Missions and Legwork

Missions (often called heists or jobs) are the turn-based tactical center of Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. Each mission has a series of objectives. Some objectives such as "find the red keycard" might be optional but noteworthy. Others such as "Escape via the north exit" might be required. Legwork is similar--sending a single Mercenary out to do a job, but the job occurs off-screen.

Missions and Legwork are usually started by a contract offer which appears on the Timeline. Opening the event starts a Dialog describing the job. At the end of the Dialog, the job appears as a new event on the Timeline.

Missions are usually "finished" with the escape (or death) of your team, although some exceptions exist where killing all foes is instead the requirement. (If it is a killing all foes mission, it will be made abundantly clear in the dialogue. If you have any doubt, then it is a mission where you need to retreat lest you face an infinite number of foes.)

Legwork

Legwork is a term for activities mercs can do outside of the safehouse. Legwork is a kind of mini-mission. A single mercenary is sent to do a job off-screen for a few days. Examples of Legwork are casing a joint, following a target, or investigation. Legwork is associated with a Storyline but usually does not have a cash reward. Opportunities for Legwork usually come during a Dialog. The Dialog may have been initiated specifically to present the Legwork opportunity. If more than one Legwork is offered in the same Dialog, only one of the Legworks can be chosen. Like other major decisions in a Dialog, this represents a branch point in the Storyline. The other source for Legwork is on the Mission Planning page. Some forms of Leverage require Legwork rather than paying a Contact or using a Favor.

The probability of success in Legwork is determined by the nature of the job and the traits and history of the mercenary assigned. For instance, the Sleuth trait might be particularly useful on a job covering the tracks the team left on the last mission, giving that mercenary a 78% chance of success. When accepting a Legwork, a list of available mercenaries with appropriate traits is displayed to choose from, along with their success probability. Some Legwork allow only one attempt, others allow up to three attempts. If three attempts are allowed, the second attempt will have a higher probability of success (halfway between the first attempt and 100%), and the third attempt will have 100% probability. Each successive attempt is started automatically after failure and adds more time to the duration. Each time, the success of Legwork is evaluated at the end of the duration.

Be aware when selecting a mercenary for Legwork that they will be unavailable for other missions until the Legwork is completely finished. Pay attention to the duration of the Legwork and whether multiple attempts are possible. Don't send a mercenary who will be needed soon for a mission.

The Legwork takes place completely off-screen. The (current) duration of the Legwork appears on the Timeline. The result of the Legwork is rolled at the end of the duration.

The reward for Legwork varies widely. Sometimes the reward is simply improving relations with a mercenary or a Contact. The Contact offering Legwork may offer a fee or Favor. Legwork may provide various rewards, including a new Contact, a new Mission, Leverage for a Mission, or Influence and Power for a Contact. The mercenary performing the Legwork gains a small amount of Experience Points (4-6% of your next Level for Success, 2-3% for Failed). The mercenary can also gain Stress, Hype, Traits, and even Injuries. Legwork, especially failed Legwork, can generate Heat. Legwork is always optional but can be important for reaching story content.

Leverage

Missions usually have one or more options to purchase Leverage in advance of deployment. Leverage costs either credits or Favors owed from Contacts or may be available by completing Legwork. Some Leverage can be purchased with tokens in the Field Ops Center or in the Hacking Station. Leverage can disable some security elements, delay reinforcements, buff your team, harm your enemies, reveal additional loot locations, and even allow you to enter an alternative starting location or entire Map stage. Leverage represents an opportunity specific to the mission; it cannot be used on a different mission. It may be provided by a Contact with connections to the target site or the target Faction, intelligence gained about the target site, or resources prepared in advance specifically for the mission. If you purchase or obtain Leverage for a mission but do not use it, it cannot be saved for a different mission. Count it as the cost of careful contingency planning.

Here is a list of Mission Leverage Types.

Power Level

Mission Power Level determines the relative difficulty of the Mission. Power Level affects the security devices, enemies, and escalation responses protecting the zone. Hit Points, Loadout, type of enemies, and Matrix Host AI depend on the Power Level of the mission.

The Power Level of the mercenary squad is the primary factor determining the Power Level of the Mission. The Casting Director assigns a mission Power Level within a range, or band, based on the squad Power Level and game Difficulty setting. Some Missions receive a boost that give them out of band Power Level, making them more dangerous.

