Cyber Knights: Flashpoint News

Knights and mercs, we are rolling out a polish update for Friday. We're constantly working to keep up with the F10s coming in from the community, taking your feedback, fixing bugs and improving everything we can. This update is a big one, hitting on a ton of nice things for you - it's polish Friday! We've improved the rules for Cyber Knights getting new implants, fixed a big bug with Gunslinger's Fanning, made a host of improvements for the Steam Deck controls and clarity of display on its screen, improved noise display of Talents and Items like grenades and more. Let the F10s fall, let the cyberpunk reign!

If you are enjoying the relentless pace of updates for the game, please take a moment to leave a review. Our tiny dev team thanks you!

[h2]Cyber Knight + Cyber = Rapid Integration[/h2]

When a Cyber Knight takes on a quantum rider into their spine, it changes them forever. The integration of the quantum tactical computer is deep, and it makes them extremely fast, tough, and at times, nearly prescient.

Another benefit of the quantum rider is that a Cyber Knight's body responds exceptionally well to new cybernetics. To bring this lore into the game, we've added the Rapid Integration special rule for Cyber Knights - their recovery time from cyber surgery is now automatically half of what it is for a normal merc. This is also a big help to keep your Knight in the action, as so many missions, heists, and critical outings require their presence.

We also fixed a bug where some of the special rules for implants had bad text in their title and if a cybernetic was installing you couldn't hover over it to see all of its stats until it finished the install. Plus finally, if a slot has no options to install, then it is grayed out and cannot be accessed.

Happy splicing!

[h2]Gunslinger Fanning[/h2]
We've fixed the bug with Gunslinger's Fanning. Once you took some shots with Fanning you were basically locked into Full Auto mode forever. Heck, I think if you had a Sword it would be a Full Auto Sword. ... Now I wish we had this bug back.

Fixed!

[h2]Steam Deck Screen Mode + Controls Update[/h2]
With Update #245, we've made a wide set of improvements for the Steam Deck.

First, we've addressed an issue where due to the small screen of the Steam Deck, a lot of basic UI images were rendering badly. For example, the selection lines for a button could disappear because in the source image (designed for 1080p) the yellow line is only 1 px wide, and when scaled down a bit, that can go to 0 px wide and poof. So, we've updated over 100 images and UI situations in the game in which the Steam Deck wasn't giving good clarity of its UI rendering - from the buttons to backgrounds, class tree and more. None of these were big blockers, but they did make the game less nice to look at - so key work! Thanks to everyone reporting F10s here!


We've improved the display for Full Auto and Grenade Arc on the Deck and controllers. Due to a lack of total button count, controllers start with a single button (RT) bound to changing the target count or adjusting the grenade arc. To still give you the full functionality, we've ensured that it is properly labeled, that the unbound key is hidden, and that the targets/arc loop as you press the single button. So, if you have 4 Full Auto targets, pressing (RT) once will loop you back to 1 target, then 2, 3, 4, and then 1 again. This gives you the full range of options with a single button.

We've also made 3 changes to the Matrix to make it more controller / Steam Deck friendly:

• The IC panel now auto-scrolls with the selected element. Ahhh, nice.
  
• When the Matrix screen came up on your second Turn in the Matrix and you were using a controller, the selection state was left in a bad way that made it really hard to get going for that Turn. This is now resolved.
  
• When you disconnected from the Matrix, sometimes your Hacker would not be able to move afterwards, or moving another character would actually move the Hacker (!?!)
  

[h2]Item/Talent Noise Warnings[/h2]

With Update #245, we've updated how Talents control the noise icons overhead of enemies on the map. Now, when you select a Talent or Item to use, the overhead noise icons will only appear if that Talent or Item creates enough noise to alert them. This is most useful for Grenades where the overhead ear can let you know how many enemies will hear that big boom. It can also give confirmation for Talents like Venom Trap and items like Shock Mine that when thrown, no one will hear it.

In the case of a weapon attack, the regular Ear icon is shown. In the case of noise caused by a Talent, a small box is inserted around the Ear. This can help you spot the difference when it matters.

