SteamDB Unknown App 2094560 update for 17 August 2022

Ok - we are trying something new! Update #19 (v0.6.27) is where we are going to pick up the pace to updates nearly once a week or faster. With the types and volume of changes we’re making, it is time to include some longform text along with the release notes bullets. There is so much changing in the game right now we can’t wait for you to check it out and it deserves more than just a huge, bulleted list.

Story and Progression

We’re 8 months into the alpha and our current goal is to expand and release more of the game’s strategy layer, story and character progression and difficulty systems to you as fast as possible.

This will be coming through multiple angles:

• Increasing incentives to continue to play a single squad for longer (and avoiding save wipes)
• Increasing ability to level up, equip and improve single squad
• Adding more stories and missions to play
• Allowing enemy and map challenge level to ramp up for harder missions

With Update #19, we’ve opened up character progression a bit more, increasing the max level to 14 and doubling the maximum turns you can play a single squad from 50 to 100 days.

A big part of progression is going to be finishing the release of all character equipment and cybernetic implants. The first step is to roll out more options for armor, which you can now purchase from Origami Joe, your starting Gun Runner Contact.

To help with item shopping, we’ve changed how purchasing works so that you are always buying a pack of items (5 First Aid Kits for $3K) instead of buying one by one. This keep the pricing from smaller items reasonable and also reduces the overall purchase activations you need to complete.

We goofed with the last update and mistakenly added an unfinished short story about an E-Rifle. This update, we’ve fixed that and added instead a short Legwork tutorial story that explains the game’s Legwork concept as you do some work for a Gun Runner and allows you to see the resulting relationships start to form in the game. Legwork is a key part of the game's story system and your ability to complete risky tasks and activities that aren't represented on the main mission stealth-combat and hacking map, so we're excited to see more of these options showing up.

• Purchase multiple levels of armor from Origami Joe
• Purchasing items now purchases a pack (5 HE Grenades for $3K)
• Update character detail page with better focus on loadout
• Added Story: legwork tutorial from a local Gun Runner
• Maximum level increased to 14
• Doubled maximum turns of single game to 100 days (400 Turns)

Merc Pay Rates & Conditional Bonuses

Here’s another big change for you - mercs now take their own cut of every mission based on their individual pay rate, which defaults to 3%. Even those mercs who stay home on a mission - and even your Face - still get a cut of your heist payouts. In the future, a merc’s pay rate may also evolve throughout the game, going up or down based on story, loyalty, stress and Traits.

This update adds conditional bonuses from your contact on a mission offer, if the contact wants a mission done quietly (below a certain Security Level) or quickly (below a certain Turn). These conditions can add both extra payments (see Street Striker playtest mission) and XP (see Leverage Drop mission). These will be very useful in stories where contacts have certain stipulations that they want met but we want to avoid writing in a hard fail to the mission, instead you might just lose half the mission pay.

• All mercs now use their Pay Rate (default 3%) and take this cut of every mission payout whether or not they leave the Safehouse - pay rate may change over time due to loyalty, stress, Traits
• Improved Mission Victory screen to better group and display results (XP, Payment, Loot)
• Mission Offers can now include conditional bonuses on speed and low Security Level
• Street Striker and Undercutter Missions gain $10K bonus from contact if completed in under 8 Turns
• Leverage Drop Mission gains a 20 XP bonus if completed with Security Level 4 or less

New Playtest Levels

We’ve added 2 new playtest levels with this update - “Hover Escape” and “Office Closer”. For all of the levels under the playtest menu, we would love as detailed feedback as you can provide us to help us improve any aspect of the level - size, flow, patrol paths, prop placement, difficulty, visual theme etc. Any feedback you can provide will be tremendously helpful to us and our 2 Level Designers! We would also just love to know how did you think about and tackle the challenges in the level? Where did you go, who did you fight, how did you escape?

We are gathering feedback in the #level_playtest channel of our Discord and we’d love you to post after-action reports, screenshots, text or even video recordings (the best!!!) as long as they are shared on an unlisted link somewhere (Dropbox, Google Drive, unlisted YouTube). These can help a great deal as we are working to refine levels and our level design process.

Hover Escape is a high-octane escape level where you've reached the top of a building and your escape ride is coming to pick you up. With security descending on you from every angle, you've got to reach your extraction hover pad in time.

Office Closer is a raid in the mold of Req Site Raid -- a self-directed mission where you can choose to loot as much or as little as you can before its time to go.

• Added new playtest levels “Hover Escape” and “Office Closer”
• Still asking for more playtest feedback on "Big Door" and "Street Striker"

Enemy Variety & Rules

With this update, the previously generic enemy spawns have started to form up into noticeable squads. This new squad composition mostly focuses on tactical groups with a captain or a commander but will be expanding and bringing more clear variety to the enemy squads.

As of last update, enemies are using Talents to help themselves and debuff your mercs, so we’ve added SFX and VFX with this update to make that clearer. Remember, for now, just bring up your merc’s status screen to see the exact effects.

A few updates ago, enemies went deaf to their own team and we’ve fixed that now - they hear each other’s gunfire again and you’ll see enemy squads being a lot more responsive.

• New enemy squad composition including tactical groups with captains / commanders
• Enemy Talents now fire SFX and VFX to make target and timing clear
• Fixed regression where enemies where not hearing their team’s gunfire or reacting to seeing their team getting attacked
• Reduced chattiness of enemy response to gunfire, grenades and being attacked

Outfits & Colors

On the cosmetic front, we’re pushing forward by adding 2 new hats and 2 new glasses as well as giving you the option to change the coloration on all of the pieces of your outfit including hats and glasses separately. More of these types and options will be coming soon.

