Cyber Knights: Flashpoint News

Original challenge description below:


End start of month wrap-up!
Knights! I'm here to wrap up our No Soldier Challenge. It's been a very fun month seeing everyone's strategies running without a Soldier. It apparently wasn't much of a challenge for most of you, though many commented on missing some very specific Soldier talents!

A few highlights from the month:

Jotwebe, posted detailed AARs with lots of screenshots and writeup over on our Discord! They were a lot of fun to read through and so many gorgeous photos!

Habitually Red, here on Steam, did writes up and included hashes for the talent builds they were running on their mercs.

shallowrain gave us screenshots of their talent trees, along with screenshots and writeups of the action!

Phreak posted YouTube videos of their No Soldier shenanigans. Currently there are 32 episodes! You can find the first here.

Thank you to everyone who participated in our No Soldier challenge! As always, even if you missed the month we were running our challenges live, we always love seeing how you tackle them! Our next community challenge will be a STF, but we will have another CKF one soon!

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Hello, Knights! It's time for another CKF Community Challenge. Our previous challenge was all about leaving your Vanguard back in the safehouse and giving your Agent EX a chance! For this challenge, we are asking you to leave your Soldier at home. Soldiers, or at least some soldier talents, have become a mainstay in almost every group out there, so it's time to mix it up!



There are two requirements for this challenge:

- You cannot take a Soldier on any mission
- You cannot multiclass anyone into any Soldier talents

For a true challenge, apply these requirements to a fresh start, brand new game. This is not required however, you can just pick up from wherever you are and just no longer use a Soldier or any Soldier talents via respec.



As always, we want to see and hear about your adventures tackling the challenge so here are some ideas for what we’d love to see:

- Screenshots of your squad and their talent trees
- After Action Reports of your missions, challenges you faced
- Tell us about the challenge posed by not having a Soldier, were there any? Were you surprised in any way?
- Any other creative ways you want to share to tell us about your heists with your multi-classed mercs: memes, interpretive dance, gifs, etc


No matter what you choose to share, please share screenshots of your Soldier-less squad on a mission!

We’ve opened up a discussion here on Steam in the General Discussion forum for aIl of your posts. If you post in our Discord, head to #nosoldier_challenge to join in on the conversation!

It's a holiday weekend and with such so many new players in the game, we've just got another nice bug fix and quality of life patching coming out tonight. This one hits on the latest F10s, improves grenade throwing animation and VFX for enemies, re-adds the warning confirm to deploy with less than max mercs, and tweaks and improves the balance of Siege (easier, higher Power Level requirements).

Without further chatter - let's dig in.


[h2]Confirmation for Deploy[/h2]
In the transition to the new Matrix Tutorial, we had lost the confirmation required to deploy to a mission with less than maximum mercs. This can be a big mistake if you don't intend to do it, so the confirmation can help avoid that. It's back!


[h2]Siege Balance[/h2]
We've started with Siege balance tonight. These can be pretty hard levels, especially depending on the faction. The balance we applied here is threefold - first, we have made Siege's have a higher Power Level minimum before they begin to appear (PL 3) and an even higher minimum to allow them to proc against milsec factions (PL 5, definitely the hardest form). Second, we have reduced the starting enemy head count from 11 to 10. Minor but its 10% reduction. Third, we have reduced the size of the subsequent wants that are sent from anywhere to 18% to 40% depending on some (per wave) RNG and placement of enemies.

Altogether, hopefully this can help prevent the siege proc-gen missions from being a deadly, early, surprise.


[h2]Team Power Level on Pause Menu[/h2]
Your Team Power level is now available while in mission on the pause menu. This one just helps make key information more readily available, if you're asking for help at a certain point in the game, knowing your Team PL is often one of the early questions.

[h2]Enemies Throw Better[/h2]
There were a few mistakes with the visual elements on enemy grenade throwing. First, the throwing timing was off for when the grenade left the hand, making for a low arc and just feeling ... bad. Now it feels way better as we've aligned it like your mercs.

Second, the VFX for the result were accidentally switched in the game's data set. Now targets who are buffed will get a very clear buffing VFX played on them, as the colorful cloud of hype-dust spreads out.

Third, we fixed a possible case where the throw could lock the game up. This was pretty rare but could happen if the timing was right (or ... not right!)

[h2]v1.8.77 - #136: - 9/2/2024[/h2]
- Re-added missing warning when deploying with less than full merc team
- Tweaked enemy and wave counts in Siege: reduced starting enemy count by 1, reduced wave size by up to 25%
- Improved Team Power Level minimums for Siege proc-gen missions, especially for those vs. milsec
- Added Team Power Level stat to pause menu in missions
- Fixed issues with enemies throwing buff cloud grenades - VFX were flipped, animation timing was off
- Fixed Sec Level hover sometimes showing rules for Q-Sec Level instead (matrix vs. physical)
- Fixed button label in Contact Limit Breaks not changing by selection (Confirm Favor / Confirm Upgrade)
- Contact Faces correctly shown in Counter-Intel Token-for-Favor offer
- Fixed issue with mercs sometimes starting floating in Corner Holdout X Siege Objective

Welcome all new Knights to New Boston - glad to have you this week.

