Cyber Knights: Flashpoint News

It's late night on the New Boston streets and things are quiet - until the update hover truck drops in. Roaring engines, new improvements, more level points for you! and you! and you! - plus Blueprints can now be sold widely, more Contacts are buying accounts, service maximums are more clear, better Matrix Escalation balance, you can detach mods again (woops!) and another big round of Steam Deck improvements. You know - just another New Boston day, another big update!

If you're enjoying the pace of improvement and how we do things over here at Trese Brothers, please leave a review. We are a small team, working hard for your reviews - if you like it, review it!


[h2]Steam Deck Progress[/h2]
We plan to have continual Steam Deck progress for a while here, angling toward a better control scheme. Update #103 is taking a big step forward with resetting the default controller bindings to be more immediately playable and easy to use.

• Swapped Set Movement Destination to (Y) - it is easier to find and you can hold it down and drag your movement destination around by panning the camera.
  
• Swapped Toggle Highlights to (Right Stick Click) and added Decrease Full Auto Targets to (Left Stick Click) so you can control the Full Auto targets directly
  
• Fixed issue with (RT) being required to open Leverage and Item lists in HUD, use default select (A)
  
• Improved ability to preview terminal's security devices - center cursor plus (RT) to inspect
  

These changes are coming right out of the group chatting on our Discord in the Steam Deck Blitz thread and aren't likely to be the final changes, but please let us know how these changes feel and what else we can do to improve or if you found bugs, let's get them fixed on your Deck!

In order to use the latest default controller bindings - go to Options > Keybindings - Missions > Reset Defaults.




[h2]Better Level Point Progression[/h2]
Bonus! You get extra Level Points today for all your characters who have at least reached level 10! We've improved the curve, smoothing out a minor oddity at level 9 & 10, and then added an extra +1 Level Point for every 5 levels achieved. So, that's extra points at 10, 15, 20 and 25 - adding up to +4 Level Points for max'd out characters.


[h2]Blueprints for Sale![/h2]
Blueprints have not been mature enough for a long time to really go up for sale, but as we are narrowing in on the upcoming crafting release, the time has come. Now a variety of Contacts can purchase Blueprints, limited by Type and Power Level. Contacts like Gun Runners will be interested in buying your Weapon and Weapon Mod Blueprints, while Corporate Researchers others will want to get a hold of your Item Blueprints.

Most Contacts start being able to purchase Blueprints up to Power Level 3 and will need further Limit Breaks to upgrade their services to purchase higher level and even more valuable Blueprints.
 

[h2]Better Service Listing[/h2]
With Update #103, we've improved the display of Contact Service's list to be more clear when a Contact has maxed out a service. With the addition of Influence Limit Breaks being able to raise a service's level and trigger the sale of new weapons, armor, items, implants (etc) this is key to help further identify Contacts you want to focus on helping, selling to and supporting.

Maxed out Services are highlighted in yellow.


[h2]More Account Interest[/h2]
More Contact types are now interested in purchasing Accounts from you, giving you the option to feed more Influence to them. For Contact types like Street Doc, Dopers, Gang Bosses, it is now easier to raise their Influence with high Rarity Account sales, but check their specific services for what they are seeking and keep an eye out for matching missions. For example, your Street Docs can make use of Street Accounts - those from Gangs - so, consider extra time and effort to plunder and hack on missions running up against gangs if you're trying to push your Street Docs up to Cybernetic Implants level 3.


[h2]Matrix Escalation Rebalance[/h2]
As we continue to improve the matrix - and especially tune its balance for high Power Levels - we've made some changes with Update #103 that should help make the late-game matrix play more interesting and offer some more strategies.

First, we've adjusted how the Wake All IC Q-Security Escalation was weighted and drawn. It was used as a backup for a number of other cards that might not apply, causing it to be drawn far more often than it should be. It has now been pushed back to a realistic weighting among all the other options and should occur significantly less frequently, especially on nodes where the are already 3+ IC.

Secondly, we've adjusted the weighting of other Q-Security Escalation options, including to punch up the 3 types of lethal feedback the host can dish out - to your Hacker's HP, your deck and your Connection %. For your Hackers HP, the hits can now also come with a lot more bite, ranging from 10 to 30 Damage on the most deadly hosts - and then reduced by half your Deck Armor directly (8 Deck Armor = 4 HP saved).

[h2]Detach Mods[/h2]
For a minute there, the ability to remove mods from weapons was completely gone. We've fixed this, bringing it back!

