Cyber Knights: Flashpoint News

Update #58 introduces a number of improvements to Contacts including the Influence and Exposure tracks, offers a solution and improvements for anyone having issues with unwanted controller input (joysticks, racing wheels, HOTAs etc), rebalances when some of the latest proc-gen missions can appear, improves Medical services and goes after some of the hotter F10 community reports for quality-of-life fixes.

Thanks to everyone playing and sending in feedback during our Early Access period! What an amazing crew - New Boston is lucky to have you. We hope you'll invite your friends and share the game with a review as well.


[h2]Controller Settings[/h2]
We have received some player reports about hardware support challenges when players wish to play with Mouse & Keyboard while multiple hardware controllers are attached, especially racing wheels and flight yokes.

1) We are working with our Rewired implementation in Unity to reduce controller conflicts and this update attempts to reduce the interaction between those hardware controllers and the game. The game is in Early Access and we appreciate the feedback and this support is a work in progress. Please let us know how it works for you.

2) We have added a new Option checkbox "Disable All Controllers". This option should be used if you have controllers you do not wish to remove in the control mapper and is available from the main menu > Options.

3) For players where controllers are interfering with the game, or making the main menu difficult to use we've added a new command line option -disableJoysticks that will force all hardware joysticks to be turned off at startup

4) This game is not designed for Steam Input and uses Raw Input (on Windows) or Native Input (on Linux and OSX) so please do not override the Steam Input configuration for Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. If you are having problems with an XInput device or another gamepad, make sure that your Steam Settings > Controller page is not forcing any devices to route via Steam Input. This can cause confusing bindings, so if your are having problems with odd default mappings (for example, pressing the A button Ends Turn) then you need to use Steam Settings > Controller to turn off Steam Input for your controller type


[h2]Bundle of Contact Updates[/h2]
With Update #58, we're moving Contacts into a better position for their next major expansion - getting dynamic, evolving and taking more actions in the game world. We've adjusted the Contact list and detail page to be easier to read,

We've revamped the scale for Contact Trust to be from -100% to 100% with 0% being neutral. This is a sweeping set of updates across the board that give us a wider range to play with in stories, services and all the parts of the game that rely on this stat.

Next, we've simplified the structure for the rewards for the primary Contact on a mission. The Contact now always stands to gain +1 Influence, +1 Trust and some amount of Power Level, utterly dependent on their Power Level and the Power Level of the mission they are offering, so ... "some" Power Level is as specific as we can be :D Any secondary objectives that offer Influence or Trust are offering extra on top of the +1 Influence, +1% Trust and +Power Level that is core reward like payment now.

In addition, we've updated the visual for Influence and still somewhat unused Exposure stat for Contacts. Like your merc's Hype and Stress, these stats can grow independently of each other. As either exceeds 8+, a Limit Break is in the making. For now, we're rolling out the set of UI changes, adjustments to the Trust rules and the consolidate mission reward structure. Once that dust settles, the Limit Break actions with their exciting list of possible consequences be coming soon.

[h2]Improved Medical Services[/h2]
Medical services are slightly more expensive (now clocking in at $5K and $10K at the two levels available) but able to now reduce the healing time of Injury by 25% and 40% respectively. This helps these services stand out a bit more compared to resting at home and rehabbing on your own.


[h2]Your F10s[/h2]
We've taken a tour through the game and fixed a number of places - especially the Hype and Stress bars in roster - where the hitboxes for the hovers on these UI elements were hard to hit. We've also taken a pass through those rules to ensure they reflect the latest state of the system.

If you fail a secondary objective offering cold hard cash, it will not explain which one you failed in mission victory. We've also simplified the display in pre-mission and mission victory for the states (+1 Influence, +1% Trust, +Power Level) that the Contact always stands to gain.

[h2]v1.4.19 - 3/9/2024[/h2]
- Improved controller support, new option to disable all controllers, command-line option -disableJoysticks
- Adjusted Contact display of Influence and newly revealed Exposure stat to match merc's Hype/Stress and Limit Breaks
- Improved display of contacts, main contact stats and services
- Upgraded all Contact Trust scores to be out of 100%, larger values, easier to manage incremental gains
- Simplified basic Contact gains for missions: +1 Influence, +1% Trust, +Power Level
- Improved medical treatment balances: more cost (+$1-4K) for faster healing (+5-15% recover decrease)
- Better Power Level minimums for some of the proc-gen maps and combos to avoid unfairly hard setups
- Fixed missing explanation of failed secondary mission objective if it was for $$$
- Fixed issue where contact services were repeated multiple times in contact detail
- Improved balance and consistency of Hype/Stress/Loyalty/Discontent changes via stories
- Improved hover hitbox for roster widgets like Loyalty/Hype/Discontent/Stress display
- Fixed bug that could cause freeze at extraction point in Forward Op mission

Welcome to Update #57, in which we've added another proc-gen mission map and a new objective as well that you team can try to take on. After the last new objective type Battle Strike, we've come back to the class sneak-fight-hack formula with Q-Gap Spike, where you assigned to infiltrate an enemy faction hardpoint and spike the CPU of a matrix host that is purposefully not entangled with any other quantum networks for its own safety. They didn't plan on you paying a visit!

