Your Alpha guide to selecting your starting team.

Alphafox's beginner's guide to selecting your starting team in CyberKnights Flashpoint.

While you can build your team throughout the game, the beginning of the game has you build your cyberknight and a few other characters. But who should you choose? What difference does it make besides appearance?

This guide will help you get started selecting the characters and classes for starting team composition.

Note: This guide needs updates. Trese Brothers update frequently. Last updated to #212

The Cyberknight

Good Day, Cyber Knight. The Cyber Knight is the title character and many would consider the MC "Main Character" of the game. While they might be called a Cyber Knight, you should think of them more as the Cyber King because if you lose this character the campaign is over. Like any other class in the game, the CK (Cyber Knight) can be multi-classed into having any other class as well. Also, the same as any other character you cannot pick a third class.

Cyber Knight creation has 7 parts on the left side of the character creation screen. Background, Attributes, Traits, Weapons, Cyber, View Talents (Review) and Appearance.

You can go through these in any order you choose, but I recommend either starting with background or starting with appearance and going to background. Immediately after deciding your background you should decide your traits before you attributes. Because background and traits change your attributes. So have background and traits decided before spending the 10 points you are given.



You have to choose one of four backgrounds, which have subtle but significant differences.


They have different backstories, but right now those do not yet make a difference in the game. What matters at this point are two things. The attribute bonuses listed under the background, and the listing of traits for that background. You can only put up to 6 points in a single trait, so if you want to go higher than 6 then you have to select your background traits carefully for it.

Then have a look at traits (skip attributes for now). There are two columns of traits. The right side column is the same for every background, but the left side is different. So pay attention to those traits on the left and pick which one you want it to be.


After you have background and traits picked, then go and select your attributes. I can't recommend one background over another, it is all up to personal preference. They support a variety of different builds and finding what you like best is largely up to experimentation. Even in Early Access the combination of CyberKnight background and starting team selection makes a big difference to replayability of multiple campaigns.

Then you have weapons to choose from. My advice here is to stay away from Shotgun and Silenced SMG. These two don't pair well together. They have little talent synergy and overlap as shorter range weapons. Choose sword and pistol if you prefer a stealthy playstyle. The Assault Rifle and Pistol pair really well with the ballistics backgrounds and cyber. The Sniper Rifle and Silenced SMG give you a high damage, loud, long range weapon and short range quiet weapon.


Then we have Cyber. These are all four great options, though I know many players are very opinionated on it. They should be, each cyber goes well with a very different playstyle. Dermal plating is the default and what all of us earlier beta testers had by default. This increases the survivability of your CyberKnight significantly at the expense of some speed. You have the Matrix Link which multi-classes you into a Hacker. You can be an incredible Hacker, but there is a massive opportunity cost there of the other things you could do instead. Then we have Display Link. This is not for those who chose the stealthy sword weapon package above, but goes great with any combination of firearms. Shoot Em' Dead! The last package is Neural Accelerator and I would probably recommend this one if you got through this list and didn't have an inclination of going for one of the others. This is best for the pure CK playstyle. The tradeoff is getting wounded more often which means more downtime for your CyberKnight. However, evasion will keep you alive and bonus initiative moves you up in the turn order to fire off those CyberKnight talents that benefit the entire team. It is the best general piece of cyberware and goes well with any build... other than Hacker. So Knight, how are you going to chrome yourself?

The Face

There is nothing to select with the Face at this point. You can modify their appearance. This game is early access and more significant gameplay is expected before game release. At this point, just make a face you won't mind staring at!

The Sneak

Here we have our first choice of consequence.

The default choice of Vanguard


or the Agent EX


Both are barred from a different faction, but this doesn't make a huge difference at the moment. They do not alter your starting contact list. Multi-classing into either class requires a cybernetics implant, which is a considerable time and cost sink. What is important here are the class differences.

