v0.39.0 - Run Codes, Weekly Challenges, New Bounties
This update covers everything since v0.32.0 (v0.33.0 through v0.39.0), and it's likely the last big one before launch on October 15th.
Every Run now has a Run Code, so you can play the exact same Run as a friend and try to beat it, and there's a new Weekly Run Challenge that everyone plays on the same seed. There are five new Optional Bounties, a new Blind Spot rule for SIEM nodes, and Runs are more forgiving overall. Your hand is easier to read, there are 22 new contract badges, and the end of a contract scenes got a full visual improvement pass. There's also some reworked Career Analytics, tooltip and manual improvements, cleaner audio, and a long list of other minor fixes.
Run Codes and the Weekly Run Challenge
The same Run Code now gives you the same Run: the same networks, the same packs, the same draws. Codes from older builds are marked OLDER BUILD instead of giving you a different Run.
ENTER RUN CODE on the Debts To Be Paid ledger starts that Run straight away, owed to the same debt, with the sharer's result to beat.
Leaderboard rows carry their Run Code. Pick a friend's row and compete against their Run.
Winning is based on number of contracts completed, then peak funds as a tie breaker. Beat a friend's verified Run and it counts on the new CHALLENGES WON friends board. Then send them CHALLENGE BACK.
Starting a challenge saves your current Run. Your saved run is playable again when the challenge ends.
A new WEEKLY row on the main menu. Everyone gets the same seed and the same debt for the week, and one ranked attempt. Career cards are off for the ranked attempt, so everyone starts even.
Each week has its own leaderboard. When your Weekly Run ends, CHALLENGE RESULTS takes you to the main menu with your result and where it placed. Past weeks keep their scores and are locked once the week closes. If a Weekly score can't reach Steam, the game tries again later.
The global boards are marked GLOBAL (BETA) while I watch how they hold up after launch. Friends leaderboards are a non-beta feature.
Run Codes and the Weekly Run Challenge are in the full game only. The demo has no leaderboards.
New Optional Bounties and Blind Spot
Five new OPTIONAL BOUNTIES on Contract Select, for 12 in all:
No Safety Net: use no Plays this contract. Protocols still work. Only shows up if you carry Plays in your inventory.
Overtime Shift: stay 3 or more rounds after the main objective is done, then exit clean. The haul is at risk the whole time.
Blind the Watchers: hold a foothold on a SIEM node when you exit.
Golden Ticket: get a privileged credential on an Identity Provider.
Island Hopper: land Lateral Movement on 4 different nodes.
New rule, BLIND SPOT: every SIEM you hold a foothold on (or that went offline from a contained foothold or a Ransom), cuts every detection gain by 10%, up to 30% for three. A SIEM contained by a Network Zone Lockdown doesn't count. The DETECTION header shows a BLIND status with the current detection reduction benefit.
The Ghost Protocol bounty was too hard to meet. Its peak detection limit is now below 50 (was 25).
Balance: Easier to Stay Alive
The per-turn detection tax is halved. Stealth objectives were adjusted so their limits stay where they were.
New IMPACT packs: if your hand has no card that can pay toward a profit-based objective, one of your free packs becomes an IMPACT pack with Exfiltration and Ransom cards that can actually generate profits. No more failing a contract because RNG resulted in the cards never showing up!
New Play: Exfiltration Staging Kit.
Persistence base detection cut by 25%.
The "instant money" Protocols previously paid more than your next debt. They now pay 10%, 20%, 25% or 50% of a contract's payout (scaled by Protocol card rarity).
No Ransom tactic adds more than 100 detection. The max possible detection for a tactic is now +100.
The Management Server's global credential now requires obtaining Privileged Access on a Management Server.
A contract-start Protocol on its last contract now fires its last time and then leaves the equip slot, with a banner saying so.
Plays that give you a foothold now count it toward the contract's objective, and rival crews no longer claim nodes the defenders have already contained.
Starting tactic bonuses now start your hand over the in-hand card capacity instead of raising the capacity. (e.g., resulting in a temporary 17/16 in-hand cards)
Detection is now shown as a plain 0 to 100 score instead of a percentage. This makes it clearer when there are percentage changes to detection vs. absolute changes to it's value. No change to the actual detection calculations, just improved clarity to the player.
Reading Your Hand
Each hand card's DETECTION cost now sits right under its success chance, in one joined badge. Success is green at 85 and up, amber at 70 and up, red below (before, almost every card read green). DETECTION has its own colours, so the two never read as the same signal: blue lowers detection, grey is cheap, violet is 10 or more, magenta is 25 or more.
New [ CATEGORIES ] button under your hand (or press H): a quick reference of every tactic category, what it does, when to play it, how noisy it usually is, and how many you hold. Click a row to open that page of the Operator Manual.
Free cards get a spotlight. A RARE or better card handed to you at contract start flares as it's dealt and wears a FREE tag. Cards granted mid-contract by Plays and Protocols get the same treatment, and a card LOLBAS Recycler gives back is tagged RETURNED.
