Build 272 Live on Steam - Natural Selection 2

13

Comments

  • ATFATF Join Date: 2014-05-09 Member: 195944Members
    Where do you think servers get their mods from?
  • hozzhozz Join Date: 2012-11-20 Member: 172660Members
    ATF wrote: »
    Anyone getting "missing required mod" with NS2+ failing to download from workshop:
    Unzip the content of this into %APPDATA%\Natural Selection 2\Workshop\ then try again.
    Only works until next ns2+ update.

    Thanks a lot, the "sideload" worked perfectly.
  • sotanahtsotanaht Join Date: 2013-01-12 Member: 179215Members
    sotanaht wrote: »
    So the "performance" meter on the server list seems to have been changed. I notice on right click there are now numbers for "Score" and "Quality" under "Performance:". What do they measure?

    I'd still like to know what this is about if anyone can tell me.
  • matsomatso Master of Patches Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
    During sales, steam has always failed to respond to requests to download mods.

    Pre 272, the server and client always tried to verify with steam that they had the correct version of the mod, and if steam failed, then the server/client did not mount the mod (even if they had a version of the mod already lying around).

    So if steam screwed up, the server dropped all its mod and started running vanilla, and the client dropped all its mods and also played vanilla. So you could play the game, but as long as steam had a sale, you had to do it without mods.

    In 272, if the server fails to verify the mod, it shrugs and mounts what is has anyhow and keeps playing. The client does the same thing for active client side mods.

    When you connect to a server with server side mods, the client checks to see if it already has the correct version of the mod already in the workshop cache, and it will only download it from steam if missing or wrong version.

    So if steam is acting up, ideally, you won't even notice if you are playing on a fav server.

    Unless of course if the server is running with mods that you don't have, and steam is too busy, but then it is just a matter of reconnecting until steam DOES it bloody job.

    So this means that the game is now much more resilient to steam issues, but it isn't quite immune - if the server has a mod that you don't have in your local cache, you depend on steam to deliver it to you.

    Did look into having servers act as backup-servers for mod content, but while many mods are small, maps are fairly large and would either take a looong time to download OR risk eating up the bandwidth for players causing redplugging... settled for just doing the sane stuff.

    The best thing to do would be to have a way of indicating a backup NS2-mod store server from which to pick up mods - fairly easy to do the programming for that, the mod download is just a standard zip-file http download, and the server could just ship a backup url to the client on connect - but there are practical issues like hosting.

  • DecoyDecoy Join Date: 2012-09-11 Member: 159037Members, Super Administrators, Playtest Lead, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts, Retired Community Developer
    edited December 2014
    @matso can you chime in on the score/quality/performance rating for servers?
  • matsomatso Master of Patches Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
    The meaning of the ServerPerformanceData is documented in ... ServerPerformanceData.lua :-)

    In short, the Score is "time spent idle - network update delivery penalty".

    Network update delivery penalty is when the server delivers a network update to a player so late that the player is guaranteed to overrun the interpolation buffer - this causes things to start teleporting around.

    Failing to deliver network updates is the only way for a server score to go negative.

    The quality is a measure of how much you can trust the score rating - it basically says how large the game was (in players and entity count) compared to a maxed out game, weighted 75% for players and 25% for entity count.

    What you see in the browser is the average score/quality of a selected set of the five highest-quality 30 second periods (updated every five minutes, so no more than one measurement per five minutes).

    The color always reflects the score, but the quality needs to hit 50 before the text changes from Unknown.

  • ATFATF Join Date: 2014-05-09 Member: 195944Members
    If you want more detail, use the perfmon command (while connected as client or on the server console):

    Perfmon controls dumping out data to the log file. It cycles through various detail levels,
    with the most detailed dumping out the per-second snapshot:

    Perf Score 21, Q 98, idle 21.6%, mv 39.0%(cnt 854(32/26.7), avg 0.46ms), ent 13.6%(cnt 839, avg 0.01ms), tick 27.8 (over 2.7ms), iWarn 6, iFail 0
    Idle is simply the percent of time the server is fiddling its thumbs and not doing anything.
    The time spent on server moves and number of moves processed is in the mv() field.
    The time spent on entity calculations and their count is shown in the ent() field.
    An interpWarn is counted when the server takes 75% of interp buffer to send to a player.
    InterpFail means it took more than 100% of interp buffer - i.e. it fails to deliver a network update. The number is per player.


    net_stats command(use while connected):
    twCFqB2.jpg
    Displays in the second row the most important performance indicators and their current value (updates at one-second-intervals).
    It adds the upload in kbytes/second, which is the total bandwidth used by the server sending data to clients.


    Be sure to express your gratitude towards matso, who is the cornerstone of the recent server performance improvements. :-bd
  • RadimaXRadimaX Join Date: 2013-02-05 Member: 182840Members
    edited December 2014
    This is not a image board! Please take those of us browsing the forum with mobile phones into account.

