New Chapters, Dispatch Desk, and Balance Updates

Thank you for keeping the feedback coming! Your reports are helping us catch so much and really help improve Flux Strike. Here’s everything new in build 89.

Campaign and Story

Chapters 4 and 5 are here

Chapter 4 takes you to the heart of Tauroboros operations in the Post-Atomic Era. Seven stages, three boss fights, and a bit more story. Please note that not all boss animations are in, so if you see one of them looking stiff, that's why.

Chapter 5 opens in the Mythic Era where you'll take on Paradox Biomedica and another set of three bosses. Additional caveats for chapter 5 is that we’re reusing the backgrounds from chapter 4 and there isn’t any campaign dialogue for this chapter, only boss barks.

We're not going to spoil the surprise on their mechanics, but please let us know your feedback in Discord. Any confusion, difficulty challenges, or general input, we're all ears.

Dispatch Desk and Employee Onboarding

Earn rewards as you play

The Dispatch Desk is live, home to Work Orders and Employee Onboarding. Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Work Orders each have seven tickets with objectives to complete for rewards. Three Daily tickets rotate each day.

Complete every ticket on a Work Orders board to unlock its premium reward, claimed alongside your individual ticket rewards. Claimed tickets move to the bottom of the list.

Your first week has its own rewards

Employee Onboarding adds a seven-day track with new objectives for each day. Those objectives earn Event XP, which fills a separate track with eight reward milestones.

Each recurring board shows how much time remains. If a period ends before you claim a reward you earned, it’ll arrive in your mailbox.

Combat and Balance

Defense has been updated

Defense was reducing damage far more than intended, making some fights drag on and letting defensive builds get close to taking no damage at all.

We’ve adjusted the curve so that reaching high damage reduction takes more investment. Previously, 100 DEF could halve incoming damage. That now takes 600 DEF, while 1,800 DEF reduces damage by 75%.

Damage reduction from Defense is now capped at 90%. Enemy AI also uses the updated calculations when choosing its attacks.

Early chapters have been rebalanced around Defense

With less damage being absorbed, enemies needed enough health to show their mechanics before going down. We’ve adjusted Chapters 1–3 around the new curve.

Some of the Chapter 1 changes include:

• Eva Cross: HP increased from 3,000 to 4,200; Attack reduced from 250 to 150.
• Victor Volt: HP increased from 1,200 to 1,700.
• Shield Bot: HP increased from 1,000 to 1,500.
• Riot and Heal Drones: HP increased to 600 each.

The tutorial fights have also had their Defense adjusted to preserve their intended pacing.

The Constable calls for backup

The Shield Bot has a new attack, Spotlight, which marks an operative with Target Lock. The Constable focuses his attacks on whoever is marked.

Destroying the Shield Bot brings in two Heal Drones. They don't attack, but they can restore a lot of the Constable's health if you leave them standing. With the Shield Bot gone, the Constable can also use Freeze! to temporarily stop your operatives from swapping.

Gus now warns you when the Shield Bot is blocking your shots. The Constable also has new and rewritten dialogue, with fewer repeated lines.

Victor Volt's shield is easier to read

Victor's shield got a visual upgrade and we’ve added a few new lines of dialogue to more accurately help early players through the fight.

Eva Cross has a new attack pattern

Focused Shot now triggers once when Eva first takes heavy damage and again when she's close to defeat. The second time, she lines it up immediately instead of waiting for her turn. It hits your front row hardest, so watch for the warning and consider moving operatives to the back row.

Armor Piercing Round now passes through its target to hit a random operative in your back row. It no longer lowers Defense, and Eva uses it more freely.

Your heals and buffs target your team

A group of ally abilities was offering enemy targets, and some were actually handing your opponent the heal or buff. We’ve corrected the targeting, including Bastet’s Quick Tune.

Thanks to everyone who flagged Bastet’s targeting in the alpha.

Bastet’s Bio Reset gets a focused heal

Bio Reset now heals one chosen ally for 40% of Bastet’s max health, plus every ally for 10%. That gives your chosen target a total heal equal to 50% of Bastet’s max health.

The charge cost drops from 4 to 3. Its poison cleanse and Immunity roll are unchanged.

Cleanse follows its listed chance

Cleanse effects were always succeeding, regardless of the chance shown on the ability. They now use their stated chance.

Partial cleanses also select debuffs randomly instead of always taking the oldest, and removing one stack no longer clears the entire stack. Abilities that reward you for removing debuffs, such as MARK-IV’s Defragment, now count each stack removed correctly.

Felix and Gus get their abilities back in order

• Resurrect effects now work, including Felix’s Second Breath.
• Felix’s Persistence Trial no longer buffs the caster it’s supposed to exclude.
• Felix’s Excess Velocity correctly grants Speed Up to its intended allies.
• Gus’s Protected Entry no longer gives the targeted enemy a free attack against your team.
• Gus’s Fortress Slam and Threat Dampener now scale with your team’s shields as described.

More operative ability fixes

Atomic Bastet's skills now deal a mix of Chemical and Energy damage. Her Biotic Surge also correctly heals every ally except herself, matching its description.

