Cyber Knights: Flashpoint News

Major update today Knights, with our very first retirement storyline: "Daedelus Bloc!" This 10-mission storyline becomes available at Power Level 6+, when a shareholder asks you to help them create havoc inside the Jupiter Group megacorporation.

This intricate power play is paced to give you plenty of time to engage with other late-game content, running heists on the side to build your warchest and grow your skills so you'll be ready to pull off the biggest jobs of your career at the very end.

It includes 2 brand new maps, new objectives, new additions to the proc-gen system, and is just the beginning of some very exciting new mission formats you'll see more of as Cyber Knights: Flashpoint continues to evolve.

We intend to add multiple retirement storylines to the game over time, staggered across multiple power levels to allow for playthroughs of different lengths and a variety of roleplaying choices in what kind of opportunity your Knight will give up their criminal power climb for, and who (if anyone) from their squad they'll share this escape with if they can.

[h2]How Retirement Storylines (or Death) Work[/h2]

Retirement Storylines are pinnacle opportunities in your Cyber Knight's career, accessible only when you've built a rep as the Knight that gets things done. Multiple offers will give you the opportunity to get started on a chain of escalating missions leading to one last big heist that could get you out of the game for good.

Come out on top, and you'll have a window of time to decide (and complete any lingering unfinished business with your mercs or other contacts) if you want to take the retirement opportunity, or continue running the streets.

Some Knights can't give up the thrill of the heist, and will continue to play hard and fast until they go out in a blaze of glory. Others are convinced better opportunities will come, for either a better life offworld or with more room in the opportunity to set up the squad members they've become closest to with a better life as well.



When you retire or die, you'll get a series of game-end screens sharing what becomes of you and your squad members, a key stats & achievements summary, and your save-game will be memorialized so you can come back and export appearance or talent tree builds.

[h2]Merc Stats Now Available[/h2]

You'll now be able to access merc scores - such as career kills, number of missions run, number of missions completed unseen, maximum damage scored in a single hit - at any time. Check out the "Record" tab from your squad roster in the Barracks.

In addition, for those Achievements that make sense, each merc can score individual achievements. Your grenade-happy Soldier might get the achievement for the 5X kill with Grenades while your Sniper will be hunting that 1000 pt Dmg in a single shot achievement.

[h2]Steam Achievements Now Active[/h2]

Score up to 100 achievements as you play and prove your skill.

Achievements run the gamut from first-time achievers (complete your First Heist or Install a second cybernetic in a character) to long run achievers (reach $25m credits, kill a Head Hunter, complete 100 heists) to limit pushers (kill 5 targets with Slashslide, complete a 4 merc mission with 1 merc, install the 7th cybernetic into your Knight).

Achievements are a prestige reward only, no in-game content is gated behind any of these, the only thing they unlock are bragging rights (and please do; gameplay celebrations and stories are always welcome in our Discord).

[h2]On-sale to celebrate! Spread the word and leave a review?[/h2]
Cyber Knights is 20%-off for the next two weeks (there will be a short 4-hour gap between next Thursday morning and the start of the Steam Spring Sale)!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/

Please spread the word that we're wrapping up Early Access soon! And if you haven't already, taking a minute to leave a review, even just a couple of quick sentences, is one of the best ways to help us out. We're working hard to keep polishing (thank you all for the feedback through F10s and Steam forum posts!) and keep packing the game with more content as we approach the full release later this spring.


[h2]v1.9.147 - #221: Major Milestone: RETIREMENT - 3/6/2025[/h2]
- Major new end-game storyline "Daedelus Bloc" starts at Power Level 6+
- Option to retire at the end of the storyline or go back to the streets for "one more heist"
- Steam Achievements now active - score up to 100 achievements
- Individual merc career scores and personal achievements available in Roster "Record" tab
- New Retirement and Death screens tell the post-retirement stories for your team and display scores
- Created safehouse experience for death/retirement, still access the Appearance and Training for library, otherwise locked down