The Kill Chain Bonus Reward reveal now puts the card under a spotlight with slow gold rays, and waits a beat longer before it animates in. If your Cards inventory is full, a red chip under the card says so and turns green once you've made room.
The kill chain's DET SAVED / PENALTY tally prints Detection reduction points instead of percentages now to improve clarity.
22 New Badges and a New End of Contract Scenes
Two new badge families. REACH is for how far you spread: footholds in 3, 5 or 8 zones at once, a foothold in Management or Core, credentials on 5 nodes at once. COVER TRACKS is for getting quiet again: drop 50 points of detection in one chain, take the bar from 100 back to 0, or leave without a single artifact behind.
Also new: Speedrun and Blitz for finishing the objective early, Phoenix, Untouchable, Last Call, Smash and Grab, Perfect Chain, and one badge for each of the five new bounties. Skeleton Key is now granted for taking a privileged credential from an Identity Provider.
A rarity pass over the whole set of rewarded badges. Single-crit tactic badges are Uncommon, Spotless is 0-DAY, and a duplicate badge is gone. 74 badges in total.
Live badge tray: badges you earn during a kill chain or Play land under Node Details as they happen, with a closing tally. On the Contract Summary the badge row scrolls sideways when you earn more than fit horizontally on the screen.
The XP and Contract Summary scenes have been redesigned
Every place you drag a card away to discard or sell it now uses the same DROP TO DISCARD / DROP TO SELL plate, just above the hand. That includes the round-end pack break, where you can now discard cards before even opening a pack.
Career Analytics, Sharing, Text and Sound
The main menu's CAREER ANALYTICS row is now ANALYTICS & LEADERBOARDS.
New stats: every Kill Chain Bonus reward by tier, LUCK (how often you landed against the chance you were shown), success by card rarity, Protocol fires, what defenders took back, and a split by Run type (normal, Run Code, Weekly).
Accuracy fixes: a Run lost on the final debt no longer counts as paid, RUN WIN RATE no longer counts the Run you're still playing as a loss, and card sales show up in CASH FLOW.
The Career Card (F8 outside a Run) now includes your Steam name and avatar, summarizing your play style. F8 during a Run shares that Run, and a mid-contract Share Card shows the whole screen with a DETECTION gauge. This is still a work in progress but is functional.
The streamer Run Code chip moved from the top-right corner to the right end of the footer, out of the way of Node Details.
Every tooltip now uses the game's standard font. All of them were checked against the rules, and made more concise. Some tooltips were simply wrong as they had drifted from actual gameplay specifics over time.
The Operator Manual was reviewed and tightened, with Sharing and Run Codes in their own section.
A mouse click now skips the intro cinematic, the title card and the photosensitivity warning, the same as pressing Esc, Enter or Space.
Fixes
A card tossed while the previous one was still hanging over its node no longer leaves that first card frozen over the map for the rest of the contract.
END CONTRACT can no longer be pressed while a round-end reward, pack or market is still open.
Clicking a card too early on the Operator Skills screen no longer leaves it dead/unclickable.
Double clicks on the market's CLOSE PACK, the XP reward or the round-end reward no longer skip a round or grant twice. Leaving the market mid-tear animation no longer loses the pack you paid for.
Containment-recovery Plays no longer pick nodes in a fully sealed network zone, and their card text now says so. If that's all there is in the network, the Play is dimmed with NO TARGET.
The Play card's detailed view no longer shows unnecessary internal card data under the description.
In the tutorial, the highlight ring no longer sits on top of a card's detail view.
The operator rank badge now climbs with your skill picks instead of staying on RECRUIT forever.
Autonomous Recon and Workstation Worm targets stay on the map until the sweep reaches them (animation fix).
Map announcements are centered on the visible map, and the TARGET NETWORK text is centered on the screen.
The Cards badge in the footer no longer counts Plays that can't be used right now. Plays that need a foothold type you don't have are dimmed, and the tooltip says why.
Share Cards: funds match YOUR FUNDS before the debt screen, big numbers are shortened and fit their boxes, and the text on the card better matches the in-game context from where you shared from.
Friends leaderboards that showed 0 after a save reset now re-post your score.
The main menu title no longer drifts onto the subtitle when the WEEKLY row opens and closes.
Dialog UI corners draw cleanly again, and the operator panel legend says CAREER instead of RESOURCE DEV.
Trait and category names are spaced properly (Data Thief, not DataThief).
Renamed: Network Segment Ransom is now Network Device Ransom, the L10 career card is Traffic Baseline Blending, and the Golden Ticket Protocol is now Keys to the Kingdom (it never forged a ticket). No gameplay changes, just improving the text.
The photosensitivity warning display time was made shorter on the game intro.
Various fixes to text content and formatting within the game.
F9 or posting to the Steam Community forums for Project RedTeam: Contract Offensive is the fastest way to reach me.
Thanks for playing.
Dev