    People like Loki will open the spoiler to have a look at the given pic! Therefor there is no need for another post about it.

    ~Ghoul
    ok maby we have to live with that pipe mid air for another year then Np ~RadimaX
  • sotanahtsotanaht Join Date: 2013-01-12 Member: 179215Members
    matso wrote: »
    The meaning of the ServerPerformanceData is documented in ... ServerPerformanceData.lua :-)

    In short, the Score is "time spent idle - network update delivery penalty".

    Network update delivery penalty is when the server delivers a network update to a player so late that the player is guaranteed to overrun the interpolation buffer - this causes things to start teleporting around.

    Failing to deliver network updates is the only way for a server score to go negative.

    The quality is a measure of how much you can trust the score rating - it basically says how large the game was (in players and entity count) compared to a maxed out game, weighted 75% for players and 25% for entity count.

    What you see in the browser is the average score/quality of a selected set of the five highest-quality 30 second periods (updated every five minutes, so no more than one measurement per five minutes).

    The color always reflects the score, but the quality needs to hit 50 before the text changes from Unknown.

    Thank you for clearing that up. I didn't realize I was asking for something so technical. I guess that's why the main rating was simplified to "good", "OK" etc.
  • NotPaLaGiNotPaLaGi Join Date: 2014-05-29 Member: 196291Members
    Definitely seems like the rifle jam bug is more prominent in this patch for me. Pretty anecdotal but maybe it will help you finally figure out the issue. Prob one of the most annoying buys in the game since forever.
  • ArchieArchie Antarctica Join Date: 2006-09-19 Member: 58028Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Supporter, WC 2013 - Supporter
    Also IP spawning we are getting stuck more often from afkers
  • MoFo1MoFo1 United States Join Date: 2014-07-25 Member: 197612Members
    Hooray, we can FINALLY mute text chat!!!

    That and getting the steam server browser to work just might be two of the best improvements since the CDT took over. (Boggles the mind how the CDT got it working but UWE never could)

  • MendaspMendasp I touch maps in inappropriate places Valencia, Spain Join Date: 2002-07-05 Member: 884Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Retired Community Developer
    MoFo1 wrote: »
    Hooray, we can FINALLY mute text chat!!!

    That and getting the steam server browser to work just might be two of the best improvements since the CDT took over. (Boggles the mind how the CDT got it working but UWE never could)
    The muted text chat is a feature from NS2+, not this patch.
  • SamusDroidSamusDroid Colorado Join Date: 2013-05-13 Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    edited December 2014
    MoFo1 wrote: »
    Hooray, we can FINALLY mute text chat!!!

    That and getting the steam server browser to work just might be two of the best improvements since the CDT took over. (Boggles the mind how the CDT got it working but UWE never could)
    Would you believe me if I told you it was a matter of changing the product name in the engine from "naturalselection2" to "Natural Selection 2". Even though it was simple it was a trade-off between potentially breaking sites that get their information using the old product name and getting it working in the steam server browser.

  • IeptBarakatIeptBarakat The most difficult name to speak ingame. Join Date: 2009-07-10 Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited December 2014
    SamusDroid wrote: »
    MoFo1 wrote: »
    Hooray, we can FINALLY mute text chat!!!

    That and getting the steam server browser to work just might be two of the best improvements since the CDT took over. (Boggles the mind how the CDT got it working but UWE never could)
    Would you believe me if I told you it was a matter of changing the product name in the engine from "naturalselection2" to "Natural Selection 2". Even though it was simple it was a trade-off between potentially breaking sites that get their information using the old product name and getting it working in the steam server browser.

    It should have happened years ago but I'm glad it's finally fixed.

    Also wasn't the Reinforcement website supposed to end a month ago?
    In three days, we are going to close down the Reinforcement Program website. All tiers will close, except for Shadow, which will be transferred to a new web page. We’re keeping Shadow available because the Community Development Team (CDT) has some cool ideas about its future. If you want any other tier, now’s the time: They will never be available ever again.

    http://www.naturalselection2.com/reinforced/
  • SamusDroidSamusDroid Colorado Join Date: 2013-05-13 Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    edited December 2014
    You can still buy shadow if you want.
  • IeptBarakatIeptBarakat The most difficult name to speak ingame. Join Date: 2009-07-10 Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
    SamusDroid wrote: »
    You cna still buy shadow if you want.

    and every other tier as the program is seemingly still in full operation.
  • YojimboYojimbo England Join Date: 2009-03-19 Member: 66806Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    Shouldn't be in a rush to close the other tiers down? Let it be til cdt make a move on what to do with it, its not hurting anyone at the moment
  • CalegoCalego Join Date: 2013-01-24 Member: 181848Members, NS2 Map Tester
    HeatSurge wrote: »
    So... my movement modifier key is... "A."

