It has now been three months since Natural Selection 2 v1.0. Since launch, there have been ten updates, and today we present the eleventh! Build 238 is a 'maintenance build.' It is focused on improving what is already in the game, rather than adding lots of new content. We are planning a huge 'content build' for mid/late February, which will contain lots of goodies such as the new map Descent. However, several small features have snuck in! Check out this video for some of the highlights: httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09Q72rJToY8 Games will no longer start until both sides have a commander. This eliminates a common problem in public games, where one team would be thirty seconds or so behind the other. You can still rush by jumping out of the Hive or Command Station the moment the game starts. Shotguns will feel very different in this patch. They have a large number of pellets, each doing less damage than they used to. The original shotgun had an asymmetrical randomised spread, that spread is now symmetrical. This will reduce instances of players feeling like they 'should have' hit and killed a target. You can see the new spread against the wall in the image below:

Here is a full list of changes in the build:

Change

• Shotgun uses now a symmetrical bullet spread pattern.
• reduced grenade launcher damage radius from 8 down to 6.
• reduced spit projectile speed by 12%
• arc menu will now always show both deploy and undeploy button.
• Removed celerity sound and screen effects.
• reduced Gorge spit damage from 40 to 30.
• It is no longer possible to damage anything during the pre-game.

Optimization

• Fixed bug where some objects would be unnecessarily rendered using material techniques that had no effect.
• Reduced the memory usage from keeping level data in memory.
• Reduced the memory usage pathing information.
• Improved Infestation performance on the client (thanks Matso!)
• Improved loading times when vsync is enabled by limiting the loading screen frame rate to 30 FPS.

Feature

• In-game audio device selection.

Fix

• Damage arrows are now more accurate when multiple players are attacked by a Whip at the same time (Thanks to Joop for pointing this out!)
• Fixed bug where request menu was not opening when your team has no Commander.
• Fixed bug where grenades were not dealing full damage on direct hits.
• fixed Whips being able to whack grenades through walls.
• Fixed issue were client side and server side selection status are sometimes out of sync.
• Drifters now uncloak when an enemy unit touch them.
• Fixed bug causing Celerity effects to remain on when the Skulk was walking or standing still in some cases.
• Fixed random number generator issue that caused inconsistencies in the bullet spread between the client and server.
• Fixed "Couldn't open ''" error messages appearing in the log.
• Fixed Gorge build menu not getting immediately cleaned up upon death.
• Fixed bug which allowed more than 3 Sentries to be built next to a Sentry Battery in some cases.
• fixed melee attacks not triggering effects when hitting world geometry.
• Fixed bug where the main menu music would play over the tutorial videos.
• The server will now reload the map if 10 hours have passed and no game is currently being played (Thanks Mats!)
• Fixed bug preventing the MAC from attacking Hives.
• Fixed crash on exit if the rendering thread was still processing a frame during the shutdown process.
• Gorge Bile Bomb will no longer interrupt the Gorge's Celerity speed boost after shooting the bomb.
• Fixed the "speed" console command not affecting player movement.
• Aliens may now evolve new traits if an existing trait is lost due to the upgrade structure being destroyed.
• Fixed bug where alt-tabbing out of the game would cause the Exosuit to become opaque.
• Chat will now display correctly in the dedicated server web interface (Thanks Sherman!)

Improvement

• cyst min range check will now pass when the vertical distance between cysts is too high, to prevent situations were Commanders could sometimes not infest resource nodes.
• selection and hotgroup creation works now without any delays.
• Commanders can now select enemy units.
• increased number of allowed hotgroup to 9.
• hot key icons blink up red if a unit in this group is under attack.
• added shift+click for manipulating selection (add/remove units)
• Cysts now "redeploy" instead of enforcing a minimum placement distance between existing Cysts.
• phase gates now show a connection line between each other on the minimap.
• phase gates show now the destination in their name.

Sdk

• Added support for distortion effects (like refraction) in surface shaders.
• Added Client.GetMusicVolume.

Veil

• Blocked small vents in Topographical
• Added cover to vents in Nanogrid