The latest patch for the Natural Selection 2 Beta is now available on Steam! It took quite a bit longer to get the new alien "cysts" working, but we're pretty happy with them right now.

If you have pre-ordered the game it should automatically update on Steam. If you would like to pre-order and get instant access to the beta, you can still do so here.

Build 180 features

• Added new alien "cysts" which grow and manage the infestation. Gorges and the Alien commander create these in a connected network. Cysts can be killed by regular marine weapons. Cutting a cyst off from being connected to a hive will mean that it starts taking damage. Once dead, the infestation under it shrinks. Pustules will be lit when connected and grey when not. Removed ability for Gorges to create infestation with spray.
• Marines now drop their weapons on death now (and they can be picked up)
• Reworked voice chat (improves quality, allows multiple speakers, etc.)
• A speaker icon appears next to a player's name on the scoreboard when they are speaking. The speaker icon is now the color of the player speaking on the HUD and scoreboard.
• Added ability to mute players and UI to control who is muted
• Added kill stats
• Added display of phase gate destination on reticle text (thanks slowJusko!)
• Initial version of Skulk air knockback and stun with Rifle melee
• Added the ability for the Fade to crouch

Balance

• Reduced Robotics Factory build time from 40 to 30 because very boring as marine
• Players are slowed somewhat when they take damage (not gas or flame damage). This is an experimental change, please be sure to let us know what you think!
• Increased marine power point repair rate from 100/sec to 150/sec
• Reduced medpack cost from 2 to 1 to help address marine comm running out of res problems
• Mature versions of alien structures now require two hives
• Bilebomb now requires a mature whip
• Armory now uses proper advanced armory module and weapons module merged together
• ARCs are now treated as structures when dealing damage (Bilebomb, Structural, Biological)
• Decreased lerk spike speed
• Lerk changes: Changed lerk spike damage type from Normal to Light (reduced vs. armor). Increased max damage of spikes from 20 to 30 (at point-blank range). Decreased min damage of spikes from 10 to 8 (at distance). Decreased max range of spores from infinity to 10 meters. These changes should make him a more deadly "finisher" of human targets and in combat more
• Increased shotgun damage up close (20/bullet instead of 18) but have it fall off to 1 at distance 20 (used to be 14)
• Slightly randomize fire to hit time so ARCs don't all fire at the same time (+/- 1 sec)
• Differentiating Fade from Skulk: Reduced blink energy cost from 50/sec to 45/sec. Swipe does more damage, has a slower rate of fire and higher energy usage.
• Changed medpacks to only give health back, not armor (like NS1)
• ARCs and MACs now cost team resources
• Lowered MAC cost from 10 to 5
• Whips do structural damage instead of light damage (2x vs. structures instead of 1/2)
• The armory no longer waits until you're at full health before giving you ammo
• A player waiting to respawn at an Infantry Portal that is recycled is now put back into the team respawn queue so they don't remain in respawn limbo forever
• Decreased GL cost from 30 to 20
• Added ability for marines to +use each other to weld their armor
• Changed marine max speed according to how much they're carrying and what weapon is deployed. Vanilla marine speed is the same. Using heavier weapons will be a little slower and holding less or using lighter weapons will make you a little faster.
• Marines get 1 point for fully welding a marine
• Display health and armor percentages on reticle text when not full
• Changed minimum LOS sighting distance from 8 to 1.5 (just big enough to see skulks munching on your extractors or skulks just about to attack a marine)
• Doors, Eggs and PowerPoints no longer give LOS

