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UPDATE 331 - B.M.A.C. Reporting for Duty!


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 and hope that you’ll enjoy them too.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The rest of the patch has some nice new UI updates and other tweaks. We aren’t stopping here and have some very exciting things to come with our December update, so stay tuned!

Check out the full changelog below to see all the goodies contained within.

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

Changelog


Gameplay
  • Shotgun

Added back a damage falloff (0-25% damage reduction from 6m to 12m)

Optimizations
  • Improved application start up time and behavior.
  • Resolved GUIView:Load related frame time hitch when picking up a weapon
  • Drastically reduced the amount of frame time hitching caused by the help screen when dropping or picking up a weapon.
  • Improved memory management of webviews
Tweaks / Improvements
  • Added 10 new Marine full conversion skins called B.M.A.C
    - Skins come with new models, voiceovers, sounds and effects.
    (A very special thanks goes to Zavaro and voice actor Carl McGahan for your voices!)
    - They come in 3 different DLC price tiers – buy yours today and support continued NS2 development!
  • Added new team info HUD bar


Main Menu
  • Limited frame rate to 60 frames per second in the menu to improve background art asset preloading and reduce GPU usage.
  • Added Changelog and News windows
  • Added menu button for our official Discord server (next to the Wiki button)
  • Added Quit menu so you can choose between disconnecting, moving into the ready room or closing the game
  • Customize Menu
    - Added Store button
    - You can now cycle forwards and backwards through the available skins by using Left or Right mouse buttons
  • Server Browser
    - Made the refresh button more visible – you really can’t miss it now.
    - Added back a separate column for the map names
  • Improved alt tabbing and application window resize and focus behavior. Fixed various issues related to changing resolution, window mode or switching to another application. Basically it feels snappy and responsive now. (Thanks Salads!)
  • Fixed the loading background’s aspect ratio to fill the screen at all ratios (Thanks Salads)
  • Added a detection for running in Wine
  • Disabled out of process crash handler when running in Wine
Fixes
  • Fixed supply costs for Armories, Observatories and Sentry Batteries
  • Fixed that commanders could build additional structures even when the supply limit was reached by preselecting given structures before reaching the limit.
  • Fixed a client script error that occurred when a veteran tried to join a team at a bootcamp server
  • Fixed that ARCs didn’t take any corrosive damage by Infestation after their first deployment
  • Fixed that pregame throwables stutter when thrown
  • May your target see your snowballs flying at their face smoothly now
  • Fixed that Alien Tunnels collapsed even if the second entrance was rebuilt, causing entrances to not connect to each other.
  • Fixed structure only damage did affect babbler shield real goodly. (Arcs can’t destroy babblers on you anymore)
  • Fixed that damage to the babbler shield didn’t stop new babblers from hatching
  • Fixed that a Gorge couldn’t re-attach their own Babblers
  • Keep those cuddly things warm again! Just don’t forget to give them out still, you greedy Babbler incubators..
  • Fixed babbler mine icon in the alien buy menu
  • Fixed that the Shell Hive upgrade icons in spectator view displayed in red despite their status.
  • The worst color. You know it. I know it.
  • Fixed that the voice chat bar overlapped with the spectator player info elements
  • Fixed a few render-related crashes.
  • Fixed client crash due to using an invalid shader reference
  • Fixed that GUIItems displaying text with non-zero alignments would sometimes be culled for being off-screen, even though they were still on-screen.
  • Fixed that if only a few babblers were removed on your babbler shield, they’d instantly repopulate instead of waiting the normal 2.5 seconds.
  • Fixed Tundra Exo minigun showing the Kodiak skin on one of its arms.
  • Fixed that enabling the Entity update routine delayed caused various script errors. Various script errors could occur by mixin logic that assumed that OnUpdate was called at least once before OnInitialized.
Sounds

Maps

  • ns2_Caged ( Thanks pSyk )
    - Removed Gorge Bile spot in Shipping by moving the crane directly below the ceiling.
    - Fixed wall ARCs and similar wonky ARC spots between Shipping and Ventilation.
  • ns2_Derelict ( Thanks pSyk )
    - Fixed hole in map, which enabled Lerks to get outside.
    - ns2_Origin ( Thanks pSyk )
    - Reduced map size and travel times slightly by moving Biodome and Furnace ( plus adjacent areas ) closer to the center of the map.
    - Updated loading screen to accommodate changes (Thanks Samus)
    - Slightly nerfed ARC spots in Generator and Smelting room.
    - Nerfed the GL bounce spot outside of Ventilation.
    - Removed some ambush spots between Marine Start and Computer Lab.
    - New, cleaner connection between Ore Extraction and Generator with another little vent to help Aliens in that area.
    - Minor changes to Water Treatment-Maintenance connection to improve combat and reduce frustration for Skulks running up the stairs into a Marine.
    - Various fixes.
Tools

