Cyber Knights: Flashpoint News

It's a boom economy for Cyber Knights. With this update we have now doubled the amount of proc-gen missions available, creating 10 more combinations between existing maps and proc-gen objectives. Combined with a milestone we hit in January doubling the amount of unique story missions (many of which are multi-stage), there's more opportunities than ever for your crew to earn some serious credits.

If you're enjoying the on-going updates and improvements for Early Access, remember you can leave a review now and always edit it later.


[h2]+10 Proc-Gen Combos[/h2]
The proc-gen mission system in Cyber Knights combines maps + objective types + enemy factions + a ton of other factors to create unique heist experiences. With Update #60, we've integrated 10 new map + objective combos, greatly increasing the amount of playable content in the proc-gen system.

You may have played bodyguard for a data courier before in the Slumroad Junction map, but now you can be paid by one of your Wireghost contacts to get a data courier through the Trucker HQ where the bridges are held against you by a bristling set of Blue Ox toughs, completely changing the pacing of the level as you need to hit the bridge guards hard and reach the extraction before things completely go off the rails.

You may have raided the Streets Palisade to hack a buried quantum data-bloc, slipping through or cutting down security to open the path for your hacker. But now your payday from the Blue Ox may rely on you slogging down into the sewers, battling in close quarters against the Que Milieu Syndicate to reach a really buried matrix host to spike before fighting your way out again.

Your mission choices are now feeding into the Influence of the Contacts you are choosing to work for, pushing them toward reaching 8+ Influence and being able to take actions in the simulation, mutate their positive Traits or even upgrade their underworld services to your benefit. And soon (not quite ready, still balancing), those you're working against will be suffering Exposure gains, pushing them to mutate negative Traits, downgrade their Power Level, taking negative actions in the story or increase their risk of death.

As your options for jobs explodes, who you work for is mattering even more.

[h2]Roadmap "Coming Soon"[/h2]
The team is working on multiple fronts back at Trese Brothers HQ - loading the game up with more content as well as finalizing a number of major roadmap items.

We are in testing, integration and final visual tweaks on a lighting engine and post-processing layer upgrade that will help play up the look of cyberpunk world of New Boston - gritty, dark but still vibrant and glowing.

[h3]Mac OS support[/h3]
We're very pleased to say we've cleared some challenging hurdles that have been blocking a working Mac version. With those out of the way, the new lighting engine is one of the last elements needed to finish it, so these two roadmap items will come nearly hand-in-hand. We know our Mac player community and Kickstarter backers are eagerly waiting to try out the game, so this will be a grand day.

[h3]Safehouse Base-Building[/h3]

Finally, we have completed the functional work for safehouse base building. There is a ton more work, testing and balance to get it player-ready, and some time needed for our own team to put it through its paces and complete a first round of tweaks, UI improvements and any minor functional changes. But it is clearly on the horizon now.

Due to the amount of content that will be coming in the release of base building, we're now marking this as a Q2 2024 item on the roadmap. This includes blueprint crafting in a safehouse workshop, giving you the ability to use the high-value blueprints you can find on missions. Being able to create your own weapons, armor and items will give you new options to avoid the expensive market and create uniquely rare and valuable items.

And the plan is that as blueprint crafting opens up, so will a set of contacts you can sell your blueprints for cash to, so you can sort through your stash and chose which you want to keep for nano-fab and which you want to sell for hard U-Duhs.

[h2]Motion Detector Warnings[/h2]
The movement alerts for motion detectors were not correctly taking Line of Sight into their warnings and posting up incorrect or too early warnings. This is now resolved and all checks include line of sight as well as your speed and distance to get the best results possible.


[h2]High Armor Targets![/h2]
If you happened to run into a Street Charger like this with 121% Armor, they stole some items from the lab. It was not intentionally, and they repaired their armor above the maximum rating. Some players figured out how to shred their armor or pile on the Pure Dmg until they were dead ... but now we've fixed this issue.

High armor targets are coming with higher level enemies, drones, etc. But not like this, not like this.

[h2]Inventory / Market Fixes[/h2]
We've fixed a number of small issues with the inventory and market.

First, if you had rescued the Wireghost in the Carnivore mission, after the latest round of updates to Contact Trust and Influence, he stopped selling cyberdecks and programs. We've resolved that minor bug!

Second, if you are checking out weapon mods with optimal range changes, the +/- are now included all the time so it is clearer if the mod is increase or decreasing your optimal range band.

Finally, we fixed a bug that could cause the UI to lock up if you were comparing weapons when buying or selling those weapons. Oops!



