Natural Selection 2 Build 268 is now live on Steam! Although it has only been a couple weeks since the release of Build 267, we bring you this new build full of exciting changes and fixes! Build 268 at its core is a balance patch and you can find those adjustments below, these changes are inspired or directly pulled from the popular COMPMOD. 268 also brings more UI enhancements from NS2+ and other general bug fixes, especially those pesky client crashes! We continue to be inspired and driven from the comments and feedback from all of you in the NS2 universe. Thank you so much for your time and help in solving some of the crashing issues too. Be on the lookout for whats next, we have lots of exciting plans and we hope that you will join us for the exciting (onos) ride :) -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 change log below, enjoy! httpv://youtu.be/J9xOMHpOhFg FIXES Fixed bug where commanders would log out firing. Fixed skulks not being able to wallwalk on Clogs. Fixed buildings showing the power icon before dropping even if they didn’t require power. Fixed dropped mine packs not being affected by Bilebomb. Fixed issue where unsocketed, unbuilt or destroyed Power Nodes would give LOS to Marines. Fixed unbuilt/unpowered observatories revealing cysts. Fixed aliens not being revealed properly when using Phantom and being uncloaked. Players own sounds now play at players current position, rather than the future position Graphics options Double and Tripple Buffering are now applied at game start. All grenades now have more accurate collision. Fixed personal resources management at team-join so players don’t get more or less personal resources than they should when they join a team at which they already played. Fixed rounding issues of the personal resources display. Fixed orderParam and certain other network field not having a correct range which caused spam of errors in the log. Fixed cyst and powernodes causing the damage alert even if they were not really attacked. Fixed that changing the skin removed parasite Fixed that the alien buymenu class icons were missing when a translation used different names for the alien classes. Fixed critical network packet filter issues (could be abused to crash any ns2 server or client) Fixed issue with tip videos causing the client to crash. Fixed multithreaded physics not keeping the collision world in sync. May have caused hit-reg issues, especially on first attack. IMPROVEMENTS Commander Marquee selection now works with enemy units if there are no friendlies in the marquee. Game and map loading speed has been increased, especially for non-SSD users Insight health/armor bar has higher contrast between colors to make it easier to see during streams. All marine weapons now reload automatically Alien commanders can now see the energy of their teammates. The Marine commander alert queue (spacebar) now prioritizes player requests over structures being damaged. Marine Buy-Menus (Armory/Prototype Lab) now shows owned items as light grey The minimap now shows unsocketed/blueprint power nodes. Marine weapon displays now flash red when low on ammo. Lerk Bite will play the high damage hitsound to better differentiate from Spikes. Optimized DissolveMixin, removed update routine from occurring during rendering call. Made spectator mode start in overhead mode. Removed the Optimization Message as it didn’t had any usage anymore because texture streaming is enabled for everyone. Made Insight follow players automatically when clicking on their frames at the sides until they die or the frame is clicked again. When cycling modes or using the movement keys in overhead it will clear the autofollow. Spectator/Commander zoom now uses its own keys instead of Next/Previous/Drop weapon. The bindings are in the Commander binds menu. The Commander binds can now be reset individually. Rifles and pistols on the ground no longer display expire bars for Commanders to avoid clutter. Shotguns now show the remaining number of shells using the lights on the side. Aliens can now see the type of egg their teammates are on the scoreboard. Insight now displays when someone loses a lifeform egg. net_stats now show more detailed server performance BALANCE Most of these changes come straight from CompMod! Thanks Dragon, Golden, Grissi, Rantology, Rios and the rest of the CompMod team! Aliens Reduce starting alien personal res to 15 Decreased lifeform costs by 5 (except for Gorge) Adjusted Gorge Tunnel cost to 4 and reduced total HP by 25%. Alien Research changes from CompMod: ‘Ungrouped’ upgrades Researchable on the hive Each hive can research one upgrade at a time, independent of biomass research Biomass Level - Research Cost 1. 2. Charge - 15 3. Metabolize - 20, Bile - 15 4. Leap - 15, Umbra - 20 5. Boneshield - 20, Web - 10 6. Spores - 20 7. Stab - 25 8. Stomp - 25 9. Xenocide - 25 Increased nutrient myst cost to 2 team res. Reduced cyst maturation time from 180 to 120 seconds. Decreased cyst health from 550 to 450. Reduced contamination health from 2000 to 1000. Reduced Spur/Veil/Shell costs from 20 to 15 each. Bonewall scales with biomass (100HP per Biomass level). Reduced Biomass 1 cost from 20 to 15. Reduced Biomass 2 cost from 30 to 20. Increased Shift/Shade/Crag costs from 10 to 13. Increased whip cost from 10 to 13. Removed movement and bite cone bonus from Enzyme. Made mucous a health ‘overheal’ (+15% effective HP, lasts 5 seconds, 5 second cooldown) Increased Regeneration from 4% to 6% (80HP maximum). Skulk Reduced first upgrade time from 5 to 2 seconds (switching upgrades will still take 5 seconds). Fade Changed fade damage type to ‘light structure’ (75 damage base, ¼ damage to armor). Added Metabolize to replace Shadowstep/Vortex. It regenerates energy, when Advanced Metabolize is researched, it also makes the Fade regain a bit of health. Removed speed slowdown penalty for Stab. Onos Added boneshield initial energy cost (10 energy). Reduced damage reduction from 100% to 75%. Improved movement. Marines Reduced Advanced Armory cost from 30 to 20 team res. A reduction in armslab cost from 20 to 15 team res. Commanders can now manually target ARCs. Tweaked Jetpack movement to regain energy slower and move a bit faster. You no longer jump before starting to fly. Reduced Grenade throwing animation time to 1 second. Increased Grenade Launcher personal res cost from 15 to 20. Reduced mine weight. Reduced weapon time on ground from 30 to 25 seconds. Maintain effective health while increasing armor on certain marine structures (because of the Fade damage changes). Phasegates - From 3100HP to 2000HP, 550AP. Observatory - From 1700HP to 700HP, 500AP. Infantry Portal - From 2275HP, 125ap to 1525HP, 500AP. Arms Lab - From 2200HP, 225AP to 1650HP, 500AP. Prototype Lab - From 3200HP to 3000HP, 500AP. Exosuits Increased claw damage from 30 to 50. Increased health 15%. Slight decrease in movement speed. Slight damage increase. Removed slowdown on firing. Removed ability to be beaconed. Removed 60 sec res penalty for entering command chair/hive. An additional Infantry Portal will spawn at 9v9 or greater player count. SDK Editor Fixed issue that made Trigger volumes not reflect their size properly in-game. Fixed props listing preview images not showing full texture resolution LaunchPad Publisher will only allow mod visibility to be Public due to compatibility issues with other options. This does not affect Steam’s visibility settings. MAPS Summit Disabled close spawns. Descent Disabled close spawns. Biodome Spawns are now fixed to be Reception vs Atmospheric Exchange. Docking Removed Terminal vs Departures spawn combination. Tram Fixed power issues in Observation, Repair Room and Logistics Fixed issue where players could get to an inaccessible area in Platform. Veil Closed off mini-vents in East Junction. Widened the RT area in Pipeline and adjusted the starting cysts accordingly. Simplified jumps to get into the Skylights vent from West Junction and Overlook. Fixed Commander building placement exploit in The Dome. Kodiak FPS related fixes in Hangar Bay and Southern Biodome, via improved occlusion geometry.