New player from the Tremulous community
ZdrytchX
Australia Join Date: 2016-02-06 Member: 212662Members
Australia Join Date: 2016-02-06 Member: 212662Members
A few years ago a clan member from Tremulous donated me a copy of NS2 but I couldn't play it for several years due to my outdated specs which were supposedly so bad that people have said their eyes bleed when they try to watch me play with my slide-show like framerates. But recently I had a new computer built and now I can finally play NS2. Back then I remember that NS2 had a horrible reputation for its resource consumption too (steam recommended specs supposedly barely ran NS2 from what I heard) and that could be contributing the lack of players.
I was somewhat disappointed in the active population size (as in "hop in at a certain time of the day at a certain day of the week for x players" in general) is a lot smaller than I had expected for a commercial game released on Steam. In fact Tremulous which started development as early as the year 2000 still has at least half the number of players you would see in this game.
Although I practically get either 80 ping to Australian servers or get > 310 ping to american and >400 to European servers, I find that the best way to get a game outside the local prime time is only through the American/European servers and either way it seems that my stats aren't recorded on the Australian servers unfortunately (despite vanilla rules, or so they say). This is still much better than in Tremulous because the Australian community in it is practically non-existant.
Being a former Trem player I found this game somewhat quick to learn
Right now I have the following questions:
1. What's the best way to level up so I can start commanding in small games where there can be just one non-rookie (each commander must be lvl 3 or greater) because else the game will never start. I find this very annoying.
2. I see videos about the Fade class being able to shadowstep to the side and a vortex ability that disables phase gates. It seems the cross-armed thing only regenerates health and energy, so I guess it's safe to assume shadowstep was removed?
3. I've seen NS1 videos of people doing the HL2/quake world style bunnyhopping strafe jumping. It seems you can no longer gain noticable speed by strafe jumping in a similar fashion (and bhopping as marine slows you down) but you can still strafe to turn corners by pressing the strafe key with or without the forward key. Is it true that you actually no longer gain speed through raw air strafe acceleration techniques now in NS2 (excluding special abilities such as the skulk walljump)?
4. How do you actually stick to bumpy ceilings without falling off with the skulk? I'm too used to the Tremulous style where you flip upside down and orientate relative to the surface which can be a disadvantage in orientation on bumpy surfaces but at least you stick to the surface.
5. Is the single-weapon exosuit even worth it if you don't have a fellow wielder or bot to follow you around to repair the unit?
6. The mass driver cannot charge simultaneously. Is this for balancing?
7. What's the difference between NS2, NS2HD and NS2: Combat? From what I hear Combat seems much better than the current NS2 gameplay and Combat as a mod does exist in NS2 though there are no servers available iirc.
8. How do I know which server is ranked and which isn't?
I was somewhat disappointed in the active population size (as in "hop in at a certain time of the day at a certain day of the week for x players" in general) is a lot smaller than I had expected for a commercial game released on Steam. In fact Tremulous which started development as early as the year 2000 still has at least half the number of players you would see in this game.
Although I practically get either 80 ping to Australian servers or get > 310 ping to american and >400 to European servers, I find that the best way to get a game outside the local prime time is only through the American/European servers and either way it seems that my stats aren't recorded on the Australian servers unfortunately (despite vanilla rules, or so they say). This is still much better than in Tremulous because the Australian community in it is practically non-existant.
Being a former Trem player I found this game somewhat quick to learn
Right now I have the following questions:
1. What's the best way to level up so I can start commanding in small games where there can be just one non-rookie (each commander must be lvl 3 or greater) because else the game will never start. I find this very annoying.
2. I see videos about the Fade class being able to shadowstep to the side and a vortex ability that disables phase gates. It seems the cross-armed thing only regenerates health and energy, so I guess it's safe to assume shadowstep was removed?
3. I've seen NS1 videos of people doing the HL2/quake world style bunnyhopping strafe jumping. It seems you can no longer gain noticable speed by strafe jumping in a similar fashion (and bhopping as marine slows you down) but you can still strafe to turn corners by pressing the strafe key with or without the forward key. Is it true that you actually no longer gain speed through raw air strafe acceleration techniques now in NS2 (excluding special abilities such as the skulk walljump)?
4. How do you actually stick to bumpy ceilings without falling off with the skulk? I'm too used to the Tremulous style where you flip upside down and orientate relative to the surface which can be a disadvantage in orientation on bumpy surfaces but at least you stick to the surface.
5. Is the single-weapon exosuit even worth it if you don't have a fellow wielder or bot to follow you around to repair the unit?
