There will not be a changelog for beta 242. Rather than looking for testing of specific changes (This is what is done internally, anyway) we are seeking the 'vibe' the 'feel' and the anecdotal issues people encounter when they try out the build.
Also to help us find any crashes or the especially esoteric script errors that didn't pop up internally. Any feedback you have if you experience either is always extremely helpful. We did quite a bit of internal testing this week and didn't have any crashes or script errors with the beta build that was published but our sample size is small and things can always slip through the cracks, so keep an eye out!
Infestation not being on the map is annoying, yes, but it's so much of a performance boost that it's honestly kind of ridiculous.
So far great performance boost with this build. Empty veil map had 20+ fps boost No major performance drop while I cysted whole map + harvesters/hives..
You don't want a ns2_bt server, I don't think (that's a server on your favorites probably?)... you just want an ns2 server that filters through on your server list. Did Steam download a new version of NS2 for you? (around 90MB)
Yes, a 95.2 mb download. I ended up refreshing the server list a few times, saw an empty server called "Beta Playground" and joined. Unfortunately, seconds later I alt tabbed to read/post to the forums and it crashed my NS.
Didn't have as much luck finding the server the 2nd time around- The list loads up 241 servers and sometimes just one at a time.
Sounds weird... can't they just go to sleep when no marines are around, like hydras do? In fact, can't they be asleep all the time, unless being shot? They don't need to animate or update, unless a cyst *somewhere* is created/destroyed.
Though I don't know enough about how LUA handles 'sleep', so this may be completely off point.
He's referring to the strain related to the transmitting entity positions on the minimap to all the other players. On the aliens quite a few of those entities are cysts, such that simply removing them from showing up on the minimap has actually caused a performance increase.
However, not being able to see infestation on the minimap is a big issue for alien players (not just the khamm). I'd like to see some way around it that isn't as big of a drain on the performance.
I'll give UWE the benefit of the doubt and assume that it's a stopgap solution... It's really a hard pill to swallow though, there must be something that can be done to get the gist of the functionality it was providing.
Not seeing the Cyst chain on the map and where it is broken... that sounds pretty brutal
Cysts already are so annoying with the minimum distance explode (which kills the explosion causing Cyst too!)
I still maintain that more people would test it if there were a changelog. "What's different?" is the elephant in the room with any patch, and ignoring that question won't make people forget about it - more likely most of the people who do play are primarily going to be hunting for differences.
Me? Hunt for differences? Well if you insist... :-B
The ones that that involve gameplay include a few minor changes...
- New commander order: Follow and weld
- Some MAC AI improvements
- Added skulk "GetAirMoveScalar" (examine skulk.lua if this interests you)
- Babbler improvements (they've made a pile of tweaks in all the babbler files)
* Cling duration (was 20 seconds) is now infinite
* Life time increased from 2 minutes to 5 minutes
* Bait ball range reduced from 15 to 8
* Babbler pheromone duration reduced from 10 to 5 (IE they come back faster if no target is aquired)
* Some babbler AI improvements too
Looks like they have done a lot of work trying to improve how babblers work. If you're a gorge that likes them, this would be a good time to test it out. Please note this is just me poking around in the LUA and what I have observed. It may or may not be fully accurate depending on how code can be interpreted, and there are many more minor changes that I didn't look at. Take this at face value and don't shoot the messenger.
I still maintain that more people would test it if there were a changelog. "What's different?" is the elephant in the room with any patch, and ignoring that question won't make people forget about it - more likely most of the people who do play are primarily going to be hunting for differences. The people who aren't interested in doing that will simply watch the thread for the reports of people who do.
I guess so. I don't have any plans on playing this because I can't be bothered to guess what's new.
I guess so. I don't have any plans on playing this because I can't be bothered to guess what's new.
Thats not a problem, not everybody is made for testing. Beta builds are for curious people that try to help improve the game. That is not something everybody is interested in, which is understandable.
So lets keep this thread on the beta build and not on why some people dont want to test it. They will get the changelog soon enough when the final build gets out.