[h2]v1.9.149 - Hotfix #1 - 3/7/2025[/h2]
- Fixing Daedelus Bloc issues
- Fixed issue with Quant VIP where are not carrying items for their missions
- Fixed extraction location in second stage of BOILING POINT mission
- Fixed missing complications in OPENING BID mission
- Fixed some storyline missions not having their custom names (PANDORA'S SUITCASE, etc)
- Fixed Achievement issues with Pacifist, Next Man Up, One Man Army, The Quiet One and more
- Fixed Achievement issue where achievements were not setting until the game was closed
- Fixed missing achievement icons
- Fixed reported typos and dialog issues

[h2]v1.9.151 - Hotfix #2 - 3/7/2025[/h2]
- Fixing Daedelus Bloc issues
- Linked in missing dialog and complications in OPENING BID and GOVERNANCE DUST-UP
- Added new File Set to compile Nuke II (FAS) and new Utility Program type Dragline I
- Fixed issues with Bio-Verify Files having odd names (multiple Part III's)
- Added new special rewards to the Daedalus hacking missions
- Fixed bug with Daedalus missions sometimes referencing an incorrect mission name at the end of the dialog
- Fixed Daedalus Bloc defensive mission not spawning reinforcements
- Fixed bug where Security Level secondary objective could still appear even when it shouldn't (Ricksham Drips)
- Fixed bugs with Infiltrate and Download Files and Hardened Target objectives that could prevent mission from re-offering later
- Fixed bugs with Matrix Response Level being "None" sometimes for Street/Syndicate, with mission tags for Matrix Host Color being wrong
- Fixed confusing titles in Contact Limit Breaks for Service Upgrades
- Fixed typos and dialog issues

Knights and mercs, a new update is trickling down from the gleaming corporate towards the neon-baked streets of New Boston. Update #220 updates the Death Save rules for lower difficulties (allowing mercs to be knocked out of the mission but not die and for missions to fail correctly), added new hotkeys for Timeline manipulation in the Safehouse, improved balance of Matrix Hosts by Faction type, fixed the 1-frame T-Pose at the start of mission deploy, made all higher level Wounds a bit worse and fixed a big pile of F10s.

We are hard at work mixing bug fixes, polish, and final rule changes with more big content hits. Last update added a new proc-gen mission object and next update is going to blast a major story - so stay glued to this page. If you are enjoying the relentless pace of additions, please take a moment to leave a review. Remember, you can always edit it later.

[h2]Death and Death Save Redo[/h2]

This change has been coming for a long time - the review thread about it on Discord is old.

Tldr; the new Death Save % rules work like you would probably expect unlike the old rules that just made you kind of immortal.

(Old Rules) As we like to explain our changes and reasoning in full, I will quickly explain the old system. Every Difficulty had a Death Save % from 100% to 0%. Whenever you take Damage that would reduce you to 0 HP (dead!) and you were already Bleeding Out, your character rolls their Death Save %. If this roll passes, in the old rules, you simply stayed Bleeding Out and gained back some HP, basically "bouncing" back to life.

Notably, Difficulties like Brutal and Chrome had 30% or 20% Death Save, meaning you might take a fatal hit and just walk out the other side with more HP than you went in with ... ?

(New Rules) Death Save % is rolled whenever you take Damage that would reduce you to 0 HP (dead!) and you were already Bleeding Out to see if you survive the hit. Regardless of the result of your Death Save, you flop on the ground and are knocked out of the mission. The Combat Log shows whether you died permanently or survived by Death Save %.

Permanently Dead or Survived Dying, you are knocked out of the mission. This allows missions to fail, even on lower difficulties, without achieving game over or permanent loss of characters.

And Death Saves values have been rebuilt for high Difficulties - Normal is now 50%, Hard is 25% and Brutal and Chrome are ... well, sorry to say it, 0%. Of course, you can customize your Difficulty to your heart's content and play any way you like, these are just the starting defaults.

So, this does make the game harder. In the case that you are losing a mission or taking deadly hits, you will lose faster and harder than before. But this was always the design and the "everliving zombie" Death Save was a mistake that took too long to correct.

[h2]3 New Timeline Hotkeys[/h2]

Three new bindable hotkeys have been added to make controlling the Safehouse timeline easier. There is Start (V), Stop (B) and Toggle (N) by default. You can rebind them as you please, depending on which ones you want to use. This helps reduce any complicated movement you might have been doing between pause and play, if you like having rapid-fire control over the timeline.