If you're liking the pace of development, improvements or think we're heading in the right direction (as you can always edit your review later), please take a moment to post a review 👍


[h2]New Proc-Gen Objective: Q-Gap Spike[/h2]
With Update #57, we've pushed the proc-gen mission options for generation of endless missions open a bit wider. We're ripping now, adding 3 new objective and 3 new maps in the last 1.5 weeks. We're headed for 1 more objective and 1 more map, giving us 7 objectives and 7 maps. From there, we've got 7 by 7 and it will be time to start interconnecting more of the maps and objectives. We should be able to get into the 30+ range for results when asking for a proc-gen mission, just considering objective X map.

The new Q-Gap Spike objective asks a lot of your team and gives you the classic formula of sneak (if you please), fight (when its time) and hack (fast!).

In addition, we've added a new map the Street's Palisade map which is a great playground for different types of missions. Bent in an L shape, it provides some sneak or siege combat style challenges as you try to enter the center area, and a messy maze of a inner sanctum. Streets Palisade is currently the only map in the set that supports Q-Gap Striker, but we'll be fixing that quite soon as it is perfect for other objectives like Kill 3 and Q-Gap Striker will fit so nicely on other maps.

As soon as this new mission hits the street we're going straight back to the foundry to prep the next new map and another new objective to get to 7x7. Let's go proc-gen power!


[h2]Battle Striker Pricing[/h2]
We've updated Battle Striker to tune its price to the faction you are fighting. Coming up against Brave Star grants a much bigger purse now compared to the all-out battle with a lesser street gang.


[h2]Heat Effects[/h2]
Systems are beeping and bopping all over the place as more and more parts of the core game come online. Hype Mutation is up and working, at the HQ, we're testing and balancing out base building, and now we've got our first official effect of Heat. Do not worry, more will be coming but so will new ways to manage, mitigate and spike your Heat with the safehouse.

Heat now reduces your merc's Stress Res (and any Stress Res granted by difficulty) by a ratio of 5 Heat to -1%. This is not a huge impact but does subtly push the tension that would be present in running a high Heat operation and how it could weigh on a merc team constantly in the cooker.


[h2]Fixed AI / Sec Device Bugs[/h2]
We've fixed one of the most prevalent causes of an enemy saying "Security in my ear" and then promptly ending their Turn. We're continuing to monitor and improve the AI but there is still a lot of work to do to get its response model ready to handle every situation it can end up in the flexible stealth model of Cyber Knights: Flashpoint.

We've resolved a mismatch of Turn duration for disables shown in the Matrix SCU - the Matrix node promised 5 Turns disabled but upon disconnecting, only 4 were shown. We've now ensured they are correctly synced, and in this case the right answer is "next 4 Turns" which is until the end of this Turn plus 4 more Turns.

[h2]Projection + Silence[/h2]
There was a bug where if you combined Silence with Projection, you started making noise again. You were SO sneaky, you're noise went all the way around the circle and came back again lol. Now fixed.

[h2]Camera Adjustments[/h2]
We've made a round of improvements to the camera angles picked during any little cut-scenes run by the story or the Sec AI. This should result in drastically fewer cases where the thing you're trying to look at is blocked by a wall or external boundary area.

[h2]v1.4.17 - 3/7/2024[/h2]
- Added new proc-gen Q-Gap Spike mission type which sends you to sneak/fight into a zone to hack a CPU
- Added new proc-gen map, Streets Palisade
- Heat now reduces merc Stress Res at a rate of 1% every 5 Heat
- Improved pricing for Battle Striker mission types to be more faction-based (Brave Star vs. Street Gang)
- Fixed mismatch between Sec Device disable duration when hacking and after disconnecting
- Fixed main case causing some AI to skip their turns with "Security in my ear"
- Fixed bug preventing conversation at end of Sibling Breakout
- Improved Loyalty / Stress changes at end of Sibling Breakout for positive results
- Improved positioning of camera during cut-scenes
- Fixed bug when using Projection and Silence together that could cause you to be heard
- Fixed formatting issues with Victory/Defeat screen and long mission titles
- Fixed minor mistakes in Hype upgrade event logs

Welcome to Update #56! We're adding QoL improvements, fixing your F10s and pushing another round of improvements into the Hype/Stress system before the next map and mission arrives. There is a lot of great stuff in this one, so read on, good Knight.

