We're back with a midweek update here! We're excited to see a good set of new players coming onboard and especially more players testing out wider configurations including controllers, Steam controllers and the Steam Deck too.
Update #27 improves the Steam <-> controller configuration and keybinding bridge, adds some visual flair to the Vanguard's Projection Talent, cleans up some odd cases with auto-ducking, makes Missions cost time and improves the tutorial dialog.
We're excited to have players both playing with Steam controllers, XBox Controllers and Steam Deck. To better support you all, we've improved the Steam configuration for this and everyone using them should have better luck making custom controller bindings. After this update is pushed we will be pushing a custom Steam controller configuration as the default.
Projection Holo
The Vanguard's powerful Projection Talent is now better visualized as their Chameleon Sheathe implant helps them glide through the enemy ranks completely unseen and unheard. We've got so much animation and VFX work to do, it's great to be chipping away at it.
Auto-Duck Improvements
We've adjusted auto-duck to be a little less aggressive. It is now only active during the enemy turn when they are moving. If your merc is about to get spotted due to an enemy on the move, they will duck if that would prevent them from being found out. It no longer will force you to crouch if you want to stand up in specific situations. Auto-duck will get a bit more comprehensive once the movement options are offered per the new UX plan, but as the game handles movement today with the "C" toggle still in effect, we need to loosen the Auto-Duck grip a bit.
Missions Prep and Timing
Running a mission -- in defeat or victory -- now takes up to 1 day. This is important to move the clock forward and for general pacing. When prepping for missions, up to 4 mercs will now be displayed instead of the odd "only 3" rule that was in effect before.
Tutorial Dialog
We've tightened up the starting dialog and made a bunch of nice fixes based on user feedback. And, if you're like me and can't seem to remember to uncheck the checkbox for it when making a new game, there is now a nice option in the dialog to disable the option for future new games (basically "Don't tell me this again.")
v0.6.45 - 10/19/2022
- Improved Steam configuration to better recognize controllers - Vanguard's Projection Talent now visualizes the chameleon skin effect - Fixed bugs with Auto-duck being overactive during your character's turns or moves - Victory or Defeat in a mission now takes up to 24 hours - Pre-mission deploy screen can now show up to 4 mercs - Fixed bug preventing Mission Victory to end if there was a dialog - Improved cleanup of enemy sight cone on death - Improved Tutorial Dialog and fixed typos - Can now disable future Tutorial Dialogs from within the tutorial dialog
Update #26: Stealth Train Rolling
Update #26 is squeaking in under the wire as a weekend update lol. This one has a lot of impactful changes to the stealth parts of the game, both new and nicely improved story elements (in prep for more new story coming next!), a pile of new playtest levels to try out your new weapon rules on and more. That includes the long needed grenade nerf and a mountain of bugs too!
In Cyber Knights, your starting storyline is wrapped around the events leading up to the cyber-surgery to implant a Cyber Knight quantum computer in your spine and will set the conditions, tone and major goals of the first act of the storyline. Therefore, what we've added with Update #26 has no real relation to the starting stories of the game, but it is a starting story blurb that helps introduce the two main characters -- your Knight and Face -- and set some of the stage for what you should consider doing next.
In part, it replaces the dry text that used to be typed up in paragraphs in the HOME tab and translates that "next steps" advice into a Tutorial Dialog between the two characters. You can choose to skip it by unchecking the Enable Tutorial Dialog checkbox in your new game screen (which is remembered so you don't have to worry about unchecking it again).
Tag Along Story Improvements
We've dug back into the dialog and setup for the Gunrunner Tag Along story and its accompanying legwork and adding more choices in exposition dialog, added a lot more discussion about the city's lore and conditions and finally improved the results so that they are more meaningful. Ignore the request will in fact lead to a black out of Gunrunner services, and the results impact more bonuses to the involved character.
+3 new Playtest Levels
While more levels organized into full missions and storylines are coming very soon, we're still rolling out levels for immediate play through the playtesting menu in the MISSIONS tab. Every playtest gives feedback straight to our level design team and helps us tweak, balance and improve the current level set as well as adjust and improve our planning for all future missions.
There is an all-new playtest level Hover Theft that sees you breaking into a hover truck maintenance field to steal a transponder off a registered truck, which will come in handy in a later heist. There is an all-new Three Switch in which you prep a power utility field with a specialized virus that will help knock power off at an appointed time, also to help with a future heist. And finally, we've added an all-new second variant level of Sec Gauntlet a security-device focused puzzle level. The level is completely different, so chose Sec Gauntlet and then pick SVI P1 or SVI P2 at deployment.
In fixes, we fixed a bug that was preventing the matrix host in the Big Door playtest level from actually having a connection to the door. This made the level basically impossible :facepalm: and F.
Auto-Duck and Stealth Updates
Some key changes are in #26 for both your merc and enemy behavior.
First, as we work toward rolling in the new UX design, we're phasing out any need to manage your crouched state. You only really need to be thinking about it when you're moving -- am I sprinting or am I sneaking? The first big convenience that comes along with this is auto-ducking. Being crouched has no impact on combat and now it has no impact on stealth. If an enemy is about to see you but wouldn't if you were crouched, you're merc is going to hiss something like "Head down!" and automatically duck before being seen. Gone are the days of cursing and throwing keyboards if you forgot to hit C at the end of your turn :D
Second, Suspicious enemies are still counted as Surprised. This is a big win for all stealth combatants and especially for Lure. Using noises or other techniques to draw enemies to you will no longer cost your chance for that Pistol's Stealth Crit or your +25% Accuracy.
Third, we've changed two important rotation rules for enemies. When an enemy is attacked, they will rotated toward the point of attack. This may mean that they see you, depending on some factors such as the range of the weapon you used. This is generally going to help AI who survive stealth attacks take more intelligent actions on their next Turn. And the second rotation rule is around Suspicious enemies. A bug had crept into the AI thinking, that once an AI was Suspicious, they no longer needed to rotate to hear new sound events (lure, sneaking, running). This made sneaking up on Suspicious enemies silly easy. Suspicious enemies now rotate toward sounds they hear and will rotate toward footsteps up to twice (when they first hear and when the movement ends if it is in their hearing range) per movement. This also adds the nuance that multiple Lures can be used on enemies again either on the same Turn or across multiple Turns.
Grenade Nerf and Noise
It has been needed for a long time -- and we're in a mode of cleaning house on these types of things -- grenades have been nerfed. Where before they functioned as a one-dimensional get-out-of-jail-free kill the entire reinforcing enemy squad kind of thing, they are now more powerful but with a lot of room to be more interesting. Damage has gone down -- HE Grenades cause a good chunk of Pure Damage and are best for armored targets while Frag Grenades cause more Kinetic Damage in a larger radius and are better for less armored targets.