In addition, we've improved how the ESC (or B on controller) works in the Safehouse. If the Timeline is running, hitting ESC will stop the timeline where it used to stop the Timeline and open the pause menu. If the Timeline is not running, now it will just open the pause menu. So, ESC functions as a nice Stop Timeline hotkey if it is running.

[h2]Better Matrix Balanced Based on Faction[/h2]
In previous updates, we adjusted the Matrix Host color grading by faction so that Street and Syndicate Factions were prevented from rolling the top colors like Orange, Red or Ultra (this is cyberpunk, ultra is a color!!!!)

With Update #220, we've improved this system as well to include the Matrix Q-Sec AI. In the same way that it makes sense that a street gang can't field a Red host, it makes sense that they can't get access to Pit Viper Q-Sec AI. Street Gangs will have access to lower Q-Sec like Boas and Sidewinders, while Syndicates can reach higher, even sometimes (if rarely) fielding a Pit Viper.

[h2]All High-Level Wounds - Worse![/h2]
In fixing a bug where Brainburnt 1 and Brainburnt 2 were found to be the same level, we completed an analysis of the Wounds that might have matching stats. With this analysis completed, we've ramped up the bad parts of higher level Wounds a bit more and fixed all the duplicates. You're going to have extra incentive to get your Wounds treated early now and "carrying" a Level 4 Wound is just going to hurt more.

[h2]Fixed T-Pose in Mission Deploy Screen[/h2]

For oh-so-long there was a 1-frame T-Pose that you could spot your mercs holding when you first entered the mission deployment screen. It would only happen once per visit to the safehouse and it was fast enough you might think, "Did that really happen?"

We are so glad it is fixed!

[h2]And More F10s![/h2]
Quality and polishing are a big part of what we are working on daily as we head toward launch. This update includes another big wave of F10 fixes, including resolving issues with controllers in Victory/Defeat screen, fixing the duplicated Rarity filter in Cold Storage, resolving the T-Pose in mission deploy and fixing a bug that could cause the game to lock up if your current character was gunned down by enemy Overwatch.

Thanks for all your F10s! We are fixing daily.

[h2]v1.9.145 - 3/5/2025[/h2]
- Fixed rules for Death Save - when reaching 0 HP and Bleeding, you go down and roll a Death Save % instead of staying immortal
- Survived/Dead is revealed at end of mission for those mercs who went down
- Allows Easy/Normal difficulty games to fail missions by mercs being eliminated (dead or survived)
- 3 new hotkeys can be bound - Start, Stop and Toggle Safehouse Timeline
- Pressing ESC or (B) in the Safehouse will first pause the Timeline if it is running before opening game pause menu
- Improved balance of Street/Syndicate/Milsec hosts to ensure they have fair Response Levels as well, Street Gangs cannot field Diamond Cobra RL
- Worsened the effect for all higher level Wounds, more reason to get them healed, harder to ignore
- Fixed bug where the current character being killed by enemy Overwatch could lock up the game
- Fixed issue where Brainburnt Wound Level 1 and 2 were the same
- Fixed 1 frame T-Pose appearing first time you load mission deploy screen
- Fixed issue with Rarity filter appearing twice in Cold Storage tabs
- Fixed controller input issue in Victory/Defeat when a mission is multi-stage the selection could get stuck
- Fixed issue with mission deploy and long character lists that could cause the character UI to become misaligned

Mercs and Knights - another big update is coming to New Boston! With Update #219, we have added an all new new proc-gen objective, +15 new proc-gen combos tied to it, 7 new boss-level enemies to support it, reduced Light Armor protection by ~5%, split Hacking Drugs out from Combat Drugs officially, further improved the new game experience for controllers, and fixed a heaping pile of your F10s!

If you are enjoying the relentless pace of updates, content additions and bug smashing - please take a minute to leave a review. The 3 team members on gamedev are working hard to make all this happen, and we work for your reviews!