This is an old city but let's keep plastering it with updates! It is late, so I will be brief - we've had so many new players checking out the game, and so much awesome stuff added over the last week that we're taking a pause for a moment to focus on bug fix, quality of life and F10 fix tonight before we blast on with more content.

So, this update hits on many of the hottest F10s from this weekend so far!

Thanks for submitting your F10s, posting feedback and especially for posting up reviews! Every one helps us keep trucking forward.


[h2]E-Medics and Grenade Simulation[/h2]
We've fixed a bug where some E-Medics could lock up the game by throwing a grenade. Not pretty, call a medic! This is now resolved.

In addition, we've tweaked the math models for how grenade targeting is done to help the thrower hone in on their primary target and do less really odd tosses.

Finally, throwing a grenade did not always cancel your Focused Fire. Focused Fire is maintained only if you keep shooting at the same target without taking another action that requires AP or moving. So, throwing a Grenade definitely should, but there were some cases where it did not (oddly, depending on remaining charges of the grenade?)

[h2]Venom Trap AP Cost[/h2]
The Scourge's Venom Trap was costing 2 AP to use and showing an odd message above the Talent bar sometimes when used. We've fixed the whole bug which was basically a double-attempt to execute the Talent.

[h2]PXE Grenades[/h2]
PXE Grenades finally have corrected damage listed in their Talent, causing 320 Ballistic Damage and outclassing the old standard Frag Grenade.


[h2]Stun Tally Modification[/h2]
There was a bug in the previous version where Stunning a target didn't automatically update the Sec Tally tracker, so it could look like yellow Tally did not get removed. They were removed the next time anyone asked for the Sec Tally to be updated but ... we fixed it. Now it is instant.

[h2]Roster Tagging[/h2]
We've fixed (again?) another set of issues with dead, dismissed and missing mercs getting counted into the Tags on the Roster.

[h2]Update Size ... update[/h2]
Two weeks ago we completed a couple of near max size updates to the game in order to re-organize some of our assets. So far, we're seeing really good results with all but 1 update (which actually, tweaked asset organization, so we know it would be larger) being significantly under 1 GB. This is a great trend for a game that updates a lot! We're going to keep after this so that we're only asking you to downloading MB from our near-daily update madness.

[h2]v1.8.75 - #135: Black Soup Bay - 8/31/2024[/h2]
- Fixed issue with some E-Medics freezing on trying to throw N-Stim Cloud
- Improved math for grenade throw simulation to be more on target with tosses
- Fixed bug with PXE Grenade not correctly listing high Ballistic Damage output
- Fixed bug with Scourge's Venom Trap Talent causing it to consume 2 AP instead of 1 AP
- Fixed issues with Atomic Stutter and other Stun abilities not always immediately updating Sec Tally
- Fixing issue where sometimes throwing a Grenade did not cancel your Focused Fire buff
- Fixing possible double-team spawn in Corner Holdout X Kill 3 Captains Objective
- Fixed issue with Delaying Job from Field Ops Center sometimes not counting toward max 2 delays
- No longer showing outside/inside optimal range in Accuracy breakdown if accuracy effect is 0%
- Fixed more bugs where dead/dismissed/hidden mercs could still be counted in roster tags
- Fixed typos in proc-gen mission briefs, missing text strings in UI

Another day, another push of new content. Today in the New Boston zone we're further raising the bar for enemy variety with 4 new enemies paired with all new capabilities to throw buffing and healing (for now) grenades. This also starts to push the street factions into more distinct directions and improves enemy and enemy Talent scaling throughout the set. Maybe you're just settling in to how Wildfire and FireCOM mixed up the battlefield - well now welcome F-Duster, Patchmax, Bulwark and the E-Medic!

If you're enjoying the pace of updates and the way we are keeping Early Access interactive and exciting, please take a moment to leave a review. There is no better way that you could thank us for our work.


[h2]New Enemy Abilities[/h2]
So enemies can now throw grenades! This is exciting upgrade for them and giving them a lot more future potential to do cool, dangerous and just awful things. We've opted to start with nice things! Enemies can now toss grenades that target and heal everyone (mercs or enemies) near the impact point, just like your own Medi-Cloud items. In addition, enemies might also throw a buffing grenade full of noxious combat stimulants that can power you up good for the fight at hand.

We'll let friendly grenades fly for a bit before we let them throw the boom-boom kind. Time to adjust your team to new realities of warfare in the depths of New Boston, 2231.