Vanguard are all about being stealthy. They start with a sword and a pistol. They can move without making a sound, and have a talent which lets them disable the most security devices. They can lure guards out of their patrol route away from the Vanguard. They are individually the stealthiest character for being undetected. Multi-classes really well with Cybersword to be a high damage and stealthy character.

The starting Vanguard (Emille or whatever you name her to) has a custom story campaign, which at this point is only a single mission. The campaign has promise, but at this point has no real impact. They come with two contacts. Potato is a wireghost who will sell the goods your Hacker wants. They are also important to the Emille campaign which is barely started.


Mongrel is the other contact. They will give you missions for Que Milieu and you can sell accounts to them for a good amount of money. Contacts are definitely an advantage to taking Emille over Soren.







Agent Ex are more of a stealth support character. They start with a sword and a SMG. Their white noise can make it so guards in an area cannot hear anyone, but guards outside the white noise area are unaffected. This helps the entire team sneak past a guard. Their ability to disable devices is limited, but it can jump and spread to other devices. It is the only ability in the game right now that can disable a level 2 security device without hacking it. AgentEx is the best class for concealing a team of otherwise unstealthy characters through a heist. Multi-class really well with Soldier to be a high damage ranged combatant.


Agent Soren, the starting option for AgentEx comes with an additional Wireghost contact. Dancehall is a great vendor and will be your Hackers best friend. Overall, they're not very different from Potato.

At the time of writing in early access I advise you to pick Agent EX. You can pick up two other Vanguards later in the game, but you cannot yet get another Agent EX.

The Hacker

Hacker is definitely the class to pick... you have no other choice. You also have the option of gaining two more hackers later in the game, which is important as next to CyberKnight and Face this is the most key class in the game. Again, just select an appearance you are happy with as there are no significant game choices to be made here.

No date yet for the other Matrix class coming down the wire yet. It feels like they ghosted us.

The Fighter

Okay, finally got some decent time in with the Gunslinger so I can rewrite this guide.




So Gunslinger or Soldier?

First off soon after you begin the campaign you will be offered to recruit an additional soldier. Then when you build the UHUB to level 3 you can pick an assortment of replacement or additional mercs now including another soldier or gunslinger. So how to choose between these combat monsters?

Soldiers are better if you plan to go pure combat without a doubt. Automatic weapons allows them to take on masses of enemies and deal them a lot of damage. Where as Gunslinger is a mobility fighter who mostly chews through one enemy at a time while continuing to advance. While soldiers help you take up a defensive position and fight off waves of enemies, Gunslingers are better at picking off those enemies defending who are behind cover with Flush and Ricochet.

Sid Huffman does not come with additional contacts like Aaron and Aitana.

With the two soldiers, you are selecting between two sets of traits and contacts. Aitana starts with a UAR and gets bonuses to close combat. Closer combat being her specialty. She should be equipped with either the starting UAR class of rifle or later an E-Rifle as she gets accuracy bonuses with them. She has a stealth penalty. She has one more strength than Aaron for resisting recoil. This makes her even better at full auto weapons firing.


I can't say much for the starting contact Wendigo. A gang boss who will certainly give you some good missions. Which most contacts do. Aitana gives you two contacts though, and the second one is a big deal.















Aitana comes with a Vudu Doc as a contact, which gives an extra contact at the start offering healing services. So you can heal two characters at a time for a different combination of price and speed. Vudu Doc is more expensive, but offers faster healing than the default starting doctor.

My final verdict is that Aitana is the better pick if you intend to go pure combat and really focus on combat and not stealth.





Aaron gets an assault rifle and gets bonuses to Sniper/Railgun. Great if you want to multi-class him to Sniper later. He gains XP slightly faster. He has one more Tech than Aitana for a 1% higher crit chance and drone damage. His weapon gives him better range advantages at the start of the game. The "Below the Level" attribute actually gives a pretty good bonus to several legworks specific to running underground.

