Cyber Knights: Flashpoint News

Update #25 is here and it's a huge upgrade to the alert system (previously "You will be heard" but now majorly expanded), immediate and easy access to exactly which enemy agents will hear an attack from any give location, a revamp of the Injury Time math, a rebuild of the character dialog to address a ton of nagging issues and improve light and more more more.

This is perhaps one of the biggest QoL updates we've released yet and we hope you find it helpful!

If you're enjoying the pace of updates and improvements, please consider leaving a review and sharing the game with a friend.
 
We've slipped on our posted roadmap schedule, missing November with Proc-Gen but that milestone, and Custom Difficulty are both circling, very close now.


[h2]Movement Alerts[/h2]
Whenever you are considering a move, you can now see a new set of alerts. Joining the previously available alert for "You will be heard" we now offer "You may be seen" and "Camera will spot you". This new layer of details - including exactly where in your move path you'll hit the issue - makes it much easier to make movement decisions without worrying about checking every guard in the area against your path. In the case where you are going to be spotted or heard by an enemy agent, a yellow icon appears under their hover now, making it clearly exactly who-will-what. This is a great upgrade for the noise system which needed this before and is just as useful for the new vision alert.

Overwatch is pending some finalized code and testing but will join the alert set soon with "You will be shot!"


[h2]Who Will Hear an Attack?[/h2]
Update #25 now exposes exactly which enemies will hear your attack with a new yellow under-hover icon. The upgraded icon also appears in the bottom left of the screen with your weapon, how many enemies will hear your attack (from the current position or from your set movement destination). This exposes a very useful set of details very quickly as you play and can help you make faster and more accurate tactical decisions about when and where to make your attacks.

In addition to knowing the number, you can now easily see exactly who as you drag the movement destination around and the yellow alerts come and go under specific enemies. Aitana is just around the corner from these two with her UAR primed - they're going to hear it, but not sure it is going to matter.

[h2]Better Injury Time Calculations[/h2]
We've taken a moment to revamp the calculations used to determine how much Injury Time you have in the safehouse after taking hits.

First off, if a hit is less than 20% of your max HP, it now can never cause any Injury Time. This is a good starting point as grazing hits aren't going to cost you. Once you're over 20%, the Injury Time is going to scale pretty directly based on Damage and % of your max HP. This is a big help in making the injury time feel right - take a big hit, get more time. There was too much RNG in the old system, and if the dice fell the wrong way, even a small hit could end up with more Injury Time than a big hit that rolled low.

In addition, any time you get smacked with a Critical Hit or get knocked to Bleeding Out status, you'll get an elevated Injury Time roll, but it is still based on the damage caused compared to your max HP.

[h2]Spiking Requires Scan 2/2[/h2]
We've improved the hover on the button for Spiking CPU and APU to include an important rules clarification. To Spike, you must have destroyed all the IC with an Attack program and the Scan Level must be 2/2. We'll keep working to improve this but the hover at least can now point you in the right direction!


[h2]Dialog Character Revamp[/h2]
With Update #25, we've made some important changes to the rendering of characters during dialog. We've taken the time to tune up the lighting stage for the characters while not making any huge changes to the setup.

However, the underlying change of rendering technique resolves a lot of issues that were cropping up with the system. in short, we no longer render the characters with the main, perspective camera which fixes issues like:

• No longer rendered by a perspective camera, so they no longer start to look stretched out on wider screens.
  
• It is impossible for characters to clip into level geometry sometimes.
  
• If the main mission camera takes on odd rotations, the characters in dialog are not negatively effected.
  
• The characters are no longer affected by level lighting, which avoids any scenarios where their lighting was really out of band.
  

[h2]Improved Combat / Matrix Logs[/h2]
With Update #25, we've improved the logging for regular missions and hacking. They now have a bit more space between every line and have stopped truncating log lines so that you aren't losing out on half the valuable data. Thanks to the players who F10'd this, it's a nice incremental improvement with more to come.

