Natural-Selection 2.0

[JonnyK]

comes out tomorrow evening from what i understand, i stopped playing 1.04 when PS came out, but i think i'll be restarting up with my clan in NS once 2.0 comes out, looks really badass. if anyone has half life, you can get this mod just like counter-strike, just wait for thursday the 31st and get 2.0, god damn it's going to own, how many of you play/ed NS?


http://www.readyroom.org
http://www.natural-selection.org

[Zenny]

Natural-Selection 2.0 = Instant win!!!
Following it for about 3 months before release and been playing the game since day 1 (Halloween). And just to say I am really pumped about this.

JonnyK - If you do get your clan back up, mind letting me in even if you have to test me? I'm a pretty mean alien and a decent marine.

[Mejwell]

Don't get me wrong, I love Natural Selection, but there are quite a lot of issues that I'd like to see addressed and/or improved, such as Heavy Machinegun/Jetpack rushing, bunnyhopping, medpack spamming, and the like. Maybe I'm just too picky, but I AM really excited about this new release.

[Strygun]

give me a quick rundown on new features?

[Mejwell]

Here's what's posted on the front page. It's pretty general, though; I'll look for a list of specifics.

Originally written on the Natural Selection website
Overview

Natural Selection v2.0 represents a giant leap forward in the world of NS and is poised to take public and competitive play by storm.

Nearly every aspect of the game has been revisited and tweaked from feedback from hundreds of the top NS veterans and thousands of games played on public and private servers around the globe.

Features

- Simplified resource model and fundamental game re-balancing for faster, more varied and more intense gameplay.

- New alien upgrades allow aliens to detect human pheromones, be silenced while attacking, and build structures that cloak all nearby players and structures. New abilities allow the Onos to stun enemies with Stomp and Devour them whole.

- New visuals mean Skulks rotate to align to walls when running along them, sentries puff smoke when firing, and alien structures explode in a burst of slime when destroyed. Many new sounds lend a slicker sci-fi feel.

- Four new maps and tweaked and balanced existing maps for all new gameplay. Take a ride on a lost colony ship and get a view into space, or take the battle to the rock tunnels of a deserted and "re-colonized" mine shaft.


- New commander mode makes commanding easier than ever. Hotgroups, squad support, a "select all" button, the ability to locate marines in need of orders, ammo or health packs, and re-bindable hotkey support.

- Full support for competitive play through tournament mode, handicapping, VALVe's Anti-Cheat support (VAC) and large-scale match broadcasting through Half-life TV (HLTV). Big server improvements mean fuller servers with less CPU usage. First-person view is now supported while playing or spectating.

[JonnyK]

i still hang out with my ns clan a lot, they have been playing still even though i stopped when ps came out (i'm sure they won't care if you come in zenny, i'm good friends with everyone in the clan) and this was the change log i posted on the forums about a month ago.
yeah, this is from when it was still called 1.1, i'll hunt around and edit this post if i find a newer one



