NOW OPEN

XENOUS 2.0 xEngine Core

OPEN TO EVERYONE · 18 OCT 2026

Today Xenous 2.0 opens to everyone. It is the new home of the server, built from the ground up, and it replaces the old one. The old server stays up for a few more days so nobody is left without somewhere to play, and then it closes for good.

You know the rooms, you know the race, you know how a DM map goes, so this post skips all of that. What it covers is what you will find inside: the things this server does that no other one you have played does, and the keys and corners nobody would find by accident.

THE KEYS

Everything below, on one card

Every one of them is also a switch in F7, and every one of them is remembered. Set it once and it stays set, in every room, the next time you come back.

YOUR PANEL

F7, and it is yours

Two tabs. Settings is every option you can choose for yourself, in one place, with the key that does the same thing written next to it — so the panel teaches the shortcut while you use it.

Maps is the shop. Pick any map in your room's pool and buy it as the next one: it skips the vote. A bought map cannot be bought again in that room for a while, and you get a short wait of your own before your next one, so nobody owns a room by owning their favourite map. There is no shop in training, where you already choose, or in the clanwar rooms, where the maps are agreed between the clans.

SEE MORE, SEE LESS

Three keys that change the map in front of you

Hidden objects I

Mappers hide things: a block you were never supposed to see, a wall that is there and is not drawn. Press I to show them, as a ghost you can see through or solid, and press it again to put them back. In the rooms where it is on, it is on for everyone, so nobody is seeing something the next player cannot — and in the clanwar rooms it is off for everyone, for the same reason.

Draw distance K

Normal, far or short. Far lets you read a line from much further back. Short is for the machine that needs the frames more than the view.

Decorations J

Trees, bushes, the scenery that costs frames and never decides a run. J puts it away. The track stays exactly as it was.

THE SCOREBOARD

Every room, not just yours

Hold TAB and you see the whole server, room by room, in tabs. Hold the right mouse button as well and a cursor appears: point at anything on the board — a column, a badge, a number — and it tells you what it means.

• FPS is measured on each player's own machine, not guessed.

• A moon by a name means that player has their game minimised. You can see at a glance who is actually at the keyboard.

• A card by a name, in a clanwar room, is the referee of that match.

RECORDS AND PROGRESS

Not finishing still counts for something

F5 slides in the map's top ten, with the gap to first and the date each time was set.

And not everybody finishes a hard map. So the board also keeps how far you got. Your best percentage on a map is saved, and it only ever goes up. It is measured along the line the record holder actually drove — not a straight line from start to finish — so a map that loops, doubles back or teleports you still gives an honest number.

While you drive, that same line tells you where you are on the map right now.

THE TRAINING ROOM

Your map, alone, as many times as you want

Pick any map from the list — the best time on each one is right next to its name — and it is yours. Nobody else's round, nobody waiting on you. Press W when you are ready and the countdown is yours too.

Going back

• /sw saves a warp where you are, /lw takes you back to it, /dw deletes it. Speed and all: you come back out of a warp moving the way you were.

• Hold backspace and the car drives itself backwards through what you just did. Let go and you carry on from there. The warp is for the jump you knew was coming; this is for the one you did not.

A run with a warp or a rewind in it does not go on the records — and the percentage you reach after one does not either. You keep everything you drove clean before it.

Timing one piece of a map

/cps drops a marker where your car is. From then on, every time you reach it you are told how long it took and whether that beat your best. Type it again and it goes. It is for the one corner you keep losing time on.

On maps with a record, you also get splits on the way: at each one, how far ahead or behind the record you are.

Watching somebody else B

Press B to watch whoever else is on your map, and the arrow keys to move between them. You see their splits and their section times as they get them. Press B in the middle of your own run and it ends there — your progress up to that point still counts — and the camera goes to them.

Map lists NEW

Next to Deathmatch at the top of the list, there can be more tabs. Each one is a list of maps put together for something — usually a clanwar on a set date, with exactly the maps that will be played. Open the tab and train the set, in order, without searching for any of them.

CLANWARS

Run by a referee, on a panel

Every clanwar room has its own match: two sides, everybody else watching, and a referee holding the whistle. The referee runs the whole thing from F6 — sides, rounds, maps, pausing and starting — by pointing at it, instead of typing commands while two clans wait.

On your side of it, F2 switches between the views of the match panel, cars come painted in your clan's colours, and Y talks to your team and nobody else. In a free-for-all round, the strip across the top shows who is leading right now, with the gap between them, the way a timing screen does.

PLAYING FAIR

Two things that work on their own

SEE YOU INSIDE

Xenous Administration · Developers Team