[h2]3 Enemies for 3 Street Gangs[/h2]
The release of 3 new enemy types - the Fenian F-Duster ("Fairie Duster"), the Los Zagales Patchmax and the Blue Ox Bulwark - buffs the ranks of the street gangs with exciting new street chemists who mix and match their designer stims to push their soldiers to the limit.

The Los Zagales Patchmax delivers a powerful stimulant that raises Action Points, Move Speed and Initiative (while reducing Evasion) giving these street warriors the edge they need to get the jump on you or your crew.

The Fenian F-Duster delivers a bear-style stim which raises Accuracy and Critical Rate. This Redmist drives the Fenian fighters into a frenzy and makes the much more dangerous. If you see one of those F-Duster bombs go out, make sure you neutralize its targets before they start unloading on you.

The Blue Ox Bulwalk hurls defensive stims, keeping their paramilitary forces on their feet in the fight even if they are taking a massive beating. The Hardmist seeps into their brains and bodies, helping them soak up to 40% more Damage, increasing their Cover Bonus but reducing their Move Speed.

We're excited to see the factions stepping out in separate directions with this update and this came along with some adjustments to the underlying data model and code supporting enemy selection which is going to make it easier for us to make more faction variations in the future with less cost.


[h2]New Corp Enemy Type[/h2]
Within the corporate tiers, we've added a new E-Medic enemy type who is tasked with trying to buff and healing their corporate soldiers. Their medium-ranged N-Stim can heal targets with 5m of its naon-cloud release point. From the backlines, firing a heavy Revolver, these E-Medics can be dangerous in their own right but

We've also upgraded the KEMCO corp's KEM Doc enemy who carries a shotgun and a medkit that could be used at 2m. This upgrade allows the KEM Doc to also throw a more limited set of N-Stim healing grenades.

[h2]KEMCO Scaling[/h2]
Speaking of KEMCO, we've completed another pass of pushing different enemy sets to have better scaling properties. Now KEMCO's forces have joined the fun and are able to effectively scale like most of the other factions with new weapon and armor upgrades, upgraded Talents and more.

[h2]Overwatch Tuning[/h2]
Exactly what mix of enemies have the Overwatch Talent is a pretty important balance factor within the game, so we will keep improving and tweaking this. The addition of these 4 new enemies who don't Overwatch will help as well and we've made some other minor tweaks to the exact charge counts and recharge rates for enemies' Overwatch Talents throughout the list.

[h2]Corporate Captains Heal[/h2]
Some corporate captains have been granted a medkit carry and can now heal themselves if they aren't taken out fast enough.

[h2]v1.8.71 - #134: Drifting Hype Clouds - 8/29/2024[/h2]
- Added new friendly grenade enemy abilities - healing clouds and buffing combat drug clouds
- Added F-Duster (Fenian), Bulwark (Blue Ox) and Patchmax (Los Zagales) enemies who each buff in different way
- Upgraded corporate combat medics in multiple factions to throw short range healing cloud grenades
- Improved scaling for all KEMCO corporate personnel and guards, added healing abilities to KEM Doc enemy type
- Further improved balance of Overwatch availability in enemy Talent mix
- Some corporate captains gain ability to use a medkit during combat
- Fixed bug where camera would stop following AI after using Skip Enemy Turn a few times
- Fixed some causes of the freeze on during map missions

It's late in the New Boston zone and the game is on sale but that doesn't mean we can't drop a new update with new content, right? Update #133 comes with a new recruit option in your Underworld Hub, new unique Utility Program service for a Wireghost you might know, tuned the balance of the new enemy Talents, even better rules for Skip Enemy Turns and fixed a ton of UI related F10s. Let's see what we've got tonight!

If you're enjoying the pace of updates and new content - we've got more coming for you. And please take a moment to leave a review, our very small team appreciates every single one and it help us keep this train moving.

[h2]New Underworld Hub Recruit[/h2]
A new Vanguard option has joined the Underworld Hub, which gives you the basic set of Soldier, Vanguard and Cybersword. Clearly, we'll be building out from here, and Sniper and Scourge are on the next list. This one includes a completely new and unique Trait, new backstory, new contact connections and more. Dial up a token and take a look at your new potential team mate.
 
As we continue to expand the game's content in Early Access, one critical area is the recruiting pool. With the addition of a new Vanguard recruit option to the Underworld Hub, the possible recruits have now reached 6 including:

• 2 street recruits that are brought forward by other mercs
  
• 3 recruits from the Underworld Hub
  
• 1 storyline recruit from Salvage Job
  

We are working to continue to expand this list to the point where (1) you'll be picking which recruits to take over just recruiting everyone and (2) you will not have concerns about being unable to refill your ranks in the case of merc death.