[h2]Face Talent Alignment[/h2]

It is small but felt important - the Face Talent list now always aligns nicely with the Cold Storage border, regardless of screen resolution.

[h2] v1.10.49 - 5/9/2025[/h2]
- All cyber surgery recovery times for Cyber Knight reduced by 50% - quantum rider hardens their system and speeds integration
- Fixed bug with Gunslinger's Fanning that could keep you locked in Full Auto mode forever
- Improved screen scaling mode for Steam Deck, updated hundreds of UI images to scale better, improve rendering of backgrounds and selection
- Steam Deck / Controller - fixed Matrix IC panel not correcty auto-scrolling with selection
- Steam Deck / Controller - fixed Matrix not having correct selection setup on second turn sometimes
- Steam Deck / Controller - improved controls for Full Auto / Grenade arc, with one button bound it will "loop" to make all options available
- Fixed bug where you might be unable to move after Hacking or Hacker might move when another player moves (!!?)
- Further improved variety of Leverages offered for missions in the Hacking Station
- Fixed issues with character Initiative changing if you reload the first Turn sometimes
- Prevented Face Handbrake Talent from being used with highest priority story missions, such as Meteoric Hotdrop
- Fixed bug with Paused nodes not always sorting to the end of the timeline
- When planning a Talent/Item use that make noise - such as a grenade - the overhead "will hear" icons update to be for Talent
- Improved Safehouse UI for Face Talents so that they always line up nicely with the border of Cold Storage room
- Improved cyber surgery screen by disabling/greying out out slots that have 0 options so it is more clear
- Fixed issue where cybernetic would not show its details while it was installing
- Fixed bug where incorrect attack details in top right were shown when a grenade throw was being planned
- Fixed missing name of some high value Cred Chips
- Fixed recruit character name missing from warning that recruit offer is about to expire
- Fixed bug where sometimes tags on mission deploy screen could be overly large of bump UI down incorrectly
- Removed Screen Scale option (it broke all screens) - use Font Size + Screen Mode

Knights and mercs, with less than 30 days to go until the release, we're working hard to churn out the last series of relentless updates and achieve as much from our roadmap as possible before the big content drop at launch. With Update #244, we've dropped 5 new cybernetics which fill out the Arms and Lungs slots, also adding special new effects like Carrying 2 Heavy Weapons and the first cybernetic implant-driven Talent. We've also improved enemy icons for their classes, fixed the progression for Contact Traits Indebted and Partner, improved Leverage variety on the Hacking Station, improved the text for NanoFab to ensure the Intrinsic bonus shows that it stops at 100% and more is wasted, rebalanced a ton of weapons and fixed bugs with Shock Mines and Venom Traps. Plus F10s - we closed a ton of community reported issues and little polish things, typos, map bugs and more.

We're grinding so hard right now, so if you like the pace of updates and the constant improvements to the game, please take a moment to thank our team of 3 game devs with a review.

[h2]New Cybernetic Slot Options[/h2]

With Update #244, we've filled out the remaining cybernetic slot with some awesome new chrome to try out. While you won't have every slot available to you with a starting cyber surgeon, once you get an upgrade to the service, you'll have at least one option in every slot.

Adding the 3 new Mecha Arm options and 2 cybernetic Lung options puts extra exciting build pressure on your 6 max cybernetics. We're excited to see how this new addition of content (and those that will follow) start to put some great new build spins and help new specializations develop.

[h2]New Cybernetic Talents and Special Effects[/h2]

With the new cybernetics in Update #244, we've added new special effects and the first cybernetic-driven Talent.

• The Dual Haul MXP allows you to carry 2 Heavy Weapons (boom!) at a heavy cost of Move Speed, as that rig is heavy
• Thankfully, the ADV Filter Lung implant invokes the new "Cancel Move Speed Penalty" effect, allowing you to reduce penalties on Move Speed (but not go above 0%) so that might be a good pairing if you are going heavy.
  
