The New Mexico Department of Labor has found the Administrator in violation of every safety law they have, including 106 violations of the Employee Electroshock (Face, Trunk and Genital) Protection Act and 496 unexplained workplace disappearances. This means Miss Pauling has been state-mandated to take her first vacation in... well, ever. It also means she'll still be working round the clock, since those kill-contracts won't assign themselves.

The Tough Break Campaign is a three-month event that will test your skills against 26 contracts, with one-of-a-kind weapons and exclusive weapon cases as rewards. Weapon-specific contracts will give you a chance to learn new tactics as your favorite merc.

Don't have the ordinance you need to finish a weapon-specific contract? Don't worry! (Seriously, calm down.) Now you can borrow it for the duration of the contract, thanks to Mann Co's new community outreach program for wayward guns, the Loaner Program! Give double-donking a try! Lob a fresh jar of body-temperature Jarate at your enemies! Go w+m1 with the Backburner! It's like a library, but for murder accessories!

We know what you're thinking: "Didn't you say something about fabulous prizes?" We did! The Tough Break Campaign ships with the campaign-exclusive Gentlemanne's, Harvest, Pyroland and Warbird Collections, only available through contract completion rewards! Be the envy of your friends! Be the envy of your enemies! Be the envy of people who only mildly dislike you! Plus: Spies, Engineers and Demos rejoice! These collections also have knives, wrenches and grenade launchers!

Completing a contract could earn you a one-of-a-kind weapon, featuring progressive wear and multiple rarity levels, from either the Gentlemanne's or Harvest Collections!

Contract completion could also earn you a case with an exclusive weapon from the Pyroland or Warbird Collections! In addition to wear and rarity, the weapons in these cases include a chance at being strange or unusual!

Buying access to the Tough Break Campaign puts a Contract Pass in your inventory. Just click on it to activate it, and it will transform into an upgradable Contract Stamp. Your stamp keeps track of your progress on active contracts, levels up as you complete them, and shows off your level to other players on the Scoreboard.

Buying access to the Tough Break Campaign also grants you this remarkably chic cosmetics case as a weekly bonus drop. Fifteen unique souvenirs and knick-knacks wait for you inside!

A portion of the money made from sales of contract passes will go to the authors of these four new community maps. Remember to submit your maps to the Maps Workshop Beta!

Mannrobics

Dance: a Conversation Between Your Body and Soul

Bagpipes: a Conversation Between Your Lungs and an Inflated Goat Stomach

Created by: donhonk, Populous, Hypo, RICE, Square, Sky

Bullriding: a Conversation Between a Wild Animal and Your Spine

Created by: Populous, Greg

Tough Break Gameplay Changes

All-Class

• Base weapon switch speed changed from 0.67 seconds to 0.5 seconds
• Upon spawning, friendly players will show an outline for 10 seconds
• Updated various weapon descriptions to better detail their functionality

Multi-Class

• Panic Attack
  • No longer auto-fires when fully loaded. Shots can be held and released at will.
• Reserve Shooter
  • No longer boosts all-around switch speed, instead boosts switch-to speed by 20% and switch-from speed by 15%
  • No longer mini-crits any airborne target (i.e. jumping). Target must be forced in to the air via blastjump, knockback, airblast, or grapple.
• The Half-Zatoichi
  • Now considered a sword (increased holster and deploy time and increased range)
  • Honorbound changed. Deals 50 self damage on holster if no kill was made. Cannot be holstered if player is below 50 life and no kill was made.
  • 100% life restore on kill changed to 50% health gain on kill that can result in overheal
  • No random crits

Scout

• Pretty Boy's Pocket Pistol
  • Increased health recovered on hit from +3 to +5
• Mad Milk
  • Extinguishing an ally will now reduce the cooldown by 20%
• Wrap Assassin
  • Now 42% more festive! Ornament shatters on all impacts, dealing a small amount of damage in a small radius. Bleed effect still only applies to a target that is struck directly.
  • Ball recharge rate increased by 25%
  • Damage penalty reduced from -70% to -65%

Soldier

• Beggar's Bazooka
  • Decreased blast radius by 20%
• Concheror
  • Doubled health regeneration rate. Regeneration rate is now decreased if player has been recently damaged.
• B.A.S.E Jumper
  • Removed hidden property of up draft when on fire
• Market Gardener
  • Added 20% Attack Speed penalty
• Air-Strike
  • Reduced blast radius by 20% when rocket jumping (28% reduction when compared to stock)