[h2]BioScan Field Fix[/h2]
We fixed a bug with the BioScan Field security device where it would still cause a Tally increase and post security events even after you disabled it by hacking. That's a painful kick in the butt for your hacker who worked hard to silence that thing. Now fixed!

[h2]v1.1.19 - 12/1/2023[/h2]
- Improved alerts system matching the "You will be heard" alerted
- "You may be seen" warning when you are crossing into a guard's line of sight
- "Camera will spot you" warning when you cross into a Camera or Radar Array line of sight
- Enemies who will hear this attack number on weapon in bottom left now matched by alert icon in enemy hover
- Updated icon for "enemies who will hear this attack" to separate from "movement will be heard" icon
- Improved injury time calculation based off damage (no injury for 20% or less, less random results, critical hits and high damage yield more injury time)
- Fixed issue with Covering Fire 5th upgrade node having 2 effects, added new upgrade node
- Fixed issue with BioScan Field still reporting to Sec AI even when disabled by hacking
- Improved placement of mercs under their UI element while planning mission deployment
- Improved combat and matrix log readability
- Clarified Hacking CPU / APU Spike rules - Scan Level must be 2/2 and all IC Destroyed to Spike
- Removed last few placeholder icons in character appearance
- Removed confusing mentions of friendly fire in combat log when it really isn't
- Fixed issues with many non-English characters like umlauts
- Fixed issues with some narrator dialogs being oddly aligned to the right
- Fixed issues with dialog characters sometimes clipping into geometry, feeling oddly squished, having odd lighting, being at odd rotations

Update #24 comes alive in just the last days of November with some important balancing changes for Matrix, sweeping improvements to the class tree icons and upgrades for clarity, better timeline calculations for healing wounds and injuries and level fixes as well. We're still gunning to get the first iteration of proc-gen out during November, so stay tuned for more soon!

If you're enjoying the pace of updates, please drop us a review and share the game with a friend!


[h2]Matrix IC HP Drop[/h2]
With Update #24, we've made adjustments to the HP totals for Matrix IC of all kinds to help improve the Attack program meta within the game. You'll find that IC have lost HP across the board and more types can be single hit by an Attack program. As the Matrix Hosts and IC power levels increase, these totals will go up but the starting IC are now better in line with the starting Attack programs, making the entire experience -- and especially spiking the CPU -- less difficult and multi-turn.


[h2]Class Tree Upgrade[/h2]
With Update #24, we've done a major sweep across the class trees to simplify and fix all upgrade icons and Talent quadrants for the upgrades. The icons are a bit larger and simpler and we've also used some automation to ensure that the icon always matches the effect (if its duration, the icon is duration). We've also applied similar automation to then putting the right pip in the right quadrant around the Talent on the main class tree so you can see what you've trained and also easily share your exact class build with a single screenshot through the preview screen.

Part of this process was to fix all of the Talent upgrades that incorrectly had 2 effects. In many cases, we've split these out into a new upgrade node entirely to maintain the same options, such as in Marker Sights, Glasswalker and others. In a few other places, we've just fixed mismatches or incorrect update data.



[h2]Safehouse Medical Treatment Time[/h2]
After the last update where we added medical options to recover from your Wounds, there were a few mismatches in the time offered during the purchase process and the time that appeared on the timeline in the end. We've made the necessary adjustments to be sure the right time is shown and carried all the way through to the timeline.

Healing Wounds is notably still very cheap and very fast - so, get in there and get healed now!


[h2]Comparing Full Auto Weapons[/h2]
We fixed an issue when comparing the Ballistic Damage of Full Auto weapons, the second weapon's damage was not filled in correctly.

[h2]Salvage Breakout Fixes[/h2]
We've fixed a number of issues with the first level of Salvage Breakout. There was an odd truck you could walk through (now you can walk on it). And there were some ghost security devices that weren't visible but showed up only when you were trying to establish a target with your Talent. All resolved now.

