NS2 Build 181 released news

The latest patch for the Natural Selection 2 Beta is now off to Valve! We're not sure when it will go on Steam but it should be shortly. If you have pre-ordered the game it should automatically update on Steam. If you would like to pre-order and get instant access to the beta, you can still do so here.

NS2HD2 Changelog video

Build 181 features

• Brand-new pathing system (recast). Pathing should be much better now.
• More responsive weapon switch and fixed bug preventing switch to previous weapon from always working
• Undid change which only allowed players inside command structures to use abilities on those structures (ie, alien comm couldn't create cyst using energy from another hive)
• Removed slow on damage
• Increased air movement for all classes (skulks have the most)
• Added slow on land for marines, so repeatedly jumping will reduce their max speed for a bit. Reduced marine acceleration somewhat to make this work.
• Skulk leap is only available with 2+ hives
• Increased skulk speed from 6.2 to 7 to balance out lack of hive1 leap and make him more Skulky
• Reduced leap force from 12 to 10 to make it less of a "jump" in capabilities
• Reduced max shotgun damage at close range from 20 back to 18 (I guess players engage much closer, much more often, which is outweighing the damage drop off)
• Fixed problem where commanders couldn't always hear alerts
• Marine sentries now have ammo and must be refilled from time to time
• Attacking marine sentries makes them less accurate (the sentry fires through the actual model barrel now)
• Sentries no longer change targets once they've acquired one, unless they are attacked, which causes them to target that entity
• Sentries now fire exactly where their barrel is pointing, so damaging a sentry will make it less accurate
• Added sentry alerts
• Fixed cases where the Spores would fail (shooting at very close surface like ground or wall would go through the surface and the find targets cast would fail due to the player's origin being very slightly below the ground sometimes)
• The marine will now cough when taking damage from spores (not from the marine's perspective yet, working on that)
• Gas damage now ignores armor
• Added commander camera frustum lines to minimap
• Added new "auto-orders" that are given to marines that haven't been given orders by the Commander (build structure, defend structure, attack target, do what nearby players are doing)
• Defend orders now complete after 10 seconds of the target not taking damage
• Marine waypoints are now half transparent so they aren't too distracting
• Fixed maintaining direction when walking through a Phase Gate
• Added voice chat notification for any player to the HUD
• Increased shotgun cost to 20 (make less prolific) and decreased max range from 20 to 15 (to make more focused on close range)
• Robotics factory lets you set orientation when dropping it now
• Cysts now damage from the outside to inside (ie, "outside" cysts must die before inner ones take damage)
• Fixed an issue where ARC button would not show up as red if there was not enough team res.
• Reduced grenade lifetime from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds (after which time they explode)
• Fixed minimap commander alerts to be positioned correctly
• Added minimap blips for more entity types
• Fixed bug that allowed the enemy team to infer the location of command stations, hives, and resource towers due to not displaying a techpoint or resource point for points with a structure attached
• Acquires targets through "eye" in barrel, fires through barrel.
• Changed "resources" and "teamresources" commands to "pres" and "tres" (as "resources" is an engine command)
• Changed the ARC to spawn in front of the Robotics Factory
• Made the ARC spawn after it opens the bay doors :P
• Added PowerPoint fixed_power_up sound effect
• Added MAC blocked alert and localized string

ns2_summit

• Fixed leak in Crevice
• Fixed collision geometry in Reactor Core
• Added vent in Crossroads between the 2 marine entrances
• Addressed several annotations
• Less hitching (sound effects changes)

ns2_tram

• Reworked Observation room
• Fixed commander visibility issues
• Added animated holo prop in marine expansion

Bug fixes and improvements

• Various server performance improvements
• Updated all of the external libraries to be compiled with version 8.0.50727.6195 of the CRT
• Localization now uses UTF8 Strings and not widestrings
• Changed the scoreboard code to use tables with named properties instead of a linear array (will be easier to deal with and thus, more robust)
• Player:GetMaterialBelowPlayer() defaults to "metal" if no surface is found below the player (footsteps now play while walking over props)
• Localized all strings in the game (tech tree, commander tooltips, player tooltip hints, structure death messages, etc.)
• Changed the camera shake on giving damage to only trigger when attacking players (some people were reporting motion sickness)
• "flinch" and "hit_effect" sound effects are now heard by the player taking the damage
• Fixed commander script error caused by moving the GetViewAngles() function
• Added line drawing to GUI
• Added TeamInfo entity which is used to give clients information about teams such as number of resource towers and team and personal resources, spectators are given access to both team's info
• Added ability for Mixins to hook into existing functions in a table (such as OnDestroy or OnUpdate)
• Removed the use of the TrackYZ code we just now use the much simpler Connection code as well as using the pathing system to find points which means that line of site is no longer required.
• Fixed a few issues with hit sound effects (bullet ricochet sounds can now be heard by players being shot at if the shooter is far away among other fixes)
• Added flag to static props as to whether they should be included in the pathing mesh
• Added "ssv" console command as a short cut for the "setsoundvolume" command
• Fixed issue preventing parasite_hit from being heard in all cases
• Fixed issue where un-powered structures could still research or build things
• PlayingTeam:ComputeLOS() optimization (Thanks Asraniel!)
• Changed how minimap blips are updated which has resulted in a decent boost in server performance
• Added the correct cinematics to trigger for the ARC
• Fixed some hit sound effect issues related to rifle bash that were introduced recently

You can always keep up to date with what we're working on for the next patch with our real-time progress tracker and don't forget to follow our Twitter account.