[h2]New Proc-Gen Objective: Hardened Target[/h2]

Recently, we've switched from trying to release a new map every week to adding new proc-gen objectives instead. New maps will still be coming, but we're less worried about the weekly drop schedule versus dropping a rapid fire set of new proc-gen objectives to completely blow out the variety of proc-gen combat.

With Update #219, we've released a new proc-gen objective - the Kill Hardened Target objective, in which you need infiltrate a location and hunt down a single powerful boss enemy. Unlike other Assassinate VIP missions, this Hardened Target is not going to run away - they are going to turn and fight along with their bodyguards. These missions bring a totally new type of challenge to the game whcih really shakes up the assassination formula in lots of ways.

The new Hardened Target objective is supported by 7 new types of powerful boss enemies spread across the factions: the corporate Sentinel Exec, the UltraTek 2X Raptor, the Warner-Braun Rook, the Brave Star Phalanx, the FSC Havoc Jackal, the Syndicate Bloodright and the Gang Street Kings. These enemies are boss-level power, with high HP, wide variety of powerful armor, carrying deadly weapons (including E-Rifles for some of the corp options), and a bevy of deadly Talents, depending on the faction in question - grenades, healing grenades, Full Auto, Overwatch, punishing debuffs and even Vita Shields (which block attacks like Aegis) for some of the corporate options.



We're excited in the new few weeks to expand the Hardened Target options to make more specific bosses for every faction, which will continue to punch up and vary the challenge across the mission set.

This new objective is now linked to 15 maps, which adds a total of +15 new proc-gen combos, bringing the game's total of combos (map X objective) to 189 - vastly exceeding the original goal of 80!

[h2]Light Armor Nerf[/h2]

This is a straight nerf - no glossy words will hide it. All Light Armor took a -5% Ballistic Protection hit and in many cases a larger hit to Kinetic Protection %. For Kinetic Protection, the new Light Armor progression sees Kinetic Protection fall behind Ballistic as the armors climb in Power Level, where they used to be in lock step (65% and 65% always).

This is a bit painful but is an important move to continue to push the correct balance between Light, Heavy and Stealth Armors and their different advantages and disadvantages. We'll be working on improving the Stealth Armor balance in the coming weeks as well to be sure they have a good place within the trio.

Going along with this, we've adjusted some of the armor that enemies have been wearing. There were certain series of enemies who stopped upgrading their armor very early, especially Snipers and the guards who start as patrollers on your maps making them too weak in the mid to late game.

[h2]Combat vs. Hacking Drugs[/h2]

For a long time, all the hacker-focused drugs were lumped under the Combat Drugs listing. As each category has grown, it has become more important to separate them both visually, in text and in the filter. With Update #219, we've split out a separate filter for Combat and Hacking Drugs in the market and all inventory screens.

[h2]Continued Controller Improvements[/h2]

We're continuing to gather feedback from controller players and work down the list of items to improve the flow and speed of play on Steam Deck and standalone controllers. With the last update, we rebuilt the New Game Knight screen to be far easier to use with a controller (removing the messy big scroll to replace it with tabbed sections) and now we've enabled LB and RB to move through those sections smoothly without having to use the D-Pad to go back to the tab list.

[h2]Long Tables + Out of Date Icons[/h2]
We've addressed a big issue with the really large tables - like Cold Storage - where sometimes when you scrolled a lot, the icons could start to get mixed up. You might think you're looking at a Scope Blueprint from the picture but when clicked you'd find an Armor Blueprint. This had to do with some of the grid caching we used to make these really long lists perform well but was pretty confusing for players. Now fixed! Thanks for all the F10s about this!

[h2]v1.9.141 - 3/1/2025[/h2]
- Added new proc-gen objective: Assassinate Hardened Target - find and kill boss protected by bodyguards
- 15 new maps available for Hardened Target, +15 total proc-gen combos
- 7 new powerful enemy boss types: Sentinel Exec, Braun Rook, UltraTek 2X Raptor, Syndicate Bloodright, Gang Street King, FSC Havoc Jackal, Star Phalanx
- Light Armor loses 5% Protection across the board, Kinetic Armor gain across Power Levels slows as well
- Improved armor values for some patrol and melee enemies who stopped scaling too early, street sniper armors values
- Fixed issue with Contacts not buying files that they should that started in #218
- Split Combat Drugs and Hacking Drugs filter in the inventory system so they are easier to see/shop
- Can now use LB/RB to move through tabs in New Game Knight screen - easier for controller/keyboard play
- Fixed issue where icons could get out of date (showing an armor but it was a scope) in large inventory tables
- Fixed case where character's character Hacking Drugs could not see their full details mid-mission in the character status hover
- Fixed missing text for killing enemy secondary objective