Sniper

• The Cleaner's Carbine
  • Reduced firing rate penalty from 35% to 20%
  • Added 'CRIKEY' meter which is filled by dealing damage
  • Mini-crits are no longer activated by kill, but can instead be activated by alt-fire when the 'CRIKEY' meter is filled
• Cozy Camper
  • Quadrupled health regeneration rate. Regeneration rate is now decreased if player has been recently damaged.
• Jarate
  • Extinguishing an ally now reduces the cool down by 20%

Pyro

• Pyros like to collect rainbows! Extinguishing a teammate will now return 20 health to the Pyro.
• Consecutive Airblasts will no longer prevent enemies from air-strafing until they touch the ground
• The base Flamethrower's damage fall off over distance has been decreased, resulting in higher damage output at range
• Degreaser
  • No longer boosts all-around switch speed. Instead, boosts switch-to speed by 60% and switch-from speed by 30%.
  • Removed damage penalty
  • Increased Airblast cost by 25%
  • Increased afterburn penalty to from 25% to 66%
• Phlogistinator
  • Removed 10% damage penalty.
  • When activating 'MMMPH', the taunting Pyro gains temporary invulnerability and immunity to knockback effects
• Axtinguisher
  • Properties changed
  • 100% Chance to crit against burning targets
  • 33% Damage penalty
  • 20% Slower attack speed
  • 75% Slower switch-to speed

Medic

• Medics now have slightly higher health regeneration when healing a hurt patient
• During setup time, ÜberCharge build rate is now increased by 3x
• Amputator
  • Taunt can now be activated by alt-fire
  • Healing done with the taunt now grants small amounts of ÜberCharge
• Vaccinator
  • Removed 10% health regeneration on proper resist
  • Increased ÜberCharge rate from +50% to +67%
  • Reduced overhealed ÜberCharge build rate penalty to 33% from 66%. As this penalty is applied after the base increase, healing an overhealed patient is now 33% more effective.
• Crusader's Crossbow
  • Healing a player with an arrow now grants a small amount of ÜberCharge
• Quick-Fix
  • Fixed cases where Quick-Fix ÜberCharged players could still be affected by certain knock-back effects
  • Players can no longer capture objectives while under the effects of Quick-Fix ÜberCharge

Spy

• The HUD 'Cloak' meter now displays 'MOTION' and 'FEIGN' when Cloak and Dagger and Dead Ringer are equipped respectively
• Dead Ringer
  • Initial damage reduction when feigning death increased to 75% from 50%
• Spy-cicle
  • Fixed a bug where ammo packs from dead players were not filling the Spy-cicle meter
  • Fire immunity shield no longer appears when fire immunity is triggered

Heavy

• Fists of Steel
  • Removed deploy time penalty
  • Added penalty of increased holster time by 100%
• Gloves of Running Urgently
  • Increased holster time penalty
• Warrior's Spirit
  • Now heals 50 health on kill
  • Damage received and dealt increased by 30%
  • Removed health penalty
• Eviction Notice
  • Now provides 15% move speed bonus
  • Now increases damage taken by 20%

Demoman / Demoknight

• Shield bash now deals damage at all ranges, scaled by distance
  • Melee damage boost after shield bash is based on amount of charge consumed. Now provides mini-crit at 25% depleted, and full crit at 60% depleted.
  • Charging now removes debuffs from the Demoknight (Bleed, Fire, Mad Milk, Jarate)
• All Swords now have a slower deploy and holster speed compared to base weapons in addition to their increased melee range
• Splendid Screen
  • Removed the ability to deal charge impact damage at any range (now native to all shields)
  • Now increases recharge rate by 50%
  • Increased blast resistance from 15% to 20%
• Tide Turner
  • Now grants mini-crit instead of full-crit on charge bash
  • Reduced resistances to 15%
• Chargin Targe
  • Reduced blast resistance from 40% to 30%
  • Removed fire immunity
• Claidheamh Mòr
  • Removed charge duration bonus
  • Now restores 25 health on kill
  • Removed health penalty
  • Now increases damage taken while active by 15%
• Persian Persuader
  • Removed ammo pickups granting health instead of ammo
  • Added penalties of reduced primary and secondary ammo
  • Ammo pickups now replenish charge
  • Now gains charge meter on hit
• Quickiebomb Launcher
  • Fizzle time increased from 2 seconds to 4 seconds
• Ullapool Caber
  • Base melee damage increased from 35 to 55
  • Added 20% fire rate penalty
  • Added 100% switch-to time penalty
• Loose Cannon
  • Reduced projectile speed (now a visible attribute)
  • Reduced cannon impact damage from 60 to 50. Damage also scales with distance.
  • Reduced knockback from cannon hit. Knockback strength is now similar to airblast.