[h2]v1.1.19 - 11/28/2023[/h2]
- Improved calculation of IC Hit Points to buff Attack program strategies
- Improved duration calculations for Wound Healing and Treatment contact services in safehouse
- Improved look, scaling and simplicity of Talent upgrade icons in class trees
- Corrected all icons for all Talent upgrades in all class trees - now fully correct
- Fixed all pips surrounding Talent nodes in the trees to match buff/duration/range/charges upgrades - now fully correct
- Fixed all Talent upgrade nodes that had 2 bonuses (buff + recharge rate)
- Fixed 2 bonus issue for Talents including Centering, Red Dot, Covering Fire, Marker Sights
- Adjusted upgrade balance for Marker Sights, Coordinated Charge, Glasswalker added new upgrade nodes
- Fixed issue in comparing 2 weapons with Full Auto firing mode, second one's damage was blank
- Fixed some cover and sight lines in Forward Op mission
- Added correct descriptions for a number of keybindings like / and + etc
- Fixed issue with truck you could walk through in Salvage Breakout
- Fixed issue with strange invisible cameras in Salvage Breakout you could target with security talents
- Fixed a heaping pile of typos

Today we're rolling out Update #23 which includes the key feature to heal longterm Wounds that your characters accrue, improving the data shown when purchasing medical services of any kind, adding contact filtering, fixing a sneaky memory leak and more.

Because Proc-Gen will let you play forever, Wounds stepped in front of Proc-Gen as a priority. You'd play forever and slowly kill your groups with more and more Wounds. This update is giving you a chance to prep, buy down any Wounds you have and be ready for the next update -- the first wave of Proc-Gen missions.

If you're enjoying the pace of updates and constant improvement, please leave a review and share the game with a friend!


[h2]Healing Wounds[/h2]
You can now pay for doctors to help resolve Wounds that have developed due to injuries. These long term Wounds are Traits, which can become worse on their own if untreated, eventually reaching Level 4 with major penalties. At first, they are minor and -- in isolation -- could be ignored for a while with the merc still pulling active duty.

Because these have been sneaking up on a lot of your groups and you've had no way to deal with them, we're running a fire sale on healing them. They are healing in about 2 days for about $6K. This will not be the longterm pricing or timeline but for now, we encourage you to get them healed quickly for cheap.


[h2]Healing Injuries / Wounds Timeline[/h2]
We've also added specifics about the timelines for healing services to the offers in the purchasing pop up. Each contact is not only offering a unique price based on their Traits but also a unique timeline, so some are faster than others and now you can see that data with "$6K + 1d 6hrs". For example, you can now see that Doctor Shaduke's "Hack Saw" Trait makes him a faster, if more expensive, surgeon.


[h2]Contact Filtering[/h2]
You can now filter Contacts by their status and their major faction group, like Street Gang or Syndicate. For status, you can currently filter on Known Contacts, Enemy Contacts and Dead Contacts. As the Contact meta and the importance of using these screens continues to improve, we'll be adding more filters to this now useful UI.


[h2]Memory Leak in Appearance Tab[/h2]
There has been a memory leak in the appearance tab for a while. A huge thank you to the players who pointed it out and logged F10s about it and especially to @Sophismata on our Discord who provided the final clue to getting it fixed.

Also, in the appearance screen, we've fixed the hotkeys (A/D or right stick by default) so that they will continue to work to rotate your character even when focused on the face.

[h2]v1.1.15 - 11/24/2023[/h2]
- Added advanced Wound Treatment from the roster - currently cheap and fast, get it while it is hot
- Improved details in purchase offer for healing injuries to include time / discount %s
- Contact filters by Faction type (milsec, megacorporate, etc) are now working
- Rebalanced Contact Traits Face-Splice 1-4, Steady Hand 1-4 and Hack-Saw 1-4 to have more impact on price
- Fixed memory leak in changing character appearance, sorry for crashes!
- Fixed issue where hotkeys (right stick or A/D by default) were not rotating when face was focused

It's Update #22! We've done a lot of work in this update with targeting, targeting lines, best targets first and we've also fixed the "bodies disappear on reload" issue. Now, every bone and position of your slain enemies is remembered and restored dutifully.

