We're keeping the forge hot here at Trese Brothers HQ with another update tonight! With so many major updates and expansions hitting over the last month, we're working on catching up with the mountain of F10s you all have lovingly submitted, so stay tuned, lots more polish, improvements both big and small and fixes are coming.
Update #109 has fixed the issue with equipping some Cyberdecks, rewritten the reinforcement placement rules for the better, fixed issues with the Security Escalation that could - at some times - skip Escalation altogether, improved the balance of Benders and Divergents so they have a smoother curve of progression, and fixed some amazing bugs reported by the community include a pretty old and nasty one with Extraction. So let's dig in!
Deck Equip / Unequip
Last night's update introduced an issue with equipping decks that is semi-random from game to game ... sometimes decks just won't equip! This is now fixed, our apologies.
Reinforcement Rules Update
Reinforcements are undeniably the worst kind of Security Escalation and so their exact placement and rules have a big impact of pacing, fairness, fun and believability of your heists. With Update #109 we've rewritten the rules used to calculate and pick from among the many possible reinforcement points within any given level.
The most visible change in this rules rewrite is to avoid ever dropping reinforcements into an active extraction area if you are close to it. The italics clause is key - if you're far away, like 25m+ then enemies may still appear there are make your day difficult. Perhaps you could re-route to another extraction point. But the days of running between a bewildered set of guards as you extract your team should be behind the game now.
We also fixed some lingering issues with the system that could lead to Escalation turns were no action was taken by the security AI.
Extraction Bug
Thanks to everyone submitting F10s about the extraction bug! If you extracted a character who was Bleeding Out, was poisoned, had any form of Damage Over Time or Healing over Time, then the next turn they could re-appear in a broken state inside the extraction box and cause some major havoc. Now fixed!
Bender and Divergent Curve Smoothing
We were excited to introduce some difficulty to take down enemies a few patches back, but we've revisited them with this update to use a new enemy templating and rule system that will help us build out enough depth in their enemy profile to support the type of scaling the game needs.
As Benders and DIvergents increase in Power Level themselves, all of their targets advanced through a progression of 6 Talent power levels, allowing the Bender to become more and more difficult to hit as you increase your team's power level. It's an exciting template we plan to be using on other enemies as we roll into the next waves of unique and different baddies.
Starting Wireghost Services
We've adjusted the Wireghost Contact's starting services to use Matrix Programs 2, down from Power Level 3. As we've added the Contact Limit Breaks, some of the services were artificially high due to their inability to change, so now we're evening out the new game to ensure that all of your Contact's have the right room to grow.
v1.8.11 - 7/12/2024
- Improve reinforcement spawning routines to be more fair & fun, avoid too-close extraction points
- Improved Sec Escalation rules to fix issue where sometimes no card would be drawn
- Improved Wireghost Contact starting services - sells Power Level 2 Programs at start instead of 3
- Improved balance and progression for Benders and Divergents (smoother ramp of +Evasion Talents)
- Fixed bug with Extracted merc re-appearing after a turn if they were Bleeding Out or had DOT or HOT
- Fixed bug preventing Hackers from equipping certain Cyberdecks randomly
- Added missing description and powers description for Divergents enemy pop up
- Fixed UltraTek bio-formula thief from being tagged as law-abiding in corp
- Cleaned up incorrect stats for NanoFab in bottom right of Manage Room