Cyber Knights: Flashpoint News

Knights and mercs, we're landing with a morning update to dig deep on F10s and crush a bunch of "root causes" of hotly reported issues. This is a big patch fix including some key balance / signposting improvements around Talents and buff effects that will help the game play more smoothly and be more clear about what Talents are offering.

[h2]Clarity on Once-a-Turn Talents[/h2]

There were a number of Talents in the game that had an annoying habit of activating once and successfully working, but then being allowed to activate a second time in a Turn and eating your charge while failing to apply their Buff.

Think Skullshot - first time you shoot and kill you'd get +3 AP. Second time you shoot and kill, you'd waste the charge and get +0 AP.

With Update #238, we've addressed this Talent set by adding the once-a-turn rule to the end of their description and ensuring that they all stick to it. They will no longer activate in the case of passive Talents and once used, an active Talent like Skullshot will disable in your Talent bar.

This is not a nerf or buff - the rules are unchanged, but it is an important fix to make the rules clear and prevent the Talents from wasting charges (which is a buff lol). The following Talents have been updated:

• Steamroll
  
• Stopgap
  
• Savagery
  
• Run and Gun
  
• Recoup
  
• Synapse Short
  
• Overdrive
  
• Choppa
  
• Whisperkill
  
• Skullshot
  
• Quiet Kill
  
• Fleeting
  

[h2]Improved Description of Buff for Extra Pure Dmg[/h2]

What used to be described as "Pure Dmg Upgrade" for damage types has a new simpler buff text, which states something like "+25% of Ballistic Dmg as extra Pure Dmg." This type of effect relies on your Ballistic (or Kinetic) Damage and takes a percentage of that damage and adds it as extra Pure Dmg. This is really powerful boost, as you get to keep all of your regular damage and gain armor penetrating Pure at the same time.

it was confusing before, causing too many F10s and community chats. Hopefully this helps!

[h2]Contact's Mission Pay[/h2]

For some types of mission, where the primary form of payment is in the objective list - such as Infiltrate and Download, Lootbox Hunt, etc - these types of "secondary" payments were not being correctly modified by your Contact's Traits and Trust %. Now, you'll see those pay buffs cover the full gamut of payments you might receive, so those missions can feel more rewarding if you are working with a Generous Contact, etc.

[h2]Appearance Improvements[/h2]

For the appearance tab, we've extended the length of the name field if you are saving an appearance. We've also adjusted the zoom in rules to include facial hair - when you are picking a facial hair, you'll get a zoomed in look at it.

[h2]Swapped Nouns[/h2]
We fixed an issue that was causing the nouns for certain relationship tags to swap - son and daughter were flipped.

[h2]v1.10.23 - #238: One Shot Rule - 4/23/2025[/h2]
- Fixed multiple Talents that need a "activates once a Turn max" rule: Steamroll, Stopgap, Savagery, Run and Gun, Recoup, Synapse Short, Overdrive, Choppa, Whisperkill, Skullshot, Quiet Kill, Fleeting
- Improved effect description for Pure Dmg Upgrade, now stating "+25% of Ballistic Dmg as extra Pure Dmg"
- Contact Trust % and Contact Pay bonuses from Trait now correctly affect secondary objectives for $$
- Appearance display zooms in on character's face when picking facial hair
- Fixed issue with Brain Worm causing end of some enemy turns to hang
- Fixed issue with Slashslide where Talent names stuck around for next move order
- Fixed issue with some Trait/Tag text being swapped (son/daughter)
- Fixed issue with Talent.Name.-1 appearing sometimes in Hacker's Talent list mid mission
- Extended length of name field for Appearance saves to library

Knights and mercs, we are spinning out an urgent set of patches tonight to address some recent issues. If you're having issues with red lines scattering across your screen, this one is for you. If you've seen headless Brave Star on the loose, this one is for you. And a number of other hot topic F10s too!

Thanks to everyone submitting such awesome F10s! If you're enjoying the game, please take a moment to leave a review ːsteamhappyː

[h2]Red Lines / Missing Heads[/h2]

It turns out the recent forehead reduction surgery for some characters broke Head #17. This made the head disappear in the one place it appeared, on Brave Star Swat-X characters. And worse, if you tried to enable Highlight (H) while these enemies were on screen, the screen went crazy with red lines.

We have fixed their face.

[h2]Low Recruit Display[/h2]
In the last update, we adjusted the recruit level calculation math to be based on team average Level and to turn out much higher-level recruits (in most cases). Unfortunately, while we wired it up, the final value fed into the text formatter for the Underworld Hub was the old value. Woops! This is now fixed and the correct value is displayed in the UHUB.