The Mission Power Level band is modified by several difficulty settings. The Power Level setting in Game Difficulty is added to the team Power Level. The result is then multiplied by the Power Level Boost setting in Game Difficulty. This result is then rounded off to the nearest integer. Example: the team is PL 1.7, with Game Difficulty settings of +2 modifier and x1.0 multiplier, the Mission will be PL 4. On top of this, the Matrix Power Level setting further modifies the difficulty of any Matrix Hosts, and the Monster HP Boost setting further modifies the Hit Points of enemies.

Starting a Mission

Missions are initiated by a Dialog, usually triggered by an Event on the Timeline or by completing a Legwork or another Mission. There are two broad categories of Missions: Storyline and Procedurally-Generated, or Proc-Gen. Proc-Gen Missions are generated on the fly by the Casting Director.

Clicking the Timeline Event or waiting until the Event opens a Dialog. Letting the Timeline event reach 0 Hours will automatically open the Dialog. In the Dialog, either a Contact or a member of the team suggests a Mission opportunity. Storyline Missions will often have a Dialog option to decline. Proc-Gen Missions do not have an option to decline. If the Mission is not declined, a Mission Event will appear on the Timeline.

Storyline Missions have a yellow mark on the lower left corner of the Timeline event. Hovering over the mark opens a pop-up describing it as a High-Stakes Mission which offers a unique opportunity that will probably not come again. The player may choose to ignore any Mission Event on the Timeline and let it expire. Declining or allowing a Mission to expire may have consequences such as Discontent in a mercenary, loss of Trust in a Contact, or other changes in relationships.

At any time before the Mission expires, the player may click the Mission Event to open the Command HQ Screen. Alternatively, clicking the Command HQ in the Safehouse will also open the Command HQ Screen. This will allow the purchase of Leverage, selection of alternative paths, and a mission team before starting the Mission.

The mission begins with a Dialog between the Face and the team, giving additional details on the conditions, environment, and goals at the site. After the Dialog, the rest of the mission is controlled by the HUD interface.

Keys

Some Missions have doors and accessways which require a Key to open. There are three types of Keys: Blue Keys, Red Keys, and Gold Keys. In the Mission Planning screen, a mission which has Keys will display appropriate tags, such as 'Red Key'.

Keys may be obtained in various ways, depending on the Mission. Sometimes the Key can be bought in advance through Leverage. Other times, the Key might be found in a random Lockbox somewhere on the Map. Or the Key might be dropped if you kill a specific enemy. If a Key can be found in a Lockbox or by killing an enemy, the Objectives will list a Secondary or Primary Objective to obtain the Key. If the Key is on an enemy, clicking the Objective will move the camera to that enemy. A key might be accessible in multiple ways such as by Leverage and also by killing an enemy; obtaining multiple copies of a Key does not help in any way.

If an enemy carrying a Key is killed, the Key will "drop" on the exact spot where the enemy was standing when killed. The Key will not be on the corpse, which may have been flung some distance away. This prevents the key from being lost if the corpse goes over a railing or into an inaccessible location. A highlighted Objective zone will display where the Key has dropped; entering the zone obtains the Key.

To use a Key, hover the cursor over the locked door, elevator, or accessway. Hovering should open a pop-up indicating the access is locked and display a line linking the access to a control panel on a nearby wall or floor mount. Approach the control panel and click the panel. The Key is an electronic Key which can be shared over the Cyber Knight's Quantum Rider. This means that any merc can use the Key on the control panel. If one merc just got the Key from a Lockbox on one side of the Map, another merc standing on the other side of the Map next to the control panel can use the Key immediately.

If the door or accessway connects two sections of the same Map, the door remains open after being unlocked. This means that enemies can cross the accessway as easily as you can.

In multi-stage Missions, the same Key might be useful in more than one stage. Keys are only useful for the Mission they are associated with. At the end of the Mission, the Key is discarded.

Blue Key

A Blue Key can be used to open a shortcut or alternative route through a Map. A Blue Key is never necessary to finish a Mission, but it may make the Mission easier. Blue Keys are often found in Lockboxes but may be available as Leverage.

Red Key

A Red Key unlocks an accessway which is necessary for the Mission. The locked door or accessway blocks an exit or other required Primary Objective. The Red Key itself may not be required to complete the mission--there may be an alternative method of opening the locked door or accessway, such as by hacking the Matrix. Red Keys are often found on enemies but may be in Lockboxes and/or in Leverage.

Gold Key

Some mission Maps have an optional zone locked behind a Gold Key. This Gold Key Loot Area is a special loot zone with lockboxes and possibly a Matrix Host containing higher quality loot.

The Gold Key required for the door to the zone cannot be found in a Lockbox. The Key must instead be purchased as Leverage before starting the mission.

