The latest build for Natural Selection 2 resembles that point when you’re balancing a chair on a single leg on top of another chair, the point when only the gentlest touches can be applied, trying to find that sweet spot.* Unknown Worlds are making very tiny tweaks and changes to get their game to the freestanding chair state (this analogy is becoming unwieldy).
The patch also fixes a great many bugs, including game crashes and the all-important “Fixed bug where vortexed Exosuit can smash eggs.”
Lifted from Steam, here’s the full list of changes for your perusal:
Change
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Reduced extractor death and Spikes tracer effect intensity.
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Distress beacon sound has no longer a distance restriction.
Feature
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Added capturing of dump information from the TechSupport.exe tool if NS2.exe is running.
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Clicking an already selected hot group will cause the view to jump to the units position.
Fix
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Fixed “runtime error” that occurred sometimes on map change.
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Fixed bug where AI units could push each other off of pathable ground.
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Fixed a bug where the microphone is muted until you enter sound options menu.
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Reload sounds stop playing when a player drops a weapon or dies.
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Fixed medpacks being created under tech points.
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Fixed Commander double clicks preventing single click actions from being performed.
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Fixed bug where vortexed Marines / Exos take damage inside Gorge tunnels.
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Fixed bug where distress beacon could teleport Marines back to an already destroyed Command Station.
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Commanders are no longer able to see projectiles from units which are not sighted.
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Fixed bug where vortexed Exosuit can smash eggs.
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Fixed bug where Commanders select/deselect units unintentionally the moment they perform an action (cast enzyme, drop medpack)
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Fixed rookie status drawn in red in the scoreboard.
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Fixed bug where you could switch weapons during building.
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The camera will no longer jitter while waiting to spawn at an Infantry Portal due to players running over the IP.
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Fixed bug where dead players could trigger taunt voice over.
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Fixed resource towers / command structures being slightly offset on the minimap.
Balance
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Increased Infantry Portal cost to 20 (up from 15)
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Reduced nano shield duration to 3 seconds (down from 8)
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Increased nano shield effectiveness to 75% (up from 50%)
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Increased arms lab upgrade costs to 20/30/40 (was 15/25/35)
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Reduced gorge tunnel research cost to 10 (was 30)
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Reduced gorge tunnel cost to 5 (was 10)
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Increased gorge tunnel armor by 100
Improvement
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Added “fps” console command to toggle displaying the framerate on the top left of the screen.
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Improved precision of marquee and Ctrl-Click selection.
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Improved med/ammo pack drop precision.
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Its now easier to give attack / defend orders on moving targets.
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Changed the default player limit on the server if no parameter is specified to 16.
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Steam Ids are now also displayed in the traditional format in the Server console (STEAM_0:1:XXXXXXX)
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Changed the scoreboard font to match the other in-game fonts.
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Added numbers in front of player names on scoreboard to facilitate communication.
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Its now easier to hit with parasite (thanks Matso!)
Optimization
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Low-level shader optimizations.
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Disabled compiler generated buffer security checks.
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Effects inherit now the relevancy from their triggering entities.
Editor
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Fixed bad texture scales when creating faces; texture scale behavior changed: larger scale values mean texture is stretched – should not affect existing maps;
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Added “spawn_selection_override” entity to more directly control how initial spawns are selected.
SDK
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Added Class_Reload(className, networkVars) for easier overriding classes.
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Added loading of entry points for multiple mods (see lua/entry/readme.txt for more info)
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Created simplified sound system that allows sound files to be played without using FMOD projects.
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Client.PlayMusic now requires a the FEV project name as part of the cue name (e.g. “sound/NS2.fev/Main Menu” instead of “Main Menu”)
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ClientUI.lua is now more moddable with exposed functions to add more UI scripts.
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Removed support for TTF fonts (bitmap fonts should be used instead)
Refinery
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Moved Containment hive to a less snipeable position.
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Adjusted cover in Containment in aliens’ favour.
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Added vent from Containment to Containment/Chasm Entrance, and vent from Chasm to Chasm/Turbine entrance to provide more flanking opportunity in the area.
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Added cover at exit of vent over the chasm in Chasm.
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Adjusted Turbine cover to prevent sniping from Conduit entrance.
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Added random spawns for both teams in Flow Control, Smelting, Turbine and Containment, with close spawning prohibited.
Mineshaft
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Rotated Deposit tech point around so it is no longer able to be arced from central drilling
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Modified Repair tech point with better cover and fewer LOS issues
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Modified Cave tech point with more cover for the hive, as well as made the middle path leading into crusher cystable for easier expansion to the resource node.
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Modified Operations tech point for better cover also moved the resource node away from the wall so aliens can move behind it
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Modified Sorting tech point for better cover, also added a stairway on the north side, to make cysting into north tunnels much simpler
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Moved cavern resource node to be centered between the repair and cave tech points
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Moved pilot drill resource node to be centered between repair and operations
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Modified central drilling to have better cover for aliens, moved the southern resource node to the north, on the upper platform, also added a stairway on the southwest side for better accessibility to the gap
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Modified and extended the vent leading from cave to north tunnels
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Added a vent from Deposit to the Gap
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Added more cover for aliens in Crusher
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Modified the minimap to be easier to navigate in places that overlapped or were unclear
Descent
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Temporarily disabled the music in Club due to a bug(should be fixed for the next patch)
*Something we can all relate too, right?