Both grenades now cause a lot more noise. Detonating a grenade is louder than any weapon and will generally wake the level up.
And a Mountain of Bugs...
A huge thanks to everyone reporting with F10s! We're sorting, organizing and fixing as fast as we can. For more generalized feedback, we're boiling down and adding to design documents for later action and further consideration.
With Update #26, we fixed a bug where Pure Damage was not being properly displayed on target's HP bar because it was being shown with armor reduction. This was most noticeable for Revolvers targeting armored enemies.
Mission payments in the Mission List were not being shown with their difficulty scale, now it is applied. The Armor Store and Armor EQ screens now show armor visualization instead of weapons.
A highly reported and longstanding bug -- that the Security Escalation SFX was way too loud -- is finally put to rest!
And for more, see the full changelog --
v0.6.43 -
- Introductory dialog added between Face & Knight to help set the scene and replace text blobs in Safehouse HOME tab - Disable introductory dialog with new "Enable Tutorial Dialog" option in New Game which is remembered as option - Updated Gunrunner Tag-Along storyline with new dialog choices, more lore and better results - Added new Hover Theft playtest level - steal hover truck transponder box - Added new Security Gauntlet playtest level (new level entirely, pick SVI P1 or SVI P2) - Added new Three Switch playtest level - deploy a virus to 3 power substations - Mercs will now duck into crouch automatically if it would prevent being spotted by an enemy while stealth is still in action - Enemies who are Suspicious still count as Surprised (being heard but not see, or using Lure does not ruin surprise) - Shooting or attacking an enemy will cause them to rotate toward their attacker and possibly spot you - Fixed issue where Lure or other suspicious noises would prevent a guard from hearing other noises (too easy to exploit) - Grenades are louder and cause less Damage, now more interesting choice between HE (Pure Dmg) and Frag Grenades (best vs. low armor) - Fixed bug that underrepresented Pure Damage in attack damage estimates on targets - Fixed mission Big Door playtest which was not allowing door to be opened via matrix RCU - Mission Payment is now correctly scaled by difficulty during offer - Armor visualizer now works in store / equipment lists (was showing weapons) - Fixed overly loud Sec Level escalation SFX - Fixed recoil for first weapon mode sometimes being incorrect in weapon hover - Fixed issues with jumping through the side of elevators
MAJOR MILESTONE Update #25: GUNFIGHT
After much review and, studying feedback and improving the design we're excited to roll out a major revision to Cyber Knights: Flashpoint weapons system.
The goal of the design update is to further develop marked functional differences in weapon types which enable your team to push those weapons into niche roles based on the mods you choose. We've been chipping away at this over the last 3 releases, but this is the biggest lift and we've made major changes to the rules for:
Accuracy, including Glancing Hits
Full Auto, including ability to surge damage on single targets
Well, pretty much all the stats actually :D
With changes to the fundamental rules for Accuracy, Full Auto and major stat rebalances including ranges, shot volume, recoil rates, Armor Crit %, reload AP, it is time to re-evaluate your load outs and see how the new system fits your play style. A lot more weapons are exciting and viable for a lot more reasons now!
We've shared an unlisted YouTube video that goes through all the changes in detail and shows them in action - We are looking forward to hearing your feedback on the changes!
After 3 updates without requiring it, this update does wipe all previous saved games -- sorry!
First up, almost all weapons have lost some Accuracy. This is healthy because your characters, weapons and their mods are going to gain Accuracy throughout their career, and we need enough space to make sure that is meaningful.
Second, all non-Full Auto attacks are now sure to strike Glancing Hits above 85% Accuracy. If you're considering an attack and its 85%+ Accuracy, you are guaranteed to score some Damage even if you roll a miss. This marks an important threshold for gaining advantages over your enemies -- with debuffs, buffs, mods and the high ground, you can get yourself into a sure-fire situation to score hits. There is a key caveat that Full Auto attacks never score Glancing Hits. Watch out, the enemies get the exact same rule!
If you are guaranteed to strike a Glancing Hit, you will see a ^ next to the Accuracy %. Obviously, this will be updated in the new UI but it works for now.
Third, Assault Rifles and SMGs have gained the Precise Burst rule which ensures Glancing Hits above 70% Accuracy whenever using the Burst Fire mode. These Glancing Hits play by the same rule as those for all weapons at 85%+, so if you can achieve over 70% Accuracy you're going to get some Damage even if you roll a natural miss. Especially, watch out, the enemies get the exact same rule!
Fourth, if you get close enough to swing with a melee weapon, you are gauranteed a Glancing Hit regardless of Accuracy (!!) -- no melee attack goes without scoring some Damage. Your starting Accuracy has a big impact on what that Glancing Hit Damage will be, if you're swinging at 40% and get a Glancing Hit it is going to far less Damage than if you swung at 78%. Again, watch out because enemies have this rule too!
Full Auto Gets Good
Full Auto never really came into its own in the previous build -- it was never that exciting to use nor did the trade-off feel justified outside of rare situations.
To address Full Auto and try to make it a powerful and very fun firing mode to use, Full Auto has been split out into a larger number of attacks spread across the targets -- for example, the starting Assault Rifle gets 4 Full Auto attacks at 110 Damage, an Urban Assault Rifle (bullpup) gets 6 Full Auto attacks at 100 Damage and an SMG gets 6 Full Auto attacks at 85 Damage.
Each attack Accuracy is rolled separately making Full Auto less susceptible to full misses
Each Critical Hit, Armor Shred and Damage is rolled separately. At maximum, Armor can be shredded once
Full Auto attacks never score Glancing Hits
Full Auto attacks gain no Focused Fire bonuses
Now for the fun part - while before each target could be hit by a single Full Auto attack, now a single target can be hit by up to 3 separate Full Auto attacks. Therefore, you can surge Damage by using Full Auto against a single target, or with an UAR against up to 2 targets. There are suddenly lots of reasons to consider Full Auto even when you're AOE template isn't lining up nicely.
When you target enemies with Full Auto, you'll see one or more * next to the Accuracy % indicating how many attacks they will receive. Obviously, this will be updated in the new UI but it works for now
And, if the shot allocation isn't working out the way you like (the main target + up to 3 nearest targets are selected and then shots are allocated by highest %) then you can reduce or increase the number of Full Auto targets by using keybinding default to Page Up and Page Down. Therefore, you have fire control to use Full Auto against a single target even if they are standing in a crowd or widen up your firing to include up to 4 maximum targets if you want to spread damage or a debuff.
Pg Up for up to 4 targets, Pg Down to reduce
Enemies are notably not using Full Auto yet, and the use of this powerful and surge Damage ability will be likely kept to specific enemy classes so you can see them coming and plan accordingly (duck!!)