[h2]Brain Worm vs. Talents[/h2]
We've fixed another small but important issue with Brain Worm. Sometimes they were using Talents or Items, which could allow them to still harm you or even worse, throw a grenade at you. Now, Brain Worm enemies cannot use any Talents or Items at all (not healing, buffing, debuffing, grenades, etc).

[h2]Daedaelus Bloc Fixes[/h2]

We fixed an issue where the VIP Diato might incorrectly appear in your next bodyguard mission. Also, we resolved some issues with the slides in retirement, including that characters you dismissed or skipped recruiting were appearing.

[h2]And other F10s[/h2]
We fixed a bad map code name (Blue-Gold Choke) to Hovertruck Repair Depot and resolved a Contact Trait that was showing as Paranoid when it was really Bellicose.

Thanks to everyone submitting such awesome F10s!

[h2]v1.10.21 - Patchfix: "Red Line" - 4/20/2025[/h2]
- Fixed issue with red lines all over screen when fighting Brave Star and turned on Highlight
- Fixed missing heads for some Brave Star SWAT-X enemies
- Fixed issue with Underworld Hub reporting low recruit levels (not updated to #237)
- Fixed issue where Brain Wormed target could still use some Talents, such as throwing grenade
- Fixed incorrect codename for map "Hovertruck Repair Depot"
- Fixed Contact Trait Bellicose appearing as Paranoid incorrectly
- Fixed issue where Daedalus Bloc VIP "Diato" would sometimes re-appear as VIP in another mission
- Fixed issue in Retirement where some skipped recruits or other non-team members were getting retirement slides

Knights and mercs, we're dropping another major map polish update as well as new hit reactions and laying some more groundwork for the upcoming Face class in Update #237. We've made fixes in Retirement results, improved Brain Worm rules to match Stun more cleanly, improved the main menu and adjusted the equipment rules for Face.

If you are enjoying the game and the relentless pace of updates, please take a moment to leave a review and help us keep sharing the game. You can always edit it later!

[h2]Hit Reactions[/h2]

With Update #237, we've revisited the blended animations used whenever a character or enemy takes a hit in combat. The old system gave a limited upper and lower body reaction to a hit followed by a very slow rotation toward the attacker which felt like an afterthought.

We've improved the entire system with Update #237 by using new set of blended animations (multiple animations for getting hit from right, left, behind, front, etc that are then "blended" based on the exact angle of the attack), as well as speeding up the speed and timing of the rotation toward the attacker and cleaned up timing in general.

There is always more room to improve and further polish such fine-grain, repeated animations that have such a big impact on how the game feels, so we won't call this done but it is good step forward from a flatter feeling set of reactions.

[h2]Mountain of Map F10s[/h2]

We went on a crusade against reported map bugs with this release and closed over 100 F10 groups that were submitted by the community. This includes all sorts of things like:

• Open field spawns (no nearby explanation of where they came from)
  
• Bad starting rotation for reinforcements, patrollers or your merc team
  
• Odd or floating props
  
• Movement rules around railings that will let you get closer to the edge of buildings
  
• Frozen reinforcements who refuse to start moving after arriving
  
• Odd areas you could Glitch into that are inside buildings or spaces that are inaccessible
  

[h2]Brain Worm Joins Stun[/h2]
We've pushed Brain Worm to work more like Stun and completely stopping all security events from being reported to the Sec AI, regardless of what point in the turn they were generated (before or after the Brain Worm, etc). This makes Brain Wormed easier to understand and predict - and it is a nice power upgrade as well.

[h2]Retirement Fixes[/h2]

We're already very happy with the decision to make the entire Retirement process "dynamic" meaning that every time you open the Retirement screen it recalculates and populates your Retirement results at that moment. This allows us to make fixes to the retirement results and see them in games immediately.

With this update, we've fixed a number of small retirement issues where the character being referenced was either wrong or missing or was accidentally set to the self ("Jailbreak felt this way about ... Jailbreak"). Also, we fixed an issue where some retirement notes were being added about nights spent together in a club when only one merc was sent to the clubbing relaxation week.

[h2]Face Equipment Rules[/h2]

In preparation for the new Face class tree rolling out, we finalized the rules around the Face's equipment. Face characters do not go on missions - they are the behind the scenes operators. Yes, in some far-flung future expansion they might, but for now, we're focused on what the Face needs to do, and that isn't sell their Revolvers at the start of the game lol. With Update #237, we've barred all Face characters from holding any gear of any kind and all new Faces will come with an empty slate of EQ. If you do happen to be holding something, that is fine but as soon it is removed you won't be able to put it back.