If you're enjoying the pace of updates and how the game is improving, please remember to leave a review!

Before Proc-gen is ready, we just need to roll out healing wounds and then it is time!


[h2]Dead Bodies Visually Restored[/h2]
First -- because this perhaps our most popular F10 still standing -- dead bodies now restore! When an enemy goes down, their dead body becomes a liability. Someone is eventually going to come looking for them. Up until Update #22, if you reloaded a saved in the middle of a mission, the dead bodies (specifically, the ragdolls) would not appear. However, the bodies were there, you could hover them and other enemy agents would still see them.

With Update #22, we've finally resolved this reload issue and dead bodies are now going to appear in every game you reload. If it's a pre-Update #22 game, you might see a lot of enemies flopping around for a second at the start of your reload, but it's all expected -- we just need to get those ragdolls into their final resting place so we can remember it for the next reload.

Thanks to everyone F10ing to make this a hot issue - fixed and ready for the next step, dragging bodies.


[h2]Best Target First![/h2]
With Update #22, when you select your attack Talent we will now sort the list of targets by the highest accuracy to lowest. Previously, we were selecting the nearest target which could result in targets that were out of sight, low % accuracy or just not what you might want as your best default. Now, your best shot is always presented first, so if you like it you can take it but if you need something else for the tactical situation, it is also very clear what type of best accuracy chance you're skipping on to take the harder shot.
 

[h2]Melee Weapon Targeting Oddities[/h2]
With melee weapons there was a situation in which the "can attack" value in the bottom right corner would report a "1" but you'd be unable to attack the target. This mismatch in calculations has been resolved.

We've also fixed the issue where melee weapons could show a large number of gray lines to enemies when considering a movement destination, even if those enemies were out of sight.

[h2]Targeting Lines Update[/h2]
If you switch weapons now, the targeting lines immediately update. This is really helpful, you can now test a movement destination and swap back and forth between your weapons without having to change the destination just to get the lines to update.

[h2]Sword Only Talents Gray Out[/h2]
The sword-only Talents like Aegis and Deflection Field were not correctly graying out if you had a non-sword selected. These Talents now check this correctly and will indicate that they can't be used until you switch weapons.

[h2]Switch to Sprinting[/h2]
We've seen a few players recently miss the idea that you can change your movement mode to Sneaking or Sprinting altogether. This needs better coverage in the tutorial, but we've updated the UI text to try to further highlight that option.

[h2]v1.1.13 - 11/23/2023[/h2]
- Improved ordering of targets when selecting attack - highest accuracy now first
- Dead bodies for characters and enemies now correctly restore on reload
- Fixed issue where weapon numbers in corner would report a sword could attack but it really couldn't
- Targeting sight lines (gray, blue, red) update immediately when switching weapons
- Fixed issue with too many gray targeting sight lines when moving with melee weapon selected
- Fixed issue where Talents that require swords (Deflection Field) were not graying out when using other weapons
- Improved label for "Switch to Sneaking" and "Switch to Sprinting"

Welcome the Steam Autumn Sale! Come right in, merc - a new quantum rider in your spine is 20% off. Just be sure to meet Dr. Eckman at the Aug-Clinic after hours. Surgery starts at 2 AM, your extract from the rooftop as a newly minted Cyber Knight is scheduled for 0300.

Now with Update #21, it is possible that the new Soldier, Aitana, (or your newly personalized and created character) will be waiting on the rooftop for your Knight. With this update, we've also made a big pass upgrading the Mission requirements to be clearer in all their many cases, fixed some nagging issues with the HUD and improved controller defaults and keybinding display around the appearance tab.

