Knights and mercs, you knew it in your heart of heisty-hearts that the milspec factions were not going to sit long the on the side lines while the megacorps got to play with their Hover Tanks! Now, milspec factions are adding Lance VTOLs to their ranks of reinforcements and starting patrollers at higher Power Levels. These VTOLs are fast and easier to kill but ... still packing powerful heavy machine gun on their hardpoint.
With Mecha Infantry, Turrets, Hover Tanks and now VTOLs in the game, the heat is getting turned up on your squad's ability to handle drones by mid game (Team Power Level 4+). Considering doing a few strategic respecs to get some drone jamming or other anti-drone Talents - they can really help save a heist as the tension rises.
Our Save Game Policy and Updates
Since you'll always be seeing a lot of updates around here, we want to reiterate our saved game policy 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.
New Enemy: Lance VTOLs
Lance VTOLs are faster and lighter drones employed by the milsec companies - Brave Star and Arrowhead - compared to the megacorporate Hover Tanks. The Lances still represent the arrival of powerful, rapid-response elite reinforcements instead of regular milsec soldiery, as they can more rapidly pin down or neutralize threats. As the Security Level rises and the Sec AI calls upon more and more powerful reinforcements on your heist team, a pod of reinforcements (typically 3 soldiers) will instead contain soldiers and one or more Lance VTOLs. The specific criteria for arriving as reinforcements are as follows:
In a mission against a milsec faction
Your team is Power Level 4+
The Sec Level on your mission has reached 4+
Additionally, once your team is above Power Level 6, Lance VTOLs may appear as part of the starting-enemy patrols set on missions against milsec factions.
Today, there is a single type of Lance VTOL used by both milsec companies which has access to Full Auto, Overwatch and an energy field for temporary invulnerability. As we continue to expand the drone offerings, we will be separating these VTOLs, their look and their abilities per company.
Unlike most other enemies, Lance VTOLs will not be stopped in their tracks by overwatch shots against them and they have a 75%+ chance to break Stun effects applied to them. Unfeeling, nothing but metal, armor and guns - these VTOLs swoop in for the kill relentlessly.
VTOLs are expensive assets and a milsec company can only commit so many to a single facility or battle at a time, so don't expect to see more than 2 at a time.
Watch out - like Hover Tanks before them, VTOLs explode when they go down and cause damage to anyone nearby.
How to take on Lance VTOLS?
The standard Leverage to block reinforcements also blocks the arrival of Lance VTOLs. Keeping a leverage like this in reserve for Sec Level 4+ can buy you valuable time to avoid their arrival or get distance from their likely arrival points.
Unlike Turrets and Hover Tanks, Lance VTOLs are built for speed and firepower over heavy armor. You will be less likely to be able to outrun a VTOL and may need to consider the best position from which to fight one instead of trying to outright flee.
Lance VTOL have less over all Hit Points but Armor-shredding is still key for attacks against any drones; while less of an damage sponge than a Hover Tank, the VTOLs still have high HP and are easier to wear down with E-Rifles, Shotguns and other high Shred weapons (or weapon mods).
The Cyber Knight and Cybersword have the most anti-drone talents, with Hacker and Agent EX characters also having several available. Check any of the character classes on the Cyber Knights Wiki to easily see a full list of their available talents and CTRL+F for "drone" to review.
Other Drone Improvements
With Update #57, we've also improved a number of other areas for drones. We've completed a rebalance of Hover Tank armor to make it weaker against melee (watch out, they explode!). We've fixed a number of missing animations like aiming up, aiming down, hitting and missing.
Also, we resolved some mistakes in the flight path generator for Hover Tanks that were ignore intervening cover. This could lead to the tanks flying through things like fences where the medical stretcher and VTOL would fly over them. Now, everyone goes over everything they should!
Enemy Skip Turn Bugs
We fixed a number of bugs with far away enemies skipping their turns and therefore skipping some important event - like spotting a corpse or walking into a laser fence that has been turned yellow by Kill Switch. These are now resolved and an enemy - no matter how far away - will always simulate their path correctly and check for any events before skipping.
Update Size Note (now 3 GB)
We've made some good progress on the last series of updates for the maximum update size. While some of the updates we have been pushing are still large the regular "max size" that will now be pushed has come down from the high 5 GB to 3 GB. This is a big improvement and we're excited to have completed this re-org but we know we have more to do.
We are dedicated to trying to keep update size small and would prefer updates to stay under 1 GB on average. Here's to smaller updates in the future!
v2.3.15 - #57: Milspec Lance VTOL
- Added new faster and lighter hovering drone - the VTOL Lance low-flying jet rigged with a machine gun and lighter armor
- VTOL Lances may now appear in milsec and Brave Star as reinforcements at Power Level 4+ and Sec Level 4+
- VTOL Lances may now appear as starting patrollers at start of any milsec mission at Power Level 6+
- Less hard to kill, VTOLs are offensive focused and capable of swooping in fast, flying over most obstacles and unleashing deadly firepower
- Rebalanced Hover Tank armor stats (weaker protection against melee)
- Improved animation for Hover Tank when aiming up or down at a target
- Fixed bugs where skipping a far away enemy's turn might lead to missing events (find body, Overwatch, Kill Switch Laser Fence)
- Fixed issues with Hover Tank gliding through low types of cover like fences or edges of crates
- Fixed issue with missions where you could walk "behind" the large red walls along the map edge