Build 264 now live on Steam - Natural Selection 2

SystemSystem Join Date: 2013-01-29 Member: 182599Members, Super Administrators, Reinforced - Diamond
edited March 2014 in NS2 General Discussion

imageBuild 264 now live on Steam - Natural Selection 2

Natural Selection 2 Build 264 is now live on Steam. Build 264 is tiny, minuscule, so small that if it was orbiting the Sun we might not call it a planet. We would not normally release a build this small, but some of the changes are security-related. As a result, we’ve chosen to bring just those changes forward and retarget 265 as the next main NS2 build. Here is the changelog: Critical docking exploit fixed Reduced variance in time updates between frames on the client (thanks Matso!) Fixed crash when the server received an improperly formed packet (thanks Camron!) Fixed crash issue with CoordsArray (thanks Deco!) Updated the URL for LaunchPad to point to the new server address for news…

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Comments

  • HughHugh Cameraman San Francisco, CA Join Date: 2010-04-18 Member: 71444NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    Bumpity for the grand opening of the finest comment thread in all the land
  • VetinariVetinari Join Date: 2013-07-23 Member: 186325Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver
    *sees update*

    *heads over to unknownworlds*

    *reads changelog*

    Hugh, I am disappoint. Where are mac support, singleplayer and the mappack we were promised??
  • Dictator93Dictator93 Join Date: 2008-12-21 Member: 65833Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    *sees update*

    *heads over to unknownworlds*

    *reads changelog*

    Hugh, I am disappoint. Where are mac support, singleplayer and the mappack we were promised??
    lol

    Nice to see an update regarding the frame times fix. I also of course look forward to 265!
  • NailoNailo Join Date: 2013-05-06 Member: 185138Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    edited March 2014
    Now that the bug has been fixed on Docking, can someone tell me what the issue with it was? I played on it many times and never found an issue with it and I thought samusdroid said it wasn't such a big deal either. I'm guessing its because not many knew about whatever the exploit was but to satisfy my curiosity would you mind telling me what earned the exploit the term "Critical"?
  • joshhhjoshhh Milwaukee, WI Join Date: 2011-06-21 Member: 105717Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester
    edited March 2014
    current1y wrote: »
    Skulk sounds are still ridiculously loud. They had to reduce them by 50% in the world championship and play a modded version of ns2. Why wasn't that fix included?

    This and the no-alert bug when things are off of infestation for alien Khamm. Both things were the result of the last patch and should have been included into the 'hotfix.'

    On the bright side... +1 to Matso's fix. I have been waiting for that for quite some time.
  • KalabalanaKalabalana Join Date: 2003-11-14 Member: 22859Members
    Did this client server timing issue address the change in skulk bite distance I felt since last patch?
  • craZyfxcraZyfx Austria Join Date: 2014-01-20 Member: 193350Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Additional infos about the fixes would be fine (ie. what was the problem in first place).

    Is the connection loss fixed when you join a server for the first time and you have additional precaching activated?
  • ObraxisObraxis Subnautica Animator & Generalist, NS2 Person Join Date: 2004-07-24 Member: 30071Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, WC 2013 - Supporter, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    The new hallucination changes will change the game quite a bit.... enjoy!
  • lwflwf Join Date: 2006-11-03 Member: 58311Members, Constellation
    So what was the Docking exploit anyway?
  • GhoulofGSG9GhoulofGSG9 Join Date: 2013-03-31 Member: 184566Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Supporter, WC 2013 - Supporter, Pistachionauts
    lwf wrote: »
    So what was the Docking exploit anyway?

    Missing death trigger at landing pad
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Narfwak wrote: »
    Shade opener is very powerful with these changes.
    Emphasis on this..
  • ezekelezekel Join Date: 2012-11-29 Member: 173589Members, NS2 Map Tester
    edited March 2014
    IronHorse wrote: »
    Narfwak wrote: »
    Shade opener is very powerful with these changes.
    Emphasis on this..

    You can probably start a fake push with a hallucination and cause the other team to rotate out of position (even if it's just one player)

    Just a guess as I haven't seen it yet
  • SewlekSewlek The programmer previously known as Schimmel Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
    Narfwak wrote: »
    To clarify on the hallucinations, they now:

    - Use bot AI code and are now incredibly deceptive (especially fades)
    - Are no longer killed by scan; scan does nothing to them at all, in fact. This may change in 265.
    - Are limited to 33% of your team size, rounding down (6 player team gets 2, 9 player team gets 3, etc.)
    - AI units do not count against maximum hallucination count, but you only get one free drifter (so no huge clouds of fake drifters)

    Hallucinations take more damage than they used to as well, but I'm not 100% sure on where that ended up in the final version (perhaps @Sewlek could help us!).