SDK
  • Added console command “dump_tracer_info”, which prints a description of all the bullet tracer effects to the console.
Known Issues
  • After a Tunnel exit is rebuilt, tunnel flinch animations still play inside the Tunnel forever, only if a player remained inside during this process. (you have to not die before its rebuilt)

UPDATE 330 - Hotfix

Thank you for all the feedback on Update 329. This hotfix should serve to improve your experience.

A note to our Linux users; Although we no longer directly support a Linux client, please be aware that NS2 does run when using Proton. If you are unable to start NS2 via Proton (right click at Library entry -> Properties -> check Force the use of a specific steam play compatibility tool -> select latest version of proton) please confirm that your system is compatible to dxvk (see https://github.com/lutris/lutris/wiki/How-to:-DXVK ).

Tweaks / Improvements
  • Removed the DirectX 9 render option and defaulted all clients to DirectX 11. A lot of clients have been frequently crashing due to a bug in the DirectX 9 render pipeline
  • Renamed the Atmospheric Quality options and added a warning to make users aware that the high and extreme options are only meant to be used on really powerful systems
  • The Anti aliasing graphics option will default to FXAA instead of TAA. We had a lot of users reporting performance issues with TAA enabled on low to mid-tier hardware
  • Make sure to cleanup unused intermediate GUIView objects when done rendering GUIStyledText. Leftover GUIViews could cause performance issues
  • Added the current count of GUIViews to g_stats
  • Improved the menus fonts (AgencyFB) so they are easier to read and don’t look as blurry
  • Improved the server console fonts scaling to be easier to read
  • Disabled MouseButtonOne as possible binding to toggle the console to avoid that users become unable to interact with the menu without editing the remote option file manually


Fixes
  • Fixed that the remote option (bindings) reset at every launch of the game for some users due to a faulty xml node name. And added safety guards to the engine for this to not happen again
  • Fixed that users on windows 7 without update KB2670838 installed couldn’t start the game due to missing support for DirectX 11.1
  • Fixed TAA causing black pixel artifacts under DXVK (used by Proton)
  • Fixed that some weapon tracers were never destroyed causing performance issues
  • Fixed that some art assets were not properly precached for new menu
  • Fixed profile pictures in the friends list did not always display correctly
  • Fixed that the new server browser didn’t take reserved slots into account
  • Fixed that the menu text entry cursor was blurry / wasn't using distance field font correctly
  • Fixed that some spectator UI elements blocked input from passing to the main menu.
  • Fixed various typos in the new menu
  • Fixed a script error caused by removing a badge that returns to some off-screen part of the tray (only happened with large numbers of badges).
  • Fixed that the abyss gorge only unlocked after 6 instead of 5 played rounds on Origin

UPDATE 329 - ORIGIN



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 this classic map and to our map testing crew for all of their time reviewing and assisting on the map.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC7q_eterMY

Update 329 also brings another set of balance changes aimed at creating more variation of play and strategy. A new menu system has been designed and built for a better player customizing experience and allows for easier implementation of future features to come. We have officially moved to DirectX 11 and added support for Temporal Anti-Aliasing, both of which can help produce better quality of play and visual upgrades to your game. Additional changes to other official maps have also been added to support better gameplay and help new players learn the maps.

A reminder that with the release of 329 we have officially dropped support for the Linux client of NS2. We will continue to support and update the Linux Dedicated Server. For those using the Linux client, you can still play NS2 via the Steam Play compatibility tools (Proton). Proton is still in Beta and being actively developed so there may be some features or functions that do not work. We have confirmed that playing the game while connecting to a dedicated server does work and in some cases the performance is much improved from the Linux client.

Check out the full changelog on the blog to see all the goodies contained within.

Follow the NS2 Development Roadmap to see our plans for future updates.

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

NS2 Open Tournament

Our friends at the Natural Selection League are hosting a one-weekend, no holds barred clash of some of the best players and teams in this Open Tournament!





Saturday and Sunday (the 29th and 30th) at 09:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT / 16:00 GMT / 18:00 CEST




NS2 Open Tournament


Our friends at the Natural Selection League are hosting a one-weekend, no holds barred clash of some of the best players and teams in this Open Tournament!






Saturday and Sunday (the 29th and 30th) at 09:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT / 16:00 GMT / 18:00 CEST