Studio Gold Update & Patch Notes for Operation Knee

20 Mar 2025Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

Dear fans,

Today's Patch for Operation Knee marks the second release in a series of updates that we are doing to improve the game. Next week we aim to release the War Effort patch, which as Arheo said previously will be more substantial than usual.

I also want to take this opportunity to circle back to a few topics that Arheo brought up last week, as well as start providing a few glimpses into the short- and long-term future.

Conclusion of the Expansion Pass

Next up in this pass is the Prototype Vehicles Unit Pack which adds vehicles that are more experimental in nature. Some will be available right away while others you will need to unlock through special projects. The unit pack continues to expand on the cool, detailed art we have in the game already, however it will not feature new in-game functionality.

Dev Corners Return

One important take-away from the development of all the content in this Expansion Pass is the need to better and earlier involve you, our community. Our Dev Diaries have regrettably been getting published closer and closer to our release date which makes it challenging to act on your feedback. To rectify that and better involve you in our plans at an earlier stage, moving forward we’ll bring back Dev Corners. For those of you who are new to the concept, Dev Corners is a space where we discuss our ongoing development, and highlight upcoming features and balance, to ensure early community feedback and discussions.

June is our target month to start the Dev Corners. That is still a few months away, so in the meantime we’ll provide insight into the internal workings of PDS Gold, which I’ve understood is of interest. Are there any areas you are interested in learning more about? Let us know and we’ll try our best to take them on. For example: How does a DLC get designed? How does the team decide what to work on? What kind of tools do our programmers use? What's the process of creating icons? Etc.. Let us know!

Our Recent Updates

And lastly, here’s our updated roadmap, below it you will also see the Patch notes.

Operation KNEE Patch Notes 1.16.2

Checksum 225a

Balance

Added a port to Rangoon, Aqaba and Latakia
Added infrastructure and two civilian factories to states in Burma
Added infrastructure to some states in Afghanistan
India: "Urge Violence against the British"-decisions now cost 13pp (down from 20pp), reduces compliance by -10%, and increases resistance by 50% (from 35%)
India: You now only need >25% more pressure than Pakistan/Bangladesh to win a princely state
Iran: The focuses "People's Revolutionary Airforce" and "People's Revolutionary Navy" are no longer mutually exclusive
Tweaked Musamdam's population and lowered it to a more realistic figure

Gameplay

Updated how air volunteers work. They now will always add the bonus from the modifier, making the intended behaviour of "Legion Condor" work as expected
Country leaders for new subject nations added in Graveyard of Empires, such as Palestine, Kuwait, Jordan, etc., now display their unique portraits even if Graveyard of Empires is disabled
India: Gaining a princely state now gives a core on that state
India: Princely states can now be cored in the communist path
India: The focus "Royal Indian Navy Mutiny" now requires >50% communist support, rather than full independence
India: The focus "Threaten the Princes" now gives 10% communist support

AI

India: the AI will now take the decision to become independent when it is available, if it is going down the communist path

Modding

Added bypass_effect block to national focuses that runs when a focus is manually or automatically bypassed

Germany

States added in Graveyard of Empires now get included in the formation of the appropriate German Reichskommissariats

India

Added a bypass for the focus "Annex Goa"
Added a bypass for the focus "Crush The Anathema"
Decisions to claim Pakistan as Akhand Bharat can no longer be used to claim Bangladesh during the famine
Divisions located in Burma will no longer be permanently exiled after the white peace triggers for the Mughal Uprising
Fixed a bug causing some nuclear raids to not delete military factories correcty with "Bathe in Hellfire" completed
Fixed a bug where the national spirit "Neutral Foreign Policy" was not properly removed from Pakistan and Bangladesh
Fixed an exploit where the East India Company could buy the world without paying
Fixed an incorrect tooltip in the partition mission
Fixed an instance where a fascist UK would automatically flip India to fascist
Fixed an instance where Freeman Freeman-Thomas would not lose his negative trait when Britain left India
Fixed an instance where the civil war started by the focus "Give Me Blood And I Will Grant You Freedom" would not end correctly
Fixed an issue where a princely state could be automatically annexed while at war with it
Fixed grammar issues and a typo in the tooltip and description of the focus "Funnel investments into Princely States"
Fixed missing and incorrect focus filters
Fixed some instances where focuses would allow joining factions while being a subject
Fixed the "Agrarian Society" national spirit sometimes not having an effect for India when the Princely Breakaway State or East India Company was created
Negative versions of the "Marginalized Muslim Community" national spirit is no longer retained by India after the split with Pakistan
Removed cores from certain states when Graveyard of Empires is disabled
The achievement "That's Sikh!" is now obtainable
The correct country name will now be used if "India Fragmentation Status" is set to "British Raj Fragmented" in game settings
The focus "Expand the Silk Road" no longer builds a railway through the Soviet Union
The focus "Gurkhas" no longer rewards an unusable Special Forces branch specialism when AAT is disabled
The focus "Headhunt Army Personnel" now properly allows sending volunteers
The focus "Institutional Money Laundering" no longer grants a research bonus with no name
The focus "Jaguar" no longer allows two experimental facilities to exist in the same state
The focus "Join the Shadow Scheme" can no longer build factories in core states not owned by India
The focus "Punjab Autonomy" no longer breaks when puppets control the states
The focus "Special Operations Executive" no longer rewards an unusable cost reduction for paratroopers doctrine when AAT is disabled
The national spirit "Aggression towards Princely States" now grants -100% generate wargoal tension limit
The national spirit "War Taxes" can no longer be lowered when not at war, now resets after a war ends, and can no longer be exploited to go above the limit
The tooltips for the event options in the events "Widespread protests" and "Religious Violence" now display the correct compliance values

Iran

Added several missing focus filters
Added missing states to the decision system "Recreate the Persian Empire"
Completing the focuses "The Memphis Initiative" and "Glory of Cyrus the Great" will now allow Iran to get cores on all of the Middle East, Egypt and Afghanistan
Fixed a bug that could give Iran decisions to core Turkey twice
Fixed a bug where avoiding the civil war in the democratic path could result in being stuck with no elections
Fixed an exploit where the Immortal Legion template could be used to generate free equipment
Fixed an instance where the "Election Season"-event would sometimes list a leader as retiring before being made leader again
Fixed some instances where focuses would allow joining or creating factions while being a subject
The decisions from "War Profiteering" are no longer displayed after your oil has been sold
The event chain from the focus "A Foothold in the Indus" now grants a war goal instead of automatically declaring war if India rejects the demands
The focus "Request Trains from Germany" now correctly adds German trains to stockpile
The focuses "Establish the Airforce" and "Construct Air Bases" no longer grant building slots along with air bases

Iraq

Added several missing focus filters
Fixed a typo in the description of the focus "Increase Anglo-Iraqi Economic Ties"
The focus "Project Babylon" no longer allows two experimental facilities to exist in the same state
The focus "Regional Military Integration" no longer tries to build factories meant for Jordan in Iraq
The focuses "Form OPEC" and "Join the Axis" can no longer be taken if Iraq is a subject
The national spirit "Anglo-Iraqi Mutual Defense Agreement" is now removed if you go to war with Britain

Turkey

The focus "Unite the Azeri Diaspora" now correctly rewards a core on East Azerbaijan

Overall

Fixed a bug that would cause the first variant of equipment to always be called "Mk0" regardless of country-specific naming scheme
Fixed an issue where buying dreadnaughts from Germany would not spawn them correctly