Knights and mercs, we're here with Update #210, which is a really good one - fixing Power Play issues, optimizing the game and improving character Attributes plus fixing some F10s. Thanks to everyone playing and posting feedback, we're hard at work expanding the game (new Syndicate Debts storylines and map just this week) and are running headlong for the next story and map expansion already.

If you're enjoying the game and the relentless pace of update, please take a moment to leave a review to help us keep rocking this Early Access.

Improved Attribute Bonuses

With Update #210, we've tuned up Will and Strength bonuses where their ratios were too weak to make enough of a meaningful difference in character build. Attributes are one of many sources that build up your character, and are provided by your class tree, Traits and by some cybernetics.

For Update #210, we've improved Will by increasing its ratio to 2% Stress Res per 1 Will (from 1% per 1 Will). For Strength, we've improved the ratio to -2% Recoil gen per 1 Strength (from -1% per 1 Strength).

Fixed Power Play Hang Ups

Up to now, there have been a few well-hidden snags in the story system that were limiting the appearance of Power Play storylines in Limit Breaks more than they should be limited. We've now removed all of the ones that we could find and that were pointed out in F10s with Update #210, and now the Power Play storylines should flow.

Part of this fix is to resolve an issue with how proc-gen storylines were "hanging on to" Contacts way longer than needed. This kept them assigned to the proc-gen story and prevent them from joining another storyline (such as Power Play). We've also fixed a few state checks that were just reducing the changes that Fadelight Blades and Ricksham Drips Power Plays could possibly attach to your Contacts via the Casting Directory. A big thanks to everyone who provided F10s to help us resolve this!

Shader Optimizations

We are excited to have completed a big batch of optimization within the game and are pushing it live with Update #210. Shader variant compilation is a big part of the time of building an update and are what the game need to load into the GPU to render all of the 3D assets. With some clever changes, isolating some expensive parts of shaders into new more limited shaders - we have been able to reduce the total number of compiled shader variants needed by the game by over 75%. On one such shader type, we went from over 25,000 shaders variants to 3,300.

This will both speed up the build time for updates (we can go faster!??!) and has some positive impact on memory footprint and load time for the game.

Other F10s!

With Update #210, we hit a few more F10s. We've continued to clean up the new Syndicate Debts content, rewriting some confusing dialogs, fixing a few more misattributions and of course, typos.

We also found an odd bug in the animation stack for feminine characters carrying shotguns. This made their faces squeeze extra skinny. Very odd but now fixed!

And we fixed a confusing fail clause that had gotten accidentally attached to the Thumb on Snitch Legwork.

v1.9.107 - Update #210: Shader RIPs - 1/31/2025

- Increased Will bonus to give +2% Stress Res per 1 Will
- Increased Strength bonus to give -2% Recoil gen per 1 Strength
- Fixed bugs that could prevent Fadelight Blades or Ricksham Drip Power Plays from connecting to a Contact
- Fixed issues with proc-gen cleanup holding on to Contacts too long and preventing them from Limit Break or Power Play
- More Power Play and story missions give improved XP over other missions
- Major shader optimization - reduced shader variant count by 75%, faster load times
- Fixed confusing fail clause in Thumb on Snitch Legwork
- Fixed animation bug that was squishing some characters heads by 10% when carrying a shotgun