Hey folks, the great 2.3.5 update is here, featuring numerous bugfixes, gameplay improvements, new graphic features and new maps: 8-player FFA hlw_synth and revamped 4v4 hlw_waste, now actually being a wasteland!
Noticeable new features in 2.3.5:
- Control point fortification;
- Maps now look and play much more lifelike due to interactive flora;
- We're also glad to announce that Lambda Wars no longer require to own Half-Life 2: Episode Two. A free installation of Alien Swarm is now enough to play the mod!
And yes, we're advancing to Steam and need reinforcements to reach this milestone:
- Web-based Game UI Designer URGENT (Moddb.com)
- Announcer/Voice actor (for lines such as "Building under attack" or "Need more requisition")
Get the latest full version or patch here, bug reports and feature suggestions are welcome at our
community forums!
Changelog for 2.3.5
Improvements and Balance:
* Control Points can now be fortified, preventing capturing until fortification is destroyed and increases income
* Added Rebel Radio Tower detecting cloaked enemies in a radius of 500 and performing
Scan ability (moved from HQ)
* Limited number of engineers which can salvage scrap at the same time
* Raised population limit from 75 to 100
* Added one additional Combine Population upgrade and updated existing population upgrades
* Replaced Rebel Engineer smg1 weapon by pistol
* Replaced Rebel Veteran weapons by Crossbow
* Increased build time Barracks/Garrison to 80 seconds
* Increased cooldown time of manhack deploy ability from 20 to 120 seconds
* Turrets, barricades and sub-component buildings no longer count as valid main buildings in Annihilation mode for victory conditions
* Reduce costs headcrab canister launcher builder from 40 req + 60 pow to 30 req and 40 pow.
* Reduce costs of launching headcrab canisters from 50 req + 50 pow to 30 req and 60 pow
* Reduce cooldown launching headcrab canisters from 30 to 8 seconds
Visuals:
* Replaced sprite based detail props by flora models
* Updated unit glow effect (less obtrusive)
* Units now get a green tint when detected while cloaked. Additionally the team color glow is enabled again from the enemies point of view and can be targeted by the enemy player.
CPU Player:
* Various adjustments in resource management
* Added Hard difficulty
Maps:
* NEW: hlw_synth (8-player FFA)
* UPDATED: hlw_waste (complete revamp & added flora)
* UPDATED: sp_radio_tower (flora)
* UPDATED: sp_valley (flora)
* UPDATED: hlw_forest (flora)
* UPDATED: hlw_washedaway (flora)
* UPDATED: hlw_mine (flora)
* UPDATED: hlw_aurora
* REMOVED: hlw_battlemounds
Unit AI & Navigation:
* Right clicking a barricade now makes selected units go into cover around the barricade
* Improvements in navigation around barricades/mountable turrets
Overrun:
* Now defaults to 10 waves to win the game
* Increased preparing time between waves
* Added button to indicate the player is ready for the next wave (skipping remaining prepare time)
* Wave progress bar displaying the number of enemies left to kill
* Player now starts with 25 population. Tier 2 increases it with 25 and tier 3 increases it with 50.
* Tier 2 upgrade now costs 12 kills and tier 3 upgrade costs 15 kills (both were 20)
* During Leap attacks of Antlion and Headcrabs, they no longer collide with units of their same team
* Made various costs changes for Overrun. Hunter and Vortigaunt now cost 5 kills instead of 8 kills. AR2 soldier now costs 2 kills.
* Added two bosses for Zombies wave mode. They start appearing at wave 7. One is a larger version of the poison zombie, which throws more black headcrabs at once. The other one is a giant black headcrab, which spits acid.
* Boss type like units must be killed to progress to the next wave
Fixed:
* Enemy fire/tracer/sound effects not visible/played when they shoot at your units from a position hidden in the fog of war
* Soldiers holding weapon models incorrectly
* Annihilation game mode does not directly ends after destroying the last building (waits until the destruction animation finished playing)
* Unable to target Fuel or Explosive barrels using Attack Move ability
* Hunter blood effects not stopping after being healed
* Engineers not auto-casting "construct" ability after turning on autocast while being near a building needing construction or repairing.
* Unit not shooting enemies while being in cover and uncloaking
* Units going into cover at incorrect places when returning to idle position.
* Weapons of cloaked units were visually not cloaked
* Headcrab Cannister launcher still spawning headcrabs for a moment after being destroyed
* Single moving units sometimes getting stuck along a wall
* CPU difficulty not shown correctly to new players joining the game lobby
* Improved behavior of pausing the game in single player (broken because of an Alien Swarm engine bug)
Misc:
* No longer required to own Half-Life 2: Episode Two. A free installation of Alien Swarm is now enough to play the mod!
* Added partial Spanish translations
* User Steam avatar is displayed in the to top left corner of main menu.
First person is possible ?
In Sandbox mode you can control units, but it's more of an extra.
Add a special Player from a random unit that you can switch to FPS mode & control.
The fun in multiplayer or in survival coop! ;)
Half-Life: Natural Selection?
If only this would come to Linux so I can actually play it. So what I mean to say is, if only Alien Swarm would come to Linux so I can play this.