Knights and mercs, another balance, fix and improve update is dropping today between the weekly big hits of maps and proc-gen objectives and the upcoming big drop of the first Retirement storyline. Today we've got Update #218, which improves Hacker's Null Op Talent (at the cost of more points), adds the Buyer's Filter to Cold Storage ALL tab and fixes bugs with the filtering, fixes Cybersword Preempt Talent always Glancing Hit, rebuilds the New Game Knight screen for better keyboard/controller support, improves higher Power Level Stun Clubs, fixes 2 major story recruit issues where the recruit might end up "hung" and more! It is a big one - a heavy hitter - let's dig in!

If you are enjoying the relentless pace of improvements, please take a moment to leave a review. We are climbing on 700 now and excited for every milestone. Let's go!

[h2]Hacker's Null Op[/h2]

We've made a number of changes to improve the Hacker's Null Op Talent. There are a number of changes but the general direction is to make Null Op more powerful but also to increase the cost of its totally upgraded form. With its extra charge and higher Damage output, Null Op is a stronger competitor with Nuke, and has enough charges to be useful outside being saved specifically for spiking the CPU. But now, all in costs a total of 9 leveling points.

• Null Op recharge rate was reduced from 5 to 4. This is still too long to recharge during a single Hack but allows it to be likely ready for a second hack if you have one.
  
• To increase Null Ops value during a single hack, a new +1 Max Charge node has been added to its second line, which costs 2 points.
  
• To increase the immediate usefulness of a single Null Op charge, the base damage has gone up from 40 to 60.
  
• To increase the value of a fully upgraded charge of Null Op, the previous node dedicated to speeding up recharges has been converted to a +25% Dmg node and the other Damage boosting nodes are now +25% and +50%, bringing the total of a fully upgraded Null Op to 90-120 Dmg.
  

We've also fixed two icons in the left side of the Hacker's class tree that were showing that the upgrade node was for Strength when they were actually for Reaction.

[h2]2 Recruit Fixes[/h2]

We've fixed some lingering recruit issues that have been plaguing players games:

• You could refuse to help the UNA Hacker and find that they stick on your roster. This character will now correctly disappear.
  
• If you had a potential recruit who came from a story mission and end up Injured (looking at you, Rhino) there was a bug that let you put them into Treatment for their Injury which would later disqualify them from recruitment. This is now fixed! And if you had Rhino stuck in this state, she is now ready to recruit.
  

[h2]Buyer's Filter[/h2]

We've fixed a number of bugs with the Buyer's Filter where it wasn't always correctly filtering the right results or it wasn't showing all the eligible Contacts. In addition, we've added it to the Cold Storage ALL tab in case that is a place where you wanted to use it and for the future of Bulk Sell that may be most rapidly useful the ALL tab.

[h2]Stun Clubs[/h2]
All Stun Clubs at Power Level 3 and above have had their Power Slice special rules improved with better and better powers. This fixes an oddity where they got better at Power Level 2 but them dropped down again. Now there is a progression from 1 => 2 => 5 => 7, each break stepping up the Power Slice ability a bit.

[h2]Power Play Fixes[/h2]

When we rebuild the Limit Break UI in a recent update, something went bump in the text processor for Power Play offers. The offer was saying "Unknown" instead of the Contact's name. Thanks for all the F10s! Now fixed.