Engineer

• After removing a Sapper from a sentry, there is now a 0.5s delay before the sentry is active again
• Sentries brought into a respawn room no longer detonate outside of Mann vs. Machine
• The Jag 
  • Added damage penalty against buildings. Now takes 3 hits to destroy a Sapper.
• Rescue Ranger
  • Healing per bolt reduced from 75 to 60

General

• Smissmas 2015 has begun! Launch Team Fortress 2 to receive your Spirit of Giving badge, Gift-Stuffed Stocking, and Winter Holiday noise maker
• Added Smissmas 2015 Mystery Gift. Can be found by opening a Tough Break Weapons Case. Have you been Naughty or Nice?
• Added Strange Count Transfer Tool
• Takes the Strange scores from one item and adds them on to another. The count for the source item is reset to zero. Strange part scores are only transferred and zeroed if a matching Strange part is found. Can only be used between Strange items of the same base type.
• Can be Crafted by 2 Strange parts in the crafting menu under Rare Items
• Updated Case opening item drop algorithm. Going forward players are now less likely to get duplicate items from the same rarity tier on repeated Case openings.
• Updated several weapons sounds with consistency fixes from community member Mateusz Grzesik.
• Updated the scoreboard
• Re-ordered some of the columns
• Added an image to represent player ping values instead of the actual ping values. Added an option in Adv. Options to use the actual ping values.
• Updated several weapon descriptions to better detail their functionality
• 'Gifted by' Tag can now be removed from items via 'Restore?' Context action from the Backpack view
• Fixed a bug in Mann vs. Machine where Medic bots with unusually long uber effects could have the effect time-out prematurely
• Fixed a bug where Unusual Slider was not properly saving
• All Strange parts can now be applied to Strange cosmetics items
• Strange parts added to the Backpack Context Menu for Strange items
• Paints now display both Market and Mann Co. Store prices in the Backpack Context Menu on paintable items
• Added case and crate opening animation in Backpack view
• Fixed seeing the fire texture on the Captain Space Mann, A Head Full of Hot Air, and The Tomb Readers in DirectX 8
• Updated the models/materials for Der Wintermantel and made it paintable
• Updated the Caped Crusader to include a team-colored style for the cape
• Players can no longer use blast damage to move during the pre-round freeze period
• Added server convar tf_preround_push_from_damage_enable for servers to utilize the old behavior
• Fixed the Spy-cicle not melting properly if the Spy is burned while stunned
• Added an option in Adv. Options to batch overhead combat text

Performance Improvements

• Mac and Linux improvements (Windows Direct3D 9 players have these already)
• Texture streaming now enabled
• Reduced memory consumption by ~500 megs
• Faster map loads!
• Players on Mac can now select 'High' texture settings
• Eliminated many cases of hitching when using painted weapons
• Eliminated occasional hitching caused by usingmat_picmip 2 (or selecting low quality textures in Video Options ->Advanced)
• Massively reduced memory consumption when using painted weapons
• Improved particle system performance, boosting overall framerate, especially in particle-heavy situations.
• Fixed two most common forms of framerate stuttering /hitching when using popular FPS configs
• Added -default launch option to help players triage performance / stability problems.
• When run with -default, the game will ignore most convar settings and run purely with default options
• Upon exit, -default runs do not overwrite the player's config.cfg file. If a player wants to save the settings of a default run, they should execute host_writeconfig <filename> in the console.
• Fixed 5 second stall when opening options menu
• VR players: You must now pass -vr to launch options to play TF using VR
• Fixed multiple cases of FPS stutter related to the sound system

Mannpower Changes

• Flags will become poisonous (mark the carrier for death) 90 seconds after having been stolen
• If both team flags are stolen and poisonous, they will return when next dropped
• Fixed players being able to grapple during the pre-round freeze period
• Reduced the number of flag captures required to win from 10 to 7 on official servers
• Regeneration powerup:
• Health regeneration amount changes - Scout, Sniper and Spy increased, Engineer decreased
• Reflect powerup:
• Added pushback force to players who damage the powerup carrier (except for flame damage)
• Added overheal effect to players whose max health is increased by a powerup