[h2]v1.4.25 - 3/14/2023[/h2]
- Added 10 new proc-gen mission combinations, doubling amount of playable proc-gen missions
- SCU in Q-Gap Spike matrix terminal in Street Palisade map now controls multiple security cameras
- Added missing +/- signs to weapon mod changes to Optimal Range
- Fixed movement warnings for Motion Detectors to respect line of sight
- Added ability for hover to show hotkey associated with a button or action (i.e. ENTER shown on End Turn)
- Added helpful message to Legworks if there are no available characters
- Fixed issue where new Wireghost Contact from Carnivore was not selling new cyberdecks and programs correctly
- Fixed issue with invincible enemy who was using an item to increase their Armor Protection Points beyond max
- Fixed Matrix issue where you could Jam a device that the Sec AI hasn't woken up yet
- Fixed secondary objectives for "less than 3 Sec Level" to fail on 3 correctly
- Fixed controller issue that could cause the mouse cursor to disappear
- Fixed Damage and Bleeding out messages overlapping on screen to make them unreadable
- Fixed inventory and market issues that could lock the UI if buy/sell during compare
- Fixed issue where sometimes Blend's hologram styling could stay after buff ends
- Fixed issue where too much loot in a mission could break the formatter

As we round the bend before the next big content push, we've got another strong update full of bug fixes, balance improvements and tuning for the story and contact simulation. This one touches on preventing back-to-back reinforcements, improved new game contact stats, improving Scourge's Dissolve to be more flexible, avoiding some less than awesome combinations in Hype Limit Breaks and more.

If you're seeing progress in the right direction and like the foundation of the game we're rapidly filling in during Early Access, we hope that you will take a moment of leave a review!

[h2]Improving Sec AI Responses[/h2]
Update #59 includes another improvement to the choices the Sec AI can make, specifically throttling calls for reinforcements to help avoid the back-to-back arrivals of enemies leading to them stacking up on top of each other. We've added some capabilities here that will allow us to further flex the Sec AI's cool by creating specific requirements, ordering and chains of responses. More on that later, but for now we've made the first tuning in the area to avoid the less-than-nice reinforcements pile up.


[h2]Starting Contact Stats[/h2]
We've improved the Contact starting stats to correctly reflect the changes in Trust to being out of -100% to 100% and also the new Influence/Exposure stats. In addition, we've fixed an issue where you owed some odd characters one or more Obligations without any sensible cause, suchas the Syndicate Soldier Hartzek. As Zasha killed his son during a UKF fight, there shouldn't be any Obligations, only enmity.


[h2]Scourge's Dissolve and Dissolve Timing Fix[/h2]
For a while, there has a been an issue where corpses could stay around visually even if they were dissolved or bio-recycled. The corpse wouldn't really be there in the game, wasn't noticed by other enemies patrol and would disappear on reload but it was a confusing visual artifact. We've fixed the timing issue which was related to dissolving the corpse during its hand off from dying enemy to ragdoll to resting corpse.

Also, to give you as much flexibility as possible, we've removed the restriction from the Scourge's Dissolve that was blocking Dissolving already discovered bodies. A body will alert any guard who spots it, so even if one guard has seen it in the past it doesn't mean it might not be a thorn in your side again. Now, you can Dissolve at will.


[h2]Hype Limit Breaks: Stress Reduction[/h2]
We've improved the options that get selected for Hype Limit Breaks when you have high Stress to ensure that only one of Cut Stress (-5 Stress) and Flush Stress (reset Stress to 0%) appear in the list. There were cases where both were appearing which really limits the other cool options you should be able to pick from. Now only one spot can ever be dedicated to Stress reduction.


[h2]Cube Run Over-Achiever[/h2]
If you were regularly over-achieving in the Cube Run mission, you might have hit a few snags. As you only need 2/2 Terminals to enter the lab, those who went for 3/2 triggered a case that we hadn't tested well enough and the extraction point promptly disappeared. :facepalm: Now its fixed!

[h2]v1.4.23 - 3/12/2024[/h2]
- Adjusted all starting contact's Favor, Obligations, Trust % and starting Influence scores
- Improved Sec AI ability to throttle and chain certain security events - prevents back-to-back reinforcements
- Removed restriction on Scourge's Dissolve that prevent it from being used on already discovered bodies
- Fixed issue where sometimes bodies would not visually disappear if dissolved within 10 seconds of death
- Fixed issue where comparison color for Pure Dmg in weapon compare was flipped
- Fixed Hype Limit Break bug where both Flush Stress and Cut Stress could appear together
- Simplified intro to proc-gen Hack CPU missions after you've completed it once
- Removed incorrectly previewed extraction points on Heist CPU proc-gen level
- Fixed some pathing and prop issues in Streets Palisade
- Fixed bugs in Cube Run if you went for 3/3 terminals when you only need 2/2

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