[h2]v1.9.139 - 2/26/2025[/h2]
- Better upgrade path for Hacker's Null Op Talent - better starting damage, higher peak, extra Charge for 2 pts, recharge rate starts at 4
- Added Buyers Filter to the ALL tab within Cold Storage for easier use
- Fixed issues with Buyers Filter and Accounts/Blueprints/Files not always showing correct results
- Fixed Cybersword Preempt Talent always scoring a Glancing Hit and therefore also never scoring Critical Hit
- Split New Game Knight screen into separate sections instead of one long scroll for better keyboard/controller use
- Reduce extraneous dialog repeated at extraction zone in hack only missions
- Improved progression of special Power Slice abilities for all Stun Clubs
- Fixed issue with Rhino Sniper Recruit possibly ending up on your Roster unable to recruit (now can recruit)
- Fixed issue where UNA Hacker Recruit could possibly hang around after being rejected (now disappears)
- Fixed old bug that allowed you to put Injured Recruits into Treatment which would break their recruiting cycle afterwards
- Fixed a bug that was preventing Blueprints from being offered more regularly as mission secondary objective rewards
- Fixed issue with Recoil display when previewing attack, game was showing the average result which is confusing
- Fixed bug with inability to select scrollbar in Victory/Defeat screen with keyboard/controller
- Fixed some Power Play offers showing Contact name as "Unknown"
- Fixed issue with Rook Prototype Weapons services selling level 8 E-Rifle at Level 7 service
- Fixed issue with 2 Hacker nodes showing as Strength on the tree when they were really Reaction
- Fixed bug where movement alerts for getting shot by Overwatch might not show if you started crouched behind cover
- Fixed white boxes appearing in timeline history for some items

Tonight we are issue a big patch to fix bugs, Snipers in T-Pose and the most recent batch of F10s! Thanks for your patience with game issues, we're working hard to resolve everything, polish and improve.

If you find and F10 a bug, we will work hard to make sure it doesn't last long! And if it does take a while, no F10 is thrown away until it is fixed. We will get them all eventualy :D

Thanks to everyone who left a review after the last 2 big updates with the new loadout system and the new proc-gen objectives.

All right - here we go, patch land!

[h2]Sniper T-Pose[/h2]
In all cases, friendly and enemy snipers were spending their idle time in a very rigid T-pose. This was due to some animation corruption during the last build and it is now resolved.

We also fixed a bug where some missions like Dead Drop Hit that intend to add a sniper to a level at a certain point would just add a regular enemy soldier.

[h2]Timeline Stuck[/h2]
We had an absolute flood of 10s about a bug that could cause your timeline to suddenly jump and then become non-responsive. This was a bug caused by when a Contact had a Limit Break that offered a Power Play storyline. We've now fixed this - apologies to everyone stuck waiting on this.

[h2]New Proc-Gen Objective[/h2]
We've fixed a few issues with the new proc-gen Infiltrate and Download objective:

• If your mission was made before the overnight hotfix, you might not get paid for the files you download. Hopefully everyone is getting paid now, the fix is in this update as well.
  
• On the River Street Bridge mission map, no extraction points were appearing. Now they will.
  
• Pushed Infiltrate and Download up to Power Level 5+ for improved progression placement for the new objective.
  

[h2]Other Mission Fixes[/h2]
We fixed a number of other issues across a wide set of maps. We fixed a pretty widespread issue where matrix terminals might end up with an SCU not linked to any security devices. This only fixes missions created after this patch, so you might still see it in the short term.

We've also fixed a number of missions that had the Hacking tag but didn't have a matrix terminaly - mostly Assassinate VIP missions. And finally, we've fixed a number of places where incoming reinforcements didn't make sense (in the "open field") or where they spun in place after appearing or didn't move at all.

[h2]v1.9.133 - 2/23/2025[/h2]
- Fixed bug with merc and enemy snipers being stuck in T-Pose
- Fixed issue in timeline where a Contact Limit Break could cause all buttons to stop working
- Bumped Infiltrate and Download proc-gen type up to Team Power Level 5+
- Fixed bugs in River Street Bridge not having extraction point for new Infiltrate and Download mission objective
- Fixed issue with Sniper in Dead Drop Hit coming out as a standard soldiers
- Fixed dialog at end of Ricksham Drips Power Play incorrectly referencing Rook Prototype weapons
- Fixed optional hacking tag accidentally assigned to some Assassination proc-gen maps
- Fixed reported issues with frozen reinforcements or reinforcements spinning in place on some spawn points
- Fixed reported issues with some Matrix SCU nodes having no security devices connected