[h2]v1.7.17 - 7/2/2024[/h2]
- Improved level points curve, +2 pts at checkpoints 10, 15, 20, 25 and smoothed out odd bump at level 9/10 and
- New Contacts willing to buy Blueprints by type - Gun Runners buy Weapon Blueprints, Researchers buy Item Blueprints and more
- More Contacts willing to buy Accounts (Street/Syndicate/Corporate): Street Docs, Dopers, Gang Bosses, Detectives, Sector Commander
- Wider range of Contacts can boost Influence with high Rarity Account sales to drive Limit Breaks
- Contact Services are now highlighted in Yellow if they cannot be upgraded further by Limit Breaks
- Matrix balance improvements - adjusted weighting of Matrix Escalations (more Dmg responses, less Global Wake IC)
- Matrix lethal feedback escalation can cause meaningful amounts of HP loss (10-30 HP, less 50% Deck Armor)
- Fixing bug preventing from detaching mods from weapons
- Prevent special effects (+5% Legwork for all mercs) from appearing in buffs and debuffs list
- Fixed Mintable Attack III (FAS) program to have Program Rating 7

Steam Deck Improvements
- Improved Steam Deck default controller config - use Options > Keybindings > Reset Defaults
- Moved Set Movement Destination to (Y) - easier to find and hold down to drag your movement destination
- Moved Toggle Highlights to (Right Stick Click), Decrease Full Auto Targets to (Left Stick Click)
- Fixed issue with (RT) being required to open Leverage and Item lists in HUD, use default select (A)
- Improved ability to preview terminal's security devices - center cursor plus (RT) to inspect

A new update is hitting the streets of New Boston to go with the 34% off Summer Sale event! We've got big improvements to photo mode to help you capture awesome screenshots, better treatment for Glitch and Slashslide to give you info about your movement destination, the ability to unequip weapons and armor (yes, finally), improvements for Steam Deck coming directly from our deck players right now, and a clear lock / placeholder message for the 3 Talents that aren't done - Taunt, Preempt and Stemlocker (yes, finally).

Thanks to everyone posting feedback, playing and leaving a review! We're a small, hard-working team who lives by your feedback and reviews so please help us out and spread the word!


[h2]Enhanced Photo Mode[/h2]
We snuck in another big step toward completing the Enhanced Photo Mode roadmap item with this release. There are a few more slaps of icing to put on this cake and then we'll be done with it.

With the updated photo mode, now whenever you engage photo mode (default P) all the UI will be hidden. In addition, by holding down right click (by default) to rotate your camera with the mouse, you can now rotate vertically and horizontally to get cool new angles of your characters and team. By coming freely pan, full rotation and zooming you can get some new and awesome angles, checking everything out down on the ground floor or from directly overhead.

We're excited this will let us all snag cooler screenshots of the game - but let us know what else you'd like to see.


[h2]Improved Slashslide and Glitch[/h2]
Slashslide and Glitch took a big step forward in this update, being treated more like movement now. As you consider the targeting for either of these Talents, the numbers for your weapons in the bottom left corner - how many could I attack from this new position, how many would hear that attack? - are updated live. This is the first step to getting these Talents respected as movement, the next will be to get all the sightlines added as if you were moving.

Then we'll be fixing the lingering issue with Slashslide and line of sight.


[h2]Unequip Weapons, Armor, Items[/h2]
We've finally added the basic feature to let you unequip weapons, armor and items. You can now remove these in order to give them to another merc without needing to have an extra to facilitate the swap.


If a merc is not carrying 2 weapons and wearing armor, they will refuse to go on a heist.


[h2]Steam Deck & Controller[/h2]
After the big GENESIS update, we're continuing to put pressure on improving Steam Deck as we head back toward a re-verification with Steam. We've got some work to do still but things are running so much better on the deck now. We're also luck to have a good group of players sharing feedback in our Discord and helping us know what our next steps are - join in on the Steam Deck Blitz forum thread on Discord if you have ideas!

With this update, we've improved the organization and exactly what is listed in the game's pause menu for key bindings, providing extra helpful items for controllers. Previously, important items like setting a movement destination were just not shown (:facepalm:)

We also fixed both Leverages and Items to use the standard accept binding (A) to activate the selected item. Players have been helping us hone in on places where the key required for actions are not consistent (especially with (A) and (RT) atm) and we're going to keep hammering these until its smooth.

