Zara is now out of testing and available to find and play. This has taken a while because there's a lot of it! There's still more to come, but she's introduced with a lot of interactions and encounters already, plus exciting intro content. As mentioned in the changelog, she also comes with some new NPC mechanics that'll be introduced to other characters over time. The main ones are:
Blowing up
Repeatedly cycling through raising and lowering hostility with an NPC over time will now make them get fed up with you over time. This is represented by Blowing up, which will lead to more and more serious arguments over time, and eventually them cutting contact with you. This isn't something you can easily reduce either, so you'll need to be careful what you say and do around them. Or to think of it another way, as more and more NPCs are introduced and fully fleshed out, picking and choosing which ones you want to be close with becomes more important. You almost certainly won't be able to have them all (not without lots of drama, anyway...)
Knowing you
It used to be that the Contact/... value with an NPC represented how well you knew each other. NPCs "just knew" important things about you on the assumption that you shared information in conversations that weren't represented in the game. Whilst that's still the case up to a point, NPCs will also now have a stat called Knowing you. If your contact with them rises much above this, you'll be prompted to tell them things about yourself -- whether that's vague info, lies or specific pieces of information. They will also be able to find things out about you for themselves (this is already in up to a point, e.g. Irene knows/Your secret kills). Whichever option you choose, there will be consequences, good and bad. This all ties in with the new-ish Friends/Associates card too.
Outfits
This updates also has some new clothing mechanics, as well as new items. This is part of a bigger project to overhaul the clothing system to make tattoos work properly, amongst other things. Before long, instead of an abstracted State of dress level, the system will know specifically which bits of skin you have showing, and sets things up appropriately. This will also allow for a better Perceived temperature system and a lot more tweaks you can make, e.g. wearing a coat open or closed.
As ever...
Lots still coming, including more body mods, additional Zara content, the badlands and a load more.
Read the full changelog below
There's loads of other stuff in this update, including bordertown and smugglers content and improvements to regular cards.
Zara's full mechanics and content are now live.
- Continue her story on the kinds of places where you met her in the first place
- Includes new NPC mechanics that'll be rolled out to other characters in future.
Four new regular cards in the bordertown.
New content on Friends/Associates.
Made some tweaks to how Carrying contraband and the smuggler's pouch works.
Made some tweaks to working for the smugglers, with a bit of new content,
- Note: if you've currently got Smuggling/On a job set, your pick-up or drop-off location might have changed.
Street level advertising has had a little work.
Interstate has had a little more work.
Filled in some more "coming soon" text.
You can now split with Irene while she's livid with you.
You can no longer join a dojo lesson with a broken finger or concussion.
Arrange a shipment has had some work.
Pillow talk has had some work.
One new physical quirk.
There are some new outfit and clothing mechanics.
- Underwear, wearing a topcoat over other outerwear, and more.
New clothing items to buy.
There's a new slot for heavier equipment.
- Access to the crowbar as weapon now comes from this instead of the Weapons locker.
New artwork.
Made some performance improvements when in the changing room.
Fixed not being able to remove items from quick access.
Fixed some problems with gearing up your Projects murder squad.
Fixed the missing waist version of the multibag.
Fixed erroneously showing an obvious mutation sometimes.
Fixed some typos and other minor bugs. Thanks for the reports!