I think cyst models would be an ON / OFF option in options instead of forcing it upon everyone. I would propably tick it off so i dont get distracted by a newly put cyst behind me by the alien commander so a fade can slap me in the back when i turn around for the cyst and halfway emty my clip in them haha or maby you should do a really low-res model to replace them with and the option would be CYSTS: Hight / Low / off ?
any printscreens of it so far? want to see how it looks i mean if you are a gorge and marines damage a cyst is it only a Heal logo hoovering in mid air now and no cyst model or what is up?
the lack of cysts on the map kind of (really) sucks, is it really that much overhead to keep a client-side copy?
You would not believe just how performance hungry those things are
So you are replicating every cyst and it's properties to the client, regardless of whether or not he can actually see them on the map?
Why not introduce a separate minimap marker entity that doesn't do anything except holding data about the location and type of the building and whether or not it's under attack? Each building keeps a reference to it's entity, so it can update it as needed.
Or are you referring to the overhead of drawcalls for the actual minimap texture of each structure?
found a problem, once opted into the beta i could no longer connect to my server as it boots you back out due to consistency checking so i had to disable the beta to connect to my server. what are the settings to enable beta on my personal server?
I is possible to leave minimap cysts at least for khamm only?
UPD: Oh, this been suggested before.
Also, minimap cysts was a great tool to tell from the very start if our comm is good. If you see cysts chain expanding rapidly, you know comm is at least OK. And if you see room is cysted but there is no harvester, you can remind comm of this. And sometimes comms forget about expansion to some other locations and you can clearly see it on minimap (i.e. not taking overlook with sub hive).
any printscreens of it so far? want to see how it looks i mean if you are a gorge and marines damage a cyst is it only a Heal logo hoovering in mid air now and no cyst model or what is up?
The cyst model is still there, the only thing that is different is that the orange circles on the minimap are no longer there so you can't tell what parts of the map have infestation unless you actually go and look, structures and eggs still show up same as before.
Performance when running around the map on a local server for me feels very similar. Are there any servers running the beta build?
Even though the minimap cyst change is a fair sized nerf to Aliens, I think it is fine. It's currently very easy to see Marines moving on Infestation because of the alert system and Drifters.
Performance when running around the map on a local server for me feels very similar. Are there any servers running the beta build?
Even though the minimap cyst change is a fair sized nerf to Aliens, I think it is fine. It's currently very easy to see Marines moving on Infestation because of the alert system and Drifters.
There is currently no difference in seeing marines on infestation vs normal ground. They only give their position away because pub marines tend to attack every cyst they come across instead of just passing by undetected.
Even though the minimap cyst change is a fair sized nerf to Aliens, I think it is fine. It's currently very easy to see Marines moving on Infestation because of the alert system and Drifters.
The problem is not that it is an alien nerf, the problem is that it is nerf through interface screw. The cyst have still the same health and still alert commander that they are attacked, it is simply far more cumbersome for alien commander to become aware to it. And that just feels cheap and kinda unfair.
The best way to implement it would be ON/OFF toggle as someone above pointed out. You can turn it ON when you need some extra performance for your skulking/fading/lerking and then turn it OFF when you are commander or don't really need any performance boost because your machine is THAT good.
There will not be a changelog for beta 242. Rather than looking for testing of specific changes (This is what is done internally, anyway) we are seeking the 'vibe' the 'feel' and the anecdotal issues people encounter when they try out the build.
You should really rethink that position. I understand why there's no point in having a detailed changelog due to changes still happening, but you should at least indicate what's new. A few points about "in this beta build we've been focusing on increasing performance and improving Babbler AI" so people know what to look for and if it's something that's interesting for them. What good would it be to have someone with high framerates beta test performance optimization? Or spending hours playing maps that haven't been touched and never getting to the map at the end of the mapcycle that have been remapped extensively?
Performance when running around the map on a local server for me feels very similar. Are there any servers running the beta build?
Even though the minimap cyst change is a fair sized nerf to Aliens, I think it is fine. It's currently very easy to see Marines moving on Infestation because of the alert system and Drifters.
