Hover TANK - major update adds low-flying drones to your heists
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[/p][p]Knights, we are excited to follow up the Turret release a few days ago with the newest type of major threat - the Hover Tank! This low-flying drone enemy is heavily armored, equipped with a deadly cannon hardpoint and ready for battle. [/p][p]Both turrets and tanks are new tools in the arsenal of the the devious Sec AI that you battle throughout your heists. It may drop Hover Tanks in with reinforcement groups coming through its Sec Escalations. Once a Hover Tank has landed in the field, it might be "Time to goooooo..." 💥 "Go go go go go!"[/p][p]![]()
[/p][p]We're glad Hover Tanks could follow closely on the heels of Turrets, as their preparation has gone hand in hand. We are continuing to work our way through our ambitious post-launch roadmap - each big update chipping away at it. 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][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: Hover Tanks[/h2][p]![]()
[/p][p]Hover Tanks are powerful new drones available only to megacorporate armies (different types of drones will be more or less locked by faction); they represent the arrival of heavy-elite off-site reinforcements instead of the run-of-the-mill regular soldiery. As the Security Level rises and the Sec AI calls upon more and more powerful reinforcements to try to face the threat they discover you are, it is possible that a pod of reinforcements (typically 3 soldiers) will instead contain 2 soldiers and a Hover Tank. The specific criteria for arriving as reinforcements are as follows:[/p]![]()
[/p][p]Their cannon has a max range of 30m, and does suffer accuracy penalties against enemies too close for them to quickly adjust targeting against. If you have effective short-range weaponry, look for areas you can use this difference against them. Or use a fast-moving character to break their armor and run to safety, while squad mates with long-range weaponry assault it from afar.[/p][p]Unlike most other enemies, Hover Tanks will not be stopped in their tracks by overwatch shots against them. They also have a 75% chance to break Stun effects applied to them. These tanks are juggernauts, and will require different tactics than other enemies to deal with.[/p][p]Hover tanks are expensive assets and a megacorp can only commit so many to a single facility or battle at a time, so don't expect to see more than one at a time.[/p][p][/p][h2]How to take on Hover Tanks?[/h2][p]The standard Leverage to block reinforcements also blocks the arrival of Hover Tanks. Keeping a leverage like this in reserve for Sec Level 5+ can buy you valuable time to avoid their arrival or get distance from their likely arrival points.[/p][p]Like turrets, hover tanks are heavy weapon platforms and are built to be layered with thick plating and mounted with major weaponry. The tradeoff to the hover tank's thick armor is its ponderous speed; it can be outrun! (But be careful what you might be running into.)[/p][p]![]()
[/p][p]Armor-shredding is key for attacks against any drones; these are high HP enemies and much harder to wear down if you don't crack their armor. 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][/p][h2]Turrets in Even More Maps[/h2][p]![]()
[/p][p]We are working toward a point where turrets have a chance to show in up in any map, if the heist matches all of the other criteria (Power Level, faction, objective type). Toward that end, we added another 6 maps to the group that can support Turrets, now covering almost every corporate and data lab themed map.[/p][p]We also fixed a bug where Turrets could be included (10% chance) at any Power Level including 0. Now, the minimum of 3+ Power Level is being properly enforced.[/p][p][/p][h2]Tutorial Objectives[/h2][p]![]()
[/p][p]With Update #55, we've taken another spin through the objectives shown during the first stage of the tutorial. We have made sure that they use clear and simple language and verbs that indicate the type of game choices you can make ("Kill or sneak past second guard"). This also includes explicitly calling out the glowing blue area as your target zone to move your team into for extraction.[/p][p][/p][h2]Update Size Note (5 GB)[/h2][p]Many of the recent updates have been nearly 5 GB which is the maximum size really, when all of the map files in the game have been adjusted. This has been necessary due to the nature of adding turrets to the game (all the navigation paths had to be rebaked multiple times which touches every level in the game) ... and then again to correct some mistakes for large hovering drones. And likely again for some things for small high-flying drones (coming soon).[/p][p]However, we are dedicated to trying to keep update size small and would prefer updates to stay under 1 GB on average. With that goal in mind, we have completed a reorg of the internal asset structure to help make our update packages more granular and hopefully therefore smaller. That also means with this update, we changed all the files again, which means a 5 GB. [/p][p]Here's to smaller updates in the future![/p][p][/p][h2]Many, Many Maps Bugs[/h2][p]With Update #55, we took a tour of the map bugs that were most commonly reported and have resolved them.[/p]
- [p]In a mission against a megacorporate faction[/p]
- [p]Your team is Power Level 4+[/p]
- [p]The Sec Level on your mission has reached 5+[/p]
- [p]We fixed issues in the Cascade Precision Power Play where you could automatically win by being deployed in the extraction zone.[/p]
- [p]The Trucker HQ Kill Hardened Target was showing all wrong objectives (kill 3 captain objectives...)[/p]
- [p]We fixed the bug with the Truck Job Part 2's secondary objective about arriving with below Sec Level 2 failing after it was successfully completed.[/p]
- [p]We fixed an issue where Taylor Strizek would appear in the laser injector even after you had boosted her when you reloaded the level.[/p]
- [p]The Cyber Knight no longer needs to be in the active mercs for the Truck Job part 1 heists.[/p]