• Re-added missing legwork tutorial story from Gun Runner
• Added 4 new cosmetics: noir hat, beret, deco glasses and aviators
• Split out color panel from main design panel for easier color adjustments
• Can now adjust colors for hats & glasses separately

Auto-Hunker

If you end your turn (not just delay) with at least 1 AP, your merc will now automatically use the Hunker Talent. You can still use Hunker during your turn for 1 AP and then delay if you need that early defensive bonus, just don’t move or it will cancel. the benefit.

• Hunker Talent automatically executes if End Turn with 1+ AP
• Removed confusing display of charges/recharge from Hunker Talent - like default Attack it is always available

Security Disable Talents

A rebalance of the security Talent disable set has been needed and this update rolls it out. The Knights, Vanguard and the Hacker now each a clearer theme to their Talent, for example the Vanguard has shorter range, the greatest number of charges and with investment in a high cost (and new) node in their class tree, can use their Talent for 0 AP cost.

• Knight’s Security Dampen is themed “longer disable with fewer charges and longer range” now starts with 18m range, disables until end of next Turn and starts with 1 charge (until you train more nodes)
• Vanguard’s Jamkit is themed “short-term disable with lots of charges and short range” now starts with 12m range, disables until end of Turn and starts with 2 charges (until you train more nodes)
• Added new class node for Vanguard that reduces AP cost of Jamkit to 0 which costs 2 training points
• Hacker’s Packet Loss is themed “short-term disable with mid-range charges and long range” now 25m starting range, disables until end of Turn (until you train more nodes)
• Echo Jammer Item now only requires 1 AP, disables for 3 Turns and has a range of 24m

Beginnings of the Weapon Rebalance

There is a big package of weapon rebalance coming very soon based on all of your feedback, but we started a few smaller ones with this update.

• All melee weapons noise is reduced to 0m instead of 2m - ultimate stealth kills
• Rapid Fire rule (fire with last 1 AP) now correctly applies only to SS/SA/BF firing modes and not to Full Auto. This specifically effects SMGs.
• Shotgun max range reduced to 10m, added Apollo M-Driver barrel mod option that increases max range by +2m

Bugs and Prop Fixes

This update fixes a lot of bugs, but here is a nice list from the tickets you submitted with F10!

• Fixed sight lines not going through wire mesh fence
• Fixed sight lines around being too close around security pillars
• Fixed bug where equipping weapons caused the weapon order to swap

Here is the full list without the explanations --

v0.6.27 - 8/17/2022

• Purchase multiple levels of armor from Origami Joe
• Purchasing items now purchases a pack (5 HE Grenades for $3K)
• Update character detail page with better focus on loadout
• Added Story: legwork tutorial from a local Gun Runner
• Maximum level increased to 14
• Doubled maximum turns of single game to 100 days (400 Turns)
• Added new playtest levels “Hover Escape” and “Office Closer”
• New enemy squad composition including tactical groups with captains / commanders
• Enemy Talents now fire SFX and VFX to make target and timing clear
• Fixed regression where enemies where not hearing their team’s gunfire or reacting to seeing their team getting attacked
• Reduced chattiness of enemy response to gunfire, grenades and being attacked
• Re-added missing legwork tutorial story from Gun Runner
• Added 4 new cosmetics: noir hat, beret, deco glasses and aviators
• Split out color panel from main design panel for easier color adjustments
• Can now adjust colors for hats & glasses separately
• Hunker Talent automatically executes if End Turn with 1+ AP
• Removed confusing display of charges/recharge from Hunker Talent - like default Attack it is always available
• All mercs now use their Pay Rate (default 3%) and take this cut of every mission payout whether or not they leave the Safehouse - pay rate may change over time due to loyalty, stress, Traits
• Improved Mission Victory screen to better group and display results (XP, Payment, Loot)
• Mission Offers can now include conditional bonuses on speed and low Security Level
• Street Striker and Undercutter Missions gain $10K bonus from contact if completed in under 8 Turns
• Leverage Drop Mission gains a 20 XP bonus if completed with Security Level 4 or less
• Knight’s Security Dampen is themed “longer disable with fewer charges and longer range” now starts with 18m range, disables until end of next Turn and starts with 1 charge (until you train more nodes)
• Vanguard’s Jamkit is themed “short-term disable with lots of charges and short range” now starts with 12m range, disables until end of Turn and starts with 2 charges (until you train more nodes)
• Added new class node for Vanguard that reduces AP cost of Jamkit to 0 which costs 2 training points
• Hacker’s Packet Loss is themed “short-term disable with mid-range charges and long range” now 25m starting range, disables until end of Turn (until you train more nodes)
• Echo Jammer Item now only requires 1 AP, disables for 3 Turns and has a range of 24m
• All melee weapons noise is reduced to 0m instead of 2m - ultimate stealth kills
• Rapid Fire rule (fire with last 1 AP) now correctly applies only to SS/SA/BF firing modes and not to Full Auto. This specifically effects SMGs.
• Shotgun max range reduced to 10m, added Apollo M-Driver barrel mod option that increases max range by +2m
• Fixed sight lines not going through wire mesh fence
• Fixed sight lines around being too close around security pillars
• Fixed bug where equipping weapons caused the weapon order to swap