We also fixed a big bug that prevented the safehouse rooms from rendering properly on smaller screens, including the Steam Deck.


[h2]Placeholder Talents[/h2]
We've finally given clear labeling and locked the 3 placeholder Talents in the game -- Hacker's Stemlocker, Vanguard's Taunt and Cybersword's Preempt. Sorry for all the confusion, we should have done this earlier.

[h2]v1.7.15 - 7/1/2024[/h2]
- Upgraded Photo Mode (P) now use right click to rotate vertically and horizontally while panning/zooming
- Improved Talents Glitch and Slashslide - when targeting the bottom left counts for attack/hear update
- Adjusted balance of Ex-Detectives Lasting Injuries Trait, removed +5% Stress Res
- Improved Dockyard Smuggler's Handshaker Trait with +5% Kinetic Pure Dmg Upgrade
- Can now unequip weapons, armor and items from players for easier swapping
- Fixed selection/click handling issue in class training tree with upgrade nodes
- Fixed bug where player might have incorrect red sight lines (enemy will see you!) drawn at start of level
- Correctly locked and updated text for the 3 placeholder Talents - Taunt, Stemlock and Preempt

Steam Deck and Controller Improvements
- Improved keybinding/controller binding list shown in game menu to include everything more clearly
- Section covers movement actions (set (R stick-click) / accept movement destination (RT)) and Select Talent List (X)
- Swapped the accept button in the HUD Backpack to use an item to (A)
- Fixed issues with Safehouse room rendering on smaller screens like Steam Deck

We've got Update #101 tonight landing in the New Boston zone, following up on the GENESIS update. We're soaking up community feedback through the forums, Discord and F10s and excited to keep updating and improving rapidly through Early Access. Please keep sharing with us - you're the engine that drives us to improve and improve again.

As usual, after a big roadmap update, we need a few polish updates, so tonight Update #101 improves the Legwork system, some minor tweaks to Haven Smokeout, fixes New Game V2 bugs and a ton of fixes to issues and feedback posted by the community.

If you're enjoying the pace of updates, the 5 major milestones we hit in June and playing the game, please remember to post up a review.

[h2]Haven Smokeout Adjustments[/h2]
Thanks to all the players posting up feedback on Haven Smokeout mission, we've made adjustments to the map and reinforcement rules. In addition, we've adjusted the secondary objective for the mission to be within 15 Turns instead of 12 Turns, giving everyone a little more breathing room. Let us know how your heists go and how the adjustments play out.


[h2]Legwork Team Visibility[/h2]
With Update #101, we've improved the Legwork system to be much clearer about what mercs are eligible for the legwork based on their backstory, traits, and skills. The upgrade shows all mercs who are eligible for the legwork but then disables them if they are Injured, just a Recruit, in the Simstream Detox or Trainer, getting Medical Treatment, committed to another Legwork or Injured. All of these mercs are now shown but unavailable for selection, which takes a lot of the mystery about why you may have less mercs ready for the Legwork than you expected.


[h2]Better Cold Storage Tabs[/h2]
With Update #101, we've redone the icons for the digital good types in Cold Storage and re-ordered them as well - now Accounts, Blueprints, Files and File Sets. This helps to move sets out to the end, get the icons to be far more visually readable and distinct.

[h2]Cybersword Adaptive Restruct[/h2]
We've fixed a minor issue with Cybersword's Adaptive Restruct Talent not costing 1 AP to use. Now, bringing your Armor back up a Protection Point will cost you 1 AP, unless you further upgrade the Talent.

[h2]New Game Talents Tab[/h2]
We fixed a bug with the new game Talents tab - once you opened the Face's page, all of the other characters had their Talents tab locked. Fixed.


[h2]Fixed Other Bugs[/h2]
Thanks to everyone posting F10s, we've fixed a ton of typos, small issues and other small bugs.

[h2]v1.7.13 - 6/29/2024[/h2]
- Haven Smokeout, secondary objective extended to 15 Turns (from 12)
- Improved Legwork offering to show all eligible characters, even if they can't (cyber surgery, detox, treatment, etc)
- New icons and new order for the tabs in Cold Storage (Accounts, Blueprints, Files, File Sets)
- Fixed Cybersword Talent Adaptive Restruct to cost 1 AP to use by default
- Fixed bug with Ex-Detective Backstory for your Knight causing them to be invisible, speak as "Unknown"
- Fixed bug in new game that made the View Talents tab disabled after viewing the Face
- Fixed issue with Battle Strike missions ending early if you killed all enemies very quickly
- Fixed reported typos in dialog and new game
- Fixed some odd floating objects in safehouse rooms 3D
- Fixed odd bug with non-existent Contact in the list

Update #100(!!) is here with full cRPG character creation for your Cyber Knight, and more. Enjoy 34%-off for the Steam Summer Sale!