• Finally, the Trache-Lifeflow Lung implant grants a new passive Talent that deploys healing nano straight into your bloodstream when you take damage. A Talent granted from a cybernetic is added when you get the cybernetic, removed if you remove it and does not count against your Class Training. This low level implant and Talent only has one activation per mission, but can still be a powerful way to reduce the need to carry medkits and provide some immediate and AP-free damage mitigation, as the nano-healing effect lasts for 3 Turns.
  

[h2]Indebted and Partnered[/h2]

We've also finally fixed the progression of the Contact Traits Indebted and Partnered, allowing them to kick off more Favors month over month. The first upgrade will bring them up to a state where they give +1 Favor one month and then +2 Favors the next month and then loop. Their 4th upgrade brings them all the way up to +2 Favors a month!

[h2]Weapon Rebalances[/h2]
As we prepare to dump a bunch of new weapons, mods and implants into the game, we've done some housekeeping on the existing weapon set to make sure that we reduce the "drift" from the original design for weapons. This is about half debuffs and half buffs - in all cases, pushing the weapons more into "their corner" and focusing on allowing you to build out extra capabilities for the weapons with their mods or variant builds available in blueprints and the store.

We've capped AR/UAR range so that it doesn't creep up with levels, as well as capping SMG and Revolver range as well. In both cases, their Optimal Range still increases, but not as much. If you'd like extended range, look for variations on the regular weapons or find mods to install. We've buffed Shotguns with even stronger Armor Crit %, ensuring that it also grows level-over-level more aggressively. We've reduced Shock Clubs Armor Crit %, as they are a stunning weapon and to quote a team member: "club's don't shred!" And finally, the Stealth Crit Dmg progression for Blades is improved over their progression.

[h2]Fixed Gold Key Issues[/h2]
We've fixed a pile of issues where the Gold Key might be mentioned but not offered or offered but not used. This includes Clockwork Rescue mission from Daedalus Bloc.

[h2]Traits and Talent Special Rules[/h2]

We've improved a ton of text formatting for Talent special rules and Traits. We'll be working on cleaning more of these up in the weeks to come. In this round, we've fixed a number of Traits that were not displaying their reduction in % chance as they increased in level, such as Out to Prove and others.

Also, we've fixed display for the Line Crawler Talent so its upgrade nodes read better. With this new set of text formatting rules, we should be able to hammer out the rest that are not formatting great over the next few weeks. Thanks to everyone for putting in F10s for these!


[h2] v1.10.47 - #244: Cybered - 5/7/2025[/h2]
- Added 5 new cybernetic implants to the basic Cybernetics Service, filling out the Arms and Lungs slot with options
- Arms implants M-Jaks add Kinetic Damage and Dual Haul MXP allows carrying 2 Heavy Weapons
- Lung implants ADV Filter mitigates Move Speed penalties, Trache-Lifeflow automatically deploys healing nano when taking damage
- Added new class icons for enemy mecha infantry, snipers, differentiated captains from VIPs
- Improved Contact Traits Indebted (more Favors, Heat Res) and Partner (more Favors, better cost reductions)
- Improved variety of Leverages offered for missions in the Hacking Station
- NanoFab crafting plan shows cap of 100% on Intrinsic Chance, do not waste cubes above 100%
- Fixed bug with Venom Trap, Shock Mine and other thrown items incorrectly making noise as if your gun was fired
- Fairer range cap for UAR/AR - AR (max 30, optimal creeps up to 26), UAR (max 24, optimal creeps to 18)
- Fairer range cap for SMG/Revolvers - SMG (max 25, optimal creeps to 20), Revolvers (max 30, optimal creeps to 20)
- Fairer progression for AR/SMG on Armor Crit %, less growth, flattened curve (get some mods!)
- Improved Shotgun progression on Armor Crit %, higher chance to shred enemy armor on basic models
- Reduce chance for Shock Clubs to Armor Crit % to 10% across the board, clubs don't shred
- Regular Blades and E-Cutters improved progression of Stealth Crit %, best for regular blades
- Fixed bug where Overwatch was not setting Initiative for the next Turn correctly (current Init-2) after Update #229
- Fixed map issues and cases were Gold Key was or was not offered correctly, including Clockwork Rescue job
- Fixed rules for formatting special effects like Line Crawler, Out to Prove Trait, Amnesiac Test Subject so values are more clear