O The resource model and balance has been fundamentally reworked to promote scouting, distinct tech levels, counters and generally more interaction with the enemy
O Big server performance optimizations. CPU usage is around 50% less for both win32 and linux.
O Added HLTV support and overviews for all maps.
O Added first-person spectating, including health, armor, deploy/fire/reload animations, hive sight, current orders, alerts, etc.
O Added new skulk rotation system, so wall-running skulks orient properly on sloped floors, walls and ceilings
O Updated existing maps for performance and balance and added five new maps: ns_fenris, ns_lost, ns_mineshaft ns_veil and ns_origin
O New context-sensitive popup-menu cursors
O New weapon crosshairs
O Added building notifications so players can see what their gorges and commander are building, and where. This can be disabled in the options.
O Added Constellation authentication system
O Added heavy armor footsteps, new weapon sounds, new phase sounds
O Added new graphic effects for when alien structures are killed and when sentries fire
O Added team handicapping, so either team can slow their general resource intake.
O Removed alien "frags" in scoreboard (they show up for both teams in tournament mode)
O Preserved classes in ready room, so you can fly, wall-crawl or jetpack if you ended the game as such
O Much improved demo record/playback
O Lowered death messages while spectating in map mode so they aren't obscured
O Added mp_limitteams server variable (works like CS)
O Mines no longer ever damage friendly teammates or structures
O Only draw "x health received" message when mp_drawdamage is 1
O Throttle sayings so players can't spam chuckle or other sayings
O Don't draw player name tooltip for commanders (names always draw so it's redundant)
O Clear tooltips on role change (test by getting tooltips, spectating, then switching back to play mode quickly)
O Disabled wall-running on players (prevents weird visuals and skulks that can climb on each other)
O Don't draw tooltips when spectating
O Shrunk the sentry, offense chamber, defense chamber, sensory chamber and movement chamber slightly, to allow players to jump past them yet not intersect them too much when standing on them
O Spectators now follow players through phase gates or movement chambers
O Capped air speeds, so lerk and jetpacks can't go infinitely fast (celerity for lerk is now meaningful). All player airspeeds are 2x that on the ground (leap, jetpack, flight).
O Improve balancing interface (added logo, nicer highlighting, moved buttons around). This isn't shipping with the game and is only used by me, sorry!
O New sprites from Relic (death by electricity sprites, new onos ability sprites, crosshair tweaks)
O Added player's location to all chat messages
O Preserve current spectate mode so it always starts up in the last mode you were in
O Play role help text only once per game
O New version of eclipse: little lighting tweaks and overall brightening. Known bug: locations are no longer user-friendly.
O Both teams get a minimum resource flow of 1 resource point at all times (to keep a team in the game if they lose all their RTs)
O It now takes 120 seconds before any resource tower starts giving resources for the team
O Changed handicapping to reduce damage done instead of affecting resources (means build orders and tech are the same, but battles are harder for handicapped teams). Handicapping only takes effect in tournament mode. I hope someone gets around to testing this soon, perhaps between the PTs and Vets (vets with a mp_team2handicap of .7 or so?).

[JonnyK]

Aliens
------
Current alien resource model: (changes often so made a seperate area)
O Added variable point reward when aliens make a kill. The killing player gets 1-3 resources (randomly) for the kill.
O Points only awarded to aliens, no marines (bug)
O Encourage more group movements for marines, speedier end-games when aliens has decisive advantage, promote more conflict in general, and reward great alien players with higher lifeforms, allow aliens a way to grow without building RTs
O Addresses long end-game against stock marines at marine start
O Added sound that plays when players receive resources (from "givepoints" or from kill).
O Addressed problem where more gorges means slower growth (non-intuitive): More gorges should increase alien growth speed (increases value of scouting and probing heavily, means less waiting and problems for newbie aliens, gives more interesting configurations and builds for aliens)
O Removed the 33/66/100 limit for each alien.
O Every alien starts with 25 resources.
O All aliens always split resources evenly. Gorges no longer get more resources then other alien lifeforms.
OTemporary experiment: increased alien spawn time from 8 to 11, increased marine spawn time from 10 to 14 (the goal here is to allow the game to end when the victory has essentially been determined, as opposed to forcing a side to get a lot more tech before they are guaranteed victory)

O Pop-up menu reorganized to be more intuitive. Options are greyed out when not available. Alien "sayings" removed (all but chuckle).
O Tweaked alien field of view for immersion (skulk and gorge can see slightly more, onos can see slightly less). This was in the game for a long time, but was removed when attempting to support software.
O Umbra and spore particle systems lessened to decrease slowdowns.

O Removed alien sayings from hive sight ("player is building here")
O Removed hive requirement for higher lifeforms. This should stop stalemates when aliens have resources but marines have camped hives. Note that aliens still need hives for lifeforms, upgrades and faster spawning.
O Hive now emits umbra around spawning players, and also occasionally around itself when under attack (to lessen spawn camping and instant hive death).
O Hive health increased from 3500 to 5500
O Hive build time increased from 120 to 180
O Hive cost increased from 30 to 45
O Inactive hives no longer draw for marine players (allows sensory to be used to hide hives)

O New Fade Hive #2 ability: Metabolize. Drains energy when used, but for the next second, converts incoming damage into energy. Depends player knowing when he's going to get hit, and using it to maximize his energy. (kinda like Melnorme from Star Control II). Sounds are currently placeholder.
O New blink! Fades can now quickly manoeuvre in combat, moving quickly and becoming hidden as they blink. Hold your fire button to try it out. No more getting stuck.
O Fade blink energy cost increased as temporary holdover until fix
O You now stop blinking when you're out of energy
Fade cost increased from 50 to 75

O New skulk model with a better run animation and a parasite animation (thanks Mojo!)
O Increased Xenocide damage from 200 to 240 (need to be able to kill stock marines at close range)
O Updated the skulk view model so it doesn't obscure the screen as much when biting.