Recoil, Volume, and Niches for All Weapons
To further push the weapon niches, we've also reduced default Criticl Dmg Bonus to +50%, pushed Revolvers to have Heavy Hit 100, Pistols have the Stealth Kill 100% rule. For each, you need to work to bring your own Critical Hit % but we're hoping these can help them stand out.
Across the board, Recoil and Volume have increased. Loud weapons are louder, so seek quiet weapons in your kit if you plan to be stealthy. Recoil for SA/BF are slightly higher but Recoil for Full Auto is significantly higher. This increases the pressure to consider how to sequence your shots and movement to get the best results from your Turn and also shines a spotlight on powerful Soldier Talents like Splatt Patt and Iron Grip which can help make FA twice in a Turn possible.
Better Combat Logs
We've also improved the combat log for all attacks so that Glancing Hits and Full Auto shots are all logged nicely alongside regular attacks.
Cleaner Starts
We've revamped the Hacker's starting equipment to give them a Pistol and an AR and we've removed all the codenames from your starting crew. They can earn them by survive their first mission!
We've also fixed a bug that was unfairly keeping the max character level at 10 instead of 14. With this higher max, we've now separated the max level (14) from the starting max level (10), leaving you some room to grow your team even if you check the high level group starting point.
v0.6.41 - 10/10/2022
- All attacks over 85% Accuracy are guaranteed score Glancing Hits - Burst Fire attacks from ARs and SMGs over 70% Accuracy are guaranteed to score Glancing Hits - All melee attacks, regardless of Accuracy are guaranteed to score Glancing Hits - Full Auto attacks now do multiple attacks spread across up to 4 targets (SMG does 6 attacks, spread evenly) - Pg Up / Pg Down to increase or reduce targets for a Full Auto attack (surge damage on less targets) - Default Critical Dmg bonus for all weapons reduced to +50% - Revolver upgraded to "Heavy Hit 100" (+150% Crit Dmg instead of +50%), Noise up to 35m, Armor Shred down to 15% - Pistols upgraded to "Stealth Kill 100" (+150 Crit Dmg on Stealth) - Reduced standard AR reload size to 6 - Raised Recoil values across all weapons, especially for Full Auto attacks - Raised Volume for shots fired by most weapons - if you want sneaky shots, you must pick sneaky weapons and mod - Improved combat logs for all attacks - Improved starting equipment for Hacker - Only Knight and Face start with codenames now, all other mercs earn them on missions - Fixed issues where "Shredded" appeared even if there was no armor to shred - Fixed issue where some enemies would not move or advance on their turns - Fixed bug with starting Ward Run level, characters floating on air - Fixed lack of lighting in victory / defeat scenes for dialog
MAJOR MILESTONE Update #24: GUNFIGHT
After much review and, studying feedback and improving the design we're excited to roll out a major revision to Cyber Knights: Flashpoint weapons system.
The goal of the design update is to further develop marked functional differences in weapon types which enable your team to push those weapons into niche roles based on the mods you choose. We've been chipping away at this over the last 3 releases, but this is the biggest lift and we've made major changes to the rules for:
Accuracy, including Glancing Hits
Full Auto, including ability to surge damage on single targets
Well, pretty much all the stats actually :D
With changes to the fundamental rules for Accuracy, Full Auto and major stat rebalances including ranges, shot volume, recoil rates, Armor Crit %, reload AP, it is time to re-evaluate your load outs and see how the new system fits your play style. A lot more weapons are exciting and viable for a lot more reasons now!
We've shared an unlisted YouTube video that goes through all the changes in detail and shows them in action - We are looking forward to hearing your feedback on the changes!
After 3 updates without requiring it, this update does wipe all previous saved games -- sorry!
First up, almost all weapons have lost some Accuracy. This is healthy because your characters, weapons and their mods are going to gain Accuracy throughout their career, and we need enough space to make sure that is meaningful.
Second, all non-Full Auto attacks are now sure to strike Glancing Hits above 85% Accuracy. If you're considering an attack and its 85%+ Accuracy, you are guaranteed to score some Damage even if you roll a miss. This marks an important threshold for gaining advantages over your enemies -- with debuffs, buffs, mods and the high ground, you can get yourself into a sure-fire situation to score hits. There is a key caveat that Full Auto attacks never score Glancing Hits. Watch out, the enemies get the exact same rule!
If you are guaranteed to strike a Glancing Hit, you will see a ^ next to the Accuracy %. Obviously, this will be updated in the new UI but it works for now.
Third, Assault Rifles and SMGs have gained the Precise Burst rule which ensures Glancing Hits above 70% Accuracy whenever using the Burst Fire mode. These Glancing Hits play by the same rule as those for all weapons at 85%+, so if you can achieve over 70% Accuracy you're going to get some Damage even if you roll a natural miss. Especially, watch out, the enemies get the exact same rule!
Fourth, if you get close enough to swing with a melee weapon, you are gauranteed a Glancing Hit regardless of Accuracy (!!) -- no melee attack goes without scoring some Damage. Your starting Accuracy has a big impact on what that Glancing Hit Damage will be, if you're swinging at 40% and get a Glancing Hit it is going to far less Damage than if you swung at 78%. Again, watch out because enemies have this rule too!
Full Auto Gets Good
Full Auto never really came into its own in the previous build -- it was never that exciting to use nor did the trade-off feel justified outside of rare situations.
To address Full Auto and try to make it a powerful and very fun firing mode to use, Full Auto has been split out into a larger number of attacks spread across the targets -- for example, the starting Assault Rifle gets 4 Full Auto attacks at 110 Damage, an Urban Assault Rifle (bullpup) gets 6 Full Auto attacks at 100 Damage and an SMG gets 6 Full Auto attacks at 85 Damage.
Each attack Accuracy is rolled separately making Full Auto less susceptible to full misses
Each Critical Hit, Armor Shred and Damage is rolled separately. At maximum, Armor can be shredded once
Full Auto attacks never score Glancing Hits
Full Auto attacks gain no Focused Fire bonuses
Now for the fun part - while before each target could be hit by a single Full Auto attack, now a single target can be hit by up to 3 separate Full Auto attacks. Therefore, you can surge Damage by using Full Auto against a single target, or with an UAR against up to 2 targets. There are suddenly lots of reasons to consider Full Auto even when you're AOE template isn't lining up nicely.
When you target enemies with Full Auto, you'll see one or more * next to the Accuracy % indicating how many attacks they will receive. Obviously, this will be updated in the new UI but it works for now
And, if the shot allocation isn't working out the way you like (the main target + up to 3 nearest targets are selected and then shots are allocated by highest %) then you can reduce or increase the number of Full Auto targets by using keybinding default to Page Up and Page Down. Therefore, you have fire control to use Full Auto against a single target even if they are standing in a crowd or widen up your firing to include up to 4 maximum targets if you want to spread damage or a debuff.
