Natural Selection 2 News Update - NS2 Build 163 released
Max
Technical Director, Unknown Worlds Entertainment Join Date: 2002-03-15 Member: 318Super Administrators, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Technical Director, Unknown Worlds Entertainment Join Date: 2002-03-15 Member: 318Super Administrators, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Comments
Awwwww, now I can't be a gorge evolving to a gorge and calling myself a supergorge :)
The new alien night vision effect is awesome perhaps a bit overpowered though needs some negative effect.
Turret placement is really cool.
Whip walk looks awesome.
Alien com interface is nice.
Skulks feel very heavy and slow they also get stuck to easily on little edges.
And... this is a super Gorge 2.
KYAHHHHHHHHHHHHH-
Also I'm sure everyone has seen the alien flashlight bug with going in out of commander view.
but seems to also be more "load new area type of stutters"
should be mentioned there were only a handful servers, and the closest ones were full, so i was in an US east server with 150 ping.
bugs:
- CC lvl2 can be upgraded right away
- sound disappears, only the rifle sound fx remain
- rifle sound looping still lingers
- double rifle muzzle fire effects (one not belonging is closer to crosshair), in first person
- when biting continuously with skulk (holding LMB), teeth only close first time, and rarely after
- mac speed "deteriorates" with time, seems to be server load dependent (when game goes "chuggy" macs also move slow, painfully slow)
I'm getting the exact same problem! ;o
similar for drones.
also:
gorges have some oddities when putting down infestation/hydras. if you click several times to put down something, your energy is drained several times but due to a delay between firing and the action happening, you only put the hydra/infestation down once.
similar issue: if you click to put down a hydra/infest then move, your object doesn't drop where you initially clicked, it drops where you are pointing a second or 2 after. this seems intended since the gorge is 'vomiting' up the object, so maybe freeze the gorge for this period.
Because of the massive energy cost of expanding and the size of say, tram. I essentially cannot get more than two hives and maybe three resource harvesters if I'm lucky, while the marines can easily control the entire map by then.
Also the amount of time I have to spend simply placing infestation patches is very annoying, I spend more time doing that than anything else.
It unbalances the game heavily in favour of marines by massively gimping alien expansion ability.
Also the first game I had the sound cut out for everything but marine rifles.
I still get constant sound looping bugs with marine guns.
The alien view mode is OK I guess, I don't like how it looks though so I don't use it.
Builder units still don't build most of the time, have to keep issuing orders up to five or six times to get them to do anything.
On the plus side the infestation looks OK from a distance, I can sort of see what it's supposed to look like.
Otherwise not much positive to say about the patch.
Because of the massive energy cost of expanding and the size of say, tram. I essentially cannot get more than two hives and maybe three resource harvesters if I'm lucky, while the marines can easily control the entire map by then.
Also the amount of time I have to spend simply placing infestation patches is very annoying, I spend more time doing that than anything else.
It unbalances the game heavily in favour of marines by massively gimping alien expansion ability.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's what that the more than 1 comm is for.
That doesn't make it any faster, I still have to wait for hive energy, also if you expect a player to do nothing but place infestation that is a <i>sorely</i> broken mechanic.
gorges
that said: I like the idea. the infestation already gives the feel of control of the map, which is a huge deal. when an area is covered with infestation there's already a sense of ownership of that area. I've already noticed that marines don't just wander in like they used to, unless it's a more organized effort to take out a hive.
and on a game of rockdown after getting 2 hives I found I had all the energy I needed to expand at a reasonable pace. It'd be a bit slower on tram, but the gameplay on tram is going to be a bit slower regardless. It's not easy to just go in and cover a room with infestation, but infestation shouldn't be something that covers massive portions of the maps with ease.
There is basically no way for marines to protect their structure.
Sentries are way too expensive ( 20 res ) and useless ( hi skulk getting on its side ) to perform that task.
Regarding the res income, we had 7 RTs on tram ( all of them except the one from the main alien hive and another one i think ) and it was still painfully slow to get to 20 res.
I guess this balances the DI expansion being very slow.
Apart from the sound bug, I didnt see any other bug.
The comm interface is very painful to use. I had to click several times on other structure to get back to my armory for instance to get the right menu... argh.
Another thing that would be VERY cool and EASY to implement : a time counter so when you join a game, you can directly have a better idea of the situation.
1) Constant DI sound gets irritating as it never stops and drones out other sounds
2) Agreed with sentries being useless at 20 res, please put them at 10 instead. I've just rage quit two games because at 3v3 our spawn IP was taken out because we couldn't afford any defense.