Knights and mercs, we've got another update touching down on the NBZ launch pad today. Update #243 adds a new proc-gen objective, Boosted VIP, which is one of the most interesting mission formats yet, fixed issues with Active Leverage not being available, improved Leverage pricing to be dynamic, added a new red skull icon next to HP bars where a hit will guarantee a kill, upgraded the icon indicating an enemy will hear your gunfire, improved headshot zooming in main HUD, fixed issues with Face Talents Dealmaker and Insider Hustle and ... more. F10s, things, map issues! Let's dig in.

If you are enjoying the relentless pace of updates as we close in on our June 2nd release, please take a moment to leave a review! Yes, we are just 4 weeks out!
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1021210/announcements/detail/516334711921967606?snr=2___

[h2]New Proc-Gen Objective: Boosted VIP[/h2]

While we've taken a bit of a pause in dropping a constant stream of new maps, we are excited to drop a brand new proc-gen objective today with Boosted VIP! In this dynamic objective type, a valuable defector is traveling across a mission map under heavy security detail, "bodyguards".

You'll use a Leverage to convert the target defector into a friendly character at a time of your own choosing, and then need to get that defector to the extraction point alive. The Boosted VIP creates a really cool scenario in which, for some of the levels, you're in pursuit of an enemy VIP, trying to get close enough without kicking the bee's nest, and in the second half of the level, you're trying to extract a vulnerable VIP.

This higher challenge type of mission is only available at Power Level 4+.

[h2]Revealed Extraction System[/h2]

With the new Boosted VIP proc-gen objectives, we are trying out a new "revealed extraction" system that gives you a preview of where your team will need to extract after the primary mission objective is completed. This means you can check your objectives from the very first turn, and by clicking on the locked extraction objective, you will get a look at where your extraction will be. Once the enemy defector is converted to your side, the extraction will open up.

If this system works well and you, the players, like it - we will dive into the hour intensive process to spread it to a wider set of missions within the game.

Please let us know!

[h2]Swapped to Ear for Hearing[/h2]

If an enemy will hear your gunshot, we've swapped over to an ear icon. This icon is shown in the bottom left with your weapon and over the head of an enemy who would hear your attack.


[h2]Leverage Fix and Pricing[/h2]
The previous update had a bug where Leverages were not appearing in mission after you purchased them. This was fixed with a hotfix, but it is also fixed in this update.

In addition, we've changed the pricing on some Leverage so that they are now dynamic and increase by the Power Level of the mission. This helps keep these fair (a Gold Key for a starting mission can't be $10K, and the Gold Key for the last mission is still $10K!).

[h2]Red Skull of Death[/h2]

To help make it crystal clear when the guaranteed damage from an attack will kill an enemy, we've added a red skull icon next to their HP in this case. This indicates that the enemy will die without needing any Damage that is rolled, so as long as you hit them they will die.

As promised!

[h2]Continued Headshot Improvements[/h2]

We're continuing to improve the new headshots that have gone out last week. With this update, we changed the zoom level and positioning of the shots in the main mission HUD, getting back to the "head and shoulders" feeling we had before and not the "camera squashed against face" feeling we had there for a minute.

We also fixed the portraits looking the wrong way in the victory and defeat screens.

[h2]On-going Face Talents[/h2]
The Face is a massive class with their tendrils in possibly every system in the strategy layer. Thanks for sending in F10s if you are hitting bugs or rough edges. We will keep working on improving. We are working on their Limit Breaks - thank you for the F10s!

With this update, we've fixed Dealmaker not always adding the extra +10% Influence bonus when a mission is completed from a Contact with the chosen factions. Also, we've improved the rules for the Counter-Intel Tokens and Insider Hustle - if you haven't trained the Talent, then you don't get any default Contacts. This will be fixed in a future update when Face's Traits become much cooler and integrate with their new Talents, and each Face gets a specific set of Contacts by default in the Counter-Intel Room (Blur will always be able to work with Street Contacts).