Pg Up for up to 4 targets, Pg Down to reduce
Enemies are notably not using Full Auto yet, and the use of this powerful and surge Damage ability will be likely kept to specific enemy classes so you can see them coming and plan accordingly (duck!!)
Recoil, Volume, and Niches for All Weapons
To further push the weapon niches, we've also reduced default Criticl Dmg Bonus to +50%, pushed Revolvers to have Heavy Hit 100, Pistols have the Stealth Kill 100% rule. For each, you need to work to bring your own Critical Hit % but we're hoping these can help them stand out.
Across the board, Recoil and Volume have increased. Loud weapons are louder, so seek quiet weapons in your kit if you plan to be stealthy. Recoil for SA/BF are slightly higher but Recoil for Full Auto is significantly higher. This increases the pressure to consider how to sequence your shots and movement to get the best results from your Turn and also shines a spotlight on powerful Soldier Talents like Splatt Patt and Iron Grip which can help make FA twice in a Turn possible.
Better Combat Logs
We've also improved the combat log for all attacks so that Glancing Hits and Full Auto shots are all logged nicely alongside regular attacks.
Cleaner Starts
We've revamped the Hacker's starting equipment to give them a Pistol and an AR and we've removed all the codenames from your starting crew. They can earn them by survive their first mission!
We've also fixed a bug that was unfairly keeping the max character level at 10 instead of 14. With this higher max, we've now separated the max level (14) from the starting max level (10), leaving you some room to grow your team even if you check the high level group starting point.
v0.6.39
- All attacks over 85% Accuracy are guaranteed score Glancing Hits - Burst Fire attacks from ARs and SMGs over 70% Accuracy are guaranteed to score Glancing Hits - All melee attacks, regardless of Accuracy are guaranteed to score Glancing Hits - Full Auto attacks now do multiple attacks spread across up to 4 targets (SMG does 6 attacks, spread evenly) - Pg Up / Pg Down to increase or reduce targets for a Full Auto attack (surge damage on less targets) - Default Critical Dmg bonus for all weapons reduced to +50% - Revolver upgraded to "Heavy Hit 100" (+150% Crit Dmg instead of +50%), Noise up to 35m, Armor Shred down to 15% - Pistols upgraded to "Stealth Kill 100" (+150 Crit Dmg on Stealth) - Reduced standard AR reload size to 6 - Raised Recoil values across all weapons, especially for Full Auto attacks - Raised Volume for shots fired by most weapons - if you want sneaky shots, you must pick sneaky weapons and mod - Improved combat logs for all attacks - Improved starting equipment for Hacker - Only Knight and Face start with codenames now, all other mercs earn them on missions - Fixed issues where "Shredded" appeared even if there was no armor to shred - Fixed issue where some enemies would not move or advance on their turns - Fixed bug with starting Ward Run level, characters floating on air - Fixed lack of lighting in victory / defeat scenes for dialog
September Progress Report
Another month and another major set of features and content milestones have been completed! During September, we released 3 major alpha updates packed full of features, improvements from community feedback and content. Two of the major systems that we wrapped up this month are close to our hearts: difficulty and Trait mutation. Both have drawn a lot of inspiration and lessons learned from our last game, Star Traders: Frontiers. In addition, the UX team has completed the visual design for the both the main mission screens as well as the Matrix Mk2.
As always, there are far too many dev milestones to list them all here, but let’s check in on a few!
UX Redesign
For a long time, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint has been living with a functional, if not beautiful, game UI. Working with our UX team, we’ve now completed the discovery, wireframe design and finally the visual design for the main tactical modes of the game -- the real-life heist missions as well as the Matrix Mk2 hacking you can engage in during a heist.
We still have the challenging task of bringing the full UI design into the game, but all the assets are ready, and we’re prepared to start this week while the UX team is moving on to a very exciting discovery and wireframing process for the Safehouse.
Starting with wireframes for rapid design and iteration -- ^^ Wireframe of main map + character status
^^Wireframe of hacking the Matrix Mk2
We progressed to the final visual design -- ^^ Visual design of main map + character status
^^ Visual design of hacking the Matrix Mk2
And then into animations --
^^Which will especially helpful to bring the overlord Security AI "to life" as an adversary --
Difficulty System
We take difficulty systems very seriously in all of our games! During September, we carved out 6 difficulties, each one slowly ratcheting up the challenge curve across all aspects of the game. The final needed addition which is planned to be added during the Steam Early Access period is our classic Custom Difficulty setting to allow you to fine tune difficulty with extreme precision -- just like you could in CK classic with famous difficulty settings like Live Fast, Die Young (LFDY) that maxed out starting credits and enemy difficulty.
This is an area where we’ve listened closely to our Star Traders: Frontiers players over the years and we’ve made difficulty aspects even more nuanced than ever before. We’ve also added the #1 most highly requested difficulty feature from STF which is to enable slowing down or speeding up of the game’s story. This will allow players who want to take more time and explore more angles of the game without feeling a time crunch to play at a more relaxed pace and also let those who love the pressure of the tick-tick-tock-tick of a very short clock to prove they can play the game with a icy calm no one else can handle.
Difficulty settings can adjust a very wide range of game aspects including mission XP and monetary rewards, the cost of all types of goods and services, the speed of the story, your character’s base resistance to Trait mutations, Wounds, Armor Shredding and Death as well as increasing the enemy’s scaled Power Level, Matrix Power Level, enemy hitpoint pools and more. Between the 6 difficulty levels (Casual, Easy, Normal, Hard, Brutal, Chrome) and the to-be-added Custom Difficulty, you’ll be able to tune your play to your own style.
Trait Progression
We rolled out the Trait mutation system which is an evolution of the system we built for Star Traders: Frontiers but with a strong focus on delivering a compelling experience for a smaller squad. Throughout their career, your character's Traits come from their backstory, events in their life, battle wounds and from choices they make in their stories.
As your merc’s career progresses, events and story choices - surviving a mission, taking heavy wounds in combat, seeing a friend die in battle, succeeding at Legwork, maxing out your cyber, etc - will build up negative and positive points in two separate pools. When either of these pools grow large, they can cause Trait mutations which can either weaken or strengthen a positive or negative Trait. Different aspects of your base building choices at your Safehouse, choices you make in stories and medical care you’re willing to pay for can help manage these swings.
This system allows Traits to have varying impact on your character, change and mutate throughout your character’s careers as events take turns for the better or worse and still honor the Traits that make them who they are and carefully manage the number of Traits they have so there is room to add more at the right pivotal moments.
Power-Broker & Heist Surveys
We’re excited to announce that the surveys to gather the first round of input for the top tier rewards - Power Broker and Heist Edition - have been sent out to backers. Cory and I are personally reviewing every incoming response and it's clear already that these big rewards are going to lead to some extremely fun co-creative endeavors with our backers as we fill New Boston up with wild, eccentric and dangerous characters.
