there are [[http://www.pcgamesn.com/the-chances-of-xenonauts-2-happening-are-better-than-even-say-goldhawk-interactive better than even chances of a sequel happening.]] On 4th February 2016, ''Xenonauts 2'' was confirmed to be underway, [[https://twitter.com/GoldhawkInt/status/694936227636711424 aiming for a 2017 release]].

* OneHitKill: it doesn't matter what armor you're wearing, a melee swipe from a Reaper means a zombified soldier. On a different scale, the Fury interceptor's Singularity Torpedo qualifies: one launch, one UFO obliterated, no questions asked.

* GepEffects: Firing from an upstairs window or a roof grants an advantage in combat. Harridans and any Xenonaut wearing Buzzard or Sential armour can use a JetPack to jump to a roof.

* IHaveTheHighGround: Firing from an upstairs window or a roof grants an advantage in combat. Harridans and any Xenonaut wearing Buzzard or Sential armour can use a JetPack to jump to a roof.

* StunGuns: The shock batons can be researched early in the game, and allow xenonauts to subdue aliens for capture; they're soon supplemented by stun gas and electroshock grenades.

* BlackGuyDiesFirst: The police officer sprite is a black man. Given the map they spawn on (Industrial and city maps, with lots of sightlines through windows) and weapons they spawn with (sometimes shotguns but often a mere pistol), they frequently die before your team has even seen an alien.
* BizarreAlienBiology: The various autopsies reveal that the various alien species have been modified by the Praetors to serve as slave troops. The Reapers reproduce by infecting their host, [[VideoGame/XCom Chrysallid style]].

* ComputerIsACheatingBastard: For whatever reason the doors of the alien craft only close after an alien turn but are left open after your turn, hence leading to lot of frustration early on while breaching alien craft. It's not an insurmountable problem, though -- [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer just blow the door up!]]

* CoolPlane: All available interceptors, from AKA47 versions of [[http://xenonauts.wikia.com/wiki/F-17_Condor_Interceptor the]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon F-16 "Fighting Falcon"]] and [[http://xenonauts.wikia.com/wiki/Mig-32_Foxtrot_Interceptor the]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-25 MiG-25 "Foxbat"]] [[spoiler: up to (for the moment quite possibly) [[http://xenonauts.wikia.com/wiki/X-120_Fury a]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird SR-71 copy made with alien technology]].]]

* DeathOfAThousandCuts: A typical tactic used against stronger Sebillians, especially before advanced weaponry is researched. All those cuts better be inflicted in the same turn, though--Sebillians ''[[HealingFactor heal]]'' on their turns.

* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: Quite a few of your Xenonauts hail from various special operations forces from around the world, such as the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Forces_%28United_States_Army%29 U.S. Army Special Forces]], the British [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Air_Service Special Air Service]], the Soviet [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spetsnaz_GRU Spetznaz]], and many others.

* HighlyConspicuousUniform: [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], xenopedia states since the color spectrum of the aliens is likely vastly different from humans, camouflage patterns and their development would likely be just a huge waste of time and money thus the research department decided to use simple blue jumpsuits to make recognizing friendlies easier; though this doesn't stop [[LampshadeHanging soldiers from wondering why they are wearing uniforms that make them look like huge targets]].

* KnockoutGas: Purple-coloured gas whose Xenopedia description is somewhat reminiscent of carbon monoxide--that is, it binds to hemoglobin or analogous cells in the bloodstream--can be deployed via grenade or rocket. It loses its utility as later enemies wear gastight armor (to be replaced with electroshock grenades), but a thick layer of stun gas is an effective barrier against [[DemonicSpiders Reapers.]]

* {{Unobtanium}}: As in X-COM, you can salvage the alien fuel source, Alenium, which cannot be reproduced terrestrially. Incidentally, even before attempting to use it as a power source, Xenonaut scientists decided they made for even better missile warheads, giving your interceptors an early shot in the arm in terms of firepower.

** The Singularity Cannon is the ''Xenonauts'' equivalent to ''VideoGame/XCom'''s Blaster Launcher with several RealityEnsues caveats attached. It's hugely overpowered, making it as much a danger to your own men as it is to the aliens. It also weighs a whopping 50kg, requiring the user to be wearing Predator PowerArmor, and costs ''half a million dollars'', requires twenty alien alloys (the equivalent requisite of alloys for a Marauder interceptor) to build, and is powered by the same singularity cores required to build the Fury interceptor, so you need to capture a Battleship to build one. On top of that, it requires two hundred man days to build, so you're going to be waiting a long time to get your hands on one.

