October is always an exciting time of year for our Natural Selection Development Team, and this year is no exception. 18 years ago a totally unique and amazing new mod for half-life hit the interwebs and for many us, changed our lives. Fast forward to today, and its sequel Natural Selection 2 is celebrating eight years since release. Our Team and dedicated community continue to get games active and going 24hrs a day around the world and today is our next step in supporting all of you into the future. Update 335 is the official release of Hive Skill 3.0 (see our previous blog detailing the changes), our latest update to the backend skill tracking and sorting system …

Community Developer Moultano, the creator of the original HiveSkill rating system that NS2 uses to approximate player skill levels and balance teams when shuffled, has been quietly tinkering and working hard on one of the longest requested features for Natural Selection 2… an expanded HiveSkill rating system that will now include four separate skill ratings! One for the Kharaa, one for the Frontiersman, and one for each of their respective commander roles.

Now, how exactly does this HiveSkill 3.0 system work? Moultano has been kind enough to write up an extensive FAQ about it which you will see below. If you have further questions, you are welcome to join us on our Discord where Moultano and the rest of the …

This is a maintenance patch to fix some issues that cropped up from changes to the Valve back-end as well as our optimizations. Also some additional bug fixes! But best of all, you can now earn your Abyss Lerk skin by playing on METRO. Happy Hunting

Remember all sales of NS2 and DLC directly affect our development budget and allow our team to continue work on NS2.

Changelog

Optimizations

• Minor refactor how most achievements are granted

Fixes

• Fixed issue with dual core CPU users being unable to launch the game
• Fixed issue with Abyss Lerk skin not being awarded after playing on Metro for 6 rounds of 5 minutes each.
• Fix steam item granting failing
• Fix steam-stats not updating in

Eclipse Tower is in ruin after the Kharaa invasion. The battle was brought home in the name of “scientific research,” deemed necessary to protect our future. We thought the battle was over and all were safe, but we were wrong…

The Kharaa have escaped to the streets below Eclipse Tower and are already advancing throughout the district. Reinforcements have been called in as the streets, markets and clubs are evacuated. The war for our human existence rages on. We have to hurry to eliminate the threat; they’ve reached the Metro lines and can quickly spread out across the entire city.

As the fights continue into the tunnels of the Metro, shimmers of blue and white appear in the darkness. A …

332 Changelog

Greetings Citizens!

 While it’s been a while since the B.M.A.C. production came online through the Trans-Gov Federation, we’ve been in the background quietly tinkering away on deep system improvements within the mainframe while aboard this station. We recognize the Kharaa threat is an ever present and increasing one, and because of that the Federation wants you to know that your well being is important to them.

 As such we’ve made things go faster. We’ve oiled up some rusty parts. And we’ve reprogrammed the nanites to not be so painful upon injection. We think we’ve made good progress and are excited to show you some of our work by getting it into your hands for assessment double time. Just …

This latest update brings something new and special to the game. Introducing the B.M.A.C, two exciting new robotic models joining the Marine forces.

The Bipedal-Mobile-Automated-Custodian and Bipedal-Mobile-Automated-Countermeasure are here to help and serve your needs. Play as one of these new marine models with up to 10 different variants for you to choose from. The B.M.A.C. also includes two brand new voices with all new taunts and requests. Community Development Team members Vlaad and Sweets worked very hard with our team over the last couple months developing the models and sounds respectively, and a HUGE shout out to Rune for all the trailer help and going beyond the extra mile. We’ve had so much fun building these into the game …

Welcome back to “Colony Zero,” the forgotten mining facility on the moon Freya IV. Greed and a continued push for dominance brought the TSF to this moon, but what they found while mining deep was something they felt was far more valuable than ore or minerals; little did they know it would start a pandemic reaching across the entire galaxy. 

Our newest official map, ORIGIN, a remake of the NS1 map, holds the answers to the Origins of Kharaa and is now available to play. You can earn the special Abyss Gorge skin after playing five rounds, but hurry as this skin is only available for a limited time! Thank you to pSyk for all his hard work on re-creating …

Update 325 includes balance adjustments, map refinements, bug fixes, gameplay tweaks, and new cosmetics to the Catalyst Pack. A long time veteran of NS2 development has rejoined the team, Fsfod is back and putting all his focus on improving and stabilizing LuaJIT. Fsfod was the original developer that implemented LuaJIT support for NS2. His efforts will ultimately yield a faster and more stable game.

The Machine Gun is getting some needed love this update. The Commander is no longer required to research it separately after upgrading to an Advanced Armory and we have lowered the cost of the Commander weapon drop as well. Additionally, with a lower overall weight and slight increase to the base damage, this is starting to …

Update 324 is the start of something exciting! It’s the catalyst to our new development cycle! Over the last few years we have made changes and fixes to further develop NS2 with the emphasis on helping to stabilize the gameplay and create the best experience possible for every player. Today we start the sale of our limited time DLC the Catalyst Pack! This premium DLC offers the single largest skin pack we have ever released and it also includes future custom skins and items as a thank you for purchasing the DLC now. Sales of this DLC directly affect the budget for our development team and will help us to continue to bring you more exciting updates to the game. …