Loot

A number of different types of loot can be obtained during a Mission. These are available from Lockboxes and certain types of Nodes in the Matrix, and in special cases from enemies killed during the Mission.

Loot placed on the Map and in the Matrix is based on the unscaled Mission Power Level. Unscaled means it is not affected by Difficulty modifiers. Changing the Difficulty of the game will not affect the loot available in Missions.

The Matrix

Electronic loot can be stolen from certain Nodes in the Matrix. Electronic loot can also be found stored on physical media in lockboxes. All electronic loot is automatically stored in the Cold Storage room when the Squad returns to the Safehouse.

• Accounts
• Files
• Blueprints

Lockboxes

Physical objects can be found in Lockboxes. These objects are stored in sealed packages which cannot be opened during the Mission; it is not possible to use them during the Mission. Physical objects are automatically added to the Inventory in the Safehouse at the end of the Mission; they can then be added to the loadout of any merc or sold in the Marketplace.

• Items

The developers plan to add the following to Lockboxes sometime in the future.

• Armor
• Weapons
• Weapon Mods

Electronic loot can also be found stored on physical media in Lockboxes. This includes Blueprints which are automatically stored in the Cold Storage room when the Squad returns to the Safehouse.

Sometimes Cred Chips containing electronic Cash can be found in Lockboxes. Money from stolen Cred Chips is automatically added to the Squad account when the Mission is completed. The stolen Cash is NOT included in the calculation of shares split among the mercs on the Victory screen.

Red Keys and Blue Keys can sometimes be found in Lockboxes.

Special Loot

Special Files

Some Missions have an Objective to retrieve data from the Matrix (Matrix Hunt mission and Infiltrate and Download mission) or from Lockboxes (Lootbox Hunt mission). This will take the form of special Files which are automatically delivered to the contracting Contact when the Mission is completed. Typically the data will be found in three parts, usually in separate physical or electronic locations. The Contact will give a reward for each part retrieved, with a minimum of 1 File for Victory. The special Files do not enter the Cold Storage room--they are automatically turned over to the Contact at the end of the Mission.

Special Objects

Some Missions have a Primary or Secondary Objective of obtaining some special object. This is usually accomplished by a merc entering a designated zone on the Map where the object has been placed. Other methods may be required to obtain the object, such as spiking a CPU or killing a specific enemy. At the end of the Mission, there may be special Dialog regarding the object. It will not enter the inventory of the Safehouse, but there may be additional Legwork or Missions involving the object.

Victory

At the end of the mission, a Victory screen (or possibly a Failure screen) displays. The screen will display all the rewards earned, loot gathered, Experience Points gained, and Heat accumulated.

Rewards

Rewards are specified in the Mission Planning page. The Victory screen will list all rewards earned or failed, including bonus rewards for meeting special conditions.

Each mercenary in the team receives a portion of any cash fee earned from the contractor, whether or not the mercenary was deployed on the Mission. The percentage varies from 2% to 4%, depending on the mercenary. Certain conditions such as Discontent may change the percentage that a mercenary demands. The remaining cash fee after distributing pay to the mercenaries goes into the communal account in the Safehouse.

Experience Points

Experience Points, or XP, are earned on every Mission. The XP rewarded is determined the Power Level of the mission. Some Missions reward bonus XP for Secondary Objectives such as completing the Mission in a short time frame or with low Security Level. Experience Points are NOT affected by mercenary actions during the mission, such as enemy kills, hacking successes, etc. The XP listed is rewarded to each mercenary that survives the mission; it is not split among them. XP is not affected by the number of mercenaries on the mission; taking fewer mercenaries will not increase the amount that each one gets at the end. The XP that each mercenary gains is modified by the personal XP bonus they may have. For instance, a Hype Limit Break may grant a bonus to all XP gained for a month.

Experience points are accumulated to earn new Character Levels.

Power Level

The Power Level of the squad will increase by a flat value based on the Power Level of the Mission. It is not affected by events during the Mission. Storyline Missions provide the most gain in team Power Level. Proc-Gen Missions provide 50% of what a Storyline Mission would give. Hack-only Missions give 25% of what a Storyline Mission would give. At higher team Power Levels, the amount gained per Storyline Mission declines.

The Power Level gained by the squad is based on the unscaled Mission Power Level. Unscaled means it is not affected by Difficulty modifiers. Changing the Difficulty of the game will not affect Power Level gained during Missions.

Heat

All missions generate some Heat, determined by the final Security Level when the team exited the Mission. Heat is calculated by Security Level x 2, with a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 14. Pure combat Missions generate a fixed 8 Heat.