i liked the demo when i tried it ages ago. not a bad indie nu-xcomlike at all

>>2057168
>trese brothers
oh shit i had no idea they made a new game just bought it with no further research
in a sea of lazy devs these motherfuckers are the only ones who actually put in work, star traders frontiers came out in 2017 and still gets monthly content updates

nice, thanks for reminding me. tried it out last year and liked it

>>2057447
also echoing this guy's sentiment about the devs

I played the first two(the three stage tutorial and then the rooftop extraction) missions.
I don't like the visuals, the way it controls or the UI(having to click on a specific part of a character's portrait and then another click just so I can see how much damage a weapon deals, or having to hover back and forth between characters to how much of a chance to hit I have on them, or not being able to easily access the recoil stat), I absolutely love everything else. It's like Invisible Inc in a few places that I enjoy and a fun TBT in all the other places I also enjoy.
I love the heist mechanics and the escalating Sec AI responses, I love the recoil mechanic, I love the classes so far(gunslinger's dual iron was the sickest shit), I enjoyed the not Phantom Doctrine legwork mechanic and the leverage mechanic, I liked the idea of full auto being an AoE attack, I like the way Initiative works in the game and the Yield turn mechanic, and the music was sick as shit.
It's just a shame it looks like shit. Like I recall Templar Battleforce didn't look amazing but the artstyle looked okay enough that I never spared it a second thought. Here it's genuinely alpha/placeholder material and same with the animations.

>turn-based
I sleep

The official wiki is pretty expansive already.
https://cyberknightswiki.tresebrothers.com/

I utterly fucked the first heist(Octane's Dpoint) but god damn if it was fun as hell
>split my guys in two so that I can have my hacker and gunslinger pick off the wireghost and start hacking the terminal in silence, while my other group goes around looting lockboxes
>fuck that up 3 turns in and my cyber knight gets spotted, also realize that my sniper is fucking useless and has no low noise attacks
>fuck it, lets go loud
>turtle up in the terminal room, let my hacker go wild with getting the files while my three guys pick off reinforcements and goons in a very pitched firefight(Gunslinger fucking rocks)
>got everything, time to extract with just two turns and an exit platform that's really far away
>make the dumbest mad dash using my armored Cyber Knight to tank proximity mines placed in the way and the AP boost talent to just get us over the finish line in time

File: file.jpg (527 KB, 3440x1440)

527 KB JPG

Been playing it for a while. It's honestly pretty fantastic for an XCOM-like. It's also not nearly as braindead as nuXCOM. despite having similar gameplay. If I have one criticism it's that the start of the game is pretty punishing. You really can't afford to fuck up at the beginning. Even just getting wounded early on is a headache because your dude will be laid up for a week or more at a point where you don't really have characters to spare. Then after that they'll have a wound debuff that you won't be able to afford to get treated at a clinic, and even if you can afford it that's another week lost and the cost will probably delay the development of your base as well. Picture related, my EX-Agent "Haunt" is gonna be in the medbay for 15 days and takes a permanent wound debuff as well. And then on top of THAT they'll get increased stress which can lead to all kinds of bullshit. This can quickly spiral out of control in the early game, which means that you can't afford to take a combat-first approach to missions since you can't afford to get shot. Compounding on this is that the early game has several story missions that are likely to feature combat in relatively quick succession. After the initial set of missions you get plenty of time to heal and do some casual legwork, but those first thee missions or so you have to play super careful. That said, stealthing through the levels and wrecking guards without getting detected is very satisfying and once you have some cash to spend, a spare merc or two, and maybe even an inhouse clinic, injuries stop being as much of an issue, but it's a bit frustrating that this issue is most punishing early on when you're not yet familiar with the game and thus more likely to make those costly mistakes in the first place.

>>2058114
>realize that my sniper is fucking useless and has no low noise attacks
Snipers are super strong in mid- to lategame and have good combat support options as well, but yeah they're easily the worst class for stealth. Sniper rifles are super loud even if you use a silencer, so the distance at which enemies can hear a shot is often like half the map. It doesn't help that there aren't many wide open maps where you can sit safely at a distance and not worry about who hears you, and even on maps that do have wide open areas you usually don't want to leave your sniper behind in a perfect sniping position because it often means they'll get shafted when it's time to exfil and they have to run through enemy reinforcements while the rest of your squad is three turns ahead of them. This makes in missions where you can't simply kill everyone, which is the majority of missions.
You can multiclass Sniper with something like Vanguard to get some stealth options (especially since sniper rifles + stealth crits = insane damage, but then you're really just playing a Vanguard who pulls out his big dick sniper rifle to put a hole in a motherfucker every now and then.

I really like using Snipers a lot, especially Sniper/Soldier multiclass which THE best combat character in the game IMO, but you gotta leave them at home if you need stealth.

>>2058136
>This makes in missions where you can't simply kill everyone
This makes them hard to use in missions where you can't simply kill everyone

Brain broke.

>>2058129
>post this yesterday
>they release a patch today that makes the first mission more forgiving if you get hurt
Wew. Guess I wasn't the only one who saw this as an issue.

File: ss_d9677aad928f3f30f6253d(...).jpg (498 KB, 1920x1080)

498 KB JPG

>>2057168
>ok ill have a look
>the sims2 modpack artstyle
gross

File: file.jpg (862 KB, 3440x1440)

862 KB JPG

>>2058611
Yeah the character art is pretty bad. The hair models used to be a lot simpler which still didn't look great, but at least it looked less out of place than the current ones. You can switch to the old style by selecting "Legacy Hair" in the options

Feels weird that they gave cameltoe to the female corpo suit of all outfits.

refunded. the movement is clunky as heck.

The trannies over at somethingawful hyped it up so it must be shit

>>2059433
>Anon can't go one day in his life without dreaming about trannies
The psyop really took hold deep with you, didn't it?

Game's ugly as hell and the the way movement is handled is extremely annoying, but damn is it not fun. I think I prefer Frontiers overall, but this was worth the wait.

>>2059346
>>2059768
Press shift to turn off the snap-to-point movement. It makes things a lot more fluid. There's also a toggle in the options menu to use double-click to move instead of having the press space to confirm movement.

>>2059433
can't argue with that heuristic

>>2059433
Figures. SA is always fuill of shit eaters who all want to tongue eachothers' anuses. Looking at pictures it feels like a bad mix of paid assets and AI generated art.

I don't quite get how the AI works in this game. I did my usual Invisible Inc strategy of going loud at the end of a mission in a frantic rush to grab everything in my path to the extraction point but here it seems like they keep hunting in completely random directions even though I get spotted by cameras along the way or I'm engaged in a gunfight somewhere(maybe they aren't in noise range?), I don't know why they wouldn't zero in on me instead of slowly hunting for missing guards and bodies.

>>2057447
>>2057496
Absolutely agree, I don't find Star Traders to be a perfect game by any stretch but anyone who keeps pouring work into their projects gets my respect.