If you're enjoying the pace of updates, improvements and liking the direction we're heading (as you can always edit it later!), please take a moment to leave a review 👍


[h2]Limiting Battle Striker vs. Brave Star[/h2]
The latest proc-gen mission type of Battle Striker has a wide variety of factions that it can run against, based on the types of contacts you are working with. It turns out - as enemy variety and power levels are growing - that one of those combinations was against Brave Star which could have put you into a very difficulty fight very early in the game if you happen to end up with the mission.

We have now limited the Battle Striker missions by putting some Power Level restrictions on faction target and you won't end up against Brave Star below Power Level 2 again.


[h2]Hype Limit Break Improvements[/h2]
We're catching up on a number of minor improvements to the Stress / Hype system after Updates #55 big add of player-driven mutation choices. We've fixed the limit break events to only if you have 80%-100% Stress or Hype (it was happening at lower values before) and removed the Flush Stress option (which removed all Stress) if you Stress is 30% or less. We've also increased the high Stress upgrade paths to allow for an increase in demanded Pay Rate % if your Discontent is higher than 50%.


[h2]Weapon Mod Clarity[/h2]
With this update we've added a line to every weapon's description block that includes the names of any and all mods that are attached. This also appears during comparisons so it can be much easier to find, equip or sell modded weapons now.


[h2]New and Improved Timeline Events[/h2]
With Update #56, we've added missing timeline events for mission victory and mission failure. These are badly needed as missions are such milestones and guideposts to help make sense of the entire timeline and what happened when. They will only start appearing after you install Update #56, sorry it's impossible to backport them.

We've also improved the event logs to have the ability to show substats like money earned (mission) and XP granted (legwork, missions) to give extra clarity to some events and historical data you can check later.

[h2]Fixed your F10s![/h2]
On the appearance front, we've fixed a ton of minor issues with hats and glasses and different faces. We've also resolved an issue that was preventing the slouchy beanie hat from responding correctly to coloring.

A big thanks to everyone reporting typos, we know it takes time but we fix every single one.

We've also improved Shock Mines and Dazzler items to be sure they always cancel Overwatch correctly when used on enemies. Stunned Overwatch wasn't doing anything anyway, but they could end up staying in the stance which was confusing.

[h2]v1.4.15 - 3/5/2024[/h2]
- Prevented some variations of Battle Striker mission (vs. Brave Star!) from appearing too early in the game
- List of installed mods now shown in weapon detail and can be seen in comparison
- Added timeline event logs for mission win or loss, including payment and XP gained
- Timeline event logging for Legwork now includes XP gained
- Further tweaked Hype/Stress upgrade paths - high Stress and Discontent can cause increased Pay Rate %
- Hype Limit Breaks and negative mutations only occur when Hype/Stress reach 8-10
- Adjusted Flush Stress hype upgrade offer to only appear if Stress is 2+
- Removed Hyped tag from mission preamble, kept Stressed out tag
- Fixed issue with buff/debuff areas not displaying full sum of all effects of upgraded Talent (such as Morass)
- Fixed stunning items like Shock Mine and Dazzler to always correctly cancel Overwatch
- Fixed lots of minor cosmetic details, overlaps, glasses placement
- Slouchy beannie hat now responds to color changes
- Fixed a ton of reported typos

Update #55 rolls out the Stress and Hype system upgrade we've been working towards, putting agency of your character's Trait mutations (and more) into your hands so you can have an active roll in driving their development from Hype cycles. We've also rebalanced a number of Talents, improved IC spawning in the Matrix and completed some nice UI tweaks for everyone playing from your F10s.

If you're enjoying the pace of new features, updates and content (another mission and mission map are coming) we hope you'll take a minute to post up a review!


[h2]Upgraded Stress/Hype Mutations[/h2]
There are still many systems in Cyber Knights: Flashpoint that are a skeleton of the design, but as we travel the Early Access path, we're bringing them up to full power as fast as we can. With Update #55, we're excited to launch an upgrade of the Stress / Hype system to where it has longed to be.