    And the new "press movement modifier + wasd or whatever it is as com to move the view" breaks my A.

    I know, I'm probably the only one ever to use A as a movement modifier. I also use Z/X as strafe left/right, not A/D. Nevertheless, at least as alien com, pressing A while commanding does not drop cysts (or activate the drifter ability, or do what it's supposed to be on the other command pages) and instead moves the view to the left. I'm not sure why/how this is occurring, but I'm guessing the logic needs to be fixed if A is actually the movement modifier key. Haven't tested yet, but could it be the same effect if the movement modifier key is Q, D, or S?

    Or just make it an option in "General" please...

    I guess I'm not comming until next patch. Having to click to cyst or to use the drifter ability or to shift things takes away too much time and is no fun.

    Let me know if you need my full keybinding or config to reproduce this.

    My map key for commanders is Shift, the default move modifier. As I'm sure most of us do, I command with my map open more than not, so this messes with my button pressing subtly (but annoyingly).

    Thus I agree that this should either be an option or make it so you can rebind "Movement special" for commanders in the commander bindings (the ideal solution).
  • hozzhozz Join Date: 2012-11-20 Member: 172660Members
    Sometimes people spawn stuck in the snow in Mineshaft RR :D
  • KKyleKKyle Michigan Join Date: 2005-07-01 Member: 55067Members
    matso wrote: »
    The best thing to do would be to have a way of indicating a backup NS2-mod store server from which to pick up mods - fairly easy to do the programming for that, the mod download is just a standard zip-file http download, and the server could just ship a backup url to the client on connect - but there are practical issues like hosting.


    "Missing required mod" completely killed the siegemod server. Having a backup download server is not only ideal but atleast mandatory given that hl-1 had this setup, and I've no idea why ns2 does not.



  • RapGodRapGod Not entirely sure... Join Date: 2013-11-12 Member: 189322Members
    Now that I don't have that mod issue... joining a server seems quicker n I'm actually landing hits... noice job.
  • meatmachinemeatmachine South England Join Date: 2013-01-06 Member: 177858Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    i'm sure if people look around on the trello for long enough they might see something that will make shadow-tier backers slightly happier :)
  • LokiLoki Join Date: 2012-07-07 Member: 153973Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    @hozz I am aware of this issue, but ran out of time in the end, 273 will resolve it though
  • MuckyMcFlyMuckyMcFly Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    I'm confused at pumpkins and snowballs combo....
  • LokiLoki Join Date: 2012-07-07 Member: 153973Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    its the nightmare before christmas
  • Soul_RiderSoul_Rider Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
    @MuckyMcFly‌

    Unfortunately, there was a massive over production of pumpkins for Halloween. This has led to a new push to incorporate pumpkins into a role in the traditional Christmas.
  • HamletHamlet Join Date: 2008-08-17 Member: 64837Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited December 2014
    You see, Natural Selection was based on the Half-Life.
    As such, a certain "Gordon Frohman" later became in charge of seasonal pumpkin decoration orders...
    Needless to say, his excess knows no bounds.
    concerned021.jpg
    concerned022.jpg
  • MuckyMcFlyMuckyMcFly Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    Were going to have Xmas tune all summer aren't we =))
  • UncleCrunchUncleCrunch Mayonnaise land Join Date: 2005-02-16 Member: 41365Members, Reinforced - Onos
    matso wrote: »
    During sales, steam has always failed to respond to requests to download mods.

    Pre 272, the server and client always tried to verify with steam that they had the correct version of the mod, and if steam failed, then the server/client did not mount the mod (even if they had a version of the mod already lying around).

    Well... if you don't know already ISPs and commercial companies all over the world and since more years than I'm old (a good load) always prepare for that kind of events. Buying bandwidth or put in motion more infrastructures is so common that i can't imagine that Steam Network/IT engineers do not prepare for sale and such. This is just ridiculous.

    Your answer doesn't explain why other Steam games using mods work flawlessly (trying with different Steam location configuration - germany, spain etc..). I mean the mods used in other games are quite more heavy than the NS2 mods that can be qualified as tiny compared to these. To be honest, anything I do through steam is quite faster these days than during the year.

    When i see memory leak more than "0" times in NS2 logs I start to wonder : Maybe it's not Steam. Steam has issues (that's right) but it's too easy to always find "it's Steam" every time. It looks like "Cluedo" : It's always Colonel mustard...

    I understand it puts CDT/UWE in a bad position at a bad time. But damn, if it needs more testing, don't send the build to production. We don't need winter stuff all other the place in ready rooms. Especially when the modifications include a "too loud music". He must be deaf or something. It just tear my ears apart. Especially for southern hemisphere people for which it is not quite the winter season...

    Just for the music volume, I ask for a fall-back to Build.271. It's better to have something that actually works for the end of the year...
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