>>2060249
As far as I can tell there are multiple modes of alert enemies can be in, and the enemy only knows where you are on the highest alert levels (i.e. they've either directly seen one of your dudes or they've been attacked). Lower alert levels just makes them investigate, which breaks their preset patrol route and makes them wander off in random directions. There do seem to be different levels of this though, like "heard a suspicious sound" only makes them investigate slowly while "spotted a corpse" makes them run towards the area. Anyway, the thing with cameras and other security devices is that they never alert anyone directly. Getting detected by them only raises the AI security level, and then the AI takes (random) actions based on that, like activating extra security measures, calling for backup (which starts with an elevated alert level), or raising the alert level of individual enemies (you can tell when they start saying stuff like "Security AI in my ear!").
There doesn't seem to be any kind of general alert that the AI can activate, which just tells everyone where you are. They only ever activate individual enemies (though they can do this multiple times per turn) and they only scale up the alert level which can possibly put them in a state where they know where you are, but for the middle levels it just makes them break their patrol routes and start looking for you randomly since the knowledge of where you are is tied to what state of alert they're in, not on what the AI tells them.

That's just what I've observed though, so I may be off the mark. Either way I suspect that making the AI security tell the enemy where you are would've made stealth too punishing since a single mistake would put the entire base on your ass. This way is less logical but creates a more gradual escalation as security levels rise and the AI keeps activating more guards.

>>2060249
>>2060329
Also,
> I'm engaged in a gunfight somewhere(maybe they aren't in noise range?)
Guards don't seem to be able to alert eachother either. They can only alert the AI, which may or may not choose to alert other guards in response. You can tell whether a gunshot will be heard by anyone by looking at the yellow ear icon when you have the gun selected. Anyone with that icon will hear the shot. And if you can kill a guard in one turn without that guard getting a turn of his own, he won't be able to alert the AI so you won't get any escalation for a few turns (when the corpse timer runs out and the AI notices the guard is missing) or until their corpse is spotted by another guard or a camera.

Again it's a case of all alert states having to go through the security AI system. Guards have very little autonomy and unless they're already on high alert or actively in combat they won't do jack shit without the security AI telling them to.

>>2060332
I feel like the sec ai should alert enemies more often. I mean credit where it's due compared to something like Invisible Inc I like the idea of each security escalation having multiple permutations instead of just the set level 0/1 are free because what are additional cameras going to do and you can get blindsided by reinforcements, but if guards cannot reliably alert one another then there's no point to splitting up my guys if all that's going to accomplish is potentially alerting more guards.
Then again I'm playing on Normal so it's possible that's just the bitch mode difficulty.

>>2060335
I'm playing on Challenging and I often split up my team in those "loot all containers" missions, just to cover more ground before I have to start running away. It helps that those usually have multiple exits so you don't get stuck in a situation where you need to exfil but half your team is on the wrong side of the level. But it depends a lot on the layout of the mission, some missions allow for a lot of freedom in how you approach them while others are are incredibly straight-forward. I literally just finished a bodyguard mission where the entire level was swarming with guards except for one long hallway around the side of the level that took me all the way from the entrance to the exit while only having to deal with a single guard (and about 5 cameras but those are rarely an issue).

I dropped it for now. I figure with them literally dropping a new update every day I can come back to it in a year or two and it'll be a lot better, and I hope so because I really liked what I saw but there's too much I dislike about it.

>>2060967
They're still dropping content updates for their previous game (Star Traders: Frontiers) which came out in 2018, so it's not likely this game is going to stop getting updated after 2 years. Admittedly the STF updates aren't coming as often as they used to since most of their team has been focused on Cyber Knights, but it still gets like 2 content drops a month.

File: 1733938432984145.gif (1.58 MB, 162x255)

1.58 MB GIF

>>2060329
>devs too stupid or lazy to make cameras spotting you mark the location to draw aggro to it
That is so dumb and I didn't even have any expectations.

>>2057168
this game needs more polish before I commit to buying it. It looks cool but the graphics are kinna retro / garbage. Also I'm guessing the game still has quite a bit of jank and hasn't worked out all the bugs yet.

>>2063216
The graphics are probably never going to improve so if that's important to you I'd just go play something else, but as far as I can tell it's not really janky or buggy.

Probably my biggest criticism so far is that I don't feel pressured to do jobs, really. There are deadlines but the game doesn't feel time sensitive if that makes sense. I do jobs because I want to, not because I have to. Which feels at odds with the setting. If people are injured and I need to take time to heal up, it's no big deal to just wait and miss out on an opportunity or two. With mercs being paid a percentage there isn't any real pressure to make money. There probably needs to be some sort of money sink added to the game, monthly costs associated with running the base. Maybe mercs should have some sort of amount per month they need to earn or else they take loyalty hits. Could even have it so that if they hit certain goals for amount made they get loyalty bonuses.

>>2063453
There are unique storyline jobs that you can't just ignore (well you can, but then you miss out on the storyline and any follow-up jobs). Even outside of those, ignoring missions does add to your contact's exposure count so if you just spend all of your time doing nothing you'll get fewer rewards and your contacts will suffer negative events, which isn't immediately impactful but does add up eventually. For example a source of good equipment who gets an exposure event and has to go into hiding for a month can be a real blow. It's a lot more subtle and more open to player choice than "you have to make X amount of money every month just to keep your company running" but that doesn't mean you can just sit back indefinitely.

>>2060329
>>2060332
I don't think this is completely true. When you get the AI result "dispatching guard" they do direct them to the last position you were seen by a camera or other detection device. It's just that when there's no active combat going on they move slowly, so by the time they get there you're usually already somewhere else. You can even somewhat exploit this during rapid escalations by letting you get spotted in some irrelevant location and have the AI redirect multiple guards who will often spend a few turns aimlessly milling about if they don't see you. Also you can sometimes see the guards ask for backup and things like that, but I'm not sure if that has any significant effect or if it's just something random, and either way the range on it seems to be very short. It's more likely they'll alert eachother with the sound of their gunshots since guards never use silencers.

Thoughts on the class balance? Feels like aside from the obvious meant to be broken strong classes like the CK and Face, there's a couple of standouts and a couple more situational but still good picks. Like I wouldn't bring a sniper everywhere but on the maps where sightlines are good dear god they're amazing. Granted even considering that, I'm having difficulty shaking off my default mixed mission squad of CK/CS, Hacker, Ex-Agent, Scourge.

>>2066463
IMO:

>Hacker
The ultimate one-trick pony. They're bad at everything except hacking, but you NEED someone who's good at hacking so you'll want one or two of these guys on your team at all times, even if they're going to get benched for a lot of missions. Outside of hacking they do have some useful utility talents, but nothing to really write home about. Anti-drone talents are shit because there aren't enough drones to worry about.

>Soldier
No-nonsense damage monster and an amazing multiclass pick for anyone who wants to be good at shooting people with guns, especially full-auto weapons. It also helps that you can get a lot of good stuff early on, like Marker Sights, Iron Grip, Savagery and Recoup, so you can just pick up a few of them early on as a one-point wonder and then focus on whatever your other class is. Bad at stealth unless you multiclass though, and if you do want to multiclass for stealth you'll get a lot less mileage out of your talents.

