Knights and mercs - we're very pleased to drop the companion update to the earlier Update #230: High-Stakes Gunfight. The High-Stakes Gunfight rebuilt the enemy's tactical and combat decision-making capabilities and improved combat's overall feel and challenge across the game. Update #247: High-Stakes Heist does the same but for the enemy's individual and team intelligence around the stealth side of the heist. If you are enjoying the relentless pace of updates as we careen toward full launch on June 2nd (we are not slowing down!!?!?), please take a minute to leave a review. The team of 3 game devs here truly appreciates your reviews - everyone makes such a big difference to help us share the game and keep going, going, going!

Cyber Knight gets 7 Implants

We've fixed a mistake on our end for the maximum number of implants a Cyber Knight can have. Previously, this was capped at 6, but because they have the Quantum Rider, they have a disadvantage in cybernetics. Lame! As we just fixed their disadvantage with install times, so this is a perfect time to fix the mistake and bump them up to a 7/7 maximum cybernetic implants.

Local Alert - Sharing Status with Nearby Agents

The local alert system has finally arrived! Enemy agents will no longer be shy in telling other nearby enemy agents what is going on without needing to route that information through the Sec AI. As your Cyber Knight is garbling and glitching the Sec AI's communications with quantum countermeasures (QCM) the comms channels are unreliable and slower than usual, which your squad is using to their advantage. Local alert simulates the basic "on the ground" communication between enemy agents within 8m of each other with active sight lines, telling each other what is happening. When two enemy agents get near each other, they will upgrade each other to the highest Alarm Level (Suspicious, Alerted) between the two of them (or more, if they are clustered).
Here a Suspicious guard who was Lured earlier warns a guard passing on Patrol to keep alert and upgrades the patrolling guard to Suspicious alarm level. This system cuts out all the moments where one guard is literally yelling and shooting at you from cover and the other guard is moseying by saying "Investigating" and ignores the very local situation. Now the first guard would yell over to the second, informing them that there are intruders and to get gunning. Absolutely, local alert makes the game harder. The enemy agents are smarter, better at swarming and work together with more coherence. This is a big change to the game's enemy agents intelligence. Much like the High-Stake Gunfight, it raises the stakes, but in a way that makes the game more tense, enjoyable and hard in the later stages. This is absolutely one we will be keeping a very close eye on and continually balancing based on player feedback, so please share after you've had a chance to try it out.

In-World Quips

With Update #247, we've breathed life into the enemy agents by allowing them to have more in-world chatter as they take their actions on the map. First, due to the new Local Alert system, even two enemies who get near each other while Unaware will have something to say (like "Falling asleep here" or "System is all glitchy again" or "Think we'll ever see action?"). This new in-world quip system has let us expand the the quips and get multiple enemy agents talking during events in ways that build up the feeling of their local alert system and working like squad. In addition, this has let us create an entirely different set for drones who beep-boop differently than humans now.

Fast-Forward Evolution

The Fast-Forward system has had a major evolution with this update. First, we fixed an annoying issue in the HUD where it would say you could hit ESC to fast-forward but then as soon as you did, it would say you actually can't. The HUD was trolling you. Bad HUD! Fixed! Second, we've enabled Fast-Forward on basically all moves the enemy agents are making. This includes moves they are making to reach a combat position to attack you as well as partial moves. So, everything will be going fast if you make Fast-Forward automatic, and everything can be skipped with ESC if you want to use a keystroke or button to skip. This includes partial movement like the first part of the patrol of an enemy who is about to spot a corpse - hitting ESC would skip them up to the point where they see the corpse, and then if they take another movement after that, it will be skipped as well. Now you can play fast steamhappy

Prediction Talents

We have resolved all reported issues with the prediction Talents like Cyber Knight Lookahead and Vanguard Anticipate. This includes bugs where sometimes they would lie and other cases where they would show nothing when the enemy was hunting around. Other bugs that were fixed were cases where the path would be incorrectly left on screen even if the enemy agent changed their mind about their move.

Better Hunt and Pursuit

We've vastly improved the enemy agent's thinking about moving to an event they are supposed to investigate and the pick of positions they make while hunting around an event. First, we've resolved the issue where, often on a long-distance trek to an event, an enemy agent would seem to "give up" too early and start hunting around. Second, we've just made the hunting more reliable and less likely to walk into a wall.

Improved Elevation in Combat

With Update #247, we've addressed a set of painful issues around gunplay over different elevations. With this update, we've reworked the rules and bonuses for elevations, so that any shooter who has a height advantage continues to get their bonus Accuracy % (same as before and shown in Accuracy breakdown, +15% for 4m or higher and +10% for 2m or higher) but also adjusting sightlines to give a downhill shooting advantage to those with the high-ground. In a similar vein, we have adjusted sightlines for those who are trying to shoot up at enemy targets to ensure that the target is always truly visible and that you aren't "shooting through the floor" or worse, the walls. This addresses a number of considerations and concerns about certain parts of maps where it feels like the enemy agents are cheating and hitting you unfairly on the high ground. Overall, gunplay over elevations feels a lot more like ... "like it should" now.

One-Click Loot

We have fixed some delays and UI oddities / double-click requirement around lootboxes. Click once for insta-loot. Loot them all, faster than ever before!

Red Skull Fixes

We've fixed some issues with the red skull marker that is shown in attack previews. The math that was used to calculate if the red skull should be shown was subtly different than the math that was used to cause the actual damage, which caused a bit of a drift. In fact, it causes a drift in all damage display of the animation section versus the static section. This is now cleaned up with the math ordering being exactly the same and the red skull is accurate once again. However, note that if you see a red skull and get a Glancing Hit, you are not guaranteed to kill. This is guaranteed kill for a full hit.

v1.10.55 - #247: High-Stakes Heist - 5/14/2025

- Corrected Cyber Knight to have a maximum of 7 implant slots - Added "local alert" system - enemy agents will share their status and knowledge with other nearby agents - Local alert removes the situation where one agent is firing at you, and the other is hunting around them - New visual style for enemy agent quips on map ("What was that?!") and added new options - Added all new quips for mecha infantry drones so that they don't use the human lines anymore - Improved sight line rules over elevation - better advantage to attackers who are higher up, disadvantage to attackers who are below, no more shooting through walls or floors - Fixed a large number of issues with Lookahead and Anticipate, either not showing a path or showing the wrong path - Lookahead and Anticipate will now predict the movements of a hunting AI - Improved enemy agent follow-through on dispatches from security - no longer go 1-2 Turns and then start Hunting - Improved enemy agent hunting routines to be more useful, accurate, and not end up against walls as often - Improved Fast Forward enemy Turns to skip partial movement (guard walks 50% of their movement, sees body will now skip the walk) - Fixed issues with HUD during Fast Forward enemy Turns, offering to FF, but then when ESC is hit, saying it can't be done - Camera pans to follow guards who are fast-forwarding their turns so that they don't move off-screen - Fixed bugs with fast forwarding guards sometimes turning the wrong direction at the end of their move - Improved math with the red skull estimating an enemy will be killed, but still not guaranteed if Glancing Hit - Improved Lootbox reaction - one click to get the box open, no longer need click-delay-click - Fixed issue where patrolling or hunting AI could get stuck on a fence and be unable to go over it - Fixed multiple cases where enemy could get stuck while moving and soft lock game - Fixed bug with Option for fast forward turns not always being selectable - Removed confusing highlight zone near terminal in Tutorial - Balance changes for Harrier Grip, Thunderbolt Grip, Nightshade Grip - Improved screen scaling mode for Steam Deck 720p model

[ 2025-05-14 23:44:54 CET ] [ Original post ]