Gwendolyn's Biotic Surge no longer shows a false Crit Effect Down label, and we've corrected a typo in Felix's Flux Strike description.

Smaller combat fixes

• Repeatedly using Replay, including on AUTO at x2 speed, no longer leaves the battle result screen frozen.
• Charge previews now account for Chilled.
• Flux Strikes no longer zoom the camera on every cast.

Rewards and Time Loops

A new wallet design

The wallet has a new design, with separate sections for Energy and Currency, Recruitment Posters, Training Manuals, and Gear Upgrade materials.

Purchase more currency and T.U.B.E. pulls with Cores

We’ve added a temporary way to purchase more currency with Cores during the closed alpha. Open your wallet and tap the plus sign beside the currency you want. A simple popup lets you spend Cores to get more. This is a placeholder flow and won’t appear in the launch build.

Out of Recruitment Posters? You can also spend 150 Cores per pull in the T.U.B.E. Network.

A clearer mailbox with Claim All

The mailbox has a new design. Each message previews its first reward and shows how many extras are inside. Unread messages are marked, and the inbox keeps an unread count.

Open a message to see its full text, images, and rewards, or use Claim All to collect every reward in your inbox at once. Claimed messages are clearly marked, and collected rewards grey out immediately.

Your drops are easier to see

Equipment rewards weren’t always getting their turn in the reward animation when a stage dropped several types of materials. Gear now appears properly.

Player XP also has its own icon, so it no longer borrows a Credits icon or disappears from the reward animation.

Go straight from a new drop to Ampworks

MANAGE on the victory screen now opens Ampworks with the gear you just earned, making it easier to equip your drop.

It also clears out the previous replay XP total so it doesn’t carry into your next win.

Time Loop rewards and level-ups take turns

Collecting a Time Loop that leveled you up could make the reward and level-up screens flash back and forth. The level-up celebration now waits for the reward screen.

The completion notification also stops at zero instead of continuing into negative time after a loop finishes while the game is closed.

If your Time Loop slots are full, tapping Time Loop now explains that a loop is already running.

Smaller reward fixes

• Flux Dust claimed from mail appears without restarting.
• Gear rank-up comparisons only show before-and-after values for the primary stat. Newly revealed sub-stats no longer display the same number twice.

Gear and Roster

Industrial Bastet joins the T.U.B.E. Network

Industrial Bastet is now available to recruit through the T.U.B.E. Network.

Set bonuses are easier to inspect

Tapping BONUS in Ampworks now opens that row’s set bonus. The popup uses the set name, with the sponsoring corporation listed separately.

The set bonus strip also scrolls to your selected set the first time you open it.

Roster filters reflect the abilities you own

The ability filter was checking every Era variant, including ones you hadn’t unlocked. That could return an operative whose matching ability wasn’t actually available to you.

Filters now use the variants you own.

Smaller gear and roster fixes

• AMP selection controls wrap based on the AMPs you own.
• The final row displays correctly in gear, operative, and skin grids.
• The Foresight Defense Co. augment no longer shows NULL in its rank 6 passive.
• Fixed text wrapping in Ampworks.

Dialogue and Interface

A new dialogue window with more control

In-battle dialogue has a new, darker frame, updated portraits, and a combined name and job-title plate.

AUTO is off by default, so dialogue waits for you to advance it. Turn it on to let conversations play automatically, or use BACK to reread an earlier line. Reading back no longer stops AUTO from continuing.

There’s also a sound toggle on the dialogue window, linked to your sound setting. Both dialogue toggles retain your choices between conversations.

A clearer status effects panel

The status effects panel now separates Friendly Units and Enemy Units. Each effect stack gets its own line, duplicate entries are gone, and effects that don't expire no longer show a turn count.

Burn's description now tells you to swap the affected operative out. Crit Effect Up and Crit Effect Down also use their correct colors.

The tutorial no longer traps iPad players

The tutorial could lock scrolling while pointing to a loadout option below the visible part of the screen. You can now scroll when the target can’t be brought into view.

Thanks to the iPad players who reported this.

Smaller interface and art fixes

• Stage introductions wait until your team is on screen.
• Speaker portraits no longer disappear mid-line.
• Corrected the Combat Settings header and Crit Effect Up label.
• Atomic and Analog Jaxon now have animations.
• Updated Atomic Ulysses and Specialist animations across BlackVault, Stratiform, and Tauroboros.
• Removed an Android launcher entry that could create a second, broken shortcut.
• Cleaned up the outlines around active and targeted units.
• Damage types have new icons: a hammer for Physical, a lightning bolt for Energy, and a beaker for Chemical.
• Stage 2-6 now shows the correct Era.
• The intro camera pan starts in the right place.

What’s Next

Keep telling us how the new chapters feel, which fights give you trouble, and how the balance pass is treating you. Jump into Discord with your feedback and bug reports.

This is the last planned release as the closed alpha test comes to a close next week. From the whole Flux Strike team, thank you for playing, testing, and engaging with the alpha. It’s been a blast!

Keep an eye on the discord and follow us to be the first to know when the beta is coming your way.