>Sniper
You either build them for damage in which case they're amazing in long-range combat engagements and crap at everythint else, or you pick them as a multiclass just for JTAC and Strike Zone. Strong class, just a bit limited in what it's good at. I guess you could take Sniper as a multiclass on a revolver-based Gunslinger since revolvers are one-shot weapons so Sniper talents should work with them, but I haven't tried Gunslinger yet and I don't like revolvers since they can't be silenced.

>Cyberblade
The only real melee class. Melee isn't that good IMO but swords are naturally stealthy and before you get the rest of your team some weapon upgrades the Cyberblade will likely outdamage them all. It has some really good talents, including stuff that makes it much easier to survive in melee. Slashslide is also ridiculously good when upgraded.

>>2066514
>Vanguard
THE stealth class. Not much good in combat, but can be at quietly getting rid of people if you build for movements and stealth crits. This makes it a pretty good multiclass for Cyberblades (since swords are always silent) and potentially also for Snipers (since sniper stealth crits are brutal). Without multiclassing they're really only for stealth though, but at least they're good at it.

>Agent-EX
What if you had a Vanguard who was good at things besides stealth? Their entire left-side talent branch is focused on spraying niggas with SMGs which is pretty good, and can be made even better with a Soldier multiclass. As a tradeoff they're not quite as good at stealth as a Vanguard, but in many situations they'll be able to perform similarly.

>Scourge
Has stealth talents that are useful when you're shooting people (like Dissolve) and combat skills that are useful when you're sneaking (like Tox Cloud). Shotguns are kind of a shit weapon but you don't have to focus on them, and tank talents are kind of shit but again, you don't have to focus on them. What's left is still more than good enough to be worth a slot on any team. I love these lil war criminals.

>Gunslinger
The only class I haven't tried yet. From looking at their talent tree I don't really see the appeal. You can either focus on revolvers (with Fanning) or on pistols (with Gun Kata). Obviously, revolvers are the loud high damage version and pistols are the stealthy low damage version. I don't like revolvers in this game to begin with and I don't see why you wouldn't just go Soldier if you wanted a loud, high damage character. And while Pistols are a nice option for stealthy characters, why would you take the stealthy option on a character without good stealth talents? I guess you can improve things with the right multiclass (like Gunslinger/Sniper for revolvers or Gunslinger/Vanguard for pisols) but as I said, I haven't tried them yet.

>>2066515
Overall I think the balance is surprisingly good. There are definitely classes that are more universally good than others, but there isn't one where I can't see a good reason to have one on your team, except maybe Gunslinger which, again, I don't really have a good idea about yet. I'm very curious about the upcoming classes though. They've already announced multiple pet classes (the first one they'll add will use drones apparently), which can be quite hard to balance in a game like this.

>>2066517
Yeah your writeup sounds about right. Slashslide is the only reason I multiclassed my CK into cybersword because man CK skills are all basically cheating in how good they are, well aside from the drone ones. Agent-Ex i think can earn a slot just for smokescreen alone as one of the lowest cooldown panic buttons, although it has led to the less fun situations of being stuck in the middle of half-a-dozen overwatches pointed at my team. Also not quite as consistently good at stealth as vanguards but hey they shoot good and signal grift is probably better than the vanguard one that makes the body disappear but no tthe body timer. I see your point about gunslingers but I usually run one in my loud team. Sure a soldier can do a lot of the same thing but fanning a whole group of enemies will never get old, although i think a critfishing CK/GS could be a good option considering the background trait support and revolvers all having the increased crit damage by default.

>>2066552
>being stuck in the middle of half-a-dozen overwatches pointed at my team
May I introduce you to our lord and savior Strike Zone? An AoE debuff that also cancels overwatch for any enemy in the area. I multiclassed my CK into Sniper just for this and JTAC, which along with the the left-side CK talent branch makes him an amazing buffer/debuffer.

>i think a critfishing CK/GS could be a good option considering the background trait support and revolvers all having the increased crit damage by default.
Sounds neat, Maybe I'll try that on a second playthrough.

>>2066552
>vanguard one that makes the body disappear but not the body timer
body bag is excellent for getting enemies to go somewhere you don't care about and because they won't find a body you only take the tally hit on the timer expiring

and yeah, gunslinger puts out a bunch of damage with crits. not very far in the game but mine is already doing 700+ on single shot. the issue is i don't know if there are any enemies that warrant building this way. might be a case of gunslinger becomes better on higher difficulties because of hp buffs to enemies but is pointless on lower ones. it is nice having a high damage option that doesn't have to reload as often as the soldier does, though but that's a pretty minor benefit.

>>2066839
I haven't encountered any enemies with absurdly high HP yet, but there are enemies with high armor which is kind of the same thing unless you shred the armor first. Default guards never get armor as far as I can tell, but reinforcements, headhunters and story-based enemies sometimes get very high armor. Trying to take down a couple of armored enemies while you're running a stealth team with silenced pistols is pure suffering, which is why you should pretty much carry some shotguns or ARs as a backup plan.

oh yeah, also the gunslinger's overwatch skill has a base of 2 shots on 0 ap but only has one base charge. honestly, i'm starting to suspect soldier is the better class for a light multiclass dip but gunslinger is the better lategame combat class if you invest in it but i'm not certain. depends on how many total training points you can end up with i guess.

>>2066874
right, i forgot about high armor targets. gunslinger has been my guy for taking out captains and he legitimately has triviliazed them in a way that my soldier can't. the pure damage is too useful for those situations. it's nice that soldiers can shred for everyone else but gunslinger just takes them out in a single shot, two at most. with the lower recoil and only needing two ap per shot(instead of 3 ap for full auto shots) it makes it a lot easier to set up captains to be killed without a fuss. maybe those are the niches, soldier for crowd control and gunslinger for high value targets. and honestly, if you have both gun kata and fanning it probably shores up that weakness in gunslingers.

in general i prefer quiet approaches so i've only run into reinforcements rarely, more often than not they're showing up shortly before i extract and investigating a direction i've set up away from the exfil zone. both my soldier and gunslinger end up using their silenced pistols more often than their primary except on combat required missions where the soldier's ar is more useful for clearing the large amount of mooks.

>Phantom Guide 3 -> 4 - Additional Reaction +1, Move speed +2%
>Deep Wire 3 -> 4 - Additional Reaction +1, +5% Move speed, +3% Evasion
Not all traits are made equal I guess

>>2067042
One is a background trait and the other is an implant trait, so it's not like they compete for the same slot.