If you haven’t received a survey email but should have, please reach out to us here or email andrew@tresebrothers.com
Reward and Stretch Goal Progress
For completeness, we include the progress bar infographic in each and every update. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us. With this month’s update, we’ve sent out the surveys for Power Broker and Heist Editions and so those two reward categories have moved into in-progress status.
Alpha Update #24: Quality of Low Life
Last week, we were preparing for Cyber Knights: Flashpoints' public demo in the TactiCon Steam event and so, this week's update is all about bug fixes and quality of life improvements. Next week, we'll be back with some new and exciting content :D
It's a private playtest, so I can still make amazingly awful puns in the update titles! Can't stop me!
Speed of Play Increase
With Update #24, we've added a new system for detecting if an enemy's turn will have immediate impact on your squad and if it is deemed that they will not then their turn is taken instantly without drawing the camera. In this case, their turn is written to the log ("Upso continued patrol route").
The conditions considered are very specifically tailored to make sure we're not hiding information you need but suppressing really far off enemies who are eating up screen time. Here is a high-level list of things considered:
Far away (at least 35m) at the start of their Turn
At least 35m away at the end of their Turn
Will not discover a player or a dead body
Not engaged directly in combat
Will not run into any player overwatch field
Not on screen (so, this means hanging at a wide zoom can cause more enemy turns to play)
If you feel like this additional information and context is valuable, you can use the new option "Show All Enemy Turns" which will force every enemy turn to be played out in full detail.
AI Improvements
The work to allow for instantly completing enemy turns have also fixed a number of other bugs related to enemies. On reloading a game, guards used to very often skip their first Turn instead of patrolling -- now fixed. Also, when you were moving across the map, sometimes not all of the guards would appear in a timely fashion on the Initiative list -- now fixed. Finally, if an enemy saw multiple corpses from their team as they moved during their Turn, they would stop and replan after seeing each one, which could throw them into a pretty bad tizzy -- now fixed.
Hotkey for Center Camera
We've added a default hotkey "V" to recenter the camera on the current character. This quick move can help bring you back to the action after you've been out panning around for a bit.
Mission Fixes
We've fixed Big Door DMO Path 1 where your mercs started floating on air and also Cadaver Sample objective where the enemy guards could end up in a spawn loop (Bad!!).
Finally, there were some bugs that allowed certain elements of cut-scenes and dialogs to replay on later Turns if you picked Skip Cut-Scene. That's now put to bed to rest.
Overwatch Threat
Getting shot by Overwatch will now always cost you 1 AP no matter how short of a distance you may have moved.
The Look
There is so much to do to keep making the game look better, we've got a long way to go! With this update, we've improved the antialiasing in the safehouse scene (for your merc visuals for now), fixed some beard placements that were not quite right and adjusted some of the placements of weapon mods on pistols that were clipping.
In addition, we've changed some of the shadowcasting rules for our assets to ensure that everything that should cast a shadow is. In previous builds, some walls were oddly not casting shadows! A ton of places where there was clipping geometry -- doubled-up wall corners, odd triangles sticking out of places, etc -- have also been fixed.
We've also increased the visual options within broken concrete walls in streets so that they have more rebar sticking out of them and not all can be vaulted over.
Matrix Too!
A big one for hackers -- when hacking you are now correctly considered crouching for the stealth game. This can be a matter of life and death when patrols are swinging by and you're relying on some cover to buy you one more Turn!
We fixed a bug where story and matrix terminals simply had switched hovers. Each claimed to be the other :facepalm: if you were trying to access a Matrix Terminal with a non-hacker you will now get a kind warning instead of a lockup in the game.
- Increased speed of play - enemies who are far away and will have no direct impact on their Turn complete their turn instantly and without camera focus - New game option “Show Enemy All Turns” forces all enemy turns to be fully displayed even if they are far away and have no direct impact - Added new hotkey “V” to recenter on the current character - Improved antialiasing in safehouse scene - When moving and interrupted by Overwatch, a merc will lose at minimum 1 AP even if they did not cross any distance - Fixed bug with Cadaver Sample mission objective that caused an enemy spawning loop - Fixed issue with Big Door start Path 1, team was floating on air and locked up - Fixed enemy patrol bug where many guards would not patrol on the first turn after a reload - Fixed bug where enemies might not appear on Initiative list until end of player’s turn even though they were visible on the map - Improved variation in broken wall sections in street levels - less places to jump over, more twisted rebar - When hacking, a hacker is now correctly considered crouching for purposes of being spotted by enemy agents or security devices - Fixed attack target canceling too easily when clicking on enemy - Fixed bug where hover for matrix and simple story terminals were switched - Fixed soft lockup when attempting to access a Matrix terminal with a non-hacker - Fixed issue reloading a saved game where a hacker was not visually connected to the host - Fixed issue where Cybersword Whisperkill Talent was not always activating on stealth kill - Fixed issues where enemies might stop ragdolling on death after playing multiple levels - Fixed issue where some segments of a story sequence that was skipped would reappear on later turns - Fixed cases where walls were not correctly casting shadows if light was behind them - Fixed issue where enemy AI could see multiple dead bodies during a turn and replan after seeing each one - Fixed issues with some beard and hat placements - Fixed issue with placement of light pistols optics - Hunter Red Dot etc
Alpha Update #23: Mutations and Weapons
Update #23 continues to expand the scope of play and progression with a new playtest level and addition of Trait mutation system. We've also expanded the
Update #23 does not require that you wipe your previous saved games. As we add more and more content to the game, this will only be more and more important to stick to as your groups survive longer and start to form into teams you don't want to lose.
Playtest Security Gauntlet
With this update, we've added one new level to the playtest set - the Security Gauntlet. This level will usually be a first stage to penetrate a high-security facility or a mid-heist stage as you approach a major objective area. The security gauntlet is an area mostly protected by a net of security devices that will test your puzzling skills. Beware, there are guards nearby even if they aren't marching through the main hall often.
Let us know your feedback on how the level plays in our Discord!
Trait Progression
Update #23 rolls out the Trait mutation system, an evolution of the system we crafted for Star Traders: Frontiers but with a definite focus on a delivering a compelling experience for a smaller squad. Your character's Traits come from their backstory, events in their life, wounds and from choices they make in the stories they are involved in.
Throughout each merc's career, events and story choices will increase two separate scores -- their Stress and Loyalty (we need a better term here). For example, participating in a mission that ends in loss or victory will increase either score, and Legwork success and failure will have similar effects. Taking major wounds on the battlefield or being downed also increase Stress. As we fill in this system, additional events will add points -- being on a mission where another merc dies, or the loss of a friend or family member will spike Stress. Storylines will also have ever-present impacts on merc's Stress and Loyalty scores.
