Natural Selection 2 Build 267 is now live on Steam! This build has been a labor of love from those who have worked on it. The CDT (Community Dev Team) has expanded both in members and scope in this, the latest patch for NS2. It's possibly the biggest patch in months and we're all very excited and proud of it. We hope you enjoy what will hopefully be a smoother and more enjoyable NS2 experience. There's new graphical options, new sound options, improvements to frame timing and notably less hitching. Those with old fashioned mechanical hard drives and even SSDs will notice less hitching and smoother gameplay. If you have friends who have NS2 and not played in a while, now is the perfect time to re-introduce them NS2! Our community only grows stronger as the game continues to be developed. We look forward to seeing everyone play Patch 267 as we forge ahead for the future! -Your Community Dev Team Below you will find the latest entry in It's Super Effective's "Intel Update" series, focused on changes to NS2. You will also find the entire changelog and it's a doozy, so pull out those reading glasses and get comfortable :) httpv://youtu.be/uw1Uhu1Ioa4 FIXES “interp”, “mr” and other server settings are now sent to clients when they join. AI units now move smoothly, uses proper world time when calculating position. Whips will no longer whiff when slapping/bombarding. Whips will no longer wait until the bombard ball has regenerated before slapping close in targets (able to slap about 1 second after flinging ball). Made conditions to grant reload for ClipWeapon more strict to avoid potential problems. (Thanks Dragon!) Smoother sustained fire animation for Shotgun. Fixed bug that stopped Shotguns and Miniguns from shooting through soft targets. Fixed problematic collision on the following props: -refinery_tram_door1.model -refinery_tram_door2.model -docking_loadingdoor_closed.model -docking_loadingdoor_closed_var.model -refinery_gantrycrane.model -biodome_elevator.model -biodome_wallmods_01_corner_in_90_01.model -biodome_wallmods_01_corner_in_90_02.model -refinery_rock_stalagtite_01.model to refinery_rock_stalagtite_09.model -refinery_floodlight_01.model Scoreboard fixed to show the full game length if the game exceeds an hour. Eliminated 2KB bandwidth spike on every spawn and death unnecessary TechTree full sends. Eliminated 90 byte bandwidth spike every second for every player for unnecessary Alien techtree updates. Fixed the “freezebots” command to work with all kind of bots. Fixed draw game detection potentially not detecting draw games. Fixed drifters being able to fake build off-infestation tunnels/hydras/cysts if the commander gave the order. Marine structures on the minimap now update properly when being recycled or powersurged. Fixed removing bots sometimes crashing the server. Marine scan icon on map is now centered and better reflects scan range. Fixed Bonewall not having pre-drop range. Fixed and improved the tutorial. Fixed spawns, using new alien bots, etc. Fixed constant "Initiating welder sub-routine" spam when a MAC auto-welded a structure on infestation. Fixed thirdperson healspray animation not playing if continuing to heal with low energy. Fixed Bilebomb buy menu hover description. Fixed bug where Aliens could climb up structures they shouldn't be able to. Removed badge kill tracking. Fixed Lerk bite having the same icon as Skulk bite. Clogs can no longer be placed over, and/or block Infantry Portals. Fixed exploit that allowed Hydras to shoot through floors. Fixed Prototype Lab not showing “Under Attack” alerts. Fixed hive data being sent even when cheats were enabled. Clicking details button without a server selected won't show the window anymore. Fixed black death screen hiding voice chat pop-ups. Failure to join a server will return you to the server browser now. Fixed phase sound not playing when a player enters a phase gate and only playing at the other side. Fixed ghost guide circle being visible if a structure doesn't specify a range for the circle. Fixed leap view animation not playing if you leap after jumping into the air. Fixed building structures in doors. Grenades mines and jetpacks are now affected by darwinmode. Fixed being able to nanoshield ghost power nodes. Fixed being able to power surge unbuilt structures. Improved Commander panel buttons for echoing. Drifters eggs are now affected by autobuild. Fixed stuck issue with echoed eggs on uneven surfaces. Fix Exos not taking damage when standing in death_triggers with damage over time. Re-added Training link to in-game menu now that Organized Play link was removed. Fixed material sounds not being correct for the material surface, thin metal textures not being thin metal effects. Added custom move collision box for ARCS to prevent player from bouncing around on top of them and getting stuck/swallowed. Added docking_showerwalls_str_shiny and end_shiny. Fixed "Container" and "Temperature" typos on Descent crates. Fixed some structures not playing the right flinch animation corresponding the