File: 20250614231428_1.jpg (265 KB, 1572x567)

265 KB JPG

So for crafting it's in my best interest if I'm only upgrading a merc's weapons with crafted ones to fill up the mod slots as well yeah, instead of making the mods separately? For some reason I thought the intrinsic effect bonus rolls would be like the actual intrinsic effect blueprints and not a chance that I get a bonus ion batt and blade grip tacked on

How much of the starting crew actually have specific storylines implemented? I know the vanguard has one that I assume is finished and I know the game randomly assigns the "undiscovered prodigy hacker" sibling to one of the others but who else? Hit the funky spot I'm kinda just been breezing since PL5 on challenging/normal and it's now PL 7 so I'm considering a restart and try out the new origin. Going to make a melee CK this time, just need to figure out if the extra speed/move detection from coyote is better of if dock worker's power is more worth it

>>2069964
>How much of the starting crew actually have specific storylines implemented?
The Cybersword starting character has a story about needing a specific drug to survive, but it seems unfinished. Though I'm only level 11 so maybe it picks up later in the game. Aside from that and the hacker sibling story I haven't seen any crew-specific stories.

>Going to make a melee CK this time, just need to figure out if the extra speed/move detection from coyote is better of if dock worker's power is more worth it

IMO you have 3 main options:
>Strength build: Dockyard Smuggler + Handshaker + Reinforced Spine + Dermal Plating
The most straight-forward melee option. More accuracy, more damage, more strength, and a more defense. It's (almost) everything you need.
>Reaction build: Wasteland Coyote + Phantom Guide + Deep-Wire + Synapric Accelerator
This one would actually be my pick. Rather than improving your damage this gives you more speed, better stealth, and makes you harder to hit. More of a stealth/utility build than a raw damage build, but it's not like Cyberswords are that hard up for more damage.
>Tech build: Dockyard Smuggler + Cutthroat Fighter + Ballistics Coprocessor + Display Link
Probably the worst build of the three since I think crits are better for guns than for melee in general, but it could still be strong simply because crits are strong. The obvious downside here is that you won't get the full value out of your crit implants since they boost ballistic damage and ranged accuracy. Still nice in that alongside giving you lots of crits, it gives a bit of a boost to whatever backup gun you put in your secondary slot.

>none of the music is online yet
God damnit I want to hear that "combat" theme that sounded like something out of Troubleshooter again.

Didn't realize they posted a preview of the newest class on their discord only considering that it makes an appearance in various screenshots and briefly in the trailer. Warmachine being built on cybernetics and integrated weapons sounds pretty cool. Granted fully loading it up with all 3 weapons means 4/6 slots are taken which is a rough allocation and probably has slot conflicts with the standard melee cybernetics as well

File: untitled.jpg (572 KB, 1920x1080)

572 KB JPG

>>2067702
I was surprised when my crafted UAR got 2 scopes and 2 body mods attached with it, shit can outrange normal assault rifle if I detach the silencer.

>>2057652
Jewish faggot

>>2058611
Blackdice?

>>2067702
>>2074307
Yeah crafting is weird, you can get mod combos that are completely impossible on bought/found weapons.

>>2076183
kek

Dumb question, but is there a story in this game or is it kinda rougelike where you just missions with tidbits of flavour text and lore?
The steam description page said that there's a dynamic story ties to each character, but I'm not sure if it's a proper story or it's just one of those randomly generated stuff again.

>>2090475
Mostly just missions with tidbits of flavour text and lore

Some of your units get unique missions with a bit of a setup before them.
Most of the contacts share a pool of missions that they can unlock to offer you new stuff.
Some contacts are tied to a larger chain of missions, but I don't think there are many currently in the game.

>>2090564
I see, thanks. I'll give it a try.

>>2090475
There's no real story, but there are multiple mini-stories (like 1 to 3 missions) that can trigger under various circumstances, like having characters with certain background elements on your team or having connections with certain NPCs. There's also an "endgame" story which leads to your team retiring and the game ending, but you can just choose not to retire and keep playing forever if you want.

Right now the story elements are pretty barebones if I'm being honest. They're present and some of them are kinda neat, but a lot of them don't really lead to anything interesting and 90% of the time you'll just be doing randomly generated missions with no real story attached to them. So if you're interested in a more story-driven game, this ain't it. However if it's going to be anything like the devs' previous game, they'll be adding more story arcs piece by piece in future updates.

Maybe it's just how I set up my team, but does it feel like the game really wants you to go loud and punishes you for being too stealthy?
It's like stealth only exist for you to get your team as close to objectives as possible before you start blasting and high tailing to extraction zone.

>>2098586
Depends on a lot of things.

>What classes do you have on your team?
All classes can do at least a bit of sneaking and fighting, but most of them have an obvious preference for one or the other. For example Snipers, Soldiers and Gunslingers have little to no special stealth skills and prefer loud weapons (though a gunslinger can go for a silenced pisol setup, they generally prefer revolvers). On the other hand, Vanguards and Agents are more about stealth. And then you have semi-stealth classes like Cyberblades, Scourges, or Warmachines who might seem like they'd be mostly about combat but actually fit into stealth teams very well with the right build.
>What skills are you focusing on?
That's an obvious one. You can play stealthy without any stealth-related skills, but it'll be a lot harder and potentially even impossible. So pick up skills that let you disable cameras, distract guards, hide bodies, move silently, etc. if you want to focus on a stealthy playstyle.

>>2098637
>Are you using silent weapons?
Unless you're doing some kind of pacifist challenge, killing guards is very much a part of being stealthy, as long as you do it in a way that won't put the entire level on alert. Melee weapons are the best at this but often not the most practical choice, so the smart thing to do is to give everyone on your squad a silenced pistol as a secondary weapon. This isn't always the optimal choice since for example Snipers and Gunslingers really prefer to have a revolver as a backup weapon, but if you want to be stealthy it's worth the tradeoff. Having a Scourge on hand to dissolve dead guards is also a good idea since it prevents their bodies being detected or the security AI pinging their location. There are other ways to deal with bodies but the Scourge Dissolve skill is the best option.
>How far are you into the game?
This game suffers from the same issue as the XCOM games in that once you get far enough and your team turns from a bunch of noobs into certified badasses, the entire game becomes a lot easier. Yeah enemies also become stronger but that hardly matters when you not only get stronger bu also get more ways to deal with any situation. A focused stealth playstyle is harder to pull off early on simply because you won't have as many stealth skills, and the ones you do have will have limited charges and long recharge times.

>>2098586
If you prefer the silent approach there's a consumable you can buy that gives the scourge's dissolve ability. If I feel like doing a ghost run through a mission I just have everyone equip that. Real easy to keep sec tallies down when everyone can clear bodies.

>>2098637
>>2098648
So it's probably just an issue with my equipment and setup. I'm only five missions in and I still don't have that dissolve consumable thingie or any ability to hide bodies. Does dissolving body also remove the "X turns until someone come and check on the guard" effect? It's going to be dumb if it does.
Got everyone in my team equipped with a silencer, though. The main trouble with stealth I have now is the security timer going up every turn and not having the ability to counter that. I know I'm supposed to be buying support power to clear that out, but I was a bit retarded with how I spent my resources so that's all on me.