When these scores get high enough (around 7/10) they can cause a Trait mutation. Every Trait comes with up to 4 levels and their level may be changed by the mutation types. For example, a negative mutation may reduce the level of a good Trait or increase the level of a negative Trait.
This system will allow us to keep a lesser number of Traits on mercs while amplifying their impact -- and the impact of game events -- on those Traits.
Enemy Patrollers
With Update #23, we fixed a major balance issue where Guard Captains -- with Armor and big HP -- we appearing far too often as regular patrollers. This bloated the difficulty of the stealth side of the game and made executing and moving quietly much harder. We've rebalanced their spawn chances to even out patrolling and make it clear their position as leaders of reinforcement squads.
Character Visuals
We've added a pile of new face, hair and beard options with Update #23 -- in total 4 new faces, 6 new haircuts and 1 new beard. We've also started filling in the options for adjusting your character's eyes. You can now select Natural Eyes or Glowing which is the first of a set of cool contact or cyberware options that you'll be able to toggle through.
The visual designer is getting to a point where it feels like we need some better controls -- letting you zoom and rotate to really get a better look at your style. We'll be working on that soon!
Weapon Updates
The project to rebalance, further differentiate and improve weapons and their weapon modes is making incremental progress with each release. in this update, we've smoothed out some of the over-complicated stats in the weapons block to focus more on weapon's special properties.
Weapons have a lot of numbers! Where possible, we're simplifying a few things. First up, we've moved a weapon's Max Range up into its global properties and removed it from being a mode-specific value. If you're firing Burst Fire or Full Auto, the weapon always has the same Max Range, though its Optimal Range may shift. We've also reduced the complexity of the Recoil stats, instead of having a variable range (2-10 or 4-10 or 6-10 ... too many values) we've simplified the value to a single Recoil stat (10). When firing, a weapon will always generate a recoil amount up to 75%-100% of its Recoil value (7-10 in this example).
We fixed a bug where the currently selected weapon in the store or inventory always showed Noise of NA -- oops!
This update has adjusted a few of the special rule tags. For melee weapons, what was 2 special rules before (IO-Batt and Conduit) we've now merged them into a single Charged special rule. If a character is not a trained Cybersword, they gain a special Charged Attack Talent. Getting Conduit out of this set of names was very helpful! Finally, two special rules have been added to differentiate weapons that have high Crit Dmg and Stealth Crit Dmg. Weapons that get extra Stealth Crit Dmg have the Stealth Kill special rule (Pistols, Blades, Snipers) and those that have elevated Crit Dmg (Sluggers, Snipers) have the Heavy Hit rule.
Hitbox Tuning
As Cyber Knights is heavily based on the checking sight lines and checking against the true geometry of objects -- the tuning of hitboxes is going to be an on-going quality of life and area of improvement. We fixed a bevy of things in this area with this update:
Further improved objective areas where the whole team needs to be in the box. This is the third round of improvements and we believe we've finally put this one and all its bugs to bed.
Fixed an issue where you could trip a lazer wire without actually crossing it -- you simply got too close!
Improved hover hitboxes for security so they are always easy to hover over
Fixed bug where enemies might see a crouching character under a raised platform in a way that made no sense.
Fixed some bugs where enemies might spawn inside walls, fences or doors
Performance Tweak
With Update #23, we reduced the CPU load for having animated characters on the map. This should help in cases where the enemy/player count was getting high.
v0.6.33 - 9/14/2022
- Added new playtest level - Security Gauntlet, a security-device focused puzzle - Traits now mutate positively and negatively as Stress / Loyalty reach 6+ - Mission victory and defeat, getting Downed, Legwork success and defeat affect Stress / Loyalty scores - Fixed issue where Guard Captain was spawning into starting patrol spots too often making levels extra difficult - Fixed bug with Item Store not selling - Tattoos now correctly appear in character visual designer and during gameplay - Added 2 new feminine and 2 new masculine faces - Added 3 new feminine and 3 new masculine hairstyles - Added 1 new beard - Added ability to change natural eyes to glowing eyes - Weapon Max Range upgraded to global weapon property, not variable between firing modes - Fixed bug with current weapon Noise always displaying “NA” - Compressed Melee weapon special rules IO-Batt and Conduit into single “Charged” special rule - Weapons granting additional Stealth Critical Dmg when Crit Hit vs surprised targets have “Stealth Kill” special rule (+50% Crit Dmg on Surprised target) - Weapons with Crit Dmg above regular +100% have “Heavy Hit” special rule (+50% Crit Dmg) - Simplified Recoil Rate stat to be a single value (10) instead of a range (4-10) - Improved placement of spawning enemies, fixed issues with enemies sometimes spawning inside doorframes - Fixed issues where Security Devices were hard to hover (hitboxes were small or oddly placed) - Fixed bug where sometimes characters would aim at the floor when they should be aiming flat or only somewhat down - Fixed bug that could prevent successful exit from Leverage Drop L1 if you ran too close to the exit doors - Fixed bug where a trip wire could detect you if you simply got too close to it - Fixed enemy incorrectly spotting players under platforms in levels like Undercutter or Leverage Drop L1 - Improved performance when total number of animated characters on map was getting high
Alpha Update #22: Difficulty Systems
Update #22 rolls out the game's much-needed Difficulty system and is also now displaying your Team's Power Level which will be the underlying factor in all things scaling for the game. We're very excited with this design as a refinement on the Star Traders classic and Star Traders: Frontiers system of having a curve you need to stay ahead of else you'll fall behind. It's a lot and much of it is not yet fully described inside the game, so check the details of this update below for specifics!
The big puzzle pieces for the game's progression are now snapping into place. There isn't enough yet to extend the playtime significantly, but the bridge is starting to build and it's very exciting to see the plan coming together.
Due to the major saved game format changes to support difficulty, we're sorry to say this update wipes saved games again.
Playtest Test "Hover Escape"
For playtesting, we've added the Hover Escape level which had ended up missing from Update #21. This new level features a high-takes rush to an exit on the top of a corporate research tower. Move quietly and quickly if you can, but once things get heated up it is time to run fast and try to ward off pursuit with some retreating gunfire.
Top right, 0.34 Team Power Level
Your Power Level and Game Scaling
The safehouse is now displaying your merc company's underworld renown, infamy and calculated Power Level. You gain in Power Level and underworld rep solely by completing missions and storylines. It is completely unrelated to the character level and headcount of your squad, or the weapons and gear you've managed to acquire. This separation creates the classic difficulty curve we use in our games, forcing you to turn the rewards of each mission into measurable gains within your squad to "stay ahead" or fall behind.