There is currently no difference in seeing marines on infestation vs normal ground. They only give their position away because pub marines tend to attack every cyst they come across instead of just passing by undetected.
the lack of cysts on the map kind of (really) sucks, is it really that much overhead to keep a client-side copy?
You would not believe just how performance hungry those things are
So you are replicating every cyst and it's properties to the client, regardless of whether or not he can actually see them on the map?
Why not introduce a separate minimap marker entity that doesn't do anything except holding data about the location and type of the building and whether or not it's under attack? Each building keeps a reference to it's entity, so it can update it as needed.
Or are you referring to the overhead of drawcalls for the actual minimap texture of each structure?
this is what i was thinking too. it should be fairly simple/cheap to keep a minimap client side without having to update it constantly (i.e. only if the server says a new cyst is built or destroyed).
I think if the betas were released on the steam workshop rather than having to opt in every time you wanted to see if a server has people on it then opt out again to play normally there would be more interest.
I think if the betas were released on the steam workshop rather than having to opt in every time you wanted to see if a server has people on it then opt out again to play normally there would be more interest.
The thing is though, this beta still has potential crash issues and such. It is best to not expose the general public to this.
Also aside from the changes, this is more of a performance test. So it would be very helpful if people who are currently testing the beta-opt-in to run performance logs as well, while setting up end game scenarios.
Console: p_logall
You can find the plogs in your "%appdata%\Natural Selection 2" folder. Maybe add the dxdiags to this as well so the devs can get an idea of a per system config performance.
The way we did this is to use ns2_descent and set up a Hive in Hydro, with loads of stuff placed down and all players in that location running and shooting
There will not be a changelog for beta 242. Rather than looking for testing of specific changes (This is what is done internally, anyway) we are seeking the 'vibe' the 'feel' and the anecdotal issues people encounter when they try out the build.
What good would it be to have someone with high framerates beta test performance optimization? Or spending hours playing maps that haven't been touched and never getting to the map at the end of the mapcycle that have been remapped extensively?
Some of you are really kind of missing the point here. The purpose of releasing this beta build is not to get detailed feedback about if players think Babblers play better or not, or even if people are getting better FPS (though if you are it is good to report it). It is to look for script errors and crashes and game breaking bugs, which don't require you to know what has been changed. Did a babbler jump at you and suddenly you couldn't move anymore? Did your FPS get cut in half for some reason? Do you not see infestation at all or something? These are the sort of things we really want to make sure are sorted out BEFORE we release the patch, and what we are focused on at this point, not getting into a balance discussion regarding Babblers. So, really, the more people playing this beta build and testing it out and reporting issues, the less likely there will be some surprise nasty bugs that spring up in the patch, requiring a hotfix.
And, as Asraniel said, the infestation not showing up on the alien map is a temporary measure. Hopefully we can get some kind of fix in before the patch goes live, but if not, I'm sure there will be something soon after. We are really focused on performance, since that seems to be what everyone has been asking for, and in order to make some of these big increases it may involve breaking some things, at least temporarily.
Comments
Infestation not being on the map is annoying, yes, but it's so much of a performance boost that it's honestly kind of ridiculous.
Yes, a 95.2 mb download. I ended up refreshing the server list a few times, saw an empty server called "Beta Playground" and joined. Unfortunately, seconds later I alt tabbed to read/post to the forums and it crashed my NS.
Didn't have as much luck finding the server the 2nd time around- The list loads up 241 servers and sometimes just one at a time.
However, not being able to see infestation on the minimap is a big issue for alien players (not just the khamm). I'd like to see some way around it that isn't as big of a drain on the performance.
Cysts already are so annoying with the minimum distance explode (which kills the explosion causing Cyst too!)
The ones that that involve gameplay include a few minor changes...