This has also helped remove any "Under Equipped" tag from the Roster for your Face.

[h2]Main Menu - Even More[/h2]

We've smashed performance even more on the main menu, cutting it down to the best level it has been for a long time. This time around we've added more culling rules, hidden more geometry, fixed issues with the post-processing layers and reduced shadow casters by more than 50% by turning them off on geometry that was not in the camera's view.

[h2]v1.10.19 - #237: High Rocks - 4/18/2025 [/h2]
- Improved hit reactions for attacks of all sorts to feel more impact and send targets reeling (will continue to polish)
- Fixed over 100 F10s about maps, rotations, open field reinforcements, frozen reinforcements not moving
- Improved approaching and seeing over some railings to get shots on targets below
- Improved rules for Brain Worm match Stunned more clearly - Sec AI cannot receive their reports
- Further improved main menu screen performance by another order of magnitude
- Gave repeated names to Daedalus Bloc main characters to make meta conversation about it easier
- Fixed mistakes in retirement text or character attribution - reload Retirement screen to see minor fixes
- Fixed issue with class name not correctly appearing in cybernetics screens
- Fixing bug with temporary story VIP joining as recruit after Daedelus Mission 10
- Improved Face rules around carrying and starting with equipment - Face has no combat equipment
- Improved character 3D display for appearance - always starts with nice rotation forward
- Fixed issue in 3D appearance tab for Face where sometimes character would be unarmed and sometimes armed
- Improved sorting routines when capital letters were involved (GX vs. Galvanized)

Knights and mercs, we've got Update #236 coming out fast tonight in order to fix a bug that was preventing players from advancing the SIbling Breakout mission (and sometimes Carnivore), as well as adding 5 new proc-gen combos for Infiltrate and Download, and fixing a huge bundle of map issues and community reported F10s to polish things up nice!

If you are enjoying the game and the relentless pace of updates, please take a moment to leave a review.

[h2]Fixing Sibling Breakout and Other Stuck Missions[/h2]
If you were encountering a mission that would not show the planning and deploy screen correctly (no mercs or Leverages are shown) you are caught in the bug that Update #236 is here to fix! This update will resolve the issue and get that mission running smoothly again for you.

[h2]+5 Proc-Gen Combos[/h2]
With the release coming up soon and sooner, our work on new maps and objectives has slowed so we can focus on polish, bugs and final content the game needs. However, we will be adding more maps before release and will be continuing to push on linking more maps to more objective types.

With Update #236, we added 5 of the older maps to the newer objective type, Infiltrate and Download, where you need to break into a target facility, reach one or more terminal and download 3 or 4 Files. This helps increase the variety over all and brings the total proc-gen combinations to 237 now. Remember when the "dream" was 80? Ha!

[h2]Keys Shown in Objective List[/h2]

With Update #236, we've completed a popular QoL F10 to add any keys that your team is carrying (once picked up, anyone on the team can immediately use the digital key) to the objectives list. This helps make it crystal clear about when you have a key or don't and doesn't rely on other mission objectives to point it out.


This is especially helpful if a key is granted by a Leverage, so it is immediately clear all the time that you do or don't have a key in a level where it might be really important.

[h2]Map Bugs and F10 Fixes![/h2]

In Update #236, we fixed a number of issues with maps. One of the most popular F10s was a broken terminal in the One-Ladder Sewer map, which will now either correctly not appear or will have a real matrix host behind it when it is there.

We also fixed more cases where line of sight was not working as it should, especially around cargo trucks that could possibly allow spotting through the truck sometimes. In addition, we fixed the cover shields on cargo trucks - often they were not appearing, now they do.


We also fixed some issues with the Haven Smokeout map that will prevent throwing grenades or Glitching into the central room, as it is interior walls that would block such things.


We've dived back into the main menu scene again and improved shadow rendering there to look better around the team and further improved performance, again cutting the draw calls by 50% to help that scene run smoothly.

[h2]v1.10.17 - 4/17/2025[/h2]
- Added 5 new proc-gen combos for Infiltrate and Download objective
- Added new key listing to the objective list ("Team has Gold Key") to always make it clear when you have key
- Fixed missing terminal that could appear in One-Ladder Sewers map under some objectives
- Fixed issue where some missions (Sibling Breakout) would not load in mission planning screen
- Improved shadows and performance on main menu scene again
- Fixed props with lack of sight line blocking and cover (more box piles, some versions of cargo truck)
- Improved grenade tossing rules around center room in Haven Smokeout

Update #235 is crash-landing onto the street of New Boston with more enemy improvements, removing the pause node in Daedelus Bloc, retirement screen improvements, the completion of a very expensive forehead reduction surgery project, improved generation of recruit starting levels, improved maps and props and more.