[h2]New Game v2[/h2]
Desire for more fine-grained control over your Knight's stats has been a consistent drumbeat of feedback we've heard from you all, and now the new New Game experience is ready to offer it! You can now choose your own background, traits, and attribute bonuses for your Knight, dive into visual customization if you want, then select your starting squad members.

Backgrounds come with some inherent stat bonuses, open up new trait options for more, add tags that our Casting Director story engine uses to select storylines for your Knight, and offer context for your roleplaying, explaining how your character started down this path of underworld connections that eventually lead to becoming a Cyber Knight. We'll add more background options over time.

You then have 12 points to spend on your 4 Attributes: Reaction, Strength, Will, and Tech. You can spend up to 6 points on one attribute and no more than 5 on any other single attribute. Traits you select may also grant attribute bonuses.


Finally, Traits grant special stat bonuses and can grow over time as your Knight achieves limit breaks and can potentially choose trait upgrades as a reward (check the Cyber Knights wiki for trait upgrade stats). You can choose one background-specific trait and one Knight-specific trait during knight creation.

Thanks to all in our Discord who shared feedback on this system's preview! It's a great addition to the game, emphasizing the Knight's role as your main character. Experienced players will consider their long-term planned build to find the best synergies, and (if needed) re-spec their Knight's starting talents once they reach the Safehouse

You can also now view starting talents for your team members during squad selection, helping new players make more informed choices about if they want to start with an Agent EX or Vanguard, a Sniper or a Scourge, etc.


[h2]New keybindings for talents, Reload, Yield & Delay[/h2]
We've added new, configurable keybindings for selecting talents, reloading, and Yielding or Delaying in the initiative order. You can now by default press 1-9 to select your talents rather than needing to mouse down to the action bar, press R to reload, Y to Yield, or U to Delay.

We helped enemies go faster with the Skip Enemy Turn feature in update #98, now it's your turn! 😄


[h2]Controller & Steam Deck improvements[/h2]
This update brings major improvements to playing with a controller or on Steam Deck. We've smoothed out navigation, scrolling, screen transitions, and made it so that the Steam virtual keyboard now appears for all controller types.


We have a final round of Steam Deck testing to do and a new default controller configuration to set up for it in the next few days, and then we'll submit for Steam Deck verification. 🙌 If you're playing on a Steam Deck now, we'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions for the new default controller configuration.

[h2]Summer Sale deals, help us spread the word?[/h2]
It's awesome to reach update #100 already, and you know more updates (including another major feature addition) are right around the corner. If you're enjoying Cyber Knights, we'd love your help getting the word out about it! Please give the game a shout-out to your friends (maybe check your Steam friends list to see who's played similar games like XCOM 2 or Shadowrun) and suggest us to anyone you see looking for great games in the Steam Summer Sale!

Cyber Knights is 34%-off, a great deal for a game with as much replayability as we're building into it. We're pumping the sales now during EA, but will be scaling back discount %s as we get closer to full launch.

And if you're looking for more deals during the Steam Summer Sale, all our previous games are on sale right now too! Great time to pick up the Best of Trese Brothers bundle for more deep RPGs and tactics games to dive into:
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/37813/Best_of_Trese_Brothers/

[h2]v1.7.9 - 6/27/24[/h2]
- All new cRPG style Knight Creator in new game - select your background, assign attributes, pick your Traits, perfect your look
- Once you've optimized your Knight for your desired playstyle, assemble your team as usual and hit the ground heisting
- View starting Talents for your team characters (like Vanguard, Agent EX) to make more informed choices
- Tag now shown over the Command HQ showing the max and count of active tasks
- Major improvements and bug fixes to playing with a controller - navigation, scrolling, screen transitions fixes
- Steam virtual keyboard now appears for all controller types - Steam Deck, Big Picture Mode, controller in normal mode
- Added 10 new configurable keybindings for Talents (default 0-9)
- Added new configurable keybinding for Reload (default R)
- Added new configurable keybinding for Yield (default Y) and Delay (default U)
- Improved description of Scourge's Talent Reknit, removing all confusing language about duration
- Fixed some bad copies of SMG RapidFire that were for sale on market

Update #98 follows up on 2 major milestone releases - DOMINION and GO FAST - to continue to press forward on other areas of the game. Tonight's focus is on new enemies, improved enemy weapons and armors, new armor setup for enemy corporate captains and new varieties of reinforcement groups arriving across the faction lines.