Mission victories, taking damage, seeing an ally die, completing Legwork, and more in Cyber Knights can cause your squad members to accumulate both Stress and Hype. When either reaches a peak amount (80-100% with an increasing chance of triggering), that squad member gets a new benefit or disadvantage. Until now, these have all been positive or negative random trait mutations. Now we've not only expanded the effect possibilities, but you the player get to choose a specific upgrade you want for your characters when they reach peak Hype!

The possible upgrades include:

• Raising your Loyalty, reducing Discontent or wiping your Stress
  
• Raising positive Traits and lower negative Traits
  
• Gaining permanent bonuses to your Attributes
  
• Gaining 30 day temporary bonuses of different kinds, including XP or AP boosts
  

When an upgrade's available, it will appear on the timeline as an "Excessive Hype" event. You can delay choosing an upgrade as many times as you like while reviewing stats and making the right decision for your merc's advancement. However, while the upgrade decision is waiting, their Hype bar is frozen, unable to gain any more. So it's to your benefit to make a decision without extended delay.

Stress disadvantages will continue to be randomly determined (no delaying a decision indefinitely with this one) but also has an expanded set of options to draw from when Stress peaks - including increasing Wound levels or increasing Discontent.

Discontent and Loyalty are new, higher-level meters that can be raised as a result of reaching peak Stress or Hype. The higher these meters go, the more they open up better / worse trait mutations, new story opportunities, and other effects on Stress & Hype.

With this update we've added Stress and Hype generation at more places throughout the game -- legwork, mission results, secondary objectives, taking Wounds and more. The system will continue to expand with character relationships, ways to reduce Stress through the Safehouse, and other factors coming in to play, but it's ready to contribute to your squad members' stories now. Have fun with the new system!


[h2]Talent Tweaks[/h2]
With this update, we've rebalanced the Scourge's Dissolve Talent to have a 6 Turn recharge rate, up from 4. There is still easy access to additional charges to offset the waiting time, so be sure to upgrade Dissolve more thoroughly if you plan to use it.

Along with this, we've adjusted the Scourge's starting training package so that they have an extra Dissolve charge and their Bio-Mimic Talent right out of the gate and don't have 3 lingering training points when they first arrive in the safehouse. This helps them be more fun and uniquely useful in the starting mission as well.

We've also fixed a bug with Sniper's Weak Spot that was not showing the additional Damage scored by the Talent in the damage preview.

Finally, Soldier's Entrench has had 5% of its Built-In Armor bonus shaved off the top. We've also fixed a bug with the ordering of how Built-In Armor was applied, which caused it to be additive with your Armor's Ballistic or Kinetic Protection, easily allowing 100% Protection. Built In Armor's power is that it applies across the board to Ballistic, Kinetic and *even* Pure Dmg to further reduce Damage after regular armor has been applied. If you take 100 Dmg, Armor reduces it to 50 Dmg, then Entrench's 20% reduces that to 40 Dmg.


[h2]UI and Roster Improvements[/h2]
Clicking on a weapon, weapon mod, armor or item will now take you directly into the equipment screen instead of requiring a second click for confirmation or a keypress. Whew, that's nicer!

We've fixed sorting for high and low gear level to make sure it takes all weapons, weapon mods, armor and items into account by Power Level.

With this update we've increased the fidelity of movement warnings as there were too many edge cases where they were so close to either trigger or not triggering a warning and the wrong fact could be reported. So, the granularity of the checks is now lower, which should get us closer to perfect.


[h2]Matrix Improvements[/h2]
We've completed a pass of improvements the IC spawner rules that place IC into matrix hosts based on their Security and Response Levels, Power Levels, enemy faction and other factors. This has resulted in some positive improvements to the chances of running into high level Traps as well as a better mix of Active and Passive IC through many hosts. Some types of traps like Slapfish specifically have now bee pushed to only appear on hosts of Orange or higher.

[h2]v1.4.13 - 3/2/2024[/h2]
- Major upgrade to Hype/Stress system - more sources of both, choose your own Hype upgrades
- Hype upgrades include Trait mutation (positive or negative), Attribute bonuses, 30 day bonuses, changing Loyalty/Stress/Discontents
- Improved new game training for Scourge, added +1 charge of Dissolve and trained Bio-Mimic
- Fixed Sniper's Weak Spot not previewing Talent damage correctly when targeting enemy
- Click weapon/armor/mod/item in roster immediately takes you to equipment screen, no more second click
- Improved smoke cloud rules with line of sight not working near the boundary edge
- Increased fidelity of movement warnings - more precise checks, less edge case mis-reports
- Added +2 more Turns to Scourge's Dissolve Talent recharge rate - get more upgrades!
- Fixed sort by gear level in roster to correctly sum weapons+armor+items for sorting
- Improved IC balancing in Matrix, including pushing some difficult IC types up to Orange+
- Fixed bug sometimes causing an additional program to be unloadable in matrix
- Fixing hotkey tip for +/- Targets in Full Auto stacking on itself first time it appears
- Improved injury time text formatting in victory screens
- Reduced Soldier's Entrench starting Built-In Armor bonus from 25% to 20%
- Fixed issue with Built-In Armor incorrectly applying
- Added helpful hovers to timeline buttons