Your underworld Contacts now also display their Power Level, which is calculated by missions completed for them as well as storylines taken for or against them. Even some of your interactions (selling them valuable paydata) can raise this Power Level while others (buying guns from them) will not. Power Level is a value from 0 to 10, including up to 2 digits of precision -- such as 1.33. You'll see the same stat on everything in the game from weapons, armor, enemies, missions, matrix hosts and Contacts.
Difficulty for Life
As with all of our games, we take difficulty very seriously! There are 6 default levels now added to the game, each slowly ratcheting up the difficulty curve across all aspects of the game. While it is not yet available, a Custom Difficulty creator will be available in the game so you can fine tune your own run -- just like you could in CK classic with famous difficulty settings like Live Fast, Die Young (LFDY) that maxed out starting credits and enemy difficulty.
A major feature brought forward to the feature requests from Star Traders: Frontiers is the ability to speed up or slow down the pace of the story in the game. This will allow players who want to take more time and explore more angles of the game without feeling a time squeeze to play at a more relaxed pace and also let those who love the pressure of the tick-tick-tick of a very short clock to prove they can play the game with a deadly calm no one else can handle.
Casual offers unadjusted challenge levels, +15% XP and Mission Payments, a 20% reduction to the cost of all types of goods and services, regular story speed and 100% resistance to negative Trait mutations, Wounds, Armor Shredding and Death. This is for gliding through the game content with little resistance.
Easy offers unadjusted challenge levels, +15% XP and Mission Payments, 20% reduction to the cost of all types of goods and services, regular story speed and 50% resistance to negative Trait mutations, Wounds, Armor Shredding and Death. While still easy, mistakes can start to have big costs here.
Normal offers unadjusted challenge levels, +15% XP and Mission Payments, 20% reduction to the cost of all types of goods and services, regular story speed and no bonus resistance to negative Trait mutations, Wounds, Armor Shredding and Death. All your mistakes, critical hits and shredded armor are now real.
Hard increases game Power Level by +1, adds +20% to enemy HP, adds no bonus for XP and Mission Payments, does not reduce the cost of all types of goods and services, regular story speed and no bonus resistance to negative Trait mutations, Wounds, Armor Shredding and Death. Everything is hurting regular, costs are higher and it will be harder to take down enemies and stay ahead of the power curve.
Brutal increases the game Power Level by +2, Matrix Power Level by +1, adds +20% extra Power Level to your team's power level when calculating enemy Power Level and tosses on an extra +30% enemy HP for good measure. Ouch ... ! With no bonus for XP and Mission Payments, an extra 20% cost for all types of goods and services, regular story speed and no bonus resistance to negative Trait mutations, Wounds, Armor Shredding and Death. This is mean, the power curve is stacked against you and you're going to have to wring every advantage out of every mission and dollar you can.
Chrome increases the game Power Level by +3, Matrix Power Level by +1, adds +25% extra Power Level to your team's power level when calculating enemy Power Level and tosses on an extra +60% enemy HP for good measure. You did ask to play the hardest difficulty ... ! Mission Payments takes a -15% hit while XP stays regular, an extra 50% cost for all types of goods and services, regular story speed and no bonus resistance to negative Trait mutations, Wounds, Armor Shredding and Death. The entire deck is stacked against you. Every dollar you make is going to be counted, and you might be worrying out its pennies while facing overwhelming combat odds.
Enemy, Talent and IC Power Levels
While the first big squad compositions rolled out in the last 2 updates, Update #22 now is releasing different Power Level enemies to the field. As your squad's infamy and Power Level grow, you'll embark on higher PL missions which will in turn release high PL enemies to the field of battle. These enemies will spawn in different squad formations as well as deploying different and higher level Talents against you.
At the moment, only patrolling corporate enemies are trying out Power Levels 1-4, but every faction and enemy type will be catching up soon enough.
In addition, we've improved the Matrix security escalations to ensure that the Power Level of the mission is driving correct responses with enough difficulty. To help give more range of responses, we've added 10 new IC types of varying Power Levels.
Highlight Toggle "H"
We fixed the longstanding issue that matrix terminals were not showing up in the highlight at all which could make them quite famously hard to find. We've also fixed an issue with dead bodies acting oddly when hovered during the "H" highlight. To keep the battlefield understandable, dead bodies are currently not highlighted with "H" -- only if you hover over them.
Mission Fixes
A number of small bugs have crept into missions over the updates and we've worked on sweeping them out with Update #22. Cadaver Sample was granting the objective immediately upon starting it (oops!) and Dock Trouble had stopped correctly declaring victory after a certain point if you killed all the enemies. The Hack Missions are now correctly setup so that you can start your hack in a single click, and we've fixed a number of missions that had bad settings with lights and missing shadows.
Overwatch Fixes
There were a few Overwatch bugs that could occur before Update #22 that are now fixed. Getting gunned down by an enemy Overwatch no longer locks up the game. This also resolved an issue where inexplicably an enemy would not take an Overwatch shot even if you provoked the reaction shot.
v0.6.31 - 9/5/2022
- Added missing Playtest Mission “Hover Escape” - Added Difficulty option to New Game, including 7 difficulty options from Easy to Chrome - Estimated Team Power Level now visible in top right of Safehouse (1-10) - Contact’s top row of stats includes their individual Power Level (1-10) - Patrolling enemies will now spawn from Power Level 1-4 depending on mission power level and have Talents that increase in PL as well - Improved filtering of Matrix security escalations and IC by power level and host stats - Added 10 new IC types - Fixed bug with Cadaver Sample granting objective immediately - Fixed bug with enemy sometimes not taking Overwatch shot - Fixed softlock that could occur if current character is gunned down by enemy Overwatch - Fixed issue with Dock Trouble not always ending on the right Turn (when you kill all the enemies) - Hack Missions all setup to click with one hack upon start - Improved rendering performance - Fixed some mission lights with bad settings, missing shadows - Matrix Terminals now highlighted by H toggle - Fixed odd behavior with dead bodies an H toggle
August Progress Report
The leaves are getting crispy here as August has already come to a close. This month was a big one! We migrated the alpha to Steam and posted two massive updates with piles of new content and features. The UX team is wrapping up the visual design for the main mission screens while 1-2 new levels are coming through the level design production pipeline every week. Everything is moving along at a very steady clip and the entire team is heads down on loading up the game with exciting content and new progression of play.
There are far too many dev milestones to list them here in a single update -- but let’s hit a few high points!
Progression, Enemy Variety, and Alpha Playtest Missions
Throughout the month of August, we’ve been hard at work building out content sets to help establish the game’s progression beyond the first few upgrades and levels. In August, this included doubling the maximum length of a single game from 50 to 100 days, raising the maximum character level to 14, adding multiple levels of armor to be purchased from Contacts and adding a new storyline to introduce the concept of Legwork.