Thanks to everyone posting F10s, posting feedback to the community and to everyone who left a review to push us up and over 300!

We're short on days but we still have a busy June ahead of us as we try to close out our (self-inflicted) challenge to close all these major milestones by the end of the month. To be honest, we've already hit 4 milestones which is crazy and we should be able to get #5 but the other 2 are going to slip into July by a few days to a week.



[h2]New Enemy Types, Clearer VFX[/h2]
Two new enemy types have been added, both armed with portable nano-capsules capable of releasing small fields of nanites that can form up to affect an incoming bullet just enough to alter its course from a hit to a miss. At the street and gang level, these Benders are cruder in their art, but the trained corporate Divergents boast a hi-tech and more expensive kit and are capable of putting up bigger Evasion buffs more often.

We're super excited to get on the track here of adding new enemies of all sorts - with new abilities, weapons and special moves. This is a great time for the enemy catalog to go from woefully shallow to something deep and much more exciting.

If an enemy uses an debuff against your team or a buff on their team, we've improved the VFX for these rarer and important events to be constant. They are light visual touches but they should help draw attention to the buff/debuff and can help prompt you to check the status pop up for the character or enemy to learn more about the specific effect in play.


[h2]Continued Improvement on Enemies[/h2]
We've continued to press this week on better progression across the board for the enemies in all factions. We've rolled out upgraded armor and weapons for a number of enemies as they scale into higher Power Levels and most notably, corporate Captains can now get armor as high as 3 Protection Points, making them significantly harder targets to take down, especially in Kill 3 missions.

Also, we've rebuilt some of the reinforcement groups that can be rolled for different factions, so expect to see a more varied response teams, mixing the new enemy types, some snipers and other enemies in where they didn't previously appear.


[h2]Improved Attributes[/h2]
In prep for the next major milestone of New Game V2 (Knight Creator) we've improved some of the effects of Attributes. You now gain +2% Dmg to Drones per point of Tech and +1% Dumpshock Res per Will instead of +1% to every 2 Will. Small changes, but helping to bring the Attributes into a tighter balance.

[h2]Improved Traits[/h2]
A number of Contact and merc Traits got a lift with this update. Thanks to everyone reporting issues with Traits via F10 and for the balancing suggestions as well.

• Merc Traits Grit, Scrappy, Bouncer and Bull-Built all now give nicer HP bonuses
  
• Contact Trait Detailed Oriented has gained bonus for buying Files and big Exposure Res bonus
  
• Contact Trait Calculating has been reclassified as a positive Trait
  
• Fixed bugs in progression with the MilSec Merch Trait
  

[h2]Custom Difficulty: -1 Tally Rules[/h2]
If you modified your custom difficulty setting to apply a -1 to the designed rate of Security Tally this did work except if the Security Tally was +1, in which case it was ignored. That was some silly nonsense which we have now fixed, it is always -1 unless it would force the Sec Tally negative and then time would start going backwards or something.

[h2]v1.7.7 - 6/24/2024[/h2]
- Improved enemy buffs and debuffs to more commonly have a constant VFX so they are more noticeable
- New type of street and corporate enemy - Benders and Divergents
- Benders / Divergents employ fast moving and flanking tactics, start with bonus Evasion and can buff for even more
- Improved armor and weapon progression on corporate captains - now boasting 1-3 Armor Points
- Rebuilt some corp, syndicate and street reinforcement groups to have more exciting variations
- Improved Attribute effects - now +2% Drone Dmg per Tech (up from +1%) and +1% Dumpshock Res per Will (up from 0.5%)
- Improved merc Traits Grit, Scrappy, Bouncer and Bull-Built to have better HP bonuses
- Fixed issue with Security Tally modifier in Difficulty; when set to -1 will now set level with +1 to +0/Turn correctly
- Improved Detail Oriented Trait to have bonuses to buying Files and big Exposure Res bonuses
- Reclassified Contact Trait "Calculating" as a low positive Trait
- Fixed issues with progression in Contact Trait "Milsec Merch"