O Alien upgrade adjustments to make non-defense viable in early game
O Silence upgrade now affects building placement sounds also.
O Each level of carapace now slows aliens by slightly, because of the heavier shell
O Touching or scanning a cloaked structure will uncloak it.
O Silence upgrade quiets attacking and drop-to-ground sounds. So you can be totally quiet while attacking now, but your damage feedback sounds will still be played (necessary to avoid commander/marine confusion).
O Changed behavior of "Scent of Fear". Any enemy players within range of a player show up on hive sight (as if they were parasited). Each level increases range.
O Replaced "Enhanced Sight" with "Pheromones". This upgrade leaves a pheromone trail behind all enemies in range, which is visible for 10 seconds. Each level increases range.
O Alien regeneration lowered from 4% per second per level to 3% per second per level


O All alien structures now slowly regenerate so def chambers aren't used everywhere. This is a fixed amount, not a percentage (it's 5 points per second)
O Movement chambers now give nearby players an energy boost and energize offense chambers and hives. OCs fire faster, hives spawn faster. They give up to three nearby friendly players +10% energy every 2 seconds.

O Sensory chamber build time lowered from 18 to 14
O Sensory chamber now cloaks all structures and players nearby. Players can move, but as soon as they attack, they uncloak. Offensive chambers uncloak when they attack. Cloaked players no longer show up on motion-tracking
O Removed sensory chamber�s "incoming enemies" warning
O Changed offensive chambers to shoot spikes instead of spit, new offense chamber sound to differentiate from spikes (thanks MadMaxx!)
O Lowered offense chamber build time
O Alien resource tower cost reduced from 15 to 10
O Increased alien resource tower health from 1500 to 2500
O Movement chamber cost reduced from 15 to 10
O Defense chamber cost reduced from 15 to 10
O Offense chambers increased to 10 points (health is 1200)

O Gorge health increased from 100 to 125
O New Gorge jump and death animations
O Increased gorge gestation time from 15 to 20
O Added new hive sight icon for gorges, so they can be easily located and protected (thanks Immacolata)
O Changed "GORG" to "GRGE" in scoreboard
O Decreased gorge draw amount from .5 to .4 resources per second
O Bile bomb moved to 2nd hive gorge ability
O Lowered bile bomb damage from 225 to 200
O Web is now a 3rd hive gorge ability (babblers removed)
O Gorge spit improved
O Removed Gorge res sucking (not sure it could work)
O Changed gorge costs to reflect new model



O Lerk health increased from 60 to 75
O Reduced lerk wingflap energy cost from .06 to .04 to encourage shooting while flying.
O Lerks no longer take falling damage
O Spore damage increased from 9 to 10
O Reduced spike damage back to 16, reduced spores energy cost from .6 to .4
O Removed visible lerk projectiles (because the spikes hit instantly)
O Bite removed from lerk, and spikes replace it
O Spores moved to 1 hive lerk ability, and damage reduced significantly. Spores no longer damage players through walls.
O Primal scream moved to 3rd hive lerk ability
O Primal scream now makes affected aliens scream back in defiance
O Lerk now shoots umbra like his spores, allowing him to defend at a distance
O Increased lerk gestation time from 18 to 21

O New "stomp" ability: at two hives, the Onos can stomp on the ground, stunning all nearby players for a couple seconds.
O New "devour" ability: at three hives, the Onos can devour an enemy whole. The player is then slowly digested, giving health back to the Onos, and effectively removing the player from the game for a short time.
O New stomp sound
O Changed onos ability ordering back to gore -> stomp -> devour -> chargeOThe Onos has a Charge, Stomp, and Devour animation. Note that Devour consists of 3 parts: weapon ready, the attack itself, and weapon position while digesting a marine.
O Shrunk the Onos health ring (it was out of control before)
O Increased Onos gestation time from 30 to 38
O Onos speed reduced slightly, so he can't outrun stock marines (standard marines and Oni both now run at 206)
O Stomp range decreased from 350 to 250 (it didn't look right with sprite)
O Stomp energy cost increased from .25 to .3
O Stomp fixed so it doesn't affect flying jetpacks (also, can't use jetpack once you're stunned)
O Onos cost increased from 80 to 100


Marines
-----------

O Added "HVY" scoreboard designation for heavy armor, plus HLTV icon
O Added more "acknowledged" sounds for soldiers
O Marine bunny-hopping addressed: When marines land after a jump, they are slowed down a bit (like CS), so speed can't be increased by jumping repeatedly. You can still hop to your heart's content as alien.
O Heavy armor is now immune to spores (the model has a gas mask anyways)
O Put marine resources for kills back in. The marine sound is placeholder. Play rising numeric effect at point kill was scored.

