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Natural Selection Wiki

Date: February 28, 2013

Patch 240


Highlights

  • New map: Descent
  • New Gorge abilities: tunnels and babblers
  • New Exo type: Railgun
Blog Post

Tweaks/Improvements

  • Added
    • Railgun Exosuit now available at Prototype Lab. Explodes things.
    • Gorges may now spawn Babbler eggs, which hatch into Babblers!
    • Gorges may now create Gorge Tunnels
    • Bait Balls – Direct babblers by flinging it at enemies of friendlies
    • New map: Descent
    • New contextual help system, ‘TipVids.’
    • Insight Spectator System Mk 2 – Redesign and interface overhaul.
    • First Person Spectating
    • Damage decals
    • Reflections
    • Refraction effects
    • New alien cloaking effects
    • New main menu background scene
  • Change
    • Disabled wall walking on Command Stations.
    • Added one second cool-down between Gorge structure drops
    • Claw damage increased to 75.
    • Claw range increased by 10%
    • Rifles will now get destroyed when purchasing a new weapon at the armory to prevent a pile of Weapons in big games (manually dropping or picking weapons up is unchanged)
    • Removed foresight from Alien Commander.
    • Increased frequency of alert message when a base power node is under attack.
    • Whips no longer hit multiple targets with their melee attack.
    • Doors are no longer usable.
    • Removed exo backwards speed scalar.
    • Updated personal resource icon in Alien buy menu.
    • Reduced phase gate rate from 0.5 to 0.2 seconds.
    • Exosuit movement speed depends now on weapons weight (minigun heaviest, railgun lightest)
    • Slightly increased Axe range to prevent situations where you could not hit an enemy below you even when crouching.
    • Skulk movement adjustments – Movement code now makes them slightly less erratic when dancing in your sights.
    • Cloaking system is now analog rather than binary – Allows for more nuanced use of cloaking trait
    • Decreased the amount of time it takes for the game to start once both teams have a Commander.
    • Doubled the rate that the “Game will not start until both teams have a Commander” banner message appears on the screen.
    • Enemy players are now damaged while near the enemy Command Structure before the game starts.
    • Bile bomb can now destroy dropped weapons.
    • Reduced Bile bomb single target damage by ~20% (and reduced force from 13 to 11, so shorter effective range)
  • Feature
    • Added ‘-logdir <path>’ command line option to let server admins override the location of log.txt.
    • Added pagination to the mod browser in the dedicated server web admin.
    • Added search capability to the mod page of the dedicated server web admin.
    • Added resource graph in Insight (Press Q)
    • Added commander research bars in Insight, replaces monolithic research block
    • Added player energy/ammunition indicators in Insight
  • Improvement
    • Exos display now the thruster duration / cooldown in their HUD.
    • Added smoke effect for Spike attacks.
    • Added missing minimap icons for shift, shell, spur, veil.
    • Insight text now much more legible
  • Optimization
    • Reduced the number of bits used for network fields.
    • Optimized determination of whether or not Orders should be relevant to a client (improves server performance)
    • Optimized querying the world for entities.
    • Infestation blob coordinates are now saved after being generated once (Thanks Mats!)
    • Sped up the compiling shaders process.
    • Reduced memory usage by compressing animations – also reduces load times.
    • Tweaked texture streaming – reduces load times.