Bug fixes and improvements

• Shotgun idle animation is faster and doesn't block the screen as much
• Skulk mouth doesn't close as far so view isn't obscured as much
• Fixed Gorge strafe-jumping exploit (hehe)
• Fixed bug where ARCs didn't need LOS to hit targets or to keep hitting targets
• Disabling multithreading for model blending (causes hitches)
• Refactoring of movement and camera code for easier testing and better mod support
• Adjusted Gorge size so he can fit inside vents
• Fixed blip positions on minimap
• Fixed bug where networked Vec3 variables would not be returned by reference (which prevented them from being modified by functions like Normalize)
• Fixed bug where the rifle would not stop looping if a player was killed while firing
• Setup the "ents" console command to work on the dedicated server
• Changed minimap alerts to use network messages instead of console commands (hopefully fixes issue with alien alert getting stuck on the screen)
• Lerks are easier to control now (no upward movement when holding in a direction)
• Fixed case where GUIMinimap:ShowMap() was causing the game to slow down
• Bilebomb is the bomb (updated bile bomb effects)
• Reverting power node disabled color back to full red because everyone likes it more
• Fixed bug where you get 25 personal resources every time you join team (abusable). Now you only get your starting resources the first time you join a game.
• Fixed bug causing Skulk bite on non-players to not prioritize attacks properly (now easier to attack power nodes on summit for example, Thanks Matso!)
• Altered the "use" tracing to make building infantry portals easier
• Fixed script error when ejecting commanders
• Fixed bug where evolving alien upgrades restored all your health and armor
• Added ability for research (addon tech) to be only researchable at specific structures (upgraded Whips, etc.)
• Added string encoding so single and double quotes work in chat and fixed some sizing issues (Thanks Marc!)
• Added Commander Arms Lab icon (thanks Hugh!)
• Fixed an issue where the teamNumber was not getting set when replacing a player thus preventing spectators from seeing entities.
• New skulk bite animation (bite4)
• Crag hive becomes a Crag hive when the Crag is created, not when it finishes building
• Added new crosshair images and a custom crosshair for SpitSpray (Thanks Harrison McCabe!)
• Fixed problem where build validity didn't check the tech tree (resulting in pre-ordered Drifters being able to build upgrade structures you shouldn't be able to)
• Alien buy menu improvements
• Added JSONP support and fixed content types for stats pages
• Added start of localization support
• Fixed an issue where the ARC would get stuck in deployed mode and become useless if you happen to click the undeploy button while it was targeting.
• Added lights to scan effect (thanks, community!)
• Fixed bug where period on the number pad couldn't be bound
• Fixed potential "ghost player" on the scoreboard if the player entity no longer existed for a client when they disconnected
• Added new animation graph system (not used yet, but will be basis of new animation tool and system)
• EQed many in-game sounds for consistency
• Fixed bug where you couldn't connect to a server bound to a non-standard port through the main menu
• Increased minimap size a bit
• Tweaks to grenade launcher fire and Gorge sounds
• Fixed bug where messages could be sent to players before they were fully connected (fixes black screen problem)
• Turned off camera collision when spectating
• Updated the Steam API to the latest version
• Disabled marine taunting as we don't have anims for it

ns2_summit changes

• Reduced amount and size of noname locations (always powered hallways)
• Added locations "Summit Reception" and "Pipe Junction" (both always powered)
• Increased size of corridor in Pipe Junction leading from Crossroads to Ventilation
• Reduced depth of the pit and removed one of its two stairs in Marine Start, thus easier building placement and navigation
• Rebuild Ventilation, improved geometry, increased size, more space to walk on, added pipes
• Added more GroundWaypoints for Arc (sorry for poor placement, Andrew!)
• Added summit_support models (Thanks, Bill!)
• Removed more geometry/props from commander view
• Removed part of the railings in Alien Start to improve navigation (only catwalk so far)
• Increased size of Marine Start, Alien Start and Surface Access slightly
• Moved Pipe Junction slightly
• Rebuild catwalk area in Crossroads next to Pipe Junction
• Added route with weldable door from Marine Start/Ventilation to that catwalk area in Crossroads
• Renamed location Generator to Reactor (more to come!)
• Improved performance in Crossroads
• Reduced culling issues slightly
• Adressed some annotations
• Fixed holes in Crevice
• Added debris to the broken catwalk in Crossroads
• Added reactor model and changed visuals in location Reactor

We have some big improvements coming in 181 that we're really looking forward to. In the meantime, I hope you guys have a blast with 180! It's quite a change. :)

You can always keep up to date with what we're working on for the next patch with our real-time progress tracker and don't forget to follow our Twitter account.