Getting Started

This is a brief introduction to help new players get started in Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. It is not a full guide and only gives a broad picture of your first steps in the game.

Brief Overview

In Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, you will direct a squad of mercenaries in the dangerous world of the New Boston Zone. You will raid warehouses, infiltrate laboratories, perform assassinations, and defend against enemy squads. Your opponents will be street gangs, syndicate enforcers, corporate security, and heavily armed military security companies. From your Safehouse, you will work with Contacts, select jobs, buy and sell resources, and become engaged in numerous Storylines. If you are lucky, you may find one or more opportunities to choose to Retire from the hazardous mercenary world.

There are numerous resources for the game:

• Guides and FAQs
• Steam Guides
• How Does CKF Compare to similar games
• Official Game Wiki
• Trese Brothers Discord
• Cyber Knights on Steam

Cyber Knight

Starting a New Game, you are immediately taken to a menu to Create your Cyber Knight, a mercenary leader implanted with a rare and illegal cybernetic computer which gives great advantages to your mercenary squad.

The Backstory gives the Knight an early-game Contact, an enemy who may complicate their life in the future. Your Attributes can be further increased through cybernetics, levels, and Hype after character creation. Traits can also improve with time and on rare occasions new Traits can be acquired.

Your Cyber Knight will start with one cybernetic implant in addition to the Quantum Rider that makes them a Cyber Knight. Other than the Quantum Rider, cybernetics can freely be removed and new one can take their place after character creation. Selecting the MatrixLink implant will automatically give your Knight a secondary Class of Hacker, which is generally not recommended for new players at the beginning of the game. You will have another Hacker on the team, and any merc except the Face can multiclass into any secondary class later in the game.

The View Talents section displays the initial Talents of your Cyber Knight. This is informational only--you cannot change Talents at this point, but you will have the ability to do so before your Cyber Knight's first mission. The initial Talents are the same for all Cyber Knights.

Lastly, you can change the name and appearance of your Cyber Knight. Note that:

• All Appearance features are cosmetic only. They do not impart any benefits to the mercenary.
• Clicking SPACE on a feature selects that feature. Clicking SPACE a second time opens a new menu, allowing further choices on color and shape to refine the feature.
• You can also change the character's Appearance at any time during the game.

When you are finished creating your Cyber Knight, you can Continue to Team.

The Team

You will start with a team of six mercenaries, including the Cyber Knight and your Face. All of the merc slots can be swapped out for alternate merecs with different Backgrounds, Traits, Attributes, Contacts, and in some cases, a different primary Class.

Unlike the Cyber Knight, you cannot change the starting Backstory, Attributes, Traits, or Cybernetics of the other mercenaries but can drive their progression later in the game. You can customize the name and Appearance of any mercenary, either now or later during the game.

For a quick rundown of the available classes: The Vanguard and Agent EX are generally stealth-focused. Soldier and Gunslinger are generally combat-focused. Snipers are typically combat-focused and difficult to stealth with, Cyberswords are adept at combat and stealth, and Scourges are more open-ended with some strong stealth and combat talents, depending on how you build them. You're always given a Hacker, which can aid in stealth as well, uniquely acquire extra loot during some missions, and is mandatory for some Mission Objectives.

Four or sometime five mercenaries can participate in a Mission. The Face does not go on Missions but manages some aspects of mission management and base support. Mercenaries may also be busy doing other things such as recovering from Injuries, Wounds, Cyber surgery, or Stress, or doing Legwork jobs alone.

Your starting team can be augmented by recruits later in the game, up to a maximum of 16 total. Rejecting one character class for your initial team does not mean you have lost your chance of getting a member of that class onto the team. In addition, you can multiclass any mercenary (except Face) into a secondary class, though it may require a costly implant which might not be available immediately.