** [[RealityEnsues Again]], UsefulNotes/ColdWar, which leaves the ideas of powerful mech units for players behind... [[spoiler: to replace them by PoweredArmor with an active inventory, providing the soldiers greater versatility than X-Com would have provided]].

* RealityEnsues:
** Players who try to reverse engineer Alien Alloys in the hope of creating body armour out of alien materials will find [[spoiler:that they can't craft alien body armour because humanity doesn't have any tools or machining capable of shaping it. To get enhanced armour, you actually need to research alien weapons first, then your scientists can find out how they work and ''then'' devise an armour solution from Earth-made materials.]] Along the same lines, your soldiers start out kitted in bright blue uniforms: no point in camouflage if you don't know what kind of visual spectrum the aliens see in.
** Along the same lines, you ''can'' pick up a plasma rifle from an alien's cold dead hands right from the start, but the soldier will take accuracy penalties because the rifle isn't ergonomically designed for human hands and besides, they lack optics.
** You'd think by capturing a Sebilian alive you'd be able to find a way to make use of their HealingFactor. However, your head researcher notes that it can't be adapted to human physiology without extensive genetic engineering. What it can do, though, is be applied to improving medkits.
** FTL research is the key to defeating the aliens, but it would take decades for humanity to develop a working drive. However, jamming FTL drives proves significantly less challenging.
** Predator PowerArmor effectively turns a soldier into a walking tank, giving the highest level of protection, whilst also removing encumbrance limitations, allowing a soldier to carry around heaps of equipment. However, its gauntlets are so bulky that any item that isn't a [[{{BFG}} heavy weapon]] is unusable, so its use is pretty much restricted to support gunners.
** Any infantry with a JetPack can fly around the map, but can't fire while using it, as they need to use both hands to operate the flight controls.
** The Singularity Cannon is so large and has such a heavy recoil that it cannot even be carried, let alone fired, by someone not decked out in Predator armour.
** Humanity does have an initial advantage against the aliens: The flying saucers lack aerodynamics, making human interceptors better at maneuvers in air combat.

* OnlyMostlyDead: There's a small chance that a "dead" soldier may actually survive a battle (though in critical condition) if their body is recovered. It depends on how far their HP drops below zero, though -- if it falls below a certain threshold, FinalDeath is guaranteed.

* DummiedOut: A lot of things in between versions of the Alpha/Beta build (ex. certain types of researchable equipment]. Putting said things back in is one of the current hot topics of the GameMod community.

* GameMod: [[http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/10-Xenonauts-Modding The current community is pretty active ]], working on anything from putting more [[CoolPlane Cool Planes]] [[http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/3217-Realistic-Aircrafts-mod-v1-0 on the game]] to adding MoreDakka [[http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/6054-Walrus-s-Tactical-Ballistic-Expansion-Prerelease?highlight=ak47 for the soldiers]] [[http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5331-Alien-Class-Analysis-Mod to modifying the]] EncyclopediaExposita, [[http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/11-Xenonauts-Mapping providing more maps]] and putting the DummiedOut content back in. The developers have actually been pretty good sports about it.

* VideoGameFlamethrowersSuck: A DummiedOut weapon due to engine limitations, though some mods restore it. Flamethrowers are extremely powerful, but short ranged, heavy and dangerous to use. If a soldier carrying a flamethrower takes a direct hit then there is a chance they will blow up and take nearby allies with them.

** Larger UFOs have teleportation platforms to travel between decks. Seemingly, the aliens don't like to use elevators or stairs. They're only large enough for a single person to use, so forget about getting a tank up to the bridge of a Battleship.

* TeleportersAndTransoporters:

* KnockoutGas: purple-colored gas whose Xenopedia description is somewhat reminiscent of carbon monoxide--that is, it binds to hemoglobin or analogous cells in the bloodstream--can be deployed via grenade or rocket. It loses its utility as later enemies wear gastight armor (to be replaced with electroshock grenades), but a thick layer of stun gas is an effective barrier against [[DemonicSpiders Reapers.]]