Happy Wednesday, we've got a meaty update ready for you this week!

First on the docket is a new area, Nascent Robotics! Access this new area through the north side of the Oasis courtyard, and track down several new Echo Logs, if you can make it through the cramped hallways of this robotics lab unscathed.

Next up is an absolute TON of balance tweaks. Find the full list below, but the highlights are improved resonance behaviors, damage buffs on a few weapons, and improved enemy visibility logic (for more accurate sneaking!).

We also managed to optimize a critical script that was used on a ton of our UI in-game; without getting too technical, this ended up saving us a chunk of memory usage without sacrificing quality or save files. :)

There's a few more bugs and improvement beyond those as well; give it a full read down below! And, make sure to let us know what your thoughts are on the weapon balancing. Your feedback really does help shape these things into the best versions they can be.

Stay tuned for the next update! Among other things, we'll be looking into Stalker balancing, since we know this is something that's been commented on quite a bit. They're intended to be difficult, but perhaps are skewed a little TOO heavily in that direction is it currently stands!

Features

• New Area - Nascent Robotics: Access this robotics lab through the Oasis Courtyard!

Balance/Improvements

• Butcher Blade - small increase to base damage, multiplier no longer decreases when you lower your arm, damage multiplier is now +50% base damage per stack
• Resonance now cools down MUCH faster
• Resonance buildup on continuous fire weapons now builds up much more slowly
• Weapon Charge abilities now pause resonance cooldown (so resonance does not lower while charging the next shot)
• Burn effects damage has been increased
• Subverser - slightly reduced resonance buildup
• Subverser - Special Ability 2 now functions correctly
• Subverser - Sleep dart now clears agro and last longer, and uses an improved sleep animation
• NPC no longer rotate to face target while asleep
• Improved cues for when Beacons are activated/deactivated
• Added tab as a universal cancel for all in-game menus
• Heavily optimized a behind-the scenes UI script, which should save several hundred MB of RAM usage!
• Decreased Widow's eyesight
• Decreased Degenarated Afflicted's eyesight
• Improved NPC/Player detection when sneaking
• Improved NPC taunting animations and sound cues

Fixes

• Breaking right arm now correctly decreases melee damage as a debuff
• Increased brightness of text on Arc Welder
• Flashlight being on now correctly affects player's visibility (turn it off if you're trying to be sneaky!)