Another month and another major set of features and content milestones have been completed! During September, we released 3 major alpha updates packed full of features, improvements from community feedback and content. Two of the major systems that we wrapped up this month are close to our hearts: difficulty and Trait mutation. Both have drawn a lot of inspiration and lessons learned from our last game, Star Traders: Frontiers. In addition, the UX team has completed the visual design for the both the main mission screens as well as the Matrix Mk2. As always, there are far too many dev milestones to list them all here, but lets check in on a few!

UX Redesign

For a long time, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint has been living with a functional, if not beautiful, game UI. Working with our UX team, weve now completed the discovery, wireframe design and finally the visual design for the main tactical modes of the game -- the real-life heist missions as well as the Matrix Mk2 hacking you can engage in during a heist. We still have the challenging task of bringing the full UI design into the game, but all the assets are ready, and were prepared to start this week while the UX team is moving on to a very exciting discovery and wireframing process for the Safehouse. Starting with wireframes for rapid design and iteration --
^^ Wireframe of main map + character status
^^Wireframe of hacking the Matrix Mk2 We progressed to the final visual design --
^^ Visual design of main map + character status
^^ Visual design of hacking the Matrix Mk2 And then into animations --

^^Which will especially helpful to bring the overlord Security AI "to life" as an adversary --

Difficulty System

We take difficulty systems very seriously in all of our games! During September, we carved out 6 difficulties, each one slowly ratcheting up the challenge curve across all aspects of the game. The final needed addition which is planned to be added during the Steam Early Access period is our classic Custom Difficulty setting to allow you to fine tune difficulty with extreme precision -- just like you could in CK classic with famous difficulty settings like Live Fast, Die Young (LFDY) that maxed out starting credits and enemy difficulty. This is an area where weve listened closely to our Star Traders: Frontiers players over the years and weve made difficulty aspects even more nuanced than ever before. Weve also added the #1 most highly requested difficulty feature from STF which is to enable slowing down or speeding up of the games story. This will allow players who want to take more time and explore more angles of the game without feeling a time crunch to play at a more relaxed pace and also let those who love the pressure of the tick-tick-tock-tick of a very short clock to prove they can play the game with a icy calm no one else can handle. Difficulty settings can adjust a very wide range of game aspects including mission XP and monetary rewards, the cost of all types of goods and services, the speed of the story, your characters base resistance to Trait mutations, Wounds, Armor Shredding and Death as well as increasing the enemys scaled Power Level, Matrix Power Level, enemy hitpoint pools and more. Between the 6 difficulty levels (Casual, Easy, Normal, Hard, Brutal, Chrome) and the to-be-added Custom Difficulty, youll be able to tune your play to your own style.

Trait Progression

We rolled out the Trait mutation system which is an evolution of the system we built for Star Traders: Frontiers but with a strong focus on delivering a compelling experience for a smaller squad. Throughout their career, your character's Traits come from their backstory, events in their life, battle wounds and from choices they make in their stories. As your mercs career progresses, events and story choices - surviving a mission, taking heavy wounds in combat, seeing a friend die in battle, succeeding at Legwork, maxing out your cyber, etc - will build up negative and positive points in two separate pools. When either of these pools grow large, they can cause Trait mutations which can either weaken or strengthen a positive or negative Trait. Different aspects of your base building choices at your Safehouse, choices you make in stories and medical care youre willing to pay for can help manage these swings. This system allows Traits to have varying impact on your character, change and mutate throughout your characters careers as events take turns for the better or worse and still honor the Traits that make them who they are and carefully manage the number of Traits they have so there is room to add more at the right pivotal moments.

Power-Broker & Heist Surveys

Were excited to announce that the surveys to gather the first round of input for the top tier rewards - Power Broker and Heist Edition - have been sent out to backers. Cory and I are personally reviewing every incoming response and it's clear already that these big rewards are going to lead to some extremely fun co-creative endeavors with our backers as we fill New Boston up with wild, eccentric and dangerous characters. If you havent received a survey email but should have, please reach out to us here or email andrew@tresebrothers.com

Reward and Stretch Goal Progress

For completeness, we include the progress bar infographic in each and every update. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us. With this months update, weve sent out the surveys for Power Broker and Heist Editions and so those two reward categories have moved into in-progress status.