3) As alien commander when a room went out of power I wanted to assist my alien team mates / place structures, but I couldn't see in the dark myself. Perhaps alien vision should work as com too?
4) Server perf needs work still; in a 6v6 game the tickrate went to 3/sec at times.
Nice list of changes though so far, keep up the good work.
<!--QuoteBegin-patch notes+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (patch notes)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Gorges can now create infestation with their spray weapon. It lasts 2 minutes and then shrinks away<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1833107:date=Feb 18 2011, 03:11 AM:name=6john)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (6john @ Feb 18 2011, 03:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1833107"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i'm pretty sure the comm placing thing is just temporary, I remember reading the overall goal was for it to spread automatically with the comm being able to boost certain areas.
that said: I like the idea. the infestation already gives the feel of control of the map, which is a huge deal. when an area is covered with infestation there's already a sense of ownership of that area. I've already noticed that marines don't just wander in like they used to, unless it's a more organized effort to take out a hive.
and on a game of rockdown after getting 2 hives I found I had all the energy I needed to expand at a reasonable pace. It'd be a bit slower on tram, but the gameplay on tram is going to be a bit slower regardless. It's not easy to just go in and cover a room with infestation, but infestation shouldn't be something that covers massive portions of the maps with ease.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't object to slow games, but I do object to being so slow the marines can completely dominate the map.
I was having more trouble expanding to res nodes than I was with carbon flow, and that's with only one res node.
By the time I managed to expand to repair room and east, the marines had grenade launchers and shotguns and were destroying my hives.
If you're going to make aliens that slow, you need to slow marines down as well.
Or you need to start putting extractors next to tech points so I don't have to expand the DI at all.
And yes, this patch severely hampers aliens. Harvesters should not require infestation...It takes FOREVER to link enough infestation to get a second harvester up on tram, by which point the marines own half the map.
And yes, this patch severely hampers aliens. Harvesters should not require infestation...It takes FOREVER to link enough infestation to get a second harvester up on tram, by which point the marines own half the map.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would also have to agree here, balancing maps so that slow-spreading infestation always reaches res nodes in an acceptable time is going to be much harder than balancing it for quick drifters.
Uncoupling harvesters from infestation would certainly solve a couple of problems.
Also yes I would prefer if gorge infestation didn't die off.
- Really smooth performance. Running a low end rig (2.8ghz AMD dual core, 2gb ram, 4850 1gb, Win7 Ultimate).
- Sound is just, well i am not sure what's going on:
The sound effects are really nice but they sound muffled at times, sound as if they are stuck in a loop and in many cases are delayed.
Then at one point all sound stopped except from action sounds, i.e. Bite or shoot/leap etc.
Sounds were delayed, I had chowed down on a marine yet his gun was still firing for about 1-2 seconds after death.
- Alien Nightvision is fantastic. Really really good.
- Building on DI as a gorge seems a bit inconsistent. I put a patch down then tried to put a hydra but no luck. If there is a deliberate delay then that may be why.
- On rockdown, leaving Alien spawn as a skulk via the right side of the room on the left stairpiece. You just bash into the bottom. I had to jump to get onto the stairs. I know you have been working on this so i thought it was worth mentioning.
Overall: Great patch, audio definitely needs fixing as at the moment i'm playing without NS2 greatest asset, the full atmosphere.
Perhaps have the Gorgy put down a patch first so the RT can be placed, after which it starts spreading infestation?
When placing infestation, it would be nice to have a circle like the gorge has so you can see how big it will grow and can link the patches easier.
When placing infestation, it would be nice to have a circle like the gorge has so you can see how big it will grow and can link the patches easier.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, I still think UWE doesn't want MS or Main Hive to be a possible expansion for the enemy team... Basically there are no eggspawn entities at the MS and the DI now "fixed" the issue of Marine building in the Main Hive initially...
Haven't had people on an aussie server yet so I was just playing around testing it out, was trying to link up the hive to double res on tram thinking gorge DI would survive. Didn't seem to take very long and would leave a very weak trail of DI that marines could cut off fairly easily, seems like it would work excellently for early game expansion
Also tested chucking down a DI patch as a gorge and then building an RT on it as comm, actually seems to survive for quite a while before the DI started retreating.
But we all loved the alien view! :D
Another problem we experienced was the lag. The server was quite stable when running the last version but something in this version caused the game to lag (after a while, maybe 10 mins) to a point where it wasn't playable any more. Happened two times. Unfortunately the server admin couldn't find any problems in the logs.
Spawning back in!
They work just perfect. But they are not portable :-(.
Yeah, I had one fall underground at the center hive on tram, and one got stuck in a box.