We're hitting the push point here with a big wave of new coming for you - so buckle up. Updates are coming! We hope you are enjoying the game and the relentless pursuit of improvement, please take a moment to leave a review!

[h2]Retirement Improvements + Daedalus Finisher[/h2]

With Update #235, we've made some improvements to the end game screens and the retirement system. This includes adding visual cards and multiple character results based off your story choices, Loyalty, level, class, backstory, tags and more. We're excited to see this system expanded and also to have pushed it to be fully non-destructive but determinant, meaning that every time you open the Retirement screen we're able to recreate (the same) retirement result for you. This is a powerful place to be and took a good deal of work, but it allows us to continuing to upgrade the visuals, text and possible results of your career even after you've retired and to see those changes filter down into any game that checks their retirement. So if we missed a cool retirement riff on some story choice and the community wants to see that honored, we can still make it happen and everyone can still see it appear in their retirement results.

We have removed the pause node before the final mission of the Daedalus Bloc storyline. Good luck, Knights.

[h2]Improved AI Response Consistency[/h2]
^^ Some dev visualization of the AI state/planning ^^

With Update #235, we've brought in the next wave of enemy agent improvements. This update is focused on consistency of responses and ensuring that the AI agents are following all of the rules of the game.

• Better handling of Stun results to ensure that, regardless of event type, the enemy are not rotating or reporting the event to the Sec AI.
  
• Same for Brain Wormed enemies, which were even worse than Stunned enemies.
  
• Ensuring that Head Hunters only pay attention to things they should - never stopping when they see a body, only caring about your mercs and local security.
  
• Fixing some cases where an enemy might be patrolling and not stop when they encounter something they should be paying attention to, such as half-spotting one of your mercs.
  
• Fixing a few final cases where rotation or movement vectors were wrong after encountering an event.
  

This upgrade really helps the AI behave in a more expected way throughout play. It really helps clean up, but the next big wave will be drive the actual upgrades in enemy intelligence with both local alert (enemy agents talking to and sharing status with other nearby agents), better ability to track security events and hunt around an area, fixing all the issues with and better fast forward turns (making everything skippable).

[h2]Fifth-head reduction surgery[/h2]

It has taken too long to address this, but all the masculine character heads had extremely large foreheads. If you didn't notice, bless your heart. For all the rest of you, we've spared no expense on forehead reduction cranial surgery and the heads are much better sized now!


[h2]Better Recruit Levels[/h2]
The level that a new recruit was starting in at was previously based off your Team Power Level. While this worked okay in the early game, it really started to fall apart in the late game as the squad's average is hitting 24 and your recruits are popping at level 6 or 8, so hopelessly behind they will never catch up.

With Update #235, we've improved the rules for how starting level is calculated, switching over to basing it off your team's average level (including Knight, Face, all active mercs but not other potential recruits). Their starting level is 80% of the team average which gives them a strong starting point but still some work to catch up. This also means that a team that waters down its veteran ranks with a wave of new recruits will see its average dropping and with it the level of its last recruits.

The Face will have something to say about this, but that is an update for just a little bit later.

[h2]High-Stakes Mission Marks[/h2]\

A mistake was made where Power Play missions and the missions of the Daedalus Bloc storyline were not being marked as high-stakes missions. Woops! They are! Very important, those! Now marked!

[h2]Coyote Hot Drop Objective[/h2]
We've improved the highlighting of the objective terminal in the Power Play mission COYOTE HOT DROP. This will puts extra emphasis on the individual nature of the area that your VIP needs to reach and access to exit, before you and the team need to find another exit.

[h2]v1.10.15 - #235: Push Point - 4/15/2025[/h2]
- Removed pause node from late story Daedalus Bloc, final mission now available
- Improved end game and retirement screen with visual slides, more character results, ability to update
- Improved all enemy agent responses to events (Lure, spotting, sound, getting shot, etc) for consistency of response
- Improved consistency of Stunned and Brain Worm effects on enemy agents (they can't report or rotate but do increase in alarm level)
- Rebuilt math for recruit levels - they start at 80% of the team average Level
- Fixed props with lack of sight line blocking and cover (box piles, glass tanks)
- Improved highlight area around VIP terminal in COYOTE HOT DROP mission
- Fixed Power Play missions and Daedalus Bloc missions not being marked as "high-stakes" correctly
- Fixed reloading 9th Daedalus Bloc mission at a mid-mission point, patient might be missing