Last week, we were preparing for Cyber Knights: Flashpoints' public demo in the TactiCon Steam event and so, this week's update is all about bug fixes and quality of life improvements. Next week, we'll be back with some new and exciting content :D

It's a private playtest, so I can still make amazingly awful puns in the update titles! Can't stop me!

Speed of Play Increase

With Update #24, we've added a new system for detecting if an enemy's turn will have immediate impact on your squad and if it is deemed that they will not then their turn is taken instantly without drawing the camera. In this case, their turn is written to the log ("Upso continued patrol route").

The conditions considered are very specifically tailored to make sure we're not hiding information you need but suppressing really far off enemies who are eating up screen time. Here is a high-level list of things considered:

• Far away (at least 35m) at the start of their Turn
  
• At least 35m away at the end of their Turn
  
• Will not discover a player or a dead body
  
• Not engaged directly in combat
  
• Will not run into any player overwatch field
  
• Not on screen (so, this means hanging at a wide zoom can cause more enemy turns to play)
  

If you feel like this additional information and context is valuable, you can use the new option "Show All Enemy Turns" which will force every enemy turn to be played out in full detail.

AI Improvements

The work to allow for instantly completing enemy turns have also fixed a number of other bugs related to enemies. On reloading a game, guards used to very often skip their first Turn instead of patrolling -- now fixed. Also, when you were moving across the map, sometimes not all of the guards would appear in a timely fashion on the Initiative list -- now fixed. Finally, if an enemy saw multiple corpses from their team as they moved during their Turn, they would stop and replan after seeing each one, which could throw them into a pretty bad tizzy -- now fixed.

Hotkey for Center Camera

We've added a default hotkey "V" to recenter the camera on the current character. This quick move can help bring you back to the action after you've been out panning around for a bit.

Mission Fixes

We've fixed Big Door DMO Path 1 where your mercs started floating on air and also Cadaver Sample objective where the enemy guards could end up in a spawn loop (Bad!!).

Finally, there were some bugs that allowed certain elements of cut-scenes and dialogs to replay on later Turns if you picked Skip Cut-Scene. That's now put to bed to rest.

Overwatch Threat

Getting shot by Overwatch will now always cost you 1 AP no matter how short of a distance you may have moved.

The Look

There is so much to do to keep making the game look better, we've got a long way to go! With this update, we've improved the antialiasing in the safehouse scene (for your merc visuals for now), fixed some beard placements that were not quite right and adjusted some of the placements of weapon mods on pistols that were clipping.

In addition, we've changed some of the shadowcasting rules for our assets to ensure that everything that should cast a shadow is. In previous builds, some walls were oddly not casting shadows! A ton of places where there was clipping geometry -- doubled-up wall corners, odd triangles sticking out of places, etc -- have also been fixed.


We've also increased the visual options within broken concrete walls in streets so that they have more rebar sticking out of them and not all can be vaulted over.

Matrix Too!

A big one for hackers -- when hacking you are now correctly considered crouching for the stealth game. This can be a matter of life and death when patrols are swinging by and you're relying on some cover to buy you one more Turn!

We fixed a bug where story and matrix terminals simply had switched hovers. Each claimed to be the other :facepalm: if you were trying to access a Matrix Terminal with a non-hacker you will now get a kind warning instead of a lockup in the game.

- Increased speed of play - enemies who are far away and will have no direct impact on their Turn complete their turn instantly and without camera focus
- New game option “Show Enemy All Turns” forces all enemy turns to be fully displayed even if they are far away and have no direct impact
- Added new hotkey “V” to recenter on the current character
- Improved antialiasing in safehouse scene
- When moving and interrupted by Overwatch, a merc will lose at minimum 1 AP even if they did not cross any distance
- Fixed bug with Cadaver Sample mission objective that caused an enemy spawning loop
- Fixed issue with Big Door start Path 1, team was floating on air and locked up
- Fixed enemy patrol bug where many guards would not patrol on the first turn after a reload
- Fixed bug where enemies might not appear on Initiative list until end of player’s turn even though they were visible on the map
- Improved variation in broken wall sections in street levels - less places to jump over, more twisted rebar
- When hacking, a hacker is now correctly considered crouching for purposes of being spotted by enemy agents or security devices
- Fixed attack target canceling too easily when clicking on enemy
- Fixed bug where hover for matrix and simple story terminals were switched
- Fixed soft lockup when attempting to access a Matrix terminal with a non-hacker
- Fixed issue reloading a saved game where a hacker was not visually connected to the host
- Fixed issue where Cybersword Whisperkill Talent was not always activating on stealth kill
- Fixed issues where enemies might stop ragdolling on death after playing multiple levels
- Fixed issue where some segments of a story sequence that was skipped would reappear on later turns
- Fixed cases where walls were not correctly casting shadows if light was behind them
- Fixed issue where enemy AI could see multiple dead bodies during a turn and replan after seeing each one
- Fixed issues with some beard and hat placements
- Fixed issue with placement of light pistols optics - Hunter Red Dot etc