- New commander order: Follow and weld
- Some MAC AI improvements
- Added skulk "GetAirMoveScalar" (examine skulk.lua if this interests you)
- Babbler improvements (they've made a pile of tweaks in all the babbler files)
* Cling duration (was 20 seconds) is now infinite * Life time increased from 2 minutes to 5 minutes * Bait ball range reduced from 15 to 8 * Babbler pheromone duration reduced from 10 to 5 (IE they come back faster if no target is aquired) * Some babbler AI improvements too
Looks like they have done a lot of work trying to improve how babblers work. If you're a gorge that likes them, this would be a good time to test it out. Please note this is just me poking around in the LUA and what I have observed. It may or may not be fully accurate depending on how code can be interpreted, and there are many more minor changes that I didn't look at. Take this at face value and don't shoot the messenger.This will help your game expanding its range on customers
Oh and Mouse + hit detection still ..suck >> fix this also
Definitely agree with this, commander NEEDS to see the cyst chains, else it's just going to be frustrating.
I guess so. I don't have any plans on playing this because I can't be bothered to guess what's new.
Thats not a problem, not everybody is made for testing. Beta builds are for curious people that try to help improve the game. That is not something everybody is interested in, which is understandable.
So lets keep this thread on the beta build and not on why some people dont want to test it. They will get the changelog soon enough when the final build gets out.
any printscreens of it so far? want to see how it looks i mean if you are a gorge and marines damage a cyst is it only a Heal logo hoovering in mid air now and no cyst model or what is up?
So you are replicating every cyst and it's properties to the client, regardless of whether or not he can actually see them on the map?
Why not introduce a separate minimap marker entity that doesn't do anything except holding data about the location and type of the building and whether or not it's under attack? Each building keeps a reference to it's entity, so it can update it as needed.
Or are you referring to the overhead of drawcalls for the actual minimap texture of each structure?
UPD: Oh, this been suggested before.
Also, minimap cysts was a great tool to tell from the very start if our comm is good. If you see cysts chain expanding rapidly, you know comm is at least OK. And if you see room is cysted but there is no harvester, you can remind comm of this. And sometimes comms forget about expansion to some other locations and you can clearly see it on minimap (i.e. not taking overlook with sub hive).
The cyst model is still there, the only thing that is different is that the orange circles on the minimap are no longer there so you can't tell what parts of the map have infestation unless you actually go and look, structures and eggs still show up same as before.
Build 241 screenshot: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/848074014677163979/F61F63BDDC73676812E11FF2FDCF38829E9E0504/
Build 242b screenshot: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/848074014677189587/52215D3555CF87EBD9B7AAB6B492367C59237F0C/
Seems they made the alien minimap icons a bit brighter / higher contrast too.
Even though the minimap cyst change is a fair sized nerf to Aliens, I think it is fine. It's currently very easy to see Marines moving on Infestation because of the alert system and Drifters.
There is currently no difference in seeing marines on infestation vs normal ground. They only give their position away because pub marines tend to attack every cyst they come across instead of just passing by undetected.
The problem is not that it is an alien nerf, the problem is that it is nerf through interface screw. The cyst have still the same health and still alert commander that they are attacked, it is simply far more cumbersome for alien commander to become aware to it. And that just feels cheap and kinda unfair.
The best way to implement it would be ON/OFF toggle as someone above pointed out. You can turn it ON when you need some extra performance for your skulking/fading/lerking and then turn it OFF when you are commander or don't really need any performance boost because your machine is THAT good.
What? Rewrite that in English.
Yeah thats what I meant
this is what i was thinking too. it should be fairly simple/cheap to keep a minimap client side without having to update it constantly (i.e. only if the server says a new cyst is built or destroyed).
Also aside from the changes, this is more of a performance test. So it would be very helpful if people who are currently testing the beta-opt-in to run performance logs as well, while setting up end game scenarios.
Console: p_logall
You can find the plogs in your "%appdata%\Natural Selection 2" folder. Maybe add the dxdiags to this as well so the devs can get an idea of a per system config performance.
The way we did this is to use ns2_descent and set up a Hive in Hydro, with loads of stuff placed down and all players in that location running and shooting
And, as Asraniel said, the infestation not showing up on the alien map is a temporary measure. Hopefully we can get some kind of fix in before the patch goes live, but if not, I'm sure there will be something soon after. We are really focused on performance, since that seems to be what everyone has been asking for, and in order to make some of these big increases it may involve breaking some things, at least temporarily.