Knights and mercs, we're dropping another major map polish update as well as new hit reactions and laying some more groundwork for the upcoming Face class in Update #237. We've made fixes in Retirement results, improved Brain Worm rules to match Stun more cleanly, improved the main menu and adjusted the equipment rules for Face.
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Hit Reactions
With Update #237, we've revisited the blended animations used whenever a character or enemy takes a hit in combat. The old system gave a limited upper and lower body reaction to a hit followed by a very slow rotation toward the attacker which felt like an afterthought.
We've improved the entire system with Update #237 by using new set of blended animations (multiple animations for getting hit from right, left, behind, front, etc that are then "blended" based on the exact angle of the attack), as well as speeding up the speed and timing of the rotation toward the attacker and cleaned up timing in general.
There is always more room to improve and further polish such fine-grain, repeated animations that have such a big impact on how the game feels, so we won't call this done but it is good step forward from a flatter feeling set of reactions.
Mountain of Map F10s
We went on a crusade against reported map bugs with this release and closed over 100 F10 groups that were submitted by the community. This includes all sorts of things like:
- Open field spawns (no nearby explanation of where they came from)
- Bad starting rotation for reinforcements, patrollers or your merc team
- Odd or floating props
- Movement rules around railings that will let you get closer to the edge of buildings
- Frozen reinforcements who refuse to start moving after arriving
- Odd areas you could Glitch into that are inside buildings or spaces that are inaccessible
Brain Worm Joins Stun
We've pushed Brain Worm to work more like Stun and completely stopping all security events from being reported to the Sec AI, regardless of what point in the turn they were generated (before or after the Brain Worm, etc). This makes Brain Wormed easier to understand and predict - and it is a nice power upgrade as well.
Retirement Fixes
We're already very happy with the decision to make the entire Retirement process "dynamic" meaning that every time you open the Retirement screen it recalculates and populates your Retirement results at that moment. This allows us to make fixes to the retirement results and see them in games immediately.
With this update, we've fixed a number of small retirement issues where the character being referenced was either wrong or missing or was accidentally set to the self ("Jailbreak felt this way about ... Jailbreak"). Also, we fixed an issue where some retirement notes were being added about nights spent together in a club when only one merc was sent to the clubbing relaxation week.
Face Equipment Rules
In preparation for the new Face class tree rolling out, we finalized the rules around the Face's equipment. Face characters do not go on missions - they are the behind the scenes operators. Yes, in some far-flung future expansion they might, but for now, we're focused on what the Face needs to do, and that isn't sell their Revolvers at the start of the game lol. With Update #237, we've barred all Face characters from holding any gear of any kind and all new Faces will come with an empty slate of EQ. If you do happen to be holding something, that is fine but as soon it is removed you won't be able to put it back.
This has also helped remove any "Under Equipped" tag from the Roster for your Face.
Main Menu - Even More
We've smashed performance even more on the main menu, cutting it down to the best level it has been for a long time. This time around we've added more culling rules, hidden more geometry, fixed issues with the post-processing layers and reduced shadow casters by more than 50% by turning them off on geometry that was not in the camera's view.
v1.10.19 - #237: High Rocks - 4/18/2025
- Improved hit reactions for attacks of all sorts to feel more impact and send targets reeling (will continue to polish)
- Fixed over 100 F10s about maps, rotations, open field reinforcements, frozen reinforcements not moving
- Improved approaching and seeing over some railings to get shots on targets below
- Improved rules for Brain Worm match Stunned more clearly - Sec AI cannot receive their reports
- Further improved main menu screen performance by another order of magnitude
- Gave repeated names to Daedalus Bloc main characters to make meta conversation about it easier
- Fixed mistakes in retirement text or character attribution - reload Retirement screen to see minor fixes
- Fixed issue with class name not correctly appearing in cybernetics screens
- Fixing bug with temporary story VIP joining as recruit after Daedelus Mission 10
- Improved Face rules around carrying and starting with equipment - Face has no combat equipment
- Improved character 3D display for appearance - always starts with nice rotation forward
- Fixed issue in 3D appearance tab for Face where sometimes character would be unarmed and sometimes armed
- Improved sorting routines when capital letters were involved (GX vs. Galvanized)