Natural Selection 2 News Update - NS2 Build 160 released
Max
Technical Director, Unknown Worlds Entertainment Join Date: 2002-03-15 Member: 318Super Administrators, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Technical Director, Unknown Worlds Entertainment Join Date: 2002-03-15 Member: 318Super Administrators, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Comments
You're late, my ninja skills served me well in updating the tutorial map to meet build160 before the news post <img src="http://members.home.nl/m.borgman/ns-forum/smileys/tongue.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />
"Eggs!"
Yay!
"Improved the blood and flamethrower effects"
I really like these new FX!
"Added afterburner jets for MAC"
Saw them on NS2HD's playtest vids, they're awesome!
"Removed the jetpack from the UI until it's released"
Odd, I still see it on localhost...
Fixed players being <b>blineded</b> when they were hit by the flamethrower
Added pre-game where players are <b>forozen</b> during countdown
The sweet new alien minimap, and new res node in rockdown for those who haven't seen it:
<a href="http://img832.imageshack.us/i/ns22010122117224679.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/4194/ns22010122117224679.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
The red square commander alerts are too big
<a href="http://img214.imageshack.us/i/ns22010122117260712.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/5103/ns22010122117260712.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
Messed up alien UI won't go away even when switching teams
<a href="http://img233.imageshack.us/i/ns22010122118355330.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/8305/ns22010122118355330.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
I really like these new FX!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They're just small tweaks for now. Effects are gonna have a big pass done all across the board once Charlie finishes the new implementation system.
EDIT: I r stupid... found it.
Indeed, flames should not move with the gun obviously. But that's known already.
I really dislike the slow backwards walking, close combat for marines (without flamethrower) is a no go right now..
Amazing how the majority of that footage was taken from online tests with people across the world.
Small tweaks or not, they look good already. Can't wait for the new stuff then...
<!--quoteo(post=1818018:date=Dec 21 2010, 11:03 PM:name=Comprox)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Comprox @ Dec 21 2010, 11:03 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1818018"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Amazing how the majority of that footage was taken from online tests with people across the world.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. A pacific ocean for example is not a small thing D:
I can see not being able to sprint backwards, but I do hope the reverse speed is increased a bit. I know I can walk backwards (well, at angles) while shooting in real life.
NS2 Build 160 patch notes released (and dev gameplay footage):
<a href="http://bit.ly/gJAHfL" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/gJAHfL</a>
about 1 hour ago via TweetDeck
I've yet to encounter Flamerthrowers, but from NS2HD's videos I can tell those won't be as rage-inducing as before. The explosion bug is still there, and infinite sparks come out of the MAC when a player holds +use on him (love the MAC responses btw)
Thanks for putting out yet another patch, but don't work yourselves too hard :D
can somebody confirm whether the hydra lag was fixed?
can somebody confirm whether the hydra lag was fixed?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The videos NS2HD keeps posting show considerable spam without server performance issues. That being said, it doesn't look like UWE is stopping there. Improving that stability is still on their "to-do" list as usual.
The recording was done by NS2HD, who was in Australia (the server is in our office in San Francisco). That said, we know the experience isn't smooth for everyone when playing online, so we're still working on it. There weren't too many performance/networking related changes in this patch, but that's only because we're working on some larger changes that take more than a week to finish.
Additionally, if you have multiple MACs selected and attempt to build a sentry, it will drop a sentry for each MAC you have selected, all stacked on each other. It's rather annoying as deselecting units is buggy, and it burns all my plasma. Oh, and if there are several sentries near each other, I can't drop any buildings in a very large radius around them (larger than normal buildings). It's especially annoying when you have sentries guarding a res tower. If the res tower is destroyed but sentries are up, you have to recycle the sentries before dropping another tower.
The flow of games is a little uneven. Marines rush to get a 2nd CC up, start researching 2nd tier, then can abandon/recycle the 2nd CC. As long as they can hold out, they can get GL/flamethrowers and eventually push back. It will be nice once sieges are in because aliens seem to have a tough time finishing off marines.
Also, on Rockdown it's easy for aliens to just build 2 hives straight up (the central and western points) and lock the marines down. If marines can't take down a hive (which is tough), they're stuck with only tech 1.
Bottlenecks like clock work about every 3 seconds spiking CPU and mem then crashes after about five minutes of this. I had no server issues with 159 so i dunno whats up with this one if anything has changes in the server.exe but it definitely isn't as stable for me on this build (160). Several clients noted lag spikes when server choked.
Headless
Dedicated Blade
Q6600 Quad Core
8GB Ram
FT much improved although the flames are still a bit much.
Found that Fade will blink out of the map in rockdown especially when trying to run away towards east wing. Happened many times.
NOTICEABLY better fps, maybe 50% by feel i'd say - AWESOME!
kick-ass minimap improvement
major bugs:
- had flamer (later, happened also with other wep), trying to buy other weps took away plasma but nothing happened
- hydras attack scanner sweep
- drifters can access areas through walls and build there
- "duplicate (or something)" weps lying at armory after players bought, seen only from commander view, seemingly firing when player fires his "twin wep"
- structures buildable on CC
- MAJOR EXPLOIT: making sentries costs plasma, recycling them gives carbon!
- GL projectile is oversized, and it's collision model seems grossly oversized.
almost impossible to lob one into "the lerkvent" on rockdown (at expansion just at MS)
minor bugs:
- MAC stacking (not as bad as marine stacking in ns1 though ;)
- a MAC-stack of 5-10 can repair a powernode in just a few secs. while 3-4 would fit with collision.
- sentry stack, when building having multiple MACs selected
- close-buy-menu-key (X) on armory doesn't work, make it closeable by pressing use again
- MAC pathfinding is very coarse
- sometimes, an additional thin flame from flamer
major issue: lerk spike attacks should be NERFED!
taking down sentry in a few secs, same with marine.
snipe should cost more and/or much longer cooldown!
spikes should cost more plus be MUCH LESS effective against buildings!
I'm not saying the flamethrower is overpowered but when stacked with multiple players using them it's a real bear to hatch into. Maybe a team limit or something? Assuming the flamethrower was introduced specifically to battle DI then why is it even implemented for balance if there is no way to fully understand what the balance of it is exactly.
Not complaining here,just wondering what exactly they where originally meant to balance against? Is the onos the answer? acid rockets for fade? Give me something to go on here as i can't sell the game to friends if flamethrowers look like a weapon hack. (general NS1 players are really turned off by them).
One other observation. When there is no commander we should have a visual indicator showing so. Not audible like "we need builders" but a simple "!" flashing small in the corner of our view.
Yeah, they plan to make it impossible to build in the main hive for marines. But adding that powernode for now seems like a good temporary fix...
I'm not saying the flamethrower is overpowered but when stacked with multiple players using them it's a real bear to hatch into. Maybe a team limit or something? Assuming the flamethrower was introduced specifically to battle DI then why is it even implemented for balance if there is no way to fully understand what the balance of it is exactly.
Not complaining here,just wondering what exactly they where originally meant to balance against? Is the onos the answer? acid rockets for fade? Give me something to go on here as i can't sell the game to friends if flamethrowers look like a weapon hack. (general NS1 players are really turned off by them).
One other observation. When there is no commander we should have a visual indicator showing so. Not audible like "we need builders" but a simple "!" flashing small in the corner of our view.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe some life forms can be given a hard counter to flamethrowers. To be honest, the skulk and onos look more armored than half the alien structures, so maybe they should be given a high resistance to fire. This allows marines to use flamethrowers against specialty alien units and for clearing structures/DI, while allowing a core alien and a powerhouse alien to counter the flamethrower rush.