[h2]F10 Mountain[/h2]

We've also just been mining at the F10 mountain this week, giving extra attention to killing off "root issues" that are causing outsized numbers of F10s.

• Mouse and Keyboard users will not have their selection "hang" in the Initiative timeline and prevent easy movement after clicking up there.
  
• Objectives for Infiltrate and Download missions will no longer incorrectly point to Gold Room terminals even though the files aren't there.
  
• Safehouse Missions warn about expiration at 0h instead of 6h.
  
• Improved Overwatch description to be clear about their Initiative rules - for more details see the Overwatch page on the wiki

[h2] v1.10.45 - #243: Boosted VIP Objective! - 5/5/2025[/h2]
- Added new proc-gen objective: Boosted VIP - VIP starts as an enemy under bodyguard protection, boost them, and extract them safely
- Boosted VIP appears at Power Level 4+ and has 4 maps available, +4 total proc-gen combos
- Testing out new Revealed Extraction system with Boosted VIP
- Some Leverages now have more variable pricing that increases with mission power level
- A new red skull icon appears next to the enemy HP bar if they are guaranteed to die if the attack hits
- Upgraded icon for enemies hearing your attacks - now an ear icon instead of the bullet shockwave icon from before
- Fixed headshots looking the wrong way in victory/defeat
- Improved zoom of headshots in main mission HUD
- Fixed issue with Counter Intel Pod having Token-for-Favor offers even without Face Talent
- Improved controller vs. mouse/keyboard handling for Initiative timeline in main mission
- Fixed bug with Face's Talent Dealmaker not always granting the full +20% Influence boost
- Adjusted warning for mission expiration to run at 0h remaining instead of 6h
- Fixed bug with Infiltrate and Download Objectives reporting files still in Gold Key rooms even though they are not
- Fixed bug preventing Active Leverages from being usable
- Fixed issue with scrolling dropdown (like in Options) not showing first item on Steam Deck
- Fixed issue with status screen Talent list showing 5 charges for all Talents
- Improved Overwatch Talent description to include notes about Initiative in the next Turn

Knights, we're just 4 weeks away from our full launch: Monday, June 2nd, at 9am Eastern Standard Time.

Each week we'll be counting down and sharing some special info to help everyone get ready for launch. This week: a bit about us and ways to stay tuned for future projects.


[h2]So who are we?[/h2]
My brother and I, Cory and Andrew Trese, have been making video games since 2011. We started in the early days of Google Play and transitioned to Steam-first in 2015, always dedicated to making deep, highly-replayable RPGs & strategy games.

Some great interviewers have gotten us talking more about how Trese Brothers Games has grown over the years; a couple of recent ones we recommend are this extensive written interview on Tom's Gaming Vault, and a fun video interview with strategy game streamer Sprigleaf.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
It's challenging to be an indie studio without any outside investors but we've done it by prioritizing players, carefully scoping based on player feedback and what we know we can deliver on, and staying directly connected to our community through Steam forums and Discord.

[h2]Don't Miss What's Next![/h2]
Every successful launch (this is our 5th game on Steam) helps us grow and build better games. So even as Cyber Knights will continue to be our near-sole focus for quite a while after full launch, if you like our approach and want to make sure you don't miss future projects from us, we want to invite you to join our community.


Joining our Discord connects you directly with us and an awesome community of 7,000+ other players as well. Following our developer account here on Steam is a great way to stay in the loop through Steam's own notifications. And we have accounts on most major social networks, particularly Bluesky and YouTube.

But we all know how platforms can change at any time, often to the disadvantage of independent creators like us, so I'd particularly encourage you to please sign up for our Just-the-Big-News mailing list.

We have sent only four emails to this list in the past 5 years! It's an easy, no-distractions way to make sure you don't miss out on our next game! Hop on to get a notification when the time comes.

[h2]4 weeks to go![/h2]
We'll see you next week with some info on what kind of post-launch content you can expect from us for Cyber Knights.

Knights and mercs, another early May update is touching down. This one has a big focus on polish for the Safehouse Timeline, perhaps the most core component of the strategy experience in the Safehouse. We've rebuilt its underpinnings, smoothed its animation and fixed all reported (over 200 F10s) issues with it in a big update. We've also further polished the headshots and their zoom, fixed a ton of minor map issues and a missing terminal, and continued to polish the Face Talents and balance.

