[p][/p][p]Knights and mercs, we're following up 4 big content releases (2 new maps, 1 new story arc, 1 new Power Play) with a classic quality of life and bug fix update. A big thanks goes out to everyone community member submitting F10s with suggestions and bugs and everyone discussing the game on the forum - you're feedback help us keep rapidly improving. With Update #42, we've made some big changes to the Drone death rules in prep for the upcoming turrets and flying drones release, improved a number of Drone-focused Talents, fixed a bug with Equip Mods > Market filtering, improved Overwatch triggering for melee, fixed a number of reload issues with Sec Tally and Hit Streak, fixed map bugs, fixed SFX around Agent EX Smokescreen and more.[/p][p]If you're enjoying the game and the steady stream of updates, we hope you'll take a minute to leave a review. We've started the final march to 2,000 - help us get there![/p][p][/p]

Our Save Game Policy and Updates

[p align="start"]First, since you're going to be seeing a lot of updates around here, we want to share our saved game policy up front so everyone understands our commitment to your games. No saved game will ever be invalidated by an update. All new content and features will be added immediately to all saved games (with the reasonable exception of New Game options). You never have to restart if you don't want to. This is a studio commitment that we have made and kept for many years and games. We stand by it. So do not stress about the deluge of updates that is coming your way - heist on my good heisters.[/p][p][/p]

Updated Drone Death - Instant Report

[p][/p][p]There is a big wave of Drones coming - and they are coming closer and closer. This major new set of enemy types will include multiple types of large and small flying drones as well as stationary turrets. In preparation for their arrival, we are tuning up and completing system adjustments that are needed one-by-one and working on getting those into the production build of the game to reduce the overall "everything changed" impact of when drones arrive.[/p][p]These rule updates today apply for all mechanized infantry (as Drone as a class covers all mechanized enemies). To help make the rules clear for these types of enemies, we've added a full rule block to the top of all Drone status pop ups, so you can review the rules about jamming and death reports.[/p][p]So, with Update #42, we've introduced one of the big system changes required for Drones - instant death reporting! Where a human enemy has a biometric that starts a Body Timer and after a few turns the body is discovered, the sudden cut of Drone's signal is strong enough to instantly alert the Sec AI to their destruction.[/p]

• [p]When a Drone dies, it instantly reports its death causing a +3 Sec Tally and its body is marked as Discovered.[/p]
• [p]No Body Timer is ever started for a Drone.[/p]
• [p]If the Drone is jammed when it dies, it is incapable of instantly reporting its death and its body is marked as Undiscovered. It still has no body timer.[/p]

[p]This makes Drones stand out as more challenging enemies to handle with Stealth and paves the way for other types of Drones that are simply going to explode or disintegrate and will not have a proper "body" to be discovered later. Once your fighting enemy drones, stealth becomes much harder to maintain unless you have some team members who are capable of tamping down their sensekits and instant reports.[/p][p]We've also fixed some issues with how the drone SFX might come out - sometimes drones were sounding human when they were shot. This is now resolved![/p][p][/p]

Updated Anti-Drone Talents

[p]As we get closer and closer to the major drone releases, the Talent sets of the classes that have anti-Drone capabilities are going to keep receiving changes and upgrades. Some of them will be rewritten entirely as the full shape of the enemy comes out of the primordial mist.[/p][p]Today we've updated the text on 2 Talents and added a new key effect to 2 others.[/p]

• [p]All existing Talents - Cyber Knight's Disentangle and Vanguard's Counter Static - that jam an enemy sensekit have had their description updated to include that - if they are used before a Drone is destroyed, they will prevent the instant report of their death. This leaves the body as a regular body without a timer that can still be discovered.[/p]
• [p]Hacker's Downed Shields has increased its starting armor debuff to -15% and gained the jamming ability.[/p]
• [p]Agent EX's N-Coat Bullet now jams any Drone it hits, applying its regular debuff but also capable of preventing it from making an instant death report. This makes N-Coat a great starting attack in a series of attacks to take out an enemy drone, especially if attempting a (hard) stealth kill.[/p]

[p][/p]

Equip Mods to Market

[p]There is a fast shortcut available in the game - if you go to Roster > Equip Mods for a character and then click directly on the Market in the top right. You drop into the market with the filtering already setup to match the mod type you were trying to equip (Pistol Scope) so that you can buy something and hit ESC to go back to the equip screen and equip the new mod you bought.[/p][p]However, this flow was disrupted a bit with the new filter memory implementation a while back. We have now resolved it - basically separating the remembered filters for each of these Market shortcuts as a set of filter values that do not conflict with visit the market > mods tab under normal circumstances.[/p][p]So, the fast shortcut is back in action![/p][p][/p]

Reload State Bugs

[p]Thanks to some amazing community members and F10s sent in, we've fixed a number of bugs related to reloading games. In these cases, there were all minor state changes - basically differences between the final saved state of a new Turn vs. the state of a reloaded Turn. [/p]

• [p]If your Sniper is a on a Hit Streak, they will now correctly maintain their Hit Streak bonus on reload (they used to have to make a shot first)[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug where Alerted enemies might start seeing undiscoverd dead bodies and not submitting Sec Tally or security events[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug where the Sec Tally might be higher than when you last left the game. This was caused by events from the previous turn (dispatching guards to investigate specifically) were accidentally counted again after reloading.[/p]

Fixed Map Issues

[p][/p][p]As always, we receive your map issues and fix them as quickly as we can. We've fixed a few more minor issues with geometry setup, sight lines and an issue that might get you stuck trying to cross the sewer during the latest Power Play (there is only a 0.25% chance you'd end up there … but fixed!)[/p][p][/p]

v2.2.49 - #42: Mechanized - 10/18/2025

[p] - Upgraded death rules for drones: unjammed drone death is reported immediately for +3 Sec Tally (body always known)[/p][p] - Upgraded text for Vanguard's Counter Static, Knight's Disentangle description to include rule about blocking instant death report[/p][p] - Upgraded Agent EX's N-Coat Bullet Talent to jam drones and prevent instant report of death[/p][p] - Upgraded Hacker's Downed Shields to -15% Armor and to jam drones and prevent instant report of death[/p][p] - Fixed oddities in Drone SFX where sometimes the sounds being made could be human[/p][p] - Buff Cyber Knight's Interference Spike upgrade from -1 Initiative to -2, total now -12 (more capable of skipping turns)[/p][p] - Fixed bug with going from Roster > Equip Mods > Market where it was not always correctly filtering to the type of mod in Equip Mods screen[/p][p] - Improved warning in mission deploy when a cyberdeck is in repair and preventing deploy[/p][p] - Fixed bug with melee Overwatch sometimes not firing at close range or when enemy was near edge of the area[/p][p] - Fixed bug where an Alerted enemy would see an undiscovered dead body but not raise Sec Tally[/p][p] - Fixed reload bug where Sec Tally could change slightly after reloading (always more)[/p][p] - Fixed reload bug where Hit Streak critical bonus was not applied immediately upon reload[/p][p] - Fixed bug where Attack Target / Will Hear list might not be fully updated after completing a move[/p][p] - Fixed bug with Grayline Adrenal Pump being marked as deactivated in some games (it works fine)[/p][p] - Fixed bug with One-Ladder Sewers map where could not find exit in some objectives[/p][p] - Fixed bug where passing through Agent EX Smokescreen would make the clicking noise of a grenade pin[/p][p] - Fixed bug with grenades sometimes showing damage previews on invisible or hidden enemies[/p][p] [/p]