NS2 Build 185 is now live on Steam!

There have been a lot of bug and balance fixes in this version. Notably, the Lerk and Fade have been re-balanced quite a bit, with the Lerk's abilities changing fundamentally. Now he has high-damage hitscan spikes, along with a "cropduster" type spore trail.

Player movement and networking have been smoothed out quite a bit, resulting from some big improvements Max made.

Build 185 changes

Update:

Features

• Lerk v2.0: Removed sniper ability and projectile spore cloud. Added spore "trail", which keeps the Lerk in combat and is much more powerful.
• Lerk spikes no longer shoot spike projectiles, but are hit-scan. They now do Heavy damage (treat armor like health) and do between 14 and 17 damage, depending on range (closer is better, but medium/long still strong). Also, alt-fire on spikes now fires a cluster of 5 spikes.
• Improved Lerk flight to allow staying in air and shooting downwards. You can now also "airbrake" with shift for more control. (thanks twiliteblue!).
• Added the ability to create Proximity grids from Lua (All yours Matso)
• Updated the code to use the new TargetCache 2.0 (Thanks Matso)
• Added the ability to check if a pathing flag is set for a given point and radius
• Added support to set the output volume for voice chat
• Added the ability to disable specular highlights for a light

Balance

• Update: Fade tuning to fit him more to character (harassment, surgical striker) while making him feel more responsive to use, and less of a tank. Bumped his acceleration while ethereal. Dropped health from 300 to 200. Decreased continuous blink energy cost and added an initial cost so he blinks a bit more intentionally. Altered damage and puncture damage type to make him very effective vs. marines and less against structures. Decreased swipe energy cost and increased swipe ROF to make sure he's never waiting around.
• Improved Crag's umbra to last 12 seconds (up from 8) and increased radius from 5 to 10
• Bile bombs now damage MACs.
• Reduced distress beacon time from 4 to 3 seconds
• Reduced extractor health/armor from 4,200/900 to 4,400/550 (this is the same total HP as the original NS1 level, but I entered it incorrectly...represents -500 less health)
• Lerk is back to his NS1 health/armor levels (125/30, instead of 200/25). I think he had creeped up due to his maneuverability not being good enough and his spikes being slow.
• Increased ARC health/armor by 50% because they are so fragile and can't currently be repaired
• Gorge self-heal is now only 50% effective (ala NS1). Sorry battle Gorge!

Fixes

• Fixed various networking issues related to prediction (this turned out to be a lot of work)
• Fixed erratic movement when players collide with each other
• Changed Shade disorientation to use a scalar value instead of boolean (for shader effect and DSP effects)
• Fixed bug where the amount of the Disorient effect was not proportional do your distance to a Shade
• Fixed an issue where after moving a whip it would no longer block pathing along with leaving a stale obstacle in its old location.
• Fixed an issue where you could be standing next to a structure or a player and if you were not looking at them they would not get sighted.
• Fixed an issue where if you scanned cloaked or camouflaged units they still would not be sighted.
• Fixed an issue where when computing LOS stale entities would be checked for LOS
• Removed noxious desiredPitch/desiredRoll code that was being executed when it shouldn't have been (possibly resulting in mouselook errors)
• Fixed an issue where voice chat would be distorted by shade DSP
• Players can no longer +use things while attacking (fixes problems with looping sounds while opening armory, etc.)
• Lerk spore effects now created client-side (optimization).
• Don't play flinch sounds, particles, sounds etc. more than every second to reduce message spam and improve aesthetics (esp. for rifles vs. structures)
• Added commander-specific res_received sounds
• Fixed bug where specifying that a prop does not casts shadows would not disabled shadows in the Editor
• Fixed bug where cinematics created on level load were not deleted when the level was changed
• Show model of last alien you were when you were dead on game end (also while commanding, evolving, etc.)
• Fixed problem with Embryo not initializing some variables when going to ready room after being killed as an egg
• Added new team-specific distress beacon sounds so respawning marines always hear it positionally when far away. Also added new "mega spawn" sound.
• Removed Shade DSP effects and replaced with looping 2D soundscape to see if that works better.
• Added local looping 2D sound when cloaked or camouflaged
• Fixed an issue where you could not recycle buildings until they had been built
• Fixed an issue with teleporting drifters
• Fixed bug where the first person Skulk bite animation would not play under some circumstances
• Fixed bug causing player to instantly die if they spawned while their spectator camera was in a death trigger
• Fixed case where parts of the alien armor circle GUI were being rendered when they shouldn't while animating
• Fixed bug where prop_dynamic objects would have their physics objects simulated differently on the client and server (caused movement problems in Ventilation on ns2_summit)
• New structures can now be built after recycling a structure without selecting a different structure first (Thanks Matso!)
• Fixed an issue where unbuilt shades would cause the disorient effect to marines
• Fixed an issue where it was possible for unbuilt shades to possible cloak things
• Fixed the teleporting drifters!
• Moved death messages over a bit to the left when player is a commander so they can see them entirely (Thanks twiliteblue!)
• Fixed an issue where the shade would go crazy and try cloaking everything even if something had recently been attacked or uncloaked.
• Fixed bug where going through the "back" of a Phase Gate would make you come out the back of the connected Phase Gate
• Fixed bug causing the Whip to play it's idle sound before being fully built
• Fixed bug causing some death messages to show "#nil" as the killer
• Fixed bug causing the Fade to go into an invalid blink state when switching weapons while blinking
• Fixed an issue where weapons were giving LOS to all players. Players will now set the relevancy of their weapons.
• Spores now do damage to players if their eyes are in the cloud instead of the middle of their body
• Reduced Fade stab (secondary attack) range to be the same as primary (it was way too long at 3 meters).
• Fixed bug that killed just-finished ARC if you tried to build another ARC or MAC before it drove out of the Robotics Factory.