>>2098746
>Does dissolving body also remove the "X turns until someone come and check on the guard" effect?
Yeah that's why it's so great. Other skills do one or the other, but dissolve does both.

>>2099282
Disappearing bodies but keeping the alert is still good. You take the sec tally hit on the initial alert ping, but then guards leave their posts to investigate a body they'll never find. Kill a guard in some out of the way spot and you can clear sections of the map without even having to risk noise alerts. Clearing the alert only is strictly the worst option I think.

>>2099288
Clearing the alert is great as long as the body isn't on anyone's patrol route. A dead body that never gets spotted might as well not exist at all. The devs have also mentioned wanting to add a way to move bodies so that would make it even better.

>>2099291
I guess I see it as:
1 - Dissolve is generally best, there are few situations where getting rid of both is bad.
2 - Bodybag is generally worse but situationally excellent. If a guard is in an out of the way spot you can draw many guards to that spot for small cost.
3 - Alert clear is still good and often better than bodybag, but in all cases where it's good dissolve is better.

>>2104334
Yeah I can agree with that list. Though of course none of these exisat in a vacuum, so which one you end up using depends on who you bring on your team.

File: de3c217d3269e1f772a8708a7(...).png (576 KB, 800x1265)

576 KB PNG

>>2057447
>>2057496
You guys weren't kidding; they put out a post-launch roadmap recently and they've been releasing updates every 2-3 days. Really impressive stuff, especially since it already feels like a complete game even without the updates. Is Star Traders: Frontiers worth picking up?

>>2109325
So how long do i have to wait for this game to be relatively finished

>>2109370
Depends on what you mean by finished. It's already fully finished mechanics-wise, and while there are still a bunch of new classes coming up it doesn't feel incomplete to me in that regard. The one area where IMO it does still feel like it needs more work is the story aspects. There's a bit of actual story early on, there's a bit of actual story at the end with the retirement storyline, but most of the midgame stuff is just repetitive randomly generated missions. Once a few more story arcs get added and existing ones get fleshed out more, I think the midgame will feel a lot more complete. I won't hazard a guess when that will be the case though.

If you mean finished as in not receiveing any new content... Their previous game released in 2018 IIRC and is still receiving free content updates once or twice a month. So maybe try again in 2032?

>>2109325
Star Traders is also really good but definitely a different game. It's like a trading caravan game with story adventures. If you've played Mount and Blade or Battle Brothers and you enjoyed the overworld part of the game where you try to make a profit by finding where to buy and sell goods, Star Traders is more fleshed out in that aspect and might be for you. A lot of the game is even about manipulating prices through events and missions to make more profits. There's still combat and character management(both spaceship and personnel) but it's very different from Cyberknights or those other games. Last time I played it was like 5 years ago, so cant speak to any changes that have happened since then.

>>2109325
I like Star Traders a lot, but I absolutely loathe its meta unlock system. All of the unlockable stuff is tied to specific achievements and a lot of them won't pop up if you play the game in a natural way since they require multiple specialized runs to achieve (especially all the "achieve X within the first year" ones). Also the difficulty scaling is awkward and on the higher difficulties you need to be pretty autistic about optimization to be successful, but a lot of achievements can't be triggered on the lower difficulties. You basically need to cheat and just give yourself all achievements if you want to start the game with all options available. I'm very happy they didn't add something like that to CK:FP.

Is it just me or does the new Warmachine class just feel bad? The concept is obviously pretty badass but it can't really do anything that you can't do with other classes, plus it's more resource-constrained than most classes and needs to give up additional implant slots for basic functionalities that other classes can use for stat boosts.

>>2112348
Didnt get to play with eye lasers and field generators much (neven even got Dr. Ocular in the whole playthrough) but the claw master talent allows for several 0 AP attacks, which is huge. Add some % as pure kinetic damage, or pure damage claws later, and, with another melee weapon, you can just delete entire groups of enemies. Just make sure to grab Crimson vector (for gap closing) and Redline (for AP farming).
My Warmachine-Cyber Knight (especially if you took strength related CK traits, like handshaker) could kill named bounty hunter + one of his goons, and take half HP from the other in a single turn during the midgam.
So, I wouldnt say its weak.

>>2113315
>pure damage claws later
Pure damage claws are a trap because that means you don't benefit from any traits which work off kinetic damage.
>and, with another melee weapon
Kinda my point. You can't rely on your claws, they're a limited-use backup weapon. If you want to delete groups of enemies Slashslide is better than anything your claws offer. Claws are just the sidearm you pull out in case someone survives.

>>2113332
>Cant rely on the claws alone
Yeah, its given with the limited charge system they have going for the talents.
However, you can get free AP, more damage, and iirc initiative from the cyberweapons kills, and restore charges for the talents. which makes them an integral part of the WM kit, kinda the point of the class.
So, in some ways it is an upgrade to the melee capabilites, and the Cybersword-WM will be more effective and flexible than CS alone.
>Pure clawas are a trap
Lategame most of the enemies will have 85%+ armor, and then its either shredding them first, which wont always work (I had full hits with 102% shred fail to shred armor), or getting pure claws, since you need only to get a kill with them, not the bulk of damage.
All in all, I get your feelings toward the WM, I myself hoped it to be THE class that doesnt rely on conventional weapons, only the cybernetics, but with the current system of loadouts, and lack insentives (or even the ability) to go into mission with one or both slots empty - this is the best we got.

>>2109325
Where's the not make it look or run like shit update
I like to think of myself as not a grafixfag but this game really strained that.

>>2114193
>look
Never ever.

>run
That's called the "own a computer built after 2015" patch.

>>2114221
Hey my PC can run shit like Space Marine and Helldivers without a hitch, I don't understand what it is about the hacking/cyberspace menu that halves my framerate.

kinda hate that i can't build every room type

>>2114222
Probably something simple but completely overlooked like 2d graphics not being part of the 3D pipeline so the optimization for it isn't done properly. Then you wind up with oddities like a simple menu screen overheating the GPU because it is making it produce an insane amount of frames and has no caps to stop that in-game. Or it could be something dumber like making the game do everything twice or hogging resources and becoming an unneccessary bottleneck.

i do like that they've focused on expanding proc-gen missions/maps post-release. think that's the smarter move. still would be nice to get some more storylines, though. guess that's gonna come with major updates.

>>2127918
Yeah they really need more midgame story arcs. I have no doubt that they will eventually be added but after I finish my current playthrough I think I'll just put the game away for a couple of month to give them time to add some more new stuff because especially the midgame still feels pretty repetitive right now.

So should you focus on will as a CK-Warmachine or just do standard melee CK stuff with Reaction + Strength and just enjoy the free claw attacks?

this is probably my favorite game. xcom three and on it's way to baldurs gate infinite (lite)

tl;dr there's like a procedural engine with events and stuff that works with all the stats and all this other stuff that's barely implemented at the moment but all the technology is in place. so from now till the end of the like 2 years they've promised to support it, they just add to the hopper constantly.