    Shade opener is very powerful with these changes. We'll be keeping an eye on public games and feedback to see if changes need to be made. Think of this as an early preview. :)

    everything correct!
  • joshhhjoshhh Milwaukee, WI Join Date: 2011-06-21 Member: 105717Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester
    It will be powerful until people develop ways to identify it and counter it. I'm just not sure about the scans doing nothing clause. You have to waste t-res to counter enemy t-res abilities. That made sense to me. I'll just wait and see how it plays out though.
  • current1ycurrent1y Join Date: 2003-12-08 Member: 24150Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester
    edited March 2014
    You can do tons of shit with them. If they bite buildings they will fake alerts for example. If they bite players the player will get dmg indicators like they are taking damage. They are very strong.

    The fades are actually better then 95% of people you see as well..scary mofos
    The gorges hop up and down and spit at you like real gorges.
    The onos when he gores you sends your rifle flying and you can't aim like it does in a real onos.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    edited March 2014
    @joshhh‌
    It never really made sense to me that scan would do that to hallucinations, unless the benefits of Shade hive were considered to be so powerful to warrant such a downside - a downside that Mucous and Enzyme would not share.
    The significant hallucination HP nerf takes care of most of the concerns regarding shade hive being outright OP on it's own accord, imo

    Now there's only one reason remaining that makes the change OP.. and that's what I'm waiting for people to discover quickly so we can prove it, patch it, and move on with a better shade hive. :-P

    related: The best part of these hallucination changes are the AI.. hands down it creates a believable hallucination where you will be genuinely tricked, again and again.
    Props to Sewlek's AI code
  • NarfwakNarfwak Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5258Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica PT Lead, NS2 Community Developer
    edited March 2014
    ezekel wrote: »
    IronHorse wrote: »
    Narfwak wrote: »
    Shade opener is very powerful with these changes.
    Emphasis on this..

    You can probably start a fake push with a hallucination and cause the other team to rotate out of position (even if it's just one player)

    Just a guess as I haven't seen it yet

    We haven't seen that in PT games, but playtest games aren't played at a competitive skill level so that's not to say it wouldn't work. They still deal zero damage so it's hard to say if it would work, but it does sound interesting!

    The most common use of them was to spam them in team battles where fades, gorges or lerks were present, as the AI code for fades and gorges especially is very effective at tricking marines into missing a shot. It's very powerful against shotguns for obvious reasons.
    joshhh wrote: »
    It will be powerful until people develop ways to identify it and counter it. I'm just not sure about the scans doing nothing clause. You have to waste t-res to counter enemy t-res abilities. That made sense to me. I'll just wait and see how it plays out though.

    There was some discussion about this and a lot of people thought that was a good idea, but with the schedule being as tight as it was the code was locked down before any more balance changes could be made. The version that went out is a bit on the strong side, so like I said we'll definitely keep an eye on the feedback.
  • Laosh'RaLaosh'Ra Join Date: 2011-12-09 Member: 137232Members
    minor issue: ran initial optimisation, clicked on the gather-thingy and it got stuck in a white screen except the back button (which did not work). restarting the game fixed the issue.
    since most servers are still empty, i'll finally give this a try now...
  • BeigeAlertBeigeAlert Texas Join Date: 2013-08-08 Member: 186657Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
    Does this mean bots will be smarter as well? I'm just curious because on TGNS we have bots enabled for seeding the server, and it gets a bit boring after a while because they aren't very smart, and they are always skulks.
  • NarfwakNarfwak Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5258Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica PT Lead, NS2 Community Developer
    BeigeAlert wrote: »
    Does this mean bots will be smarter as well? I'm just curious because on TGNS we have bots enabled for seeding the server, and it gets a bit boring after a while because they aren't very smart, and they are always skulks.
    The broader bot code is still the same for playing against them instead of players. While they (for whatever reason) don't evolve on their own they do have code for using the other life forms and actually fade and gorge better than a lot of players. Bear in mind that bots don't retreat, so while that behavior is not good for a real game it is perfect for hallucinations that you want tanking and distracting marine players.
  • Omega_K2Omega_K2 Join Date: 2011-12-25 Member: 139013Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Thanks for the fixes, but still no memory corruption fix? :|
  • [AwE]Sentinel[AwE]Sentinel Join Date: 2012-06-05 Member: 152949Members
    Can't update - server seems to be down -_-
  • Omega_K2Omega_K2 Join Date: 2011-12-25 Member: 139013Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited March 2014
    Can't update - server seems to be down -_-

    yeah steam is ****ed again (as usual lol), so I can neither update client or servers; guessing this will be fixed sooner or later by valve..

    don't bypass the language filter - narfwak
  • DarkflameQDarkflameQ Join Date: 2013-02-28 Member: 183451Members
    edited March 2014
    I can't wait for the day when this games official development stops.
  • joshhhjoshhh Milwaukee, WI Join Date: 2011-06-21 Member: 105717Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester
    99% sure that is just Steam being Steam. They like to inconvenience people with their random shenanigans.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Steam is having issues with their master servers right now..
    http://www.issteamdown.com/
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