If you're enjoying the pace of updates and content, please consider leaving a review!

 
[h2]New Game Option: Aitana[/h2]
One of our goals for the new game team selection is to ensure that each class group has a number of compelling, cool and well setup characters for you to customize as your starting point. Each new character brings their own backstory (Aitana is an ex-Blue Ox striker), Traits (new Muzzle-Face Trait added here), unique tags (Aitana is a member of the Old Hammer Church, a small group of believers who recognize the entities that humans claim are the Artificial Consciousness they created in the 23rd century are actually timeless entities that humans have always known and were once named by a parade of old world civilizations as the old gods), unique Contacts (Aitana's has stayed close to her old Blue Ox Gang Boss and her beliefs have led her to be friends with Doc Shaduke, a street doc and Old Hammer Church member as well) and their own starting equipment (Aitana can lay down some devastating Full Auto punishment on the rooftop with her UAR).


So, Aitana (or whoever you create) comes from a stranger and more spiritual underside of New Boston than you've encountered with other characters. Her presence, unique Tags and Contact connections will feed into different story expressions than Aaron, with his more straightforward milsec connections and mother who might want him dead.

Down the line in the roadmap, we'll be letting you pick Traits for them as well and we are in discussions about stat buys for your Attributes too. We're going to keep working on this new game experience until it is overflowing with awesome options.


[h2]Mission Requirements Get Simpler[/h2]
There are 3 prevalent types of mission requirements that show up in missions today -- having the right number of mercs for the job, bringing a merc with a specific class (such as Cyber Knight or Hacker) and bringing a specific character (such as Emille, etc).


Before, these were all a bit confusing. Sometimes the requirement (like 4/4 mercs) would disappear as soon as it was satisfied. In multiple missions, the text for the specific character required didn't have the character's name. Other times, we were just too wordy for our own good.

We've now resolved all of these cases to use simple, clear, single items. If a Knight is required, it says "Knight" and indicates if you've got one going along with a checkmark. If you need Zasha, well - it jus says "Zasha". And the merc counter now is just always there be it 0/4, 2/4, 4/4 or 7/4.

[h2]Fixing HUD / Talent Display[/h2]
With Update #21, we've fixed two minor issues that crept into the HUD. First, an odd X was appearing at the center of every Talent targeting element. This wasn't needed for all sorts of Talents, so it is now correctly hidden. Those Talents that target a specific point on the floor and affect an area around that point use this X, such as Vanguard's Lure, Cyber Knight's Lookahead and Sniper's JTAC. Also, all types of grenades have a blast mark that appears in the same way - in the exact point on the floor that wlll be targeted.

Finally, there was a strange issue with the word "Button" appearing on screen after unpacking an Item like a medkit in the HUD. This is now resolved.

 
[h2]Rotating Character in Appearance / Mission Pop Up[/h2]
For a little while, the rotation keybindings in appearance have shown "NO NO" instead of anything useful. This is now resolved (defaults to A/D) and the controller default is now nicely setup (right stick) as well. This also carries over into the character and enemy pop ups in the mission map, giving you easy access to rotation and the correct keybindings. Of course, you can also click and drag the model to spin it to your little cyber heart's content.

[h2]v1.1.11 - 11/23/2023[/h2]
- Added additional Soldier character option to New Game - Aitana with Urban Assault, new Traits, Ex-Blue Ox Backstory & Contacts
- Improved mission requirement display for merc count (4/4 Mercs), now always visible even when satisfied
- Improved mission requirement display class requirement (Knight, Hacker) to be simpler and clearer
- Fixed issues with mission requirement for specific character not correctly listing their name
- Fixed odd floating text "Button" after browsing item backpack
- Fixed confusing X appearing at the center of all Talent targeting
- Fixed issues with unlisted keybindings in appearance customization screens for rotating character (click and drag, or use keybinds)