At this point in Early Access, our focus is on high quality and hand-crafted recruits, because everyone is helping us further push the game in very good ways. The last two recruits have multiple completely new Trait type and effects between them that open up a lot of interesting angles for the next round of Traits. They also have new backstory tagging, new Contact connections who offer up different services and story angles for future updates. We will get to a point where recruits can be created by proc-gen, but doing so without taking time to further expand the Traits, Tags, Backstory and Connection options will lead to some pretty dry results. So, for now we're using recruiting adds as a roadmap to expand certain parts of the game and will keep after that.


Watch this recruit count - it's going to go UP.


[h2]Carnivore Wireghost: New Utility Programs[/h2]
We don't want to spoil anything, so we'll keep this brief. If your time with the Carnivore mission resulted in your scoring a new Wireghost Contact, that Contact now has a unique service selling some new Utility programs that are not available via regular Wireghost. Every Contact's slate of services is given a baseline by their Contact Type but then can gain or lose services based on story events or backstory and each one upgrades a differently compared to the next based on Hype and Exposure Limit Breaks. So, this gives this specific Wireghost a unique twist - and one that can be upgraded twice with Limit Breaks as well.

[h2]Update Size[/h2]
The last couple updates have all been delightfully small, weighing in from 200-400 MB. In order to possibly further trim that, or just ensure that it stays that low, we made another round of changes to the asset organization to break up a few of the remaining large groups. This has resulted in a trickle down effect and another big update size - 3.3-ish GB. All for a better future!


[h2]Overwatch Tuning[/h2]
After the latest update with the FireCOM and Wildfire, some enemy factions start using Overwatch a bit too much like a blanket on the field of battle. We've tuned their options to get this Talent a bit - hopefully achieving a better balance. We're looking forward to hearing your feedback.

[h2]Trait Balance[/h2]
We've improved the merc Below the Level Trait to give better XP bonuses, it was starting to low and never getting high enough. We've also down-balanced the Contact Trait Eager Buyer by a small amount, slowing down its progression through levels 2 and 3.


[h2]Confirm Overwrite and Load Save Slots[/h2]
With Update #133, we've ensured that the overwrite and load buttons for all save slots always pop up a confirmation. This is a big action, can results in loss of something you're trying to play and deserves a confirmation. Previously, only one of the two buttons had confirmation - odd but now fixed!

We've also adjusted the hotkeys used for overwrite and load so that they are consistent between the pause menu in the safehouse and the main mission map. To get the keys sync'd, you might have to adjust your defaults, so the results here will depend on how many customized keybindings you've done.


[h2]Timeline Pause Button[/h2]
We've fixed a hotly reported F10 that sometimes the timeline pause button could end up disabled even as the timeline was playing, leaving you no way to pause the timeline! The state management there has been cleaned up.

We also had to put out a hotfix last night that had some really nice things in it - so we will include its details here -

[h2]Wreckspire Fix[/h2]
There was a bug that could cause your team to appear multiple times at the start of a Wreckspire Siege level. This should not happen again. If you are unable to continue a level due to this bug, please just reload the saved game.

[h2]Better Skip Turns[/h2]
We've improved skipping enemy turns. Siege and Battle Strikers were driving the playtest team insane so we bet you feel similar. Now you can skip enemy movement even when they are repositioning for combat.

[h2]Fixed Wildfire Talents[/h2]
Sometimes the Wildfire were taking healing Talents instead of Full Auto. Fixed!

[h2]Hack Tutorial: No more Heat[/h2]
The hack tutorial was accidentally generating Heat. No more!

[h2]v1.8.69 - #133: Recruit Pool - 8/28/2024[/h2]
- New Underworld Hub Recruit - Vanguard!
- New type of Traits that react to going on missions or not
- Added 2 new Contact Types along with recruit offering
- If you get a Wireghost Contact coming out of Carnivore mission, they now have special Utility Program offerings (with 2 limit breaks)
- Added 3 new Utility Programs (Data Filter II and III, Trace Vector III, Decoy III)
- Minor down-balance to Contact Trait "Eager Buyer" -3-4% resale boost to levels 2 and 3
- Improved Trait Below the Level XP bonus
- Tweaked starting charges and recharge rate for Corp/Milsec enemy Overwatch Talent - less blanketing of the field
- Fixed bug where timeline Pause button could become disabled even when playing
- Fixed inventory issue where some equipment counts could be wrong
- Added confirmations to all Overwrite/Load save slot buttons, hotkeys now consistent
- Fixed issue displaying "Remove Mods" button even if all mods were locked by crafting

[h2]v1.8.67 - Hotfix - 8/27/2024[/h2]
Fixed issue with Wreckspire where you could end up with multiple copies of your team
Skip significantly more enemy turns
Fixed issues with Wildfire's Talents
Preventing Hacking tutorial from causing Heat
Fixed odd reinforcement spawn point in Street Palisade