Aww yeah, it's patch day! Natural Selection 2 Build 244 is out in the wild and ready for you to play. It was a doozy to get out the door, scheduled for Thursday PDT but sneaking out Friday afternoon PDT instead. This is post-launch update number 17 for NS2! Here is a changelog highlights video: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrFkNxMy3Q Lots of stuff changed in Build 244. Mineshaft and Refinery received lots of love, Andi made balance tweaks, Dushan changed the way the Spark Editor works, and Brian fixed a bug. The changes to Mineshaft and Refinery have made several tech points much more viable, and eliminated long standing indisyncricies of fights in certain rooms. For example, check out the changes to Operations:

Here is a full playtest from the day of release: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxbt3yy2zIw And to finish off, here is the big list. The changelog. The thing you have been waiting for. Dissect, discuss, do with it what you will... And enjoy Build 244! Change Reduced extractor death and Spikes tracer effect intensity. Distress beacon sound has no longer a distance restriction. Feature Added capturing of dump information from the TechSupport.exe tool if NS2.exe is running. Clicking an already selected hot group will cause the view to jump to the units position. Fix Fixed "runtime error" that occurred sometimes on map change. Fixed bug where AI units could push each other off of pathable ground. Fixed a bug where the microphone is muted until you enter sound options menu. Reload sounds stop playing when a player drops a weapon or dies. Fixed medpacks being created under tech points. Fixed Commander double clicks preventing single click actions from being performed. Fixed bug where vortexed Marines / Exos take damage inside Gorge tunnels. Fixed bug where distress beacon could teleport Marines back to an already destroyed Command Station. Commanders are no longer able to see projectiles from units which are not sighted. Fixed bug where vortexed Exosuit can smash eggs. Fixed bug where Commanders select/deselect units unintentionally the moment they perform an action (cast enzyme, drop medpack) Fixed rookie status drawn in red in the scoreboard. Fixed bug where you could switch weapons during building. The camera will no longer jitter while waiting to spawn at an Infantry Portal due to players running over the IP. Fixed bug where dead players could trigger taunt voice over. Fixed resource towers / command structures being slightly offset on the minimap. Balance Increased Infantry Portal cost to 20 (up from 15) Reduced nano shield duration to 3 seconds (down from 8) Increased nano shield effectiveness to 75% (up from 50%) Increased arms lab upgrade costs to 20/30/40 (was 15/25/35) Reduced gorge tunnel research cost to 10 (was 30) Reduced gorge tunnel cost to 5 (was 10) Increased gorge tunnel armor by 100 Improvement Added "fps" console command to toggle displaying the framerate on the top left of the screen. Improved precision of marquee and Ctrl-Click selection. Improved med/ammo pack drop precision. Its now easier to give attack / defend orders on moving targets. Changed the default player limit on the server if no parameter is specified to 16. Steam Ids are now also displayed in the traditional format in the Server console (STEAM_0:1:XXXXXXX) Changed the scoreboard font to match the other in-game fonts. Added numbers in front of player names on scoreboard to facilitate communication. Its now easier to hit with parasite (thanks Matso!) Optimization Low-level shader optimizations. Disabled compiler generated buffer security checks. Effects inherit now the relevancy from their triggering entities. Editor Fixed bad texture scales when creating faces; texture scale behavior changed: larger scale values mean texture is stretched - should not affect existing maps; Added "spawn_selection_override" entity to more directly control how initial spawns are selected. SDK Added Class_Reload(className, networkVars) for easier overriding classes. Added loading of entry points for multiple mods (see lua/entry/readme.txt for more info) Created simplified sound system that allows sound files to be played without using FMOD projects. Client.PlayMusic now requires a the FEV project name as part of the cue name (e.g. "sound/NS2.fev/Main Menu" instead of "Main Menu") ClientUI.lua is now more moddable with exposed functions to add more UI scripts. Removed support for TTF fonts (bitmap fonts should be used instead) Refinery Moved Containment hive to a less snipeable position. Adjusted cover in Containment in aliens' favour. Added vent from Containment to Containment/Chasm Entrance, and vent from Chasm to Chasm/Turbine entrance to provide more flanking opportunity in the area. Added cover at exit of vent over the chasm in Chasm. Adjusted Turbine cover to prevent sniping from Conduit entrance. Added random spawns for both teams in Flow Control, Smelting, Turbine and Containment, with close spawning prohibited. Mineshaft Rotated Deposit tech point around so it is no longer able to be arced from central drilling Modified Repair tech point with better cover and fewer LOS issues Modified Cave tech point with more cover for the hive, as well as made the middle path leading into crusher cystable for easier expansion to the resource node. Modified Operations tech point for better cover also moved the resource node away from the wall so aliens can move behind it Modified Sorting tech point for better cover, also added a stairway on the north side, to make cysting into north tunnels much simpler Moved cavern resource node to be centered between the repair and cave tech points Moved pilot drill resource node to be centered between repair and operations Modified central drilling to have better cover for aliens, moved the southern resource node to the north, on the upper platform, also added a stairway on the southwest side for better accessibility to the gap Modified and extended the vent leading from cave to north tunnels Added a vent from Deposit to the Gap Added more cover for aliens in Crusher Modified the minimap to be easier to navigate in places that overlapped or were unclear Descent Temporarily disabled the music in Club due to a bug(should be fixed for the next patch)