We're hard at work making the game the best it can be and are not willing to let any stone go unpolished. If you are enjoying the game and relentless updates, please take a minute to leave a review ːsteamhappyː

[h2]Timeline Smoothing[/h2]

Update #242 is dedicated to a set of issues that have caused a huge number of F10s over the last year. Sometimes the safehouse Timeline was just a little ... odd. You might see an event suddenly jump back 6 hours, sometimes a mission would fail to give its "about to end" warning if there were a pile of events nearly finished, and most annoyingly, if you got a pile of events ending at 0h, it could be hard to be sure the order they would resolve in.

This is a "guts" rewrite, so there is no actual change in good behavior, just a ton of smoothness and niceness in how the timeline operates. Here are some other examples:

• If you add 2 characters to a Simstream at the same time, they will both finish at the same time.
  
• No Injury or Wound event will hang at 0 hours and refuse to complete.
  
• When a pile of events end up at 0 hours, they will complete in the most player-friendly order with Injury, Wounds, Simstream, Cybernetic Recover all finishing before Missions.
  
• Removed the chance that you can click "Play" on the timeline and be interrupted multiple time by pop up (story started, limit break happened ...). Now, at max you'll get a single interrupt before it gets to the next Turn.
  
• There are a lot of other little, specific behavior changes. But in every case, we aimed for consistency and player-friendly behavior.
  

[h2]Further Headshot Work[/h2]

Thanks for all the feedback about the headshot update! We've further improved the lighting, shadow and post-processing used for taking the headshots to make them even nicer in all conditions. You can now just open the Appearance tab and select each character in turn on the Roster and their headshot will update to the latest. It takes about 1 second, so don't go too fast :D

We've also fixed some "over zoom" on the faces in places like the Timeline. It is much nicer to see a slightly wider shot of the Contact or Merc there.

We're excited to keep improving, so keep pushing us!

[h2]Map and Prop Fixes[/h2]

We've executed a number of fixes on map issues today as well as improving a number of props that were used throughout the game and missing certain metadata about how they should work.

There was a certain type of corporate desk where the middle of the desk was ethereal - you could fall or walk right through it. There were a number of rebar-and-concrete ruined walls, columns and arches that all had minor issues with their colliders, meaning that they didn't do a good job accurately blocking lines of fire or providing good cover.

We also fixed a bug that could lead to a missing terminal in the Decommissioned Core mission map on a number of different objective types.

[h2]Continued Face Class Cleanup[/h2]

With a huge release like Face, there is always a lot of cleanup todo. We've added their Talent listing to the safehouse help section, fixed a ton of typos in the new Leverages and further improved the text of their Talents and upgrades so that it can read more naturally.

Also, we discovered that some of the upgrades to their Field Coordination Talent did not cost any Level Points. If you happened to buy those, you may suddenly find yourself at a negative Level Point.

There is, of course, more to be done! We're working on fixing Face Limit Breaks and class node icons and then we'll get into fixing their Backstory and Traits to be exciting as the rest of their class.

[h2] v1.10.43 - Update #242: Tight Timeline - 5/2/2025[/h2]
- Rebuilt flow, pop-ups and event handling in timeline - all shifting, jumping, out of order, hung event bugs fixes
- Fixed issues with missing terminal in "Decommissioned Core" on some heists (F10)
- Fixed issue with some Field Coordination nodes not costing any Level Points to purchase
- Fixed issue with some ruined concrete and rebar props not having accurate sight line blocking
- Fixed issue with some corporate desks not stopping movement or colliding with dead bodies
- Fixed issue with victory reward text rendering
- Fixed issues with some hack only missions generating achievements incorrectly
- Added Face Talents bar to screen help system, tooltips
- Fixes issue with "Terminator Mesh" having 3 Armor Points
- Fixed flickering in hologram on cybernetics screen that was too much
- Fixes typos in safehouse token offers, Face focus offer upgrades