Aaron brings with him the contact Zeb Cleland, an item seller. Zeb as pointed out to me by a commenter, enables a leverage on most missions for $10k he will cut all the cameras and radars on the level for one turn. Between this and Aitana's penalty to noise, I would say Aaron is the better pick if you are really focused on stealth.








What should you pick Sid Huffman for? High mobility combat. If you want to run heists in and out, Gunslingers are just faster than Soldiers. "Run and Gun" might be a soldier talent, but it is the Gunslinger's way of life. Choose gunslinger if high speed heists are the way you want to go.

but either way you should look to balance out your merc team with having both a soldier and a gunslinger during the campaign.

What more could you want for your Machine of War?

The Support

Here we get to the most choices with the biggest impact. Cybersword, Sniper, or Scourge.

Zasha, the Cybersword is an upclose combat specialist. Swords are a quiet weapon and a cybersword can kill guards before they raise an alarm quite easily.

EX-UKF Banned Neuro has great stats for a Cybersword, and comes with the Neural treatment attribute and story missions. At this point the campaign is incomplete.

Zasha brings her contact Jhurio Enders. A source of healing and drugs. If you choose not to take the soldier Aitana, then you might consider taking Zasha for the option of getting another doctor.

Any character can multi-class as a cybersword without an implant. For now I do not recommend Zasha, given the options and opportunity cost. Furthermore, you can get a cybersword mercenary later in the game now.



Liat the Sniper is long range death. What he isn't, is subtle. If you intend to go loud in all your missions and choosing slaughter over silence, then Liat is your guy. He is banned from FSC which is the most annoying of the "banned from" so far. Any character can multiclass as a Sniper without an implant. Do yourself a favor and replace his semiauto pistol with a revolver as soon as possible. As his talents and abilities will benefit that weapon as well.

Last is August the Scourge. A great close combat class which some stealthy talents as well. You can dissolve corpses so they aren't discovered and mask yourself from most kinds of sensors so you can run through them. Scourge is a powerful class, and it requires cybersurgery on your other characters to take it as a second class. On the downside, he provides no bonus contacts for taking him. Besides August, there is another scourge which you can get from one of the Treaty era storylines and a third from the UHUB building at rank 3.

Time for another update. I am again, again revising my stance. The Syndicate Debts storyline has a chance for you to investigate what happened to the old Cyber Knight you got your implant from and will give you a chance to get an excellent Sniper. Therefore, I highly recommend picking either Scoure or Cybersword for your first playthrough. Choose a Scourge if you are focusing your campaign on stealth. Choose Cybersword if you are focused on high speed heists. Be sure to pick up a Sniper along the way and try it out though. Build that UHUB and expand your barracks to get more options later in the game.

Closing

By this point you have your starting team and you are ready to take on the gritty Cyberpunk world of Cyber Knights Flashpoint. We are getting to the feature rich point of the game where the story and characters are really starting to flesh out.

For further guidance I highly recommend this guide by Phreak for developing your team:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3367308885

I love feedback, so please like this guide if you ... liked it. Leave a comment to let me know what you think or want me to cover something else.

[Cyber Psience]

Guide update. Last update of 2024!

[Cyber Psience]

The Gunslinger has a unique range of talents and a new player can almost immediately pick up a soldier in the game. That said, with another gunslinger and other classes added at the UHUB I intend to try it out soon and revise my guide for all picks. Honestly, I doubt gunslinger will still make the cut.

[veevoir]

Why Gunslinger tho? I understand rarity, but concept wise it seems vanilla soldier is better team player and better noisy solution than Gunslinger atm. Not to mention - does not suffer the short range of pistols/revolvers.

[Cyber Psience]

I decided you were right. I was under selling it because I forgot about the leverage. Section edited to be more clear. I do think Aaron gives the advantage to a stealthy team.

[jotwebe]

I think you're underselling Aaron's contact Zeb a bit. He provides a cheap leverage that lets you turn of all cameras for a turn - a very nice option to have if you want to run a stealthy team.