As we announced in last week’s Changelog, we’re releasing a patch this week! This patch contains all the tweaks and updates we held back from build 308, in favor of having more time to solely focus on the issues that came up after the LUAJit update. Included in this update is the brand new Marine Commander tutorial. This will teach potential new commanders the basics of commanding and the marine tech tree. So if you wanted to get a basic understanding of commanding without being in a live game, there is now a way to do so. But that’s not all! Thanks to the tremendous work of Trevor, with the help of a group of volunteers from the community, the new tutorial is packed with more easter eggs and secrets to discover. So even as a veteran commander it’s worth giving it a shot, if only just to unlock the new achievements! We’ve been listening a lot to the community’s feedback about the current balance situation and the performance issues that have been showing up since the last few builds. With this build we started including changes which are trying to resolve some of those issues that were brought up. More improvements will follow in the future. Meanwhile the team is still working on items from our roadmap that remi posted two weeks ago. There is much more to come for NS2 on the horizon, so stay tuned and happy hunting! Update 309 Changelog Gameplay

• Skulk HP raised to 75/10 (was 70/10) The intent of this is to make early game skulks a tiny bit less fragile and to make early game engagements more stable (the innate regen threw a RNG factor into those engagements)
• Machine Gun changes
  • MG research time halved to 30 seconds (was 60)
  • Decreased MG spread to 4 radians (from 4.5)
  • Increased magazine size to 125 (from 100)

The MG is primarily designed to give Marines a chance to hold and extend their territory in the late mid game. The MG wasn’t really able to do that in the past. Halving the research time should help get it on the field before it’s too late. Furthermore decreasing the spread and increasing the magazine should make it reward players better for good positioning.

• Railgun damage type changed to Structural (was normal, railguns now do double damage vs structures, and have no change vs players)

The Railguns can be fun to use against alien players, but at it’s current damage numbers it took 2-4 shots to pop a cyst which made it feel very underpowered. Doubling their damage output to structures will help give them more utility.

• Marines now can’t turn their upper body as far to the right, without also turning their lower body (this makes it easier for aliens to tell which direction a marine is facing)
• Marines now use a different animation while jetpacking, rather than the jumping animation

Tweaks / Improvements

• New Commander Tutorial now available in the training menu!
  • Two new achievements added related to the commander tutorial
  • Removed the “commander help” in-game tutorial
• Improved bot server performance by adding a tick rate for the bot logic routine which is set to 10 by default
  • This should lower the impact of bots onto the server performance by at least 50%
• Updated the bot name list including more recent contributors
• All serverbrowser filter act now the same way: Enabled will show given servers, disabled will hide given servers. Old filter settings are converted
• The “full server” serverbrowser filter will now also take reserved slots into account
• Added the server admin command “sv_rookieonly” to change the rookie only state of a server without requiring a map change or server restart
• Replaced the server runtime error (SRE) icon when a script error occurs on the client with something prettier
• Added another diagnostic icon which will appear when a script error occurs on the server (it’s purple!)
• List the exact number of script errors that occurred on the server in net_stats and the client log
• Windows servers now automatically save a mini memory dump into their log folder on crash (if your server crashes please send this to us so we can help diagnose it)

Fixes

• Fixed that the subscribed mods did not show up in server details window
• Fixed that the rookie only check didn’t work on most rookie-only servers (this was previously deployed via the extension system)
• Fixed that the buttons of popup that showed up when a non rookie tries to join a team at a rookie only servers did not work
• Fixed that you could get stuck in place if you attempted to evolve a trait twice before turning into an egg
• Fixed a script error in the alien commander bot routine
• Fixed a small performance issue in the scoreboard update routine
• Fixed that numbers in the options menu were too precise
• Fixed that the pistol slide was not staying open when the gun is empty
• Fixed that blink effects could cause visual artifacts when bloom was enabled
• Fixed that protolab could cause blow out while being biled if bloom was enabled
• Fixed that spectators could end up spectating non player entities in a rare case

SDK

• Added the ability to lock the view horizontally with the space bar in film mode (Thanks Samus!)
• Added ability to communicate with Webviews (Lua <-> Javascript)
  • WebView::ExecJS allows Lua code to call javascript inside the webview
  • WebView::HookJSAlert allows Lua code to respond to any Javascript alert( message )
• Added Client.GetNumServerScriptErrors() to get the number of script errors that have occurred on the server (since map change)
• The spread vectors table of the shotgun is now referenced via the class to make them easier to mod
• Improved the Lua TraceLogger error messages to include more details
• Viewer
  • Added JSON Export to Animation Graph editor
  • Improved Animation Graph editor visuals by highlighting incoming and outgoing lines from the selected node different colors.
  • It’s now possible to have one-way labels in the Animation Graph (animation state can jump out of this node to other nodes of the same label, but can only be entered by discrete connections)
• Model Compiler
  • Fixed an issue that could cause models’ scaling to be strange when playing animations.
  • Fixed a bug that would cause cameras to not load properly.
• Fixed possible crash on exit due to bad access in FMOD dll (when using Spark’s tools)

[ 2016-09-23 13:32:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Natural Selection 2 pits alien against human in an action-packed struggle for survival. Wield devastating weaponry as a Frontiesman marine, or become the xenomorph as a deadly. Kharaa life-form.

Strategy Meets Shooter

Natural Selection 2 is a First Person Shooter and Real Time Stategy game rolled into one! Each team, alien and human, has a Commander. The Commander looks down on the battlefield and issues orders, places structures, collects resources, researches technology, and deploys abilities.



Here are some gameplay examples: A human Commander could drop health packs and ammunition to a trapped marine squad, and deploy sentry guns to help them defend their position. Or an alien Commander could grow a new Hive to spread infestation throughout newly captured territory, allowing more alien eggs to spawn...

Two Unique Sides

Aliens players choose to evolve into one of five lifeforms: The fast, fearsome Skulk can run on walls and deliver massive damage with is jaws. Lerks fly and deploy gasses to support their teammates in battle. Gorges heal other lifeforms and build tunnels, hydra turrets, walls, and other tactical structures. Fades blink in and out of battle, picking off marines with giant scythes. Finally, the giant Onos is so massive and so tough, that even entire marine squads can't take it down.



Marines wield rifles, shotguns, grenade launchers, pistols, and other weapons. Cluster grenades can clear ventilation shafts of sneaky Skulks, flamethrowers make short work of alien structures and infestation, and boosts dropped by the Commander increase combat effectiveness.

When attacking on foot doesn't cut it, marines can construct hulking Exosuits wielding miniguns and railguns, and equip jetpacks for high speed assaults on alien Hives.

Long Term Development

Natural Selection 2 receives constant updates. This year, 2016, Unknown Worlds continues to develop new features, content, and improvements.

Mod Tools Come Standard

Natural Selection 2 comes with all the tools we used to make the game. All game code is open source. That means you can create, and play, an endless variety of mods. Publish, share, and download mods from the Steam Workshop, and automatically download mods when you join modded games.

Digital Deluxe Edition

Digital Deluxe Edition includes:

• Official Soundtrack - 1 hour of tribal, industrial music composed by David John and Simon Chylinski
  
• Digital Art Book - 40+ pages of art by Cory Strader, including environments, creatures, weapons and more
  
• Exclusive in-game marine model - Exclusive in-game marine model - A new marine model with custom visor and armor plating
  
• Exclusive Wallpapers and Avatars - Unique views of the NS2 universe by Amanda Diaz