As we round the bend before the next big content push, we've got another strong update full of bug fixes, balance improvements and tuning for the story and contact simulation. This one touches on preventing back-to-back reinforcements, improved new game contact stats, improving Scourge's Dissolve to be more flexible, avoiding some less than awesome combinations in Hype Limit Breaks and more.

If you're seeing progress in the right direction and like the foundation of the game we're rapidly filling in during Early Access, we hope that you will take a moment of leave a review!

Improving Sec AI Responses

Update #59 includes another improvement to the choices the Sec AI can make, specifically throttling calls for reinforcements to help avoid the back-to-back arrivals of enemies leading to them stacking up on top of each other. We've added some capabilities here that will allow us to further flex the Sec AI's cool by creating specific requirements, ordering and chains of responses. More on that later, but for now we've made the first tuning in the area to avoid the less-than-nice reinforcements pile up.

Starting Contact Stats

We've improved the Contact starting stats to correctly reflect the changes in Trust to being out of -100% to 100% and also the new Influence/Exposure stats. In addition, we've fixed an issue where you owed some odd characters one or more Obligations without any sensible cause, suchas the Syndicate Soldier Hartzek. As Zasha killed his son during a UKF fight, there shouldn't be any Obligations, only enmity.

Scourge's Dissolve and Dissolve Timing Fix

For a while, there has a been an issue where corpses could stay around visually even if they were dissolved or bio-recycled. The corpse wouldn't really be there in the game, wasn't noticed by other enemies patrol and would disappear on reload but it was a confusing visual artifact. We've fixed the timing issue which was related to dissolving the corpse during its hand off from dying enemy to ragdoll to resting corpse.

Also, to give you as much flexibility as possible, we've removed the restriction from the Scourge's Dissolve that was blocking Dissolving already discovered bodies. A body will alert any guard who spots it, so even if one guard has seen it in the past it doesn't mean it might not be a thorn in your side again. Now, you can Dissolve at will.

Hype Limit Breaks: Stress Reduction

We've improved the options that get selected for Hype Limit Breaks when you have high Stress to ensure that only one of Cut Stress (-5 Stress) and Flush Stress (reset Stress to 0%) appear in the list. There were cases where both were appearing which really limits the other cool options you should be able to pick from. Now only one spot can ever be dedicated to Stress reduction.

Cube Run Over-Achiever

If you were regularly over-achieving in the Cube Run mission, you might have hit a few snags. As you only need 2/2 Terminals to enter the lab, those who went for 3/2 triggered a case that we hadn't tested well enough and the extraction point promptly disappeared. :facepalm: Now its fixed!

v1.4.23 - 3/12/2024

- Adjusted all starting contact's Favor, Obligations, Trust % and starting Influence scores
- Improved Sec AI ability to throttle and chain certain security events - prevents back-to-back reinforcements
- Removed restriction on Scourge's Dissolve that prevent it from being used on already discovered bodies
- Fixed issue where sometimes bodies would not visually disappear if dissolved within 10 seconds of death
- Fixed issue where comparison color for Pure Dmg in weapon compare was flipped
- Fixed Hype Limit Break bug where both Flush Stress and Cut Stress could appear together
- Simplified intro to proc-gen Hack CPU missions after you've completed it once
- Removed incorrectly previewed extraction points on Heist CPU proc-gen level
- Fixed some pathing and prop issues in Streets Palisade
- Fixed bugs in Cube Run if you went for 3/3 terminals when you only need 2/2