Origin Story and Difficulty

The Origin Story is the background of how your Cyber Knight obtained their illegal Quantum Rider and became a Cyber Knight. The Origin you select will introduce complications for your mercenary squad as you deal with the consequences of the choices and compromises that led to this point. The Origin Story will introduce friendly and unfriendly Contacts and initiate a series of Missions and decisions. You can opt out of the Origin Story Missions at any time, but there are always consequences. The Origin Story is independent of other Storylines you may come across during your squad's career.

You can select a Difficulty for the game, and even customize individual aspects of the Difficulty, such as how quickly enemies scale or whether or not your missions have automatic Security Tally every turn. Difficulty can be freely adjusted at any point during gameplay and there are no achievements for high-difficulty play throughs. For your first game, Normal difficulty or easier is recommended.

On your first game, you should select all options for Tutorial, Safehouse Tutorial, and Matrix Tutorial (they should be selected by default). These tutorials will give important lessons on basic mechanics of the game.

Tutorial

The Tutorial will lead you through the primary activities your squad will engage in during a Mission. Important lessons to take from the Tutorial include:

• Initiative Order and methods of manipulating that order
• Use of Talents, unique to each Character Class
• Action Points and Turns
• Security Level, Security Tally, and Escalations
• Basic Stealth
• Basic Combat
• Alert Status

Initial Job

Entering the game proper, you will be given some background on the immediate situation from your Origin Story. You are thrust into the middle of a Mission. Your Face and other members of your team will help guide you from time to time.

You can use stealth, combat, or a combination of both. Open combat is likely to attract the attention of additional enemy forces, but quiet killing can maintain stealth. The goal here is to reach your objective and get out, not to kill people (though you will face some Missions in the future where killing is the goal). If using combat, use it to help the team escape. Even if you alert enemies, you may be able to use stealth later if no one knows where you are.

Review the Talents of each character. Timely use of Talents will often help in whatever situation you find your squad in. Remember the lessons of stealth and combat from the Tutorial. Use Yield and Delay to manipulate the Initiative Order; it is often useful to act after a teammate or the enemy. Later in the game your squad may have Talents that can manipulate the Initiative Order. And be ready for any surprises. Missions almost never go according to plan.

In the Safehouse

When first entering your Safehouse, it's typically best to clean out two rooms, which should both be adjacent to the elevator or each other in order to receive power. If you marked Safehouse Tutorial at game start, a series of pop-ups will guide you through the first base construction tasks. If you are unsure which room to build after Nano-Scrubber, Triage is a good choice.

Important functions on the Safehouse screen are the Timeline, the rooms themselves, and the buttons at the upper right corner connecting to the Market, Inventory, and Contacts. The Barracks lets you see your roster of mercenaries. Review the Traits, Talents, Weapons, and carried Items on each of your mercs.

The Timeline shows upcoming events. Many events will pop up spontaneously, others are triggered by specific player actions such as putting a merc into medical treatment. Buttons in the upper left corner will advance and pause the Timeline. The Timeline will also automatically pause if an Event reaches 0 Hours or if certain other things occur. Many events can be initiated early by clicking on them before they reach 0 Hours.

You will have to decide how to spend your funds between Safehouse upgrades, gear from the Market, cybernetic implants, and Leverage for Missions. Stronger gear becomes available as optional loot in Missions, from generating Influence for your Contacts, or by acquiring Blueprints and crafting them at the NanoFab. Each of these avenues can be rather expensive and time-consuming, so they're unlikely to be the first things you chase.

Doing jobs will accumulate Heat, marked at the top of the Safehouse. While Heat can make things a bit more difficult, gaining Heat is natural and can be managed. Do not panic as your Heat rises.

Heat can be reduced through the Counter-Intel Pod room. Mercenary Stress can be reduced in the Simstream Detox room. Injuries and Wounds can be healed through the Treatment buttons on mercenary profiles. Training gives mercenaries more and better Talents. Electronic loot is managed in the Cold Storage room. You will spend considerable time in the Safehouse managing your squad and potential jobs.