I would like to see more animations and cosmetics though. and coats. the game needs matrix trenchcoats.

to add to that my honest advice on this game is to wishlist it until Christmas. not because of the sale, it's worth full price as it is, but because they essentially release a full dlc for free like every 2 months or so. (seriously if you look at the update logs about every 2 months there's like 3 levels 2 new heist types, a dozen cosmetics, a new class and like 100 new weapons and cybernetics.

so like if you like xcom 2 it's worth playing now, but if you like repayable games, rpgs, and a bunch of other types of games its going to be a contender in those catagories too.

here's a story about the casting director that explains it a bit (that's the software that designs your storyline)

basically it picks from a bunch of story arcs and character information and all kinds of other factors and then pulls from like a hopper of stuff. that hopper currently contains enough stuff for like 1.5 unique playthroughs. Just one ending though. But those things stack and add to things exponentially, ie each new level can be used on like 11 heist types, and each new heist type can be used on like 20 levels, etc.

So basically a lot of us love this game because of what it's going to be. you'll see us ignore a lot of ugly this or confusing ui this because of what the game is on it's way to being, an unlimited tabletop shadowrun generator (and hopefully someone mods multiplayer in.) and the story is kind of so so at the moment, unfinished in places, not enough endings etc.

another thing since i'm fairly autistic about this game, the characters are not proc generated, it's like rimworld. like 109 people got kickstarter rewards to design a merc, so you're going to see a steady stream of new characters with different backstories. So if you start now, in like 3 playthroughs you'll have seen it all. by christmas you'll never need to use the same guy twice

tl;dr when it HAS all that, you click a button, boom, generates a new campaign that's wholly different from your last one.infinitey

>>2134073
>>2134081
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/cyber-knights-flashpoint-has-a-brilliant-tool-for-spinning-stories for turbo autists here's the technology that designs the story. and the factions are even more complicated under the surface, though not much happens from that yet. but all that technology is done, as
>>2127918
and
>>2128088
point out all they really need to do is add to the number of things all this technology can pick from and add in all those kickstarter characters

/end rant
(sorry this is my favorite game right now)

this game is so good

Anyone done a full loud(or as close to it) playthrough? Finding it hard to break out of my habits of CK, Vanguard or Agent, Scourge, Hacker for keeping sec level low

>>2060967
wat do u dislike about it?

>>2136051
The best way to break out is to not get the stealth ability.
A soldier or gunslinger with a revolver will let you kill grunt with their AOE. Soldier-sniper to debuff and buff in case of high armor enemy. Shotgun scourge to get the stun and some poison to use before the first engagement. Besides that, you can use a high move unit to grab some loot when you go loud.
You can use some items to delay a bit the sec level and replace the stealth ability.

Tldr; 2 dps, 1 buff/debuff that swaps to dps, 1 looter/cyberspace hacker, ck
The passive buff that some classes get when the sec level goes up lets you have more stats and AP too.

You can also increase the default sec increase in the settings to prevent you from wasting time

>>2136090
Haven't played since that post but my dealbreaker was the guard/security AI not properly coordinating enemies. If I'm having a loud as fuck gunfight in the southern area of the level, and said gunfight is being caught on camera, I suspect reinforcements to go in knowing that they should book it for the southern area and support each other and not slowly and randomly attempt to search for trespassers in the northern part of the map.

>>2136051
I find full loud is only hard early on. Once you get to midgame and get some decent skills and equipment the enemy just can't keep up and you'll be able to mow them down faster than they can send in reinforcements..

>>2136051
rpg codex has one back to front
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/cyber-knights-flashpoint-a-cyberpunk-rpg-with-turn-based-squad-tactics-and-unique-heist-planning-strategy.153653

I don't think this game is for me. It feels like you have to do everything perfectly or it all goes to shit and there's no recovery. One mistake turns into 10 problems unless you can presumably spec out characters later on to survive going guns blazing and I don't have the energy to replay maps over and over until I've figured out the optimal route for each mission so I don't get raped. I'm glad I saved money by pirating it first.

>>2136888
>this game is too hard for me
>but I won't even consider lowering the difficulty
Sad. Many such cases.

>>2136903
>just play it on the humiliating no-challenge journalist mode so the game coddles me like a retarded faggot who should jump off a bridge
What's the point in that? I might as well just watch let's plays if I'm going to turn the difficulty right down. I'm self-aware enough to realize that I'm clearly not smart enough to succeed in this kind of game and just move on.

>>2136922
>The game is too hard!
>Just turn the difficulty down bro.
>Turning down the difficulty is for people like me and that's a bad thing!
The mental gymnastics you people need to perform in order to sustain your fragile self-esteem never cease to amaze me.

>>2136922
it gets easier as you learn all the underlying systems. took me 3 runs to really "get" it and then i went all the way to pl6? and retirement. retirement is pretty neat it's one of those endings that tries to consider the totalities of your actions and then write a little story about what happened to you and your most loyal pawns

>>2137009
>in order to sustain your fragile self-esteem
I'm sorry you feel so personally threatened and upset that you're compelled to lash out at someone having a bad time with your beloved game.

>>2137220
I'm not the one who feels the need to annouce that he can only play on the "humiliating no-challenge journalist mode," nor the one who compares himself to "a retarded faggot who should jump off a bridge" just because a videogame is slightly challenging.

That's all you, bro.

it's 25 percent off now and they just added a new class, the wireghost

>>2137761
Wireghost sounds really cool but also kind of awkward to use. I guess it's a good excuse to start a new game and figure it out myself.

Wait wireghost actually came out today? They just posted a preview soliciting ideas a week ago so I thought it would be further out like what happened to warmachine

>>2137855
yeah i was surprised too but if you look at the steam convo about it a few things in it made it in.

>>2137785
This- i'm not 100 percent sure why a wireghost would be better than a hacker- I don't think it is- but i can see multiclassing it with like agent ex or vanguard

my big criticism of this game is that the story/plot part of the engine is still weak and or unfinished. this isn't a long term gripe at the pace that they update, just it has potential to and nears so very close to being a procedural rpg. if you like x-com 2, gameplay wise it's a no brainer, all that works and they've added enough heist types and levels that every playthrough is different. and i don't even mind unfinished bits in an indie studio. but it needs those missing parts for storyline. and it needs more stories, and the procedural missions need to tie better into stories and that procedure should change based on what you've done.
thats autistic. shorter, they've come VERY close to making a procedural RPG and it makes me frustrated when it's not quite there but if you're here for x-com type gameplay that's all done.

>>2137785
>>2138105
From looking at the skill tree I think you either use Wireghost as a less reliable but potentially faster replacement for the Hacker class, or you take it as a secondary class for anyone else and just take two or three talents from the left tree to make them stealthy. Ghost Distortion and Radio Silence look like they'd be great nice tools for classes that aren't especially stealthy on their own. They might still be useful on stealth classes as well, but probably a bit superfluous. Same goes for Security Siphon, but you're forced to take it anyway if you're going that route so whatever. I can't really see the use case for the other two left-side skills. Kill Switch MIGHT be nice on a Scourge if you really want to push the ability to passively kill guards, but other than that it's not better than just disabling the device. Especially since the damage output of security devices is weak anyway. Manifest Trace is just garbage.

