v0.88 - Weekly Update

New:

• Added two new tilesets: Steampunk and winter(Frostbound). Runs start on the original look, and every bossflip rebuilds the arena in a different tileset, picked at random. Later these tile sets will have specifical unique behaviours associated with them.
• All seven heroes now show battle wear: dirt on boots, dust and soot on hair and shoulders, worn cloth, and small cuts, scrapes and bruises on bare skin. Each hero's marks are fixed. During the time I was adding dirt and noise to the characters to improve their appearance (they looked spectacularly clean before) I decided to make them look like the role they play in a shooter game.
• New in-game HUD in every mode: a cleaner layout with thin outlines and fewer icons. Nothing blinks anymore. low health, reloading, expiring power-ups and downed teammates show as a color change.
• Reload indicator settings added to GAME settings , a few different styles. Simply just shows when the weapon is reloading.
• Pick up and throw objects. Press E next to a loose crate, drum or fuel barrel to lift it, then press E again to throw it. This mechanic was specifically implemented for boss interactive fights. But integrated within the arena periodically.
• CORPSES (Settings > Game): LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH or MAX sets how many ragdoll corpses stay on screen at once (32, 96, 160 or 256 on PC). Improvements to the corpse system allows almost 4x the amount of corpses at 100th of the performance hit but it can cause a lot of clutter.
• DISMEMBERMENT (Settings > Game) is now a 0 to 100% slider: the share of brutal kills that come apart. If you had it switched off, it stays off.
• Dungeon Sweep has new lighting: a new tone map, plus ambient occlusion on PC.
• Muted all sound in the background by default with a Sound in Background setting under Sound Settings. (Athlon requested feature)

Changed:

• Improved GPU performance in Classic by not drawing walls, rails, columns and stairs that are off screen. The gain is pretty significant on the new tilesets. New tilesets are a heavier load on the system drawing nearly 2x the amount of prims.
• Wolf: Halo Rounds and Star Barrage now throw a small copy of Wolf's hammer wrapped in lightning. It leaves a lightning trail in the players color.
• Wolf: Drones and Afterimage decoys now throw a spinning, glowing gold hammer.
• Wolf: Disposable Arsenal now plants his broken hammer as a Lightning Rod for 12 seconds.
• Rewrote the tutorial text to be shorter and plainer, and fixed details that no longer matched the game.
• New installs start with TELEMETRY off (Settings > Graphics). If you already chose a setting, it stuck.
• Ragdoll corpses run on a new native physics system. Up to 256 stay on screen at once, where about 9 could before.
• The boss-kill arena flip now works online: clients follow the host's flip, players who join late load the current arena pre flipped.
• In LAN and room-code games, clients no longer miss explosions and enemy updates for a moment after the host's game hitches.
• Every build now includes THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt with the licenses of the open-source software the game uses.
• The first launch after this update can sit on the boot screen for a few minutes while your graphics driver prepares shaders. Later launches are back to normal.
• The demo is rebuilt on the October 21 version of the game. (Updated and new game engine mechanics.)
• The welcome panel and end screen no longer offer alpha keys or ask for wishlists: the full game is out now in Early Access, with GET THE FULL GAME buttons.
• The welcome text now says Classic has every weapon and almost every perk. ( offered a few bit more enjoyable content in the Demo )

Fixed:

• Fixed Singularity Payload: the grenade's vortex pulls enemies in again. Changed made to the movement system didn't get reconnected to the grenade.
• On ULTRA shadows, torch and flashlight shadows now have smooth soft edges instead of a grainy blocked outline.
• In the Cinematic camera, the two nearest wall torches cast soft shadows (PC, off with Reduced Effects).
• The ground mist now picks up the sky's color up close and fades into the sky in the distance (PC).
• Teammates now see Psych's wrench during a turret repair instead of an empty hand.
• Healers stay locked for players who join mid-match.
• LAN and room-code sessions no longer drop on unstable connections. Under heavy packet loss and jitter they used to end about once a minute, or within seconds of joining.
• Fixed an issue where the game could crash when an enemy, effect, ragdoll or boss attack was removed at the wrong moment (ragdolls and corpses, effect pools, boss projectiles, player abilities, Dungeon modes, the arena flip, hazards and menus)
• Kills no longer lose their XP once 2,048 gems lie on the floor; the XP is added to a recent gem instead.
• Twiggy no longer gets stuck on the tutorial's grenade step.
• Footsteps no longer play while Twiggy's grapple pulls her through the air.
• In 8-player games, an Afterimage Protocol decoy no longer stops the other players' flashlights from following them.
• Dungeon Sweep: carrying a sigil no longer shows a large blue light in your hand.
• Floor marks on a tunnel roof now open with the roof when you walk into the tunnel, instead of floating over the hole.
• Overkill Relay's chain bolt no longer wastes itself on an enemy that died in the same instant.
• On screens smaller than 1920x1080, the first window now fits the screen instead of extending off its edges.
• Controller: fixed focus in Settings > Character, L1 and R1 no longer switch Settings tabs behind an invite notice, and the Join and Invite Friends list keeps your place while it refreshes.
• Fixed a stream of errors every frame while a downed teammate was far off screen.
• SMAA causing a crash when the render quality was below 100%
• Doors in RPG not sending network signals for their state.