Build 251 is Now Live on Steam!

Some builds just want to watch the world burn. Build 251 has been in the works for quite some time – Unlike the new heir to the British throne, it did not decide to arrive promptly. A build’s recalcitrance may be measured by Brian‘s quality of life. When Brian is at his post long into the night, making build after build, you know that it’s a tough one.

This is the nature of software development. Sometimes the intricacies, dependencies and complexities bite you in the ass. But today Build 251 is here, and it is glorious. Two particularly exciting new features are the ‘Cystem’  and queued orders. The Cystem is an auto cyst placement system that will chain link cysts to a destination for you.

Natural Selection 2 straddles the border between first person shooter and real time strategy (RTS) game. Most RTS games feature a queued order system, allowing a player to give several orders at once to be carried out in succession. Until Build 251, NS2 lacked such a system. This increased the cognitive and action load on commanders, as they had to actively manage player objectives as soon as objectives were reached. No longer!

The above example is quite simple, and involves just movement waypoints. The system is obviously much more useful when queuing movements with structure construction, attack, and other objectives.

Build 251 features a whole host of other features, fixes, and improvements. For example, shell ejection is back in (see below). There are also some balance changes hidden away in there.

Of course, we know that the only reason you are reading this blog post is for the changelog. So here it is!

Features

Added queued orders (hold shift to queue orders on Drifters, MACs, etc)
Added ‘Cystem’ for placing multiple cysts at once

Balance

Reduced Flamethrower damage by 18%
Reduced Minigun damage by 20%
Reduced Grenade Launcher splash radius by 20%
Reduced Cyst auto build time by 2 seconds
Cysts can no longer be built by Drifters and and only 1 per Hive will auto construct (Gorges can still use heal spray on them)
Reduced Babbler hitbox size to make it fit the actual model size better

Improvements

Explosions now trigger a slight camera shake
Added shell ejection effects to the Rifle, Pistol and Shotgun
Pickups are now prioritized by item cost
Added a link to a player’s Steam profile page on the player list page in the server web admin (Thanks CheesyPeteza
Spectators now have access to the request menu
Cysts can now be placed everywhere and all Cysts in between will be created automatically when the nearest parent is too far away
Added power indicator for Marine Commander when dropping structures
Added subtle view model rotation for wall walking Skulks
Added hidden mode for dedicated server, use the “-hidden” switch while starting the server process to use this feature
Added minimum life time for Grenades before they are allowed to detonate

Fixes

Fixed invisible elements in Commander UI blocking mouse clicks
Fixed bug causing some non-NS2 servers to be listed on the NS2 tab in the server browser
Fixed a script error caused by using Alt+Enter to switch full screen mode while in the main menu
Fixed bug preventing the team resource graph UI from updating properly in spectator mode
Fixed bug causing move forward to not work if it was bound to a mouse button while in free camera spectator mode
Fixed camera tilt for wall walking skulks
Fixed bug where cycling through abilities didn’t work properly for Lerks
Fixed bug where recycling got cancelled on power loss
Fixed Marine Commander being able to drop Infantry Portals or Phase Gates in a way that players could get stuck
Fixed Echo Harvesters sometimes not working when being blocked by a Cyst
Fixed bug where Blinking downwards gives you high amounts of extra speed
Skulk ragdoll no longer appears after using Xenocide
Fixed bug causing the main menu alert message box to appear below the main menu news box
Fixed bug allowing Commander to place certain items outside the map (ammo pack, health pack, weapons, etc)
Fixed Parasite model outline sometimes not working
Fixed bug preventing the help widgets from appearing until the player encounters a Gorge tunnel
Fixed Onos camera animations
Fixed Exos not being affected by Parasite
Fixed Echoed Eggs not being usable
Fixed wall jumping sometimes giving more speed than intended

SDK

Added Server.GetServerHidden() function

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