MADNESS: Project Nexus News

FEATURE: Contract 4, the final stage of Arena Combat, is now available once you've beaten the Nexus Facility stage, and along with that, Arena's "New Game +" Imprint system. EXPECT BUGS, TESTERS.
TWEAK: Load Screen doesn't dump you into the next scene until you've pressed RETURN.
TWEAK: BUffer period when narrations occur so you don't accidentally skip the dialog by pressing Return right as new dialog appears.
TWEAK: The big Sector/HQ graphic that displays up top when you go to a new overworld area will no longer play until all cutscenes are complete.
TWEAK: Removed the weapons from the hands of your squad when departing the helipad. It looked goofy. Just store your weapons for takeoff, ya goons.
FIXED: Finished repairs to the audio system used by the Minigun, Flamethrower, and Sludge Hose.
FIXED: The description for the Throw Big acrobatic skill was outdated.
FIXED: Blunt Throw skill had an absurd price for its tier level.
FIXED: Stragglers would pass THROUGH lifts in some instances. They would also attempt to walk to inconvenient points to stand.
FIXED: Small single-frame animation glitch on menu characters.
FIXED: Non-Automatic Rate-of-Fire bonus was applying to automatics.

TWEAK: You and your squad are invincible during Takedowns that you initiate.
TWEAK: Changed some stage prerequisites in Arena. It's not as linear, but you need the same stages complete to unlock each Contract.
TWEAK: Lowered the number of waves per checkpoint in Murder Time.
FIXED: A tiny issue caused all sorts of start locations to freeze the characters using them.
FIXED: Minigun was having issues with its continuous fire audio. While this should be fixed now, other problems may crop up (such as moving between rooms firing off its idle sound). If anything hardcore breaks tho, bug report it!

-ADDED: G03LMs have a different tantrum animation than other Brutes.
-ADDED: Click to get rid of a tooltip.
-ADDED: Goyle's got a proper recording crew for his show.
-TWEAK: Huge melee weapons (the ones with reeeeeally heavy swings) will always either knock back or ragdoll opponents.
-TWEAK: Ragdoll Executes no longer available to basic NPCs.
-TWEAK: Aim reticle recoil visual (the red circle) no longer gets so outrageously big.
-TWEAK: Significantly increased the frequency and max number of weapon boxes that spawn in Slaughter Time
-TWEAK: We're giving upper level enemies the Deadeye skill, in order to balance against Tac Master a bit. This will let them break corpus with grazing shots.
-TWEAK: Some effects on the final boss of the Story Campaign were adjusted to only be seen when they're facing certain directions. This should make it easier to tell which way they're facing, due to transparency.
-FIXED: Pathing and collision issues in Murder Room ought to be resolved.
-FIXED: Camera issues when traveling between scenes.
-FIXED: UI Notifications would glitch out their formatting if more than one played in a row.
-FIXED: Medical Cabinets inside vans were missing in Contract 3.
-FIXED: Since changing the stage order in Arena, some things were firing off before they were supposed to.
-FIXED: Small error in cutscene camera direction when trying to focus on certain characters.
-FIXED: The trapped explosion-door at the start of Residential 2 was firing off twice.
-FIXED: The broken hilts of some melee weapons could have a range FIFTY TIMES farther than any other, thanks to a typo.
-FIXED: A variety of things could cause characters to either become stuck in an emote, or cause an emote to be interrupted prematurely. We've revised the system that controls when these things happen.
-FIXED: More Depth of Field issues have been dealt with.

-ADDED: Indicators on the Pilot/Bus map for Arena stages you've beaten.
-ADDED: Your corpus now display your healing process.
-TWEAK: Outskirts snipers firing on you before Stage 2 "Power Play" will now go on forever until you've disabled the spotlights. This replaces an old, unstable system.
-TWEAK: The end cutscene of Outskirts Stage 3 "Road to Nexus City" better displays the Mag Bandit destroying the gate.
-TWEAK: Slight boost to Hireling XP gain.
-TWEAK: Skill description font sized down.
-TWEAK: Game is more clear about when you've beaten a stage in Arena via the end-wave breakdown.
-TWEAK: Most Arena stages must now be played in a set order. Colors have been added to indicate stages that are unplayable, already completed, or next on your list.
-TWEAK: Modified some dialog in Arena (mostly between the Player and Doc) to account for how we want certain plot points revealed, and to remove red herring info that doesn't help to push the plot.
-TWEAK: Cleaned up the Options menu, removed obsolete key bindings, and added a tab for Keyboard/Controller instructions.
-FIXED: Healing your Corpus used to speed up when dealing damage to enemies. After the healing system revamp/cleanup, this feature was removed. We've put it back in, and a visualization for this process up top.
-FIXED: The trail on your target reticle would sometimes load in terribly huge.
-FIXED: Enemies that vanish on death (Robots, etc.) were vanishing with their held weapons. These should now drop before they vanish.
-FIXED: Animated textures (punch plates, etc.) were messing up if that character was involved in a cutscene.
-FIXED: Open vans in Contract 3 had no collision.
-FIXED: Squadmates weren't animating in Stage Menu screens.

We should have Contract 4 done by the end of the week. The final stage still needed more testing, but we wanted to get these bugfixes out now!

NOTE: Since we changed the order that stages are played in Arena, you may find some missions not appearing where you remember them being (namely Contracts),

Go check out the helipad and make sure you've completed all missions there. Any green stage markers mean you haven't completed them yet, as far as the game is now concerned.

-Tweak: Hard Sell units will take cover in their back rooms.
-Tweak: Water splashes were too loud. SHHHHH
-Fixed: Small color error on goggles/glasses.
-Fixed: Story Campaign enemies performing an animation were speaking their wake-up chatter when they ought not do it.

*NOTE: We accidentally skipped 1.37.c and released as 1.37.d last night, so we're just advancing to 1.37.e today