Save Slots

The game automatically Saves the game state at certain points:

• Before starting a Mission
• At the beginning of a Mission
• At the beginning of every Turn during a Mission
• After completing a Mission

After completing a Mission, the automatic saves from before and during the Mission are lost.

In addition, the player may make manual Saves. Up to 10 manual save slots can be filled, and any manual save slot can be overwritten with a new Save. During a Mission, a manual save only saves the state from the beginning of the Turn, not the current moment in the middle of the Turn.

Higher-level Difficulties will disable manual saves or both manual and automatic saves, though this can be overridden with Custom Difficulty.

Missions

Missions are offered by your Contacts and come in two flavors: High-Stakes and low-stakes. High-Stakes Nissions are hand-crafted and typically have meaningful ramifications for success and failure. Your Gun Runner may never talk to you again if you blow them off after they offer you an urgent mission or you may lose access to a new suite of weaponry if you can't succeed on the mission. Low-stakes missions have experience and monetary rewards like any other mission but have very few ramifications for ignoring them. It's quite reasonable to skip any Mission where the upside doesn't match the risk incurred by taking it.

Missions typically have a primary Objective, up to two secondary Objectives, and optional loot. Virtually all experience for your mercs and most of the money you earn will be delivered via succeeding at the primary Objective. Unless explicitly called out by an Objective, there are no rewards for killing guards or disabling security devices, so how you approach achieving your Objectives is up to you. Stealthy approaches, aggressive ones, and anything in between are all viable ways to approach a Mission, though depending on your Objectives and your mission squad, one approach may be better than another for a specific Mission.

You do NOT gain experience based on number of kills, stealthy movement, or any other actions during a mission. Experience Points are given based on the type and difficulty of the job, bonuses for some secondary Objectives, and sometimes character-specific bonuses.

Loot can often be obtained from Lockboxes or by hacking the Matrix, even if that is not the primary Objective. While loot is a good source of resources and cash, do not let gathering loot endanger the squad or the primary Objective. Remember the lessons from the Tutorial, use your Talents, and make considered decisions. High-Stakes Missions in particular can often be difficult.

Hacking

If you marked the Hacking Tutorial at game start, you automatically enter the Hacking Tutorial the first time you send a Hacker on a Mission which contains a Matrix Host which can be hacked. Most Missions will have one or even two Matrix Hosts somewhere on the map. In some Missions, hacking the Matrix is the primary goal, in others it is optional but may provide loot and a means of shutting down security devices. Hackers have some Talents specifically designed for the Matrix; they will appear on the Talent bar in the Matrix alongside the Programs from their Cyberdeck. Important lessons from the Hacking Tutorial include:

• Scanning for Intrusion Countermeasures
• Loading Programs and using Talents
• Moving to new Nodes
• Disabling Intrusion Countermeasures
• Attacking Intrusion Countermeasures
• Getting Loot
• Opening or disabling remote devices like doors and security devices
• Spiking a CPU or APU

There are several guides specific to Hacking in the Guides and FAQs and Steam Guides.

Final Tips

• Other than High-Stakes missions, the game has no true time limit. If your squad is hurting and you're feeling outgunned or overwhelmed, it's OK to take time to recover in your safehouse and allow low-stakes missions to pass you by.
• Use the highlight button (default H, or R Stick Click) to illuminate enemies and any objects you can interact with on the map.
• Non-combat Talents can grant important advantages, such as predicting enemy movement, distracting enemies, and disabling devices.
• Expect enemy reinforcements, especially if most of the enemies are dead.
• Some Missions (clearly identified) are pure combat missions with no stealth; they can be quite difficult.
• When setting up a character movement, try "click and drag" to find the best movement endpoint.
• If you think you see a bug or have an enhancement request, click the F10 button, or L Stick Click; this opens a report form which will automatically include a screenshot and gamesave to allow the developers to see the issue.

More tips and information can be found in various guides and resources.