Legwork is a story system that represents any type of challenge, assignment or task that isn’t part of a tactical heist. Derived from tabletop RPGs, legwork could be the type of work you do before a heist such as casing the joint, following a target, forging some IDs or afterwards, like finding a fence or sinking something you need hidden to the bottom of the New Boston harbor. Legwork always takes some time and your mercs qualify for different types of Legwork based on their backstories, traits and tags -- making who you know, where you’ve come from and what soft skills you have very important. For example, a merc with a history in the Fenian gang, who crewed an Atlantic cargo ship or who did a stint working at the dockyard might know where to sink that precious package under the harbor’s black water. Legwork is a key glue we’ll be using to hold the storylines together, to build relationships with Contacts and to bring the city to life. The next step for progression was to add a big dose of variety to the enemy spawn system and allow for more exciting squads of enemies to spawn. These new squads are custom designed to present a coherent type of challenge on the battlefield and often feature a captain along with different types of enemies who work well together. Their specialized roles will be even more clear as all enemies are now using Talents beyond Overwatch, including buffs, debuffs, (occasionally) heals and laying down their own types of covering fire.
The 1st of 4 playtest levels so far: “Big Door”
In order to get faster feedback on new levels being designed for the game, we’ve added the Mission Playtest program, which gives alpha players the option to play a (rapidly growing) number of missions disconnected from their larger story or heist context. These playtest missions are rough cuts with basic lighting and simplified objectives. But they give us an important opportunity for our level design team to gather valuable insight into how they are playing at large before they are finished and integrated into their storylines.
Story System Dynamics
August also saw the final major pieces of the story system connected and working. We’ve finished modeling exactly how the complex web of backstories, factions and relationships of all types will work to ensure they are tracked and useful to the story system. The game is constantly applying metadata tags to track everything about your choices and characters and now can also allow for multiple faction relationships (hates, loves, ex, betrayed, hunted by), as well as multiple personal relationships (sibling, parent, ex-lover, hates, friend). The casting director component which is in charge of selecting characters to slot into each storyline can use these fine-grained details and match targets by their faction at multiple scopes (Matsumoto backstory or more generally, any Megacorp backstory) as well as character or contact pairs (a pair of siblings, a character and contact who hate each other or 2 characters with milsec backstories and on and on). These final features for the story system are going to allow us to weave the most emergent and interesting types of storylines that are dependent on your past, your relationships old and new and your choices as the game spirals.
Steam Playtest Success!
We migrated the entire alpha from Microsoft AppCenter to Steam Playtest during August and it has been a major success. The wins are trifold -- for our team, the build process (build, upload, process, distribute) is much faster and the player experience is much easier (incremental downloads in your Steam client, often automatically). Finally, the game is now fully ready for Steam and integrated with its SDK.
Creator & Backstory Surveys
Last month, the surveys for Creator and Backstory Edition tiers ($250 and $500) went out and we’ve received over half the results already. Cory and I personally review each of the incoming responses and then set to work on planning just how your unique character will fit into the game and larger story landscape. The input from the alpha players who pledged up to these two tiers has been stellar and we’re enjoying every new entry. If you haven’t received a survey email but should have, please reach out to us here or email andrew@tresebrothers.com
Getting those loadout feels
Upcoming: Power-Broker & Heist Rewards
The next set of creative rewards due to open up for input in September are those for the Power-Broker and Heist tiers. There are in total 23 Power-Brokers with 7 of those being linked to major Heist as well. We’re gathering this creative input as early as possible so we can find ways to tie them tightly to the larger game storylines everywhere we can to ensure these special contact creations are highly integrated and important.
Reward and Stretch Goal Progress
For completeness, we include the progress bar infographic in each and every update. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us. The latest change was sending out the surveys for the two recruitment reward tiers -- Creator and Backstory Editions -- and our next major move is gathering creative feedback for the Power-Broker and Heist creative rewards, so keep an eye on your inbox for these emails later this month.
Alpha Update #20
Update #19 was a mammoth and usually after that there is a need for a follow-up stabilization release. Well, Update #20 is just that, chasing after all the bugs reported by players in our Discord and through by hitting F10 in the game.
With this update, we're rolling in the save game format changes required to support Difficulty system (which is the next big thing coming) so we do have to wipe saved games again with #20.
Mission Fixes
The new playtest levels have been a hit and we're excited to see multiple playthrough videos popping up in the #level_playtest channel. It is hugely helpful for our level designers to get your direct feedback like this, so keep it up!
Playtest levels are notably a little rough, so we've fixed all the reported bugs with them and some larger bugs within the game to make sure everyone is getting a smoother experience. We made the exit in Big Door more obvious, fixed a bug where dead enemies in Street Striker would prevent it from ticking down the Turns, fixed the "flying Hacker" bug in the hack missions and finally fixed a longstanding issue that sometimes when your last merc ran into a victory area, it simply wouldn't be recognized, and you'd have to run in and out again.
The Big Door mission victory zone was hidden under the floor
We've added a new auto-save point for the game, which is taken directly after you beat a mission. This was a missing one, so sometimes you'd have to restore to the last Turn of a mission and see if you could pull it off again.
Made exit from Big Door mission clearly visible
Fixed issue in Street Striker if an enemy died in the take-n-hold area, it could come locked against you
Fixed (old) issue where sometimes a victory area did not register the last character entering
Fixed bug with Hack Tutorial and Hack Only Mission, hacker starting floating above the floor
New auto-save created upon completing a mission as you return to safehouse
Talent Adjustments
We've fixed a couple big Talent bugs from the last release. First, we've stopped auto-Hunker from stealing 1 AP from your next Turn. We've also corrected the starting range for Cyber Knight's Security Dampen to match the design (mid-range, long duration, few charges disable) to 18m.
There were some cases where Vanguard's Projection might fail you and the AI could still see you when you were close enough which is now fixed. Finally, we fixed a soft lock up of the game that might occur if you tried to fire a weapon in Full Auto immediately after making a blade attack.
Fixed bug caused by auto Hunker that would reduce your AP on the next Turn
Fixed Knight’s Security Dampen to correctly start at 18m range
Fixed bug where sometimes a guarding enemy might see a Vanguard using Projection
Prevented possible lock up when using Full Auto ranged attack directly after sword attack
Enemy Behavior
Enemies got a lot of new tricks in the last update and we've put out a call to players in the #enemy_squad_feedback channel on Discord for even more ideas. With this update we've improved their behavior in a few minor but important ways to help them feel more natural.
Improved enemy response to spotting character while patrolling - now sometimes yell “Drop your weapon” and go into Overwatch
Fixed enemy Overwatch bug that would cause them to stop patrolling and slide forward 20m after going into Overwatch
Resolved some situations when an enemy might walk or run past a dead body without noticing
