Team Fortress 2 gets another surprise "exploits and stability" update

Valve has rolled out yet another surprise update for Team Fortress 2.

In a brief update on the game's Steam page that dispenses with the small talk, Valve says that the update - which will have been applied automatically when you boot up the shooter - chiefly addresses "exploits and stability issues", as well as offering some new server settings.

There are a lot of changes that start with the words "fixed" and "updated", including resolutions to the broken mini-sentry issue, Iron Bomber's broken projectile collision size, busted cosmetics, and UI woes, such as players seeing "unknown" where their player name should be.

There are also some more specific server settings coming in, too. Server operators can now limit the amount of processing time the game server can spend on processing packets for each client per tick, and clients that send packets that overload CPU processing times will now get kicked. We can also now disable random fall damage - add "tf_fall_damage_disablespread" to do so - and run a channel stats dump when that network channel is closed.

Game mode Mann vs. Machine has also had an update, so you can now kick spectators as well as see the right correct names and loading screen backgrounds.  Arenas, on the other hand, now lets players join late in the game and has rectified a problem where players on team Unassigned could kill other players.

The update comes after Valve released another new Team Fortress 2 update just a couple of weeks back, fixing exploits and bugs players could use to cheat on secure servers. As we explained at the time, the exploits included teleporting back to spawn by changing your loadout or class while touching the other team's No Entry gate, and negating a speed debuff by swapping loadouts while using the Huntsman. 

While still not a perfect solution - issues and exploits still persist, unfortunately - both these updates were rolled out in acknowledgment of a fan-led campaign to save Team Fortress 2, which has suffered for years with botting and a lack of updates.

"TF2 community, we hear you!" Valve said at the time. "We love this game and know you do, too. We see how large this issue has become and are working to improve things."

Looking for more? Team Fortress 2 mods TF2 Classic and Open Fortress to return after eight-month hiatus.