Data is streaming down the pipe, but so is the lethal feedback. Will you get the bio-formula locked-in before your chips fry? Tonight's update adds 5 exciting new host templates for Matrix Hunt proc-gen mission objective, clarifies some matrix rules in hovers, reveals mission power levels during mission planning, improves the new contact hover, fixes reported issues with multi-buy and multi-sell, adds new lore and more.

If you're enjoying the pace of updates, attention to improvement based on community feedback or any way we are handling Early Access, we hope you'll share game with a friend and leave a review!

5 New Host Templates + better Rules Clarity

We've added 5 new matrix host templates that will be immediately picked up and used by the new Matrix Hunt proc-gen mission type. These new and exciting hosts will give you some new playgrounds to romp on, facing some new challenging setups. We're super excited to be working toward adding a few new node types which will also help shake up matrix map design meta significantly.

In addition to the new host templates, we've clarified rules in the game's hovers to try to help:

• To Spike a CPU or APU, you must use your Scan program enough times to get to Scan 2/2 and you must destroy all IC using an Attack Program (or any kind of Damage). Note that Disabling the IC is not enough.
• In the top right area, the Q-Sec Tally is shown in yellow pips. This is the amount of Q-Sec Tally added to the Tally every time you take any action, such as loading or using a program or connecting to a new node. This Q-Sec Tally per action cost can be increased by IC, by Q-Sec Escalations, by the node type or by other factors as well. This is a key stat to be watching because it determines how rapidly your actions will land you into another Q-Sec Escalation.

We also fixed a bug where hack-only missions had very few loot Files, Blueprints and Accounts. If you saw multiple nodes with only 1 or 0 digital downloads in them, then you hit this bug.

Sight Lines on Kill

With Update #126, we've fixed an old bug where sight lines to enemies could sometimes linger even after a kill was made. This helps clean up the UI faster and reduces the feeling of clutter – all good things for the tactical map, which we're continue to work on making it snappier and more responsive with less wasted frames or pixels.

Mission Names and Power Levels

We've made some updates to the mission planning list in Update #126. The first change is to include a mission's rough power level in the list, so you can see what type of opposition you are facing. This will be most directly affected by your Team Power Level + difficulty and any boosts or reductions that the mission author called for the in the mission specifically. Hopefully this is helpful!

Second, we move fields around, shortened some tags and made space to give a full line to mission titles so the best names aren't getting truncated. If a mission title lacks space to display it all, it will auto-resize its font size a bit until it does fit as well.
 

Contact Services in Hover

We heard immediately that with the new Contact hover we got it half right! You can now see the Exposure and Influence in the hover but you were not able to see services and which ones might be maxed out. Now you can with services tags just being added directly to the hover and the hover being expanded into all screens in mission planning now.

Selling Clarity

In the original multi-buy and multi-sell update, the Buy/Sell option was disabled while you were modifying the slider and you needed to reselect a Contact before you could proceed with the transaction. This lead a lot of players to feeling like they were stuck or just generally confused.

With this update, we now have persistent "current Contact" shown in the list of Contacts, even if you go to mess with the quantity slider, this current Contact persists, allowing the Buy/Sell button to stay enabled at all times (unless you can't afford this, chumbo?)

Cybersword "Improved Charged Attack"

As a first step to help improve the clarity and usefulness of their unique Talent, Cybersword "Conduit Edge" Talent has been renamed "Improved Charged Attack".

Any merc who picks up a melee weapon gets a free Talent called "Charged Attack" that uses the melee weapon's IO-Battery charge to invoke special powers, extra damage and debuffs - all based on the weapon. This Charged Attack Talent doesn't give any extra bonuses and can't be used repeatedly (has one charge).

If you are a Cybersword, you have the option to train Improved Charged Attack which <i>replaces</i> Charged Attack completely. Improved Charged Attack has better max charge, allowing you to strike with 2 IO-Batteries in rapid succession and give special buffs to the effects defined by the weapon, such as increasing the debuff duration from the weapon's debuff or further increasing its Pure Dmg bonus.

This Talent has caused a lot of confusion and while this helps, this will not be the end of changes coming for Improved Charged Attack.

We've also fixed an issue with hovering hitboxes in the class tree that should make the tree more useable with a mouse.

Faction Entries

With Update #126, we added a lore entry of the Que Milieu Syndicate as well as fixing a duplicate paragraph for Blue Ox (the missing content was restored). We're continuing to add more lore to the journal, which is also exported to pages like the Factions page on the Cyber Knights wiki.

Appearance Import Oddities

We've fixed number of odd bugs around appearance import and exporting sometimes creating outfits and appearances that were non-functional, or did not update in other parts of the game. These bug stemmed from use the mouse in the UI and generally not clicking or key pressing the "Load" button. For controller and Steam Deck players, this wasn't really an issue as the general way to accept the outfit change was the load button.

v1.8.53 - 8/14/2024

- Added 5 new matrix hosts maps to templates for Matrix Hunt proc-gen missions
- Correct rules displayed in Matrix Q-Sec UI in the top right, explaining Tally per Action rules
- Fixed issue with hack-only matrix hosts having very limited loot (Files, etc)
- Fixed duplicate paragraphs in Blue Ox journal entry, added entry for Que Milieu Syndicate
- Renamed Cybersword's Conduit Edge to Improved Charged Attack for better clarity
- Correctly clearing sight lines on tactical map after killing an enemy
- Improved distance display in enemy hover under 10m to include 2 points of precision (2.06m) to help be clearer about range limits
- Contact hover now includes services tag list and is available in both mission planning screens
- Improved buy and sell quantity - last contact selected before modifying the slider is the one used if you hit buy/sell key
- Added better filters for NanoFab Blueprint selection - if using weapon bench, then see weapon filters, etc
- Fixed issue with K-Protocol and Leverage reducing Sec Level or Tally playing alarm SFX in a stack
- Improved class tree, reduced size of certain hover areas that were too large
- Fixed issues with loading an appearance from Library sometimes leaving appearance tab broken