H4RDP0INT - Major expansion adds Turret drones to your heists!
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[/p][p]Knights, we have a huge update for you this week which adds a whole new class of drones to the game - Turrets! The devious Sec AI that you battle throughout your heists has a new ace up its sleeve - activating turrets from their underground encasements and bringing these powerful, stationary and hard-to-kill drones into the battle.[/p][p]We're excited to keep expanding the game as we work on our ambitious post-launch roadmap. New types of enemies and especially drones are a very exciting area of expansion to reward more varied character builds, new tactics, and put your squads up against new high-powered and late-game enemy options.[/p][p]If you want to see what else we've got cooking - check out the full Post-Launch Roadmap![/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][h2]Our Save Game Policy and Updates[/h2][p]Since you'll always be seeing a lot of updates around here, we want to reiterate our saved game policy so everyone understands our commitment to your games. No saved game will ever be invalidated by an update. All new content and features will be added immediately to all saved games (with the reasonable exception of New Game options). You never have to restart if you don't want to. This is a studio commitment that we have made and kept for many years and games. We stand by it. So do not stress about the deluge of updates that is coming your way - heist on my good heisters.[/p][p][/p][h2]New Enemies: Turrets[/h2][p]Turrets are stationary weapon platforms that can be activated by any SIGMA series Sec AI. These new enemies are drones (a category describing all mechanized enemies) so they can be targeted by your drone Talents and instantly report their death like all drones. Further, turrets will explode when they are destroyed, causing potentially deadly damage to anyone nearby![/p][p]Turrets can appear:[/p]![]()
[/p][p]You are able to see in advance if a heist has the potential to have turrets by checking its mission flags for the highlighted "Turrets" warning. Also, once you are on the ground in the heist, the locations that Turrets might appear are shown clearly to you, each one marked by a large and threatening looking turret spawning location.[/p][p]With this pre-knowledge in hand, you'll be pushed to make new choices about how you approach a heist if turrets are present. Do you really want to go down that route to reach those lootboxes if a Turret might pop out of the floor at any Escalation?[/p][p][/p][h2]Sec AI: "Activate Turret!"[/h2][p]![]()
[/p][p]The Sec AI - your overarching enemy during most heists - now has the power to activate turrets from their underground encasements. Until the Turret is activated from its underground lair, it is invulnerable and cannot be targeted. This new and dangerous type of Escalation is available to the entire SIGMA line of Sec AI - including Sigma 5, Sigma 7, Sigma 9 and Sigma BLACK. [/p][p]The more dangerous the security AI you're facing, the lower the minimum Sec Level required to activate Turrets. In a facility with a Sigma 5 Sec AI, Turrets become a risk at Sec Level 4+; whereas one with Sigma BLACK, they can be summoned as early as Sec Level 2.[/p][p]These Escalations do count as a type of reinforcement which can be blocked by some Leverages, at least until we've added more drone-and turret-specific Leverages that are competitive.[/p][p][/p][h2]How to Take on Turrets[/h2][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Turrets are heavy weapons platforms with no need to move which allows them to be built with heavy plating and stacked with massive weaponry. Armor-shredding is key for any attacks against drones; these are high HP enemies. E-rifles in particular are an excellent weapon to take them on, but other weapons with a high chance to shred armor (possibly extended by weapon mods) can be effective as well.[/p][p]The Cyber Knight and Cybersword have the most anti-drone talents, with Hacker and Agent EX characters also having several available. Check any of the character classes on the Cyber Knights Wiki to easily see a full list of their available talents and CTRL+F for "drone" to review.[/p][p]![]()
Most importantly, keep in mind that turrets are stationary. Using hard cover where you can step out, shoot them, then step back to where they can't target you is a significant advantage. Any class's talents that can cancel enemy overwatch or move through overwatch without triggering it can be helpful, as turrets have a wide field of fire and can lock down a significant area with overwatch.[/p][p][/p][h2]More Drones Coming Soon[/h2][p]![]()
We're excited to be expanding the scope of drones within the game with the release of Turrets. As we've worked on these, we simultaneously completed the recent major rebuild of the game's unit-navigation layers across all levels, in preparation for further new enemy drone types with different movement capabilities. Get ready, these are coming soon.[/p][p][/p][h2]Hacking Juice Bugs Fixed[/h2][p]We fixed a number of bugs with Hacking Juice and other Items and Talents that add Tokens with Update #53 that will make these more powerful. [/p][p]Sometimes these tokens were being incorrectly consumed by passive IC that should not qualify to take a token. This is now resolved and only IC with proper reactions that need to be canceled will cost a token.[/p][p]In addition, we found an issue if you reused one of these Items or Talents while the buff was up and some Tokens were still unused. This was replacing Tokens (there was 1, it is replaced with 3) instead of adding Tokens (there was 1 and 3 new are added, resulting in 4). This is a less central use case but just as important.[/p][p][/p][h2]VIPs Unmoving Mostly Fixed[/h2][p]We've fixed a number of issues with VIPs and their bodyguards where they might not register the correct set of enemies and targets during their turn, causing them to stay oddly stationary at the worst times. [/p][p]This should help some cases with frozen VIPs once they are combat engaged but doesn't fix any of the map-related issues with non-combat engaged VIPs still standing around. That is up next, we have those F10s and are looking at the Trucker HQ as the one map where this is happening basically.[/p][p][/p][h2]v2.3.1 - #53: H4RDPOINT - 11/26/2025[/h2][p] - Added new powerful drone type to missions: Turrets! Stationary hardpoints, hard to kill and packing heavy weaponry [/p][p] - Turrets can appear in different missions from Power Level 3+[/p][p] - Turret challenge starts low but scales aggressively into the end game by PL 10[/p][p] - Missions that can feature Turrets include a new tag in the mission stage description[/p][p] - Turret hardpoints are shown on the map in advance and a Sec AI Escalation may activate a Turret at that point[/p][p] - Different Sec AI feature different thresholds to start activating Turrets (Sigma 5 is Sec Level 4+, Sigma Black is Sec Level 2+)[/p][p] - When Turrets are destroyed, the exploding causing damage to any nearby characters or enemies[/p][p] - Prevented Juice Tokens from being used too quickly due to passive IC in the node[/p][p] - Fixed bugs with matrix Talents or Items that include Tokens, ensuring that re-use of Talent or Item adds Tokens, not replaces Tokens[/p][p] - Improved bodyguard and VIP intelligence once in fighting stance, more aware of last engaged characters[/p][p] - Fixed matrix controller bug where using a Talent might move you to an adjacent node[/p][p] - Improved AI response to skipping forward in their turn, fixed cases they might skip an event like spotting player[/p]
- [p]Once your team reaches Power Level 3+[/p]
- [p]Only in certain objectives (Alpha Strike, Exfiltrate VIP etc do not include Turrets)[/p]
- [p]On Larger maps that have space for them[/p]
- [p]Only on 15-33% of heists - when they do, they generally force you to plan and approach the heist differently, so they are not a constant threat but a spicey spice.[/p]