Welcome to Update #54, where we've got another expansion to the catalog of proc-gen missions and objectives that your team can get involved in. it's exciting to roll out the first pure combat proc-gen mission and this one has some more meaningful variations in difficulty based on who you are working for (rival gang vs. rival gang or Syndicate vs. mil-sec). We've also made improvements the Hacker's Rampage Talent, improved Stress/Hype/Discontent/Loyalty in prep for a big update that is coming any day for that, and fixed a nice pile of F10s!

If you're liking the pace of development, improvements and the direction we are heading with the game please take a moment to post a review 👍


[h2]New Proc-Gen Battle Striker Missions[/h2]
With Update #54, we've added another type of proc-gen mission and another new proc-gen mission map. This time the new objective is completely combat focused with the Battle Striker. Go in hot and fight to the end against an array of deadly enemies and a few waves of reinforcements coming in hot. Bring your combat squad to this one, as the enemy is dug in to a fortified area and ready for you.

In addition, we've added a new map the Corner Holdout which is a great map for contested area and plays with elevation in new ways. Corner Holdout is currently the only map in the set that supports Battle Striker missions, but we are working on making more bi-directional connections in the set here - both adding more maps that support Battle Striker and Bodyguard and missions and Corner Holdout is perfect for a few of the other objective types like Kill 3 and Scavenge.

As soon as this new mission hits the street we're going straight back to the foundry to prep another new map and another new objective. Let's go proc-gen power!


[h2]Hacker's Rampage[/h2]
We've updated Hacker's Rampage Talent in 2 ways to improve it. First, we've nerfed the %s on the Hacker's class tree that added to Matrix Damage. These were just too powerful and overwhelmed what Rampage could offer. These bonuses have been cut from a 25% total to 12% total through the tree.

In the same stroke, Rampage has gained a 6th upgrade now and now can offer 45% Matrix Damage bonus as well as a +10 AP boost to help you keep slaying in the digital datastreams.


[h2]Stress => Discontent || Loyalty There is a big update just around the corner to improve your player agency and fun around how Hype and Stress translate into evolving mutations for your character. In preparation for that, we've adjusted all the starting values for all characters - everyone now starts with some of each value. There is no randomness, we're never a fan of any reason for you to reroll new games, so these are static set by the character and backstory.

We've also improved and given more teeth to the story impacts to these stats. For example, your characters may directly gain Loyalty or Discontent during important storylines like Sibling Breakout, where the merc was only gaining Stress before which is not powerful enough of an impact if you leave them hanging.

Finally, we've fixed bugs with how Traits that could grant Minimum Loyalty so that they really work now and enforce this minimum.

[h2]Your F10s![/h2]
A huge thanks to everyone sending in F10s, posting here with feedback on the boards or joining us on Discord. We fix a heap of minor bugs with every update, so it makes a huge difference. We fixed issues where far away enemies' sight cones would suddenly appear, with Trait names and levels, and places where Trait Fearsome suddenly became Trait Ferocity, or Extractions could hang in some situations.

[h2]v1.4.9 - 2/29/2024[/h2]
- Added new proc-gen battle striker mission type which is pure combat, attack and overwhelm an enemy force
- Added new proc-gen map, Corner Holdout
- Improved Hacker's Rampage, starts at +15% Dmg, can add +10 AP, and added 6th upgrade to push Damage bonus to 45%
- Reduced Hacker's class tree bonuses adding directly to Matrix Dmg (from 25% across 4 nodes to 12% across 4 nodes)
- Improved starting Stress/Discontent/Loyalty/Hype for all characters
- Improved story choices impacts on Stress/Discontent/Loyalty/Hype
- Fixed bug with Trait Fearsome mutating into Ferocity
- Improved use of Trait name and Trait Level (Grit 1 vs. Grit) where helpful
- Fixed bug that would cause far away / invisible enemy sight cones to appear
- Fixed some issues that could cause Extraction to hang, thanks for the F10s!