>>2138534
Yeah that's my main issue as well. It's really noticeable in the midgame. The storytelling engine they've got is solid, but it doesn't have enough stories to actually work with so it ends up feeling pretty barren with too many generic missions. It's something that's easily fixed in the long run by just adding more stuff, and knowing these devs from previous games it's a safe bet that's exactly what they'll do, but for the moment it's definitely a weak point of the game.

>>2138538
>great nice tools
great STEALTH tools*

My brain glitched.

>>2138538
Looking at it some more, I wish you could multiclass Hacker with Wireghost. Just adding something like Skipjack to a Hacker's skillset would be sweet. I thought about adding Skipjack to an Agent EX or Vanguard, but hacking without any actual hacking skills is probably not going to be great on higher-level hosts. Even if it's just one node you need to hack, you can just disable devices with Line Crawler or Jamkit (or Security Siphon if you're multiclassing into Wireghost anyway) without bothering with an actual hack.

>>2138534
>but if you're here for x-com type gameplay that's all done
Interesting. Im a big fan of star traders and these devs. Maybe i'll buy this and give it a go. Sounds like it's fun

>>2138590
yeah it's basically an infinity x-com generator at this point. there's like 13? heist types and like 20 idk levels and it blends the two to produce proceedural missions (which will be about half the game, the rest is story missions. but because they're so varied, those missions still feel unique too and nothing feels samey till about your third playthrough. so considering they add about 1 new heist type and 2 levels or so a month all that grows exponentially. that should be happening with the rpg elements too but the story and rpg stuff has taken a minor backseat to the core engine, which makes sense. just people who say it's a ttrpg unlimited thingy aren't quite right, but it IS an unlimited xcom generator already

>>2135278
following the rpg codex link an anon posted earlier, i found a review https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=12625 and it sounds a lot like the old Sega Genesis Shadowrun game which was great

>>2138706
Cyber Knights is way more XCOM-like than Shadowrun's open world action-RPG in terms of gameplay, but in terms of concept and at least a few mechanic I wouldn't be surprised if Cyber Knights' devs took inspiration from Shadowrun.

>>2138706
the matrix hacking for sure is. it's very similar in a lot of ways to the shadowrun on genesis and a bit the snes one, almost it's own game in a way.
>>2138743
this is the only place i think the game is (for now) lacking. but that's just about them adding more storys/storylines to the hopper. also there's going to be like 100 original characters from the kickstarter but they're adding them slowly.

What is combat like?

>>2139277
Basically nuXCOM except with a bit more depth. Instead of just two actions you have a number of action points to spend and things like turn order are more important, but the basic mechanics and stuff like how cover works are pretty similar. It also blends stealth and combat better than XCOM2 did.

OK got the game. Liking it a lot. Just did my first successful heist after the tutorial missions. First attempt was a shit show because I was going 'loud' i guess and it kept escalating.
2nd attempt went much smoother. Moving in pairs and killing the guards with silenced pistols in one turn was kino and very effective. Wish the hacking was more like shadowrun's but its cool i guess.
Thx for the tip for double click to move, pressing space was annoying.

>>2139555
one tip is even when you're stealthy it will eventually get loud. but if you're not a go loud style team, stealth isn't about perfect stealth, it's just about avoiding as many turns as you can going loud. basically going loud works fine on the way OUT. think of it like playing a special forces team- there's gonna be open warfare by the end but you take out as many people from stealth as you can before the firefight starts and hopefully have it on your way back to the boat.

>>2139555
In my experience, for most maps the easiest way to play is to start out stealthy and only go loud if you're either already on your way out and you just want to go fast, or if you're cornered and have no other choice. As you've already noticed, making sure everyone has a silenced pistol as a backup weapon is a great way to keep the stealth up longer, since stealthy doesn't mean non-lethal. Of course corpses will trigger the "missing guard" alarm eventually unless you use a skill to disable the timer, but a few extra turns of stealth usually make all the difference you need to complete the mission.
Silenced SMGs can work instead of pistols, but low-tier SMGs are generally worse than pistols and still make more noise even when silenced. So unless you've got like an Agent EX specialized in SMGs, stick with the pistol. Melee weapons are technically the most silent weapons in the game and do respectable damage, but obviously they're less flexible than pistols due to the lack of range. You CAN use loud weapons in stealthy situations, but only if there's nobody close enough to hear them or you kill everyone who hears them on the same turn, since dead men can't sound the alarm.

The further you get into the game the more viable it gets to do missions without stealth at all, but early on taking a wound and having a party member out of commission for a week is just too much of a pain in the ass IMO.

>>2139731
backup pistols are good too because most people can shoot them on one ap. it often means the difference if you score just like a glancing blow. also a team of people with silenced pistols can often pea shoot a guard to death with a series of shots before he can report, almost completely silently. my normal playstyle is hitman 3 going in and jagged alliance going out. basically i almost only use melee or silenced pistols until that fails, then just start wholesale slaughter

>>2139555
how is the multiclassing? interested in how custom i can make my pawns. is there a current meta or can you do things a lot of ways?

>>2139821
NTA but multiclassing is fairly open and respec tokens exist if you ever change your mind. Main limitation in picking up a 2nd class is that half of them require an implant to be installed which not only costs money it also prevents some class pairings at all(ie; gunslinger/warmachine both use the same cyberware slot). As for meta no clue. There's some easy ones to dip for like warmachine's claw tree or cyber-blade if you're doing any form of melee or dipping into soldier if you frequently use heavy recoil weapons(agent-ex + soldier is a common example). Really just a matter of what you need, as most classes are plenty good as mono-classes already

skilltrees are SHIT
pixel hunting for LoS is SHIT
hideous ugly garbage bin character models are SHIT, they aren't even fucking animated during cutscenes you could have just used pngs instead
hacking programs getting unloaded for no reason (no I am not talking about the ICE that does it) is SHIT

>>2139964
>hacking programs getting unloaded for no reason
Either you're mistaking running out of charges for programs getting randomly unloaded, or you didn't scan for traps.

>>2140005
this, that's absolutely ice doing that.

>>2139964
(Programs also have a limited number of uses per load.)

I got 20 hours in the game now and I really love it, but I kinda wish they went with a grid system instead of free movement like that have now. The free movement they have now seems kinda pointless and a bit tedious, I haven't had a moment in the game where I felt like it was useful yet. It's just a chore clicking around the same spot over and over to try and save one action point.