Fixes

  • Fixed bug causing Skulk hitbox and worldmodel to be misaligned on some vertical surfaces (Makes the buggers easier to hit).
  • Fixed bug where emissive only surfaces would not be properly bloomed (caused cloaked Alien structures to be somewhat visible)
  • Fixed issue where enabling double or triple buffering while in fullscreen windowed mode would cause the display to not update
  • Fixed swipe not triggering effects / draining energy when quickly tapping primary attack button.
  • Fixed script error when firing a Rifle that had been previously fired and dropped on the ground.
  • Fixed holo Marine model being visible for a few frames for the already respawned Marine.
  • The unban button now works in the server web interface.
  • Fixed health bars showing up in ready room.
  • Fixed bug where caps lock couldn’t be bound in the input settings.
  • Fixed bug where tapping primary attack key with Skulk bite selected wont deduct energy / trigger sound.
  • Fixed clogs appearing for one frame at world origin.
  • Fixed bug where Marine Commander could select cloaked Alien units.
  • Fixed bug where the “retry” console command would not attempt to reconnect to the last server joined using the “connect” console command.
  • Fixed health/armor not being properly predicted for growing Alien structures.
  • Fixed bug where tech point remains smashed after the Hive got replaced by a Command Station.
  • Fixed camera hitch when crouch jumping as Onos.
  • Fixed sentry battery destruction effects.
  • Fixed unsocketed power nodes not considering LOS properly.
  • Fixed bug where units recloak when Marine who touched them is still in close proximity.
  • Text chat now displays above the “Fade to black” death screen.
  • Fixed Alien structures playing metallic sound when attacked by Skulks.
  • Ghost structures disappear now immediately when killed.
  • Commander no longer triggers a ping during entering a chat message.
  • Fixed Aliens losing abilities when a Hive gets destroyed and they evolve an upgrade without changing life form.
  • Fixed issue where chat text would sometimes be displayed escaped in the web server admin console.
  • Players can now damage each other after the round ends.
  • Changed behavior of Gorge build menu: You no longer need to re-select things to build more of them.
  • Fixed bug where hitting alt-enter would not cause the options menu to be updated based on the current windowed/fullscreen status.
  • Fixed bug where the microphone would be stuck on if the server changed maps while a player was recording.
  • Fixed infestation decal not showing up for Hydras.
  • Fixed bilebomb effect not showing up on MAC model.
  • When a team surrenders, everyone will be notified.
  • Fixed prediction error when jumping in rapid succession.
  • Fixed clogs blocking phase gates.
  • Fixed bug where Aliens could barely see cloaked units when dark vision is enabled.
  • Fixed welder ignoring the deploy animation.
  • Fixed bug where Commanders could drop structures when help mode is enabled.
  • Fixed Marine structures showing Alien blood when hit by flame throwers.
  • Fixed adrenaline / camouflage banner not being displayed.
  • All team members will be notified when someone votes to concede or to eject the Commander.
  • Robotics Factory can’t cancel research.
  • Fixed bug which gave Aliens abilities which are not researched.
  • Fixed Editor bug that would occasionally cause a vertex to be created a large distance away from its intended location.
  • Fixed issue where a change to a shader template file would not necessarily trigger shaders to be rebuilt.
  • Fixed hitch when first encountering Infestation after the shaders have been updated.
  • Fixed issue where dynamic props wouldn’t be animated on the dedicated server due to missing animation graphs.
  • Spectator Mouse Hover no longer misses.
  • Recycled/Refunded structures are no longer added to total team resource gathered.
  • Fixed exploit in server web admin (Thanks confused!)
  • Fixed issue where mods that specified a specific version build was required would not mount the file system in the proper order.
  • Fixed bug causing pre-placed Cysts to sometimes die at the start of the round.
  • Fixed bug where HTTP requests did not follow 301 redirects (fixes the mods list in the web admin)
  • Fixed bug where Aliens were able to evolve both upgrades from one Hive type.
  • Fixed exploit where selecting multiple shifts allowed it to bypass the global cool down for hatch ability.

SDK

  • Moved all processing of input into script.
  • Fixed visualization of the emissive map in the Viewer.
  • Added the ability to make an external cinematic loop in the Cinematic Editor.
  • Improved error reporting when a material as assigned in a model with an absolute path.
  • Increased the timeout for HTTP requests.
  • Fixed issue where defining a class on the server but not on the client would cause crashes and other bugs.
  • Added the ability to materials layered on models to inherit parameter values from the underlying material.
  • Fixed bug where the Ok/Cancel buttons in “Create Mod” window of Launch Pad would not be visible if the Window’s font size was set to large.
  • Added animatable shader parameters for objects in the Cinematic Editor.
  • Added support for vertex colors in .model files.
  • Fixed bug where specifying a float2, float3 or float4 value for a surface shader input would corrupt the value.
  • Added the ability specify float2, float3 and float4 parameters in a .material file.
  • Added support for optional commas in SJSON files.
  • Added “LocalPlayerChanged” engine event when the local player on the Client changes.
  • Added ServerClient:GetSpectatingPlayer() and ServerClient:GetPlayer() methods.
  • Added Client.VoiceRecordStart and Client.VoiceRecordStop functions.

Maps

ns2_descent

  • Introducing Descent

ns2_docking

  • Cafe is now now a random marine spawn again
  • Lockers is now a random spawn for both aliens and marines
  • Redesigned how Cafe connects to Bar
  • Redesigned Central Access so it now connects to cafe
  • Redesigned Back Alley
  • Moved Bar further west to prevent sieging of Lockers
  • Moved Cafe RT to the lower level to prevent LOS issues
  • Some changes to courtyard to fit the Central Access changes
  • Some cosmetic changes to Ball Court
  • Some cosmetic changes to Bar
  • Reflection Probes added

ns2_refinery

  • Made Smelting a marine spawn.
  • Removed route from Smelting to Conduit.
  • Added new route from Smelting to Routing.
  • Bug fixes including building placement and power grid issues.

ns2_summit

  • Improved Atrium RT location (less claustrophobic)
  • Added more cover and flanking options for aliens in Flight Control
  • Added missing lights in Crevice vent

Tools

Editor

  • Added the ability for death triggers to do damage over time instead of instantly killing the entity.
  • Max distance that initial Cyst spawn points can be from the Hive increased by 50%
  • Changed the texture list in the Editor to “and” all of the search terms together by default (old “or” behavior can be reproduced by using ? in front of a search term)
  • Changed the texture list box to allow selection of materials in any directory (not just the materials directory)


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