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State of Development: May 2013

Posted by 11 years ago

Following on from the March and April entries, it is time to update Planet Earth on what is going on with Natural Selection 2. This is a retrospective look at development in May. To keep the length under control, (April’s entry was a bit overboard!) this post will stick to three topics: Environments, Technical, and Game. Let’s start with Biodome!

Environments

Michael, (‘Olmy’) has been cranking on Biodome. The map is striking, thanks to its new art set and ‘flora’ focus. The accompanying images show some of the stages environments go through, from idea (1, above), to rough 3d layouts (2, below), to texturing, lighting, detailing and prop placement (3, two below).

Biodome will be an absolute blast, but …

Natural Selection 2 Build 244 Live on Steam!

Posted by 11 years ago

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:…

Natural Selection 2 Build 244: ‘Electric’ Live on Steam

Posted by 11 years ago

On February 28th, Natural Selection 2 Build 240: ‘Gorgeous’ was released. This free DLC added a boatload of new stuff to the game. Unknown Worlds is going to continue working on updates like Gorgeous, to consistently improve your Natural Selection 2 experience. Today, the second DLC update was released – Build 244: ‘Electric.’

Electric follows in the footsteps of Gorgeous, adding new content and improving on what is in the game already. For example, the new Stun Gun allows you to disable your fellow marines when they piss you off. The new Gardening system will allow those seeking a more relaxed gaming experience to enjoy Natural Selection 2.

Balance is a particular focus for Electric: We have carefully listened to …

Is Natural Selection 2 Balanced?

Posted by 11 years ago

Balance. If there is one topic that can fray tempers, depress developers, and cause forum mods to tear their hair out then balance is it. What is the state of Natural Selection 2 balance? Are the aliens over powered? Does Unknown Worlds have any idea what they are doing? Do they even read my balance posts!?

The answer is: It depends on how you define ‘balance’!

No, this is not a cop out. In this post, we will examine Natural Selection 2’s balance with two equally valid definitions, and see what conclusions we can draw. The first one is probability of victory.

Probability of Victory

This is the sledgehammer definition of ‘balance.’ In a game of football, tennis, rugby, or …