>>2140005
>>2140053
I am specifically talking about that
there is no reason programs should have limited uses when you already have action points AND traps that unload shit
not fucking ONCE have I actually run out of AP while hacking, it's ALWAYS running out of IO because herp de derp you scanned TOO MANY TIMES CHUMBO NOW YOU GOTTA REINSTALL WINDOWS AGAIN
>>2140740
the tutorial not telling you that you can CLICK AND DRAG MOVEMENT ENDPOINTS is also SHIT

>>2140759
>the tutorial not telling you that you can CLICK AND DRAG MOVEMENT ENDPOINTS is also SHIT
The fuck? You can do that?

>>2140759
Man, I can't imagine how upset you were when you first found out that eating a mushroom doesn't make you grow twice as large.
If you really need an in-universe explanation for why you need to reload programs after a bunch of uses, think of it as the security AI catching on to the program being used so you need to reinitialize it.

>>2140882
>Man, I can't imagine how upset you were when you first found out that eating a mushroom doesn't make you grow twice as large.
You couldn’t spoiler that, dickhead? Mods??

>>2139964
>hideous ugly garbage bin character models are SHIT
I player their other game, Star Traders: Frontiers, and that is also ugly as fuck. The ship models are those generic ones you can find online that are used in a lot of games, and the sprites are the most hideous things I've ever seen.
I would compliment the gameplay but they have this really shitty RNG card system for planet events.

is it still on sale?

File: duck.jpg (82 KB, 1024x975)

82 KB JPG

>>2140759
>you can CLICK AND DRAG MOVEMENT ENDPOINTS
this will be so useful
>>2139821
>how is the multiclassing?
I haven't tried it yet. But I might make my Agent Ex guy who can teleport a multiclass with cybersword since a cybersword recruit hasn't showed up yet. The idea of teleporting and then sliding and slicing seems pretty cool

played for a few days, enjoying myself so far even though I got a really unlucky at the beginning and got two random missions in a row that had the exact same plot in the exact same map. This "Casting Director" system they've got is cool and I'm looking forward to seeing them improve it, but right now it's far from finished.

Movement is a little clunky but I didn't bother changing the settings or anything, it's fine. The models are fine too - which is to say, the game certainly doesn't look *good*, but I feel like cyberpunk is a very garish, visually unpleasant genre in general so the wonky 3D models don't do it a disservice.

There are two big things that I think would improve the game immensely. Firstly, I wish that doing missions against factions affected your standing with those factions because at the moment there is basically no reason to ever refuse jobs, I haven't refused a single one so far. The whole system of influence is really cool and I wish the game had a more strategic element in terms of how you approach the various power players of New Boston.

The second is that having one character doing his thing on a separate plane of existence fucking sucks and I hate hacking in all cyberpunk games, be they vidya or tabletop.

>>2141494
>there is basically no reason to ever refuse jobs
heat is a reason
being offered the 'assassinate 3 captains' mission is a reason, because your entire team can be spotted by 3+ guys BEFORE YOU EVEN MOVE and even if they aren't the mission is either a slow fucking slog or an insane alert escalation spiral due to the obscene number of enemies that start on the map

>>2141642
I beelined for the Face trait that reduces the Heat I get on jobs (I didn't know how Heat worked at the time, but most Face traits deal with either base rooms or various influence breaks, and you don't have to deal with either at the start of the game, so dumping all of my points into Heat management seemed best). I also try to do all of my missions in bursts, so that I get plenty of downtime to heal and clear my Heat. So far, I've managed to keep it below 25 (which is where it begins to influence SecAI) every time I go out and I haven't even used the Heat-clearing base room, which I've also built.
The bulk of this game's difficulty comes from allowing various complications - Heat, security level, Stress, whatever - to snowball out of control. Nipping those problems in the bud makes the game much more manageable.

I only got the 3 captains mission once, but I had a favorable spawn. The mission that fucked me the most is the one-stage prison break, I did it twice and both times one of my guys got clipped on the way out. I haven't had any other losses so far.

>>2141718
how do you structure your face that's one of the challenges i'm facing at the moment. handbrake is the one i'm for sure of the rest idk

>>2141756
a point in Care and Feeding, then Efficiency Grind into Pressure Drop (I didn't take the last point) into Puppetmaster suits me fine. If you have leftover points, you can get Pulling Strings as well. I don't care for Handbrake personally, but it's right next to Puppetmaster so you won't be taking a detour. I can't speak for how good the base room skills are because I didn't build any of the relevant rooms so I still have no idea what they do, really.

>>2141800
i need handbrake a lot because i accept more things than i probably should and don't always have enough hackers

>>2141860
>i accept more things than i probably should
Honestly that's my favorite way to play. Nothing puts on the pressure than having to send your top dude on a sim holiday to prevent a nervous breakdown, but then having to cancel it just so you have 3 people to send on a 4-person mission because everyone else is either in the hospital or busy doing legwork and you're out of tokens to delay the mission.

man, SMGs really fall off as the enemies start getting proper armor. My Agent EX was almost as good as my pure combat guys at the start of the game so I pumped Dual Reload thinking that the guns are going to stay good on their own and they just don't, even though my SMGs have way better quality than most of my gear. I assume you have to go HARD on Aimlock Streak, but at that point I'd rather get a Gunslinger or a Soldier.

>>2142113
yeah i really wish they did more with them. i almost always do ars or revolvers, i don't see the benefit of high level subs except for agent ex

Is a higher level epic item always better than a lower level legendary item? I'm trying to craft some new weapons and I don't want to waste my good mods on something that might be obsolete by the time I find a better blueprint.

>>2142366
I think so, yes.

>>2142366
i still don't quite understand the crafting system but it seems very extensive. i need cubes right?

>>2142458
Damn. I don't want to craft a lv.6 rare assault rifle when I have a lv.5 legendary assault rifle schematic.
>>2142778
Yep.

>Can't upgrade my cold storage because I don't have enough nano-scrubber capacity
>Can't upgrade my nano-scrubber because I don't have cryogenic cooling lv.5
>Can't get cryogenic cooling lv.5 without upgrading my cold storage
Well I'm fucked. Do I have no option but to sell off one of my room?

>>2142964
>Can't upgrade my cold storage because I don't have enough nano-scrubber capacity
>Can't upgrade my nano-scrubber because I don't have cryogenic cooling lv.5
>Can't get cryogenic cooling lv.5 without upgrading my cold storage
Didn't they fix this issue a couple of patches ago?

File: z6l14kvz7vxe1.png (255 KB, 1080x461)

255 KB PNG

finished my first playthrough. 1507 turns, took me about a week. I had fun most of the way through, but the retirement arc felt really underwhelming. Its very existence is at odds with the game's design. Once you have the endgame in your sights, you basically have no reason to do side quests or loot lockers or do anything but the bare minimum on missions, so your entire game plan gets refined into a mad dash for the extraction square, which isn't very fun. I was planning to start a new run as soon as I finished this one, but playing through those six or seven story missions today did more to burn me out on the game than the whole previous week of doing the same side quests on the same maps over and over again.

>>2143114
I rather liked the retirement arc myself, but I can see how it breaks the normal gameplay loop. Still, I don't think that's such a bad thing when it's the end of the game anyway.

I do hope they'll add more retirement options in the future.