the damage type. Fixed Elite Assault left hand not having a TSF logo on the view model. Fixed the left thumb and middle finger for Female Axe view model. Removed some unused animations. Added a smoother collision box for Spurs so you don't bounce around when on top of them. Fixed several problems with female viewmodel animations. Improved Female black armor hands view model texture. (Thanks Zavaro!) Fixed male black armor shoulder patches being reversed. Fixed Contamination and Infestation icons being the same. Improved quality of range textures for commanders. Fixed sentry batteries playing the powered down animation even though it was powered. Fixed outdated loading screens. Removed Level 1 text from Arms lab holo model. Fixed TSA text on Arms lab holo model, shotgun ammo drop, side of pistol, and a poster in Docking. Fixed TSA on Flamethrower model and Catalyst Pack models. (Thanks Ulmont!) Fixed issue where Marine bots ignored Gorges. IMPROVEMENTS Added texture management choice in graphics options; allows the (stall-free) NS2 texture manager to load/unload textures rather than the (stall-full) video drivers. Console command “fps” now has bad-frame tracker; type fps for more info. Console command “r_stats” now tracks the texture manager workload. Added option to turn on multi-threaded physics to help with fps in entity-rich environments - EXPERIMENTAL, disabled by default. Disabled for Linux (causes crashing). Relevancy configuration added, avoids entities disappearing from view in corner when in overhead view (Commander/Spectator). Relevancy used to smooth abrupt location transitions (PG/GorgeTunnel/Beacon). Relevancy distance will start small and expand over 0.6 seconds to avoid CreateEntity hitching. MACs and Arcs will be created and roll out from inside the Robotics factory. MACs will now avoid the face of a player when welding them or when following them. MACs following or guarding units will do side-tasks if their main don’t need them and are close enough. Added as many UTF8 characters as possible to all fonts. This makes you able to chat in cyrillic. Improved look of fonts to make them easier to read ingame. Added the ability to translate the entire Game UI (Main Menu, Spectator UI, Loading Screen and more). Enabled weapon specific ammo models for dropped weapons. Added slight impulse to dropped weapons. Made location text for marines left aligned so long location names can fit in the UI. Rookie names will now show green on the map for teammates Scoreboard will now show the previous games length until a new game begins instead of 0:00. When a structure bleeds out the kill feed will show the killer as whoever hit it last. Marine Commander UI now shows the number of Marines currently respawning. Integrated ‘Ready Room Special’ mod allowing skulks to leap, fades to blink, and exos and eggs to self-destruct. Lerks will now see damage numbers for the poison bite’s damage over time. Dropped guns’ outlines are now different colors (green for Shotgun, yellow for Flamethrower, purple for GL). Catpacked marines will show with a purple outline to commanders and to spectators. Mines will now show an outline to spectators (blue or yellow depending on if it has been parasited). Jetpacks now show up on the scoreboard. (Thanks Wyzcrak!) Passed votes now take effect immediately instead of running down the timer. The kill feed now highlights your enemy player kills. It also scales with resolution now. The Infantry Portal now shows the progress and name of spawning players. Alien players will be able to see the progress of gestating teammates and what type of egg it is (if not a skulk egg). The armory and infantry portal arms don’t block bullets anymore. Added draw game splash screens and made draw games count as a score for both teams in Insight. Added hit sound feedback for server-confirmed hits, volume slider is in the Sound options. It will play lower pitched sounds based on railgun charge, shotgun accuracy, damage done with a GL grenade, and number of players hit by a xenocide. Players in ready room will now also see the end-game victory splash. Performance at the server browser now shows the average server tick rate instead of the current. Added player skill system based on moultano’s proposal Added a warning in rookie mode when you try to join servers with more than 24 player slots. Changed PGs and Tunnels to always show the destination name. Changed PGs and Tunnels to put the location name in the hint message when looking directly at it. Added a hint message for Gorge Tunnels. Added display of owner's name to gorge tunnels when looking directly at it. Made Grenade Launcher use its own icon for the inventory/buy menu instead of the grenade. Kill feed still retains the grenade icon. Items that disappear after some time on the ground now display an expiration bar for all Marine players (including the Marine Commander). Improved Quick Join function now taking in account players skill, rookie friendly mode, favorites, performance, gamemode, player count and reserved