Urban Strife: August 2025 - Beta Branch Launches with a CTH Surprise!

Aug 08, 2025

We’re officially launching our Beta Branch! Access is open to anyone who owns the game and is curious about upcoming features. This branch will serve as a testing lab—a place where future updates are shaped, tested, and refined with your feedback.

⚠️ Important: Before joining the Beta Branch, make sure you BACK UP YOUR SAVES.

Steam doesn’t offer a reliable way to separate save files between builds, so switching to Beta will overwrite your current installation—and may affect your progress. The good news? You can revert back to the regular version at any time, as long as you have your saves backed up.

Here’s what’s waiting for you in the Beta—and how to join:

New Feature: CTH Cursor (Chance to Hit)

A cursor showing Chance to Hit (CTH) has been one of the most requested features over time. We understand that having clear, intuitive data makes for a better gameplay experience—and this is our response to that request.

But implementing CTH wasn’t straightforward. The classic percentages you’ve seen in other games are often based on simple D&D-style dice rolls. Ours, however, is built on a dynamic ballistic simulation—thousands of line traces, shooter skill and target idle animations, weapon behavior, and more.

To make that complexity readable, we refined our system:

Idle animations (like target bobbing) are now factored in and only frame zero is used
Gun accuracy, shooter skill, and target shape are all part of the equation
Thousand of line-traces behind the hood are distilled into one clean, human-readable number
The resulted CTH is determined by Monte Carlo integration

Heuristics + New CTH: Best of Both Worlds

We’re not throwing out the old system entirely. The color-coded heuristic dummy that shows whether a shot is generally a good idea (based on both hit chance and damage expectation) is still there. It’s also used by the AI to make decisions, so keeping it ensures fair play.

But now, you’ll also see exact percentages with the new CTH indicator. For example, say an enemy is behind a closed door, ready to throw a grenade. The heuristic says red—bad shot. But you know that even a low-chance hit could save your squad. The new cursor lets you see:

Your actual chance to shoot through that door
A damage estimate (Graze / Light / Solid)
If you're trying a completely out-of-range shot, you'll get a ?? CTH and grey heuristic estimation, but you're free to try (see below Billy trying to hit a FAR target with a .22 gun)

Weapon Class Rework

We’ve overhauled how weapon roles are defined in the UI. Previously, the aiming cursor only showed how close you were to the target when it defined the optimal range. But that didn’t reflect reality—why should a sniper rifle beat a handgun in close quarters?

Now, weapons display range suitability (CLOSE / MEDIUM / FAR), with color coding:

Green = weapon is optimal at that range
Yellow = weapon is sub-optimal

Examples:

Pistols, shotguns, SMGs → CLOSE
Bolt action rifles, crossbows, AR → CLOSE/MEDIUM
Sniper rifles → FAR

Close-range weapons excel at fast firing (low AP costs) but generally deal lower damage per shot or their bullets lose energy fast over distance. Medium-range weapons perform decently up close, but their higher AP costs make them most effective at mid-range. Finally, sniper rifles deliver devastating damage, but their high AP costs make close-quarters engagements risky and leave you exposed.

Weapon attachments have also been rebalanced to match these roles, with meaningful gameplay bonuses.

Below: A crossbow is in optimal (green) range at both SHORT and MEDIUM distances.

Below: A dedicated sniper rifle performs best at FAR range and it will be outperformed at CLOSE/MEDIUM ranges by dedicated weapons.

Coming Soon: Aimed Shot Bonuses

While we test these changes in Beta, we’re already working on the next big update: bonuses for aimed shots. This will evolve the current body-part targeting system into a proper marksman mode. Here’s the idea:

Spend more Action Points to aim carefully
Get a higher CTH for vital body parts
Use aimed shots as a precision tool
Un-aimed shots remain efficient and default to the torso

Veterans of Jagged Alliance 2 will feel right at home. Stay tuned!

Also those waiting for new maps and progress with the campaign will be happy to hear that we have scheduled another update later this month that will add more Tier 2 content to the game and unlock new locations.

Other Fixes in This Update

Shotgun projectiles now deal reduced damage over distance (preserving close-range power)
Tactical/polymer weapon upgrades now properly reduce weight
Pending shelter industry orders (not yet in production) can now be cancelled
Fixed a bug where characters could get stuck by ending a turn in an invalid stance
Fixed an issue caused by AI on Overwatch being set on fire that could lead to player being stuck
Fixed a bug that could make the Roster menu unusable after recruiting all NPCs
Fixed keybinds (1–5 and 0) not saving correctly after reassigning them
Fixed an issue in Miguel Cordoba's quest that left a floating objective marker
Fixed bullets getting caught on a window frame when crouch-shooting through windows
Corrected sniper rifle images to display proper attachments

Ready to Join the Beta Branch?

Go to your Steam Library
Right-click the game > Properties
Navigate to the Betas tab
Choose “beta_branch” from the dropdown
Wait for the update to download

And remember—back up your saves before switching!

Let us know what you think, and keep the feedback coming. We’re shaping this game together, and the experimental Beta Branch is your backstage pass to the future.