[JonnyK]

O Tech tree reorganized (diagram to follow):
O Unchained marine armor and weapon upgrades from other structures (they are all available once an armory is available)
O New technology: Electrical upgrade. Turret factories and resource nodes can be upgraded to electrify nearby enemies.
O Resource nodes that are upgrading electricity give resources in the meantime
O Marine resource tower cost lowered from 20 to 15
O Electrified structures are still being killed by groups of coordinated hive-1 alien. Increased damage to 30, and max targets to 3.
O Removed health upgrade
O Marine ammo and armor upgrades back to 1.04 values (20/40/60 instead of 20/30/40)
O Changed scanner sweeps to use energy. They slowly gain energy, and so can be used for scanning only every so often. Scans cost no resources. Distress beacon also uses energy system. This should make multiple observatories viable. The observatory slowly accumulates energy, and 25 is needed to scan.
O Added a "phase gate tech" upgrade on observatory that's required for phase gates.
O Phase tech research time is 45
O Phase gate cost lowered from 20 to 15
O Increased phase gate health from 2000 to 3000
O Phase gate and infantry portal play different sounds
O Phase gate emits sound at both ends
O Decreased armory build time from 20 to 15
O Decreased infantry portal build time from 15 to 12
O Lowered sentry build time from 13 to 10
O Sentries no longer target cloaked structures (i had a similar idea! )
O Turret factory siege upgrade time reduced from 30 to 22
O Jetpack cost reduced from 20 to 15

O All turrets acquire targets faster (affects offensive chambers, sentries and siege cannons)
O Marines now have 3rd-person reload animations
O Increased grenade launcher damage from 90 to 140 (does double damage to structures)
O Grenade launchers now require advanced armory and prototype lab instead of advanced armory and arms lab
O Marines no longer drop their weapons when they die. Lowered shotgun (15 -> 10), HMG (25 -> 20) and grenade launcher (30 -> 25) costs slightly to compensate
O Backed out mine-can-be-killed change. (where mines would explode if shot) There are engine problems with this, and will have to be addressed another way if it's still a problem.
O New siege sounds (now with more bass)
O New HMG sound
O Tightened HMG cone to make better vs. ranged fades/oni and harder to respond to skulk chomping on leg (changed from 10 degrees to 6 degrees)
O HMG view model animations updated to be smoother
O Changed weapon "weights" so mines and welders don't always become current when picked up
O Apply less force to jetpacks according to weight. Means HMGers are less maneuverable then LMGers.
O Updated LMG model to obscure the screen less. It has been moved down and the muzzle flash has been shrunk.
O Lowered pistol rate of fire because of script abuse
O Shotgun damage decreased from 16 to 15 (per pellet)



Commander mode improvements
-------------------

O Added hotgroups! Holding control and 1-5 will create a hotgroup of of the current selection. You can select the group by pressing the number key, or clicking the hotgroup icon. Selecting it again will jump to the group.
O When soldiers are added to a group, they become a squad, and they hear a "You're squad x". All players in the squad see an indicator telling them they are in that squad. This is just for organizational purposes, and has no other gameplay effect.
O When any member of a hotgroup is under attack, the icon will blink red.
O Added "select all" button
O All buttons highlight
O Spaced out ammo/health/order requests on commander HUD
O Added "idle soldier", "soldier needs ammo" and "soldier needs health" indicators. Clicking these will bring you to the soldier who made the request.
O Draw player names at all times
O Commander can use voice comm to talk to just the selected marines by holding his crouch button while talking
O Holding crouch while selecting units will add them to the current selection
O Commander can now see which marines are parasited
O Rewrote alert system. Jump will go to the last alert, no matter what it is. Alerts now time out after 20 seconds (including ammo, health, orders).
O Improved scrolling for commander (no more hitching)
O Changed commander name so soldiers can read it
Bug fixes, exploit fixes, anti-cheat, misc
------------------------------------------