slots. Replaced “Organized Play” with “Quick Join” in the Main Menu. Added bonewall icon to map. Replaced the skill bar in the server browser with an icon that represents the average skill in the server compared to your own ability. ^^: The server has mostly players better than you. ^ : The server has some players better than you. = : The server has a skill level similar to yours. v : The server has some players weaker than you. vv : The server has mostly players weaker than you. Joining a server like this can ruin the fun of all players currently playing there, so try not to join these. Skulk bite decal now looks like a bite not a gash. Power Surge selection will now act like Nanoshield for Commander, nearest entity to click will be used. When using commander hotkeys, viewport will only move if do the second tap within 0.5 seconds of the first keypress. Added previous location bind for commander which teleports you to your previous location before moving to an alert/hotkey. Mature structures are now prioritized over built structures, and built structures are now prioritized over non-built structures when echoing. A structure's current order is now cleared after echoing. Grenades mines and jetpacks are now affected by darwinmode. Added a never show again checkbox for the optimize window. Cheat command improvements: -Respawn cheat commands always spawn the player with their previous equipment/lifeform and upgrades in first person view. It's also no longer needed to type "switch" to go between teams, you can -type "skulk" as a marine and it will switch you automatically. -New cheat command "respawn" that spawns you as your last class, with your last equipment, at your last position where you died. Use "respawn_clear" to clear all the remembered settings. -New cheat command "jetpack" that makes you respawn as a jetpack marine. -You can now use precise amounts for “pres” and “tres” (ie. “pres 40” will give you 40 personal res). FEATURES sv_spawnteams , command to force teams to certain spawns on a map. Added idle animations for first person Marine weapons. Plays every 10 seconds after being idle. Players can now taunt in the Ready Room. Removed cheat requirement for debugspeed and made it more functionally pretty. Added locateorigin command to display origin of a map. Added overhead zoom. Next/Previous weapon to zoom, Drop weapon key to reset zoom. Works for Commanders and Spectators. Clicking a badge on the scoreboard will now show the name of the badge. Added console command chatwrapamount to change chat wrapping cutoff amount. TRANSLATIONS Fully done: -German (Ghoul) -Spanish (Mendasp) -French (Pelargir & Explosif.be) -Russian (Well.Ru) Still work in progress: -Czech, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, Portuguese Want to help in translating ns2? Visit http://translate.unknownworlds.com/ SERVER You can now enable alltalk while the game hasn’t started. -Server config value “pregamealltalk”. Default is false. -Server admin command "sv_pregamealltalk []" to change config value (if no argument is given it acts as a toggle). The server config will not automatically be expanded by new config values and old ones not used anymore will be removed. By default the server will use now always the latest consistency check table. If you prefer to use your own ConsistencyCheckConfig.json please change the “use_own_consistency_config” server config value (default: false) to true. REDUCED HITCHING: The texture manager will avoid interfering with the render thread when streaming textures (slower texture load, less hitching). The texture manager now ensures that memory-mapped textures are loaded into memory before handing them over the the graphics driver. Fonts and materials are now fully precached. Cinematics now precache all of their contents (models, textures, materials, sounds). SOUNDS Female taunts are now random no repeat. Reinforced taunt “Kill em’ all, it’s the only way to be sure” is now much more likely to play. Reduced volume of power node sounds by 2 db. Fixed really quiet Onos and Fade taunts. Fixed wound sounds for aliens and marines to play max of 2 sounds at once from 1, and increased priority to prevent them from sometimes not playing. Fixed Fade blink and Sentry fire sound not looping. Fixed Phase Gate teleport and teleport trigger sounds not playing on both entrance and exit. Fixed Lerk idle sound to have a fade in time to prevent it from playing when it shouldn’t (like fast turns). Overhauled material sounds. You will now hear more sounds when you attack non-players. MAPS Summit Fixed stuck issue between Pipe Junction and Data Core. Commander view cleanup Veil Fixed holes in geometry around Nanogrid. Added Gorge Tunnel placements (elevator in Overlook, corridor between Dome and C12). Commander view cleanup. Kodiak FPS boost in Upper/Lower Rapids, All Biospheres, Hydroponics. Reduced "plant" prop count by around 20%. Removed Trees (1 in each area). Added new rock outcropping to the non RT side of the lower rapids bridge + occlusion geo. External