Changes

• Build Collision checking no longer uses tracing unless the structure can be built on a wall, instead it checks the pathing mesh
• Structures now apply a no build flag to the pathing mesh when created.
• Left clicking on the minimap just moves the commander view; before it allowed placing of structures and doing other weird stuff but it was confusing and inconsistent with other RTS games.
• Added the ability to make bots passive (Thanks Matso)
• Spectator camera no longer collides and other improvements
• All alien structures, players, and other creatures now auto-heal
• Disabled the marine/common/hit sound when the flamethrower is giving damage as it is too repetitive
• The Gorge will now rotate up and down while belly sliding according to the angle of the ground

Sounds

• added shade cloak sounds
• New flash-light sound
• Better countdown sound
• Nicer marine footstep sounds for infestation
• Better sounds for joining aliens or marines from ready room
• More sci-fi for armoury open and close sounds
• More snarls and aggression for skulk bite, leap, pain and death sounds
• Simon is awesome
• More of an echolocation feel to the alien vision sounds
• Mixing, including being able to hear when u register a hit from a distance as a marine
• sounds for new lerk abilities
• Shade disorientate now using a sound rather than DSP
• Mixed cloak mode sound and beacon sounds
• Battles now sound more epic: EQ and dynamics adjustments for both sides
• Marines now have a flatline heart monitor sound when they die
• Better sound for entering the hive , receiving res and regenerating as an alien

ns2_summit

• Visual changes to Crevice
• Increased space around Crossroads tech point
• Set Dynamic:False for dynamic props in Ventilation
• Replaced the Tech Point in Marine Expansion (Holoroom) with a res node.
• Extended corridors on marine side.
• Changed lighting in repair room.
• Visual changes to Crevice
• Increased space around Crossroads tech point
• Fixed power point powering Crossroads instead of noname hallway
• Adjusted collision geometry at Marine Start ceiling
• Shortened route to Observation from Marine Start.
• Replaced Marine tunnel section adjacent to Marine Start with offloading area, moved main entrance (route to AS is somewhat longer now).
• Reduced memory footprint by reducing unique number of props.
• Added Simons's optimised and updated sounds.
• Set many props to ignore pathing, should improve loading times.

ns2_tram

• Extended corridors on marine side to create space between rooms.
• Changed lighting theme in repair room.

As always, if you want to get in on the beta, you can pre-order Natural Selection 2 from here.

Now it's back to work!