O Removed frame-rate dependence for building structures and jetpack usage
O Added icon for Cheating Death (it will display when authorized)
O Fixed leap/charge exploit
O Death notices getting logged twice when mp_logdetail > 0
O Structures play their animations without "hitching", and don't reset when coming onto the screen for the first time
O Added Cheating Death icon for validated players
O Lowered pistol rate of fire to prevent scripting abuses
O Fixed recycling observatory not removing scanning tech
O Menu doesn't update if recycling structure selected
O Allow recycling of unbuilt structures
O Player muting now works (**and particle editing**)
O Moved NS to HLSDK 2.3 (includes support for sv_alltalk)
O Changed armory resupply code back the way it was
O Players can now "walk"
O Disabled +use for commander so he can't build structures when flying "low"
O Nearly all assets are checked for consistency when mp_consistency is 1, fixed problems with shell.mdl
O Put mp_drawdamage back in as server option
O Decreased time needed to start respawning after death (make sure it works with death anims)
O Added option to disable dynamic lights photosensitive players and for performance reasons
O Messages from server always show up, even if tooltips are off (voting messages, adminmod messages, etc.). Turning off tooltips no longer disables help icons.
O Removed mp_teamhandicap, and spawn invulnerable time from menu, removed other stuff and added new handicaps and stuff
O Make sure advanced turret factory can be recycled
O Relaxed gestation requirements to avoid annoying "you must be on ground to gestate" errors
O Offense chambers no longer hurt themselves in tournament mode
O Collision fixes (no longer "jitter" when crouching no nodes or structures)
O Possible fix for first-person spectating crash
O Fixed bug where alien vision mode would glow entities in the ready room
O Fixed bug where hives weren't starting fully healed
O Fixed bug where you can't fire weapons after commanding
O Fixed bug where killing turret factories didn't deactivate turrets
O Fixed game time not showing properly on scoreboard
O Fixed "draw game" victory condition in tourny mode when time limit hit
O Fixed bug where text sometimes isn't visible in ready room
O Changes to reduce or fix "Can't allocate 128 hud sprites" error
O Fixed flashlight resupply exploit
O Fixed bug where marines can attack their own RTs
O Fixed "we need builders" hint playing when team had gorges but they were evolving traits or were still evolving to gorges
O Fixed shotgun reloading bug
O Fixed various alien view model problems (onos paralysis view model showing up on spawn, gorge deploy not playing when he spawns)
O Fixed invisible view model when specing FPS in HLTV
O Fixed bug where typing spectate into console wasn't removing player from the team
O Fixed death messages overlapping hive info
O Fixed offensive chambers super-high health (changed from 4000 to 1200, not sure how this happened in the first place)
O Fixed heavy armor not working properly
O Fixed server crash when joining/leaving teams after game ended properly (thanks Prodigy
O Fixed heavy armor not starting with full armor

[Strygun]

I may just have to dig up my HL cd's again...

I used to play NS on my crappy comp (before I got one that would play NS well...)

we'll see what happens.

[Zenny]

Originally posted by Mejwell
Don't get me wrong, I love Natural Selection, but there are quite a lot of issues that I'd like to see addressed and/or improved, such as Heavy Machinegun/Jetpack rushing, bunnyhopping, medpack spamming, and the like. Maybe I'm just too picky, but I AM really excited about this new release.

Don't worry, the team's focus for this is balance. Being aware of the JP HMG rushes... they really nerfed the JP, it is more of a jump pack where you go up but as soon as you go down you cant go up again till you land and flying speed is now 2x your running speed.
Bunnyhopping. Be addressed by making marines speed fatigue kinda like Counter-Strike. Jump all you want but you won't get very far.
Lastly the med spamming, I don't think anything has been done about this. They see it as a tactic that although may help a marine or two for a short while it can be very wasteful of resources... Something like that

[lightfire]

HOW DO I GET THIS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lightfire]

HOW DO I GET THIS PELASE TELL ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW DO I DOWNLOAD IT OR FIND IT plz plz plz plz plz tell me plz !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[Zenny]

Patience young grasshopper.
First 2.0 doesnt come out till afternoon of the 31st and it's a Half-Life mod if anyone didnt know.
http://www.natural-selection.org
The link is on the first post :o
And... it's gonna have like a LOT of download mirrors.

[EineBeBoP]

Dedicated server http://www.fileplanet.com/files/120000/128458.shtml

[AztecWarrior]

I played 1.0 then left. It's good, but gets annoying when your teammates are complete morons.

Me: We need to secure two hives!

Leader: stfu man i have it under control