lights brightness upped to 5 (was 2.5). Additional env_lights added to N and C biosphere. Added a bridge cover in C biosphere. Improved minimap around C to S biodome cave connection. river under U/L rapids is assigned to appear as a "vent". All plants in the biodomes are now cmdr invisible. Changes to Southern Biodome / Loading to make arcing a little bit harder. Fixed Hole in Upper falls near entrance to observation. Fixed Occlusion issue in Observation. Fixed collision on rock props / removed some props and upped the brightness slightly in water production. Fixed reflections in the RR. Improved Occlusion geo in Hydroponcs + Optimised the lighting further. Tram Fixed MACs being unable to build the Power Node in South Tunnels. You can now drop Gorge Tunnels in the Elevator in Elevator Transfer. Adjusted initial cysting in Hive rooms. Fixed power issue in Hub. Fixed grenades not colliding with the train tracks. Fixed gorge tunnels not being placeable behind the server racks in Server Room. Smoothed out player movement in Warehouse. Fixed buildings falling through the Ore Processing floor when dropping them. Fixed stuck issue in the ceiling between Logistics and Repair Room. Docking Fixed reflections. Fixed greybox texture in Terminal. Tunnels can be now be placed on the lower level of Generator. Fixed a glass prop not being hidden from commander invisible. Fixed hole above door near Terminal. Removed Cafeteria/Locker Rooms close spawns. Fixed z-fighting textures near Bar. Fixed small hole above door in Docking near Terminal. Eclipse Added tunnel_allowed geometry under the laser in Keyhole to allow for tunnel placement off navmesh Mineshaft Fixed reflections being too high causing graphical errors. Added tunnel_allowed spots to mineshaft above the walkway in Gap leading to Central Drilling and the near the broken walkway in Cave. Fix negative light in Pilot Drill causing visual bugs. Fixed exploit that allowed you to get outside of the map in Cave as a Lerk. Refinery Added pre-defined spawn points for Marines in Smelting and Turbine. Fixed a stuck spot in Transit. Fixed power location entities in Flow Control and Exchange. Cosmetic fixes. Descent Replaced some Docking and Refinery glass with shiny Biodome glass. Made the repair drone outside Satellite Relay commander invisible. Fixed pathing_settings console spam. Fixed the pathing from being places it shouldn’t. Removed some props from commander view. SDK Death triggers can now be team specific. Add surface print for the trace command. Massively cleaned up editor_setup.xml. Added ability to specify if ARC factories start upgraded in the Editor. Reverb billboards now have their own icon. spawn_select_override entities now are a different colored cube in the Editor. Added a bounding box to decal entities that is visible even when not selected to make them easier to work with. Added Clog and Contamination as placeable entities. Updated Editor Manual.pdf. Hid fog control entities, tech_point_hole and parent entities that should not be placeable or visible from the entity list. Fixed reflections sometimes including dev textures when they shouldn’t. Added 'ReflectionsInvisible' layer exception that makes anything in this layer be 'invisible' when reflections are built. Fixed builder_setup having a line that would make overviews not generate. Fixed builder_setup not generating soundinfo files. Viewer AnimationGraph editor now supports deleting associations. AnimationGraph editor now usable in decimal-comma locales (always uses decimal dot for display and editing). Added help button to AnimationGraph editor. LaunchPad Added support for specifying a Build Version in the mod settings. It locks the mod to an specific NS2 Build. Fixed mod template to only create files when checkbox is ticked. Changed default mod visibility Public. PerfAnalyser Added subtraction mode to performance logs view. API / Engine Console now supports pasting text. Enabled Network profiling support. Enabled hotloading of game files. Use with caution, see ns2/lua/Hotloading.lua for details. Fixed issue where the bandwidth rate limiter would unnecessarily delay packets. (Thanks Max!) Fixed typo in the r_stats output. (Thanks Max!) Fixed AnimationGraphState:GetCurrentAnimation not initializing the result if the layer index was invalid and no longer allocates a GC object on every call. Added OnGetMapBlipInfo to the MapBlipMixin. Fixed that Player:GetClient() often returned nil. NS2GameRules:CheckGameEnd now only checks PlayingTeam:GetHasTeamLost. Any logic in PlayingTeam:GetHasTeamWon should be inverted and merged into the opposite team’s GetHasTeamLost. Added string Shared.GetSettingsVariable( string variable ) returning the given networked settings variable ( i.e. Shared.GetSettingsVariable(“mr”) = “30.000000” ) Made some Utility.lua functions available for all VMs via lua/UtilityShared.lua Added cache tables for important GUI assets.See lua/GUIAssets.lua for more details Congratulations, you have successfully read the entire changelog! Now go play 267 :P