6. The mass driver cannot charge simultaneously. Is this for balancing?
7. What's the difference between NS2, NS2HD and NS2: Combat? From what I hear Combat seems much better than the current NS2 gameplay and Combat as a mod does exist in NS2 though there are no servers available iirc.
8. How do I know which server is ranked and which isn't?
Comments
Hope this answer your questions, apart from #6...
3. I'll quote myself: Also I already figured the fade exploit on my own. It seems to work best if you tap the blink and jump because usually you slow down after the blink
5. I see. So in small games you're better off with a flamethrower then
6. I mean railgun. Mass driver is the name of a similar weapon in Tremulous, and railguns are a type of mass driver.
7. Can you build in NS2 Combat as a marine? If yes, I guess its gameplay is even closer to tremulous except the fact you probably cannot shift the hive/command station a few meters for personal adjustments (most Tremulous games happen on a map called ATCS and usually first thing that happens is humans would push forward through the hallway and have a builder and defender move the reactor back half a meter, because that half meter can mean the difference between surviving an alien rush and defeat). Thinking of which, when I look at the NS1 source code it seems like it was built into the mod itself. I haven't thoroughly read it though, honestly I'm not much of a programmer.
8. Well that obviously isn't the case it seems. I've probably played more marines than aliens but when you look at my stats it shows more on the aliens side. Knowing that mods are available, does that mean the source code is available to the public / people who purchased the game? I've modded Tremulous to the point that its source code size multiplied by 1.5 for things like physics changes that allows me to do weird stuff like maintaining speed in a way which is normally impossible through Vanilla Quake 3 physics. Anyway, all I could find in regards to Natural Selection source code is their (UnknownWorlds) github account containing the HL2 mod version only.
3: You can't bunnyhop in vanilla, compmod allows gorges to bunnyhop as a buff
5: FT is purely a support weapon, good for disabling the passive & active effects of alien structures and draining lifeform energy
6: Yeah, they charge independently of one another, I believe it's a balance thing.
7: Yes, you can buy structures for ability points.
8: You can check the hive page here or run enable NS2+ locally (from mods option, main menu), restart NS2 then in the top right of the server browser there will be a Hive Whitelisted button, to reset that view click 'all' on the gamemodes filter on the far left of that bar.
Slot1: Swipe, Slot2: Blink, Slot3: Metabolize, Slot4: Acid Rocket (not in NS2)
3. Walljumping is kinda a more intuitive approach to bunnyhopping, replacing it. That is why I mentioned it anyway
5. Flamethrower is more of a support weapon, it is anti infestation/cyst, burns Lerk gas, reduces energy regen for aliens, if they are on fire, it burns off bilebomb from structures (Gorge anti marine structure weapon) and IIRC disables alien structure abilities. The EXO sacrifices mobility and gives you firepower, the Flamethrower sacrifices firepower and gives you support abilities. Both have up and downsides. Kinda like all weapons in NS2. Keep in mind that NS2 is riddled with hidden game mechanics like this that aren't clear from the start and requires some indepth knowledge. Kinda like the Onos, looks though right, would you believe it melts like butter in a fire if 4 marines unleash their lvl3 rifles on it with focus fire
6. Dual Railgun has a very high burst damage, so yes it should indeed be balanced to only fire one at the time. It also penetrates targets so it can actually damage multiple lined up structures/enemies.
It kinda goes like this. Onos > EXO, Onos == 2xEXO Add a gorge or welder into the mix and it gets more complicated. Jetpack > Onos, Jetpack == Lerk/Fade (depending on marine weapon) and so on... These are not hard counters, but one has a slight edge over the other in terms of armor/firepower/mobility, all dependent on the individual's skills
7. In combat you can unlock as a single marine, one of three types (minigun/fire/siege) of turrets or an ammo station. Spending points on those, places you into a support role, you can respend your points as well at any give time to adapt to a situation. But yeah those are the only things you can build. Well apart from Gorge and his Clogs+Hydras of course.
8. All NS2 Lua is accessible for anyone to fiddle with, basically NS2 is a mod on the Spark engine like any other mod. Just have a look in "/Natural Selection 2/ns2/". You would have to run a modded server though, if you want to run with different values.
First of all: Welcome!
2. A lot about this game has changed a lot over the time that it's been released. Unfortunately there are very few resources out there that are still accurate and up to date with regards to the hidden mechanics (reading material for when you want to slog through 5 pages of stuff that's mostly still true).
6. The Dual Railguns can charge simultaneously, but its difficult to do, and the indicators don't both light up. Play around with mashing both mouse buttons down at the same time and then releasing to get this down. Whether you're supposed to be able to or not is a different matter, but I know I've done it recently and consistently.