Keep on truckin'. It is time for another update to Natural Selection 2! Even though this build took a little longer than we had hoped (alert: World first!) we are very happy with it. 258 addresses many issues that have been plaguing NS2 play since the release of Reinforced.
First and foremost, our aim has been the reduce the incidence of crashes for users on 32-bit operating systems. Such crashes should be much, much less frequent now - Though we are not declaring total victory yet.
As usual, we will be on the lookout for anything exploding tonight. Despite extensive testing, there is always the chance that something has slipped through. If you encounter something nasty, post it up in the comments.
Here is the full changelog. And if you wondering - No, the pulse grenade did not stop the Onos.
Fixes
Fixed bug allowing Marines to place Mines on Webs
Fixed bug where a Gorge Tunnel exit was usable until the Infestation completely receded
Fixed a script error when the web request for Hive data fails
Fixed the depth test not being properly set in D3D9 on the first rendered frame
Fixed bug where shadows and ambient occlusion effects would be rendered incorrectly after a device reset in D3D9
Fixed bug where Infestation would not be visible after a device reset in D3D9
Fixed bug where going from windowed mode to fullscreen windowed mode and back to windowed mode would result in the loss of the window border
Fixed bug where textures would be lost if the device was reset while the map was loading
Fixed bug where UI textures were loaded into video memory and system memory
The Recycled message will display the name of the current Commander instead of the Commander who originally built the structure being recycled
Fixed bug causing MACs to sometimes not be able to repair a damaged structure
Fixed bug where the Linux client would not work properly if the locale was not en_US
Fixed bug where the "output" console command would crash the game
Fixed bug where updating drivers on OpenGL would not cause the shaders to be recompiled
Fixed hitching and visual artifacts when the menu menu cinematic was first shown
Changed uncompressed animations to be sampled at a lower rate on 32-bit systems without large address space to conserve memory
Fixed bug where textures would load in very slowly if texture streaming was disabled
Fixed Drifters sometimes facing in the wrong direction when growing a structure
Fixed Blink effect being visible to the Marine Commander without LOS to the Fade
Fixed bug where toggling the bloom option on and off would cause graphical corruption in OpenGL
Fixed crash in the sound system during map loading
Additions
Added main menu loading screen (helpful during first run shader compilation)
Descent
Fixed bug with cysting out of fabrication hive
Re-added “club” music and sound trigger(Sound file is still a little buggy, but functional)
Optimizations
Added caching of compiled .effect files (speeds up loading shaders and reduces memory fragmentation during loading)
Reduced overhead when opening files from the file system
Changed sound occlusion to use the visual occlusion geometry for a level rather than the physics data
Removed Server hitch caused by shooting the Shotgun in some cases
Changed D3D11 shaders to compile at the maximum optimization level
Balance
Reduced Mucous Membrane effectiveness by 50%
Reduced whip bombard damage to 250 (down from 400)
Reduced whip bombard damage against marines to 57 (down from 112)
Reduced Catpack research cost to 15 (was 20)
Changes
Added main menu loading screen (helpful during first run shader compilation)
Changed the profile display to not show the current frame unless it is paused (Thanks Asraniel!)
Changed outgoing HTTP requests from the server to use the address that the server was bound to
SDK
Improved model compile times
Fixed the skybox rendering in the Editor
Fixed tools not being visible in the orthographic views of the Editor
Added generation of reflection probes in the Editor
