After the successful construction of a new mining station on asteroid codename: Kodiak, the crew of the Industrial Construction Vessel “Caged” sent out a distress signal. ALTERRA Corp quickly dispatched a private military unit to investigate the source of the distress, what they found was an empty vessel and no signs of human life…

Welcome to Caged, the newest official map in the NS2 universe. A throwback to the original NS1 Map by Nelson ‘manah’ Ferryman, Flaterectomy and other community contributors and testers have worked to honor the original but also offer a new take for the current state of play. Caged offers players a fun four techpoint map with plenty of res and unique rooms and corridors for epic combat engagements.



What would a new map be without some other goodies? As a special treat, players who play on caged for two hours or more within the first week of release will unlock a new skulk skin. This can only be earned until June 10, 2016. After this date you will only be able to trade or buy it from players that earned it in the community marketplace. Get it FREE while you can!



Travel deep into the heart of Caged and see what skulks in the cold darkness. With its piercing blue eyes and ravaging look, this Skulk is sure to make many a marine wary of the fight ahead.



Update 301 sees continued tweaks to the new features we’ve added over the last few weeks and also sees a newer variant of Alien Vision and Spores! With the help of Ironhorse we have gone over a lot of the effects and cinematics and made them friendlier to engagements and less screen clutter. See more in the update log below.

These last few weeks of development have been very interesting with new features and balance tweaks and we have appreciated all the feedback. Thank you again to our Playtesters and Leads for helping us get through the faster rate of updates to the game. Also a big thanks to those of you in the public that have been coming and playing the public beta with us, it has been a huge help. We have seen a recent influx of new players to the community and we hope we can only continue to grow these numbers in the future, but this also happens with your help in supporting and helping the new players feel encouraged. Thank you to those of you taking the time to teach and show new players why we love this game so much!

UPDATE LOG

Tweaks / Improvements

• New Map Caged by Flaterectomy:
  • Remake of the original NS1 map ns_caged
  • 4 Tech Points and 10 Resource Points
  • Added loading screens for Caged (thanks Samus)
  • Added an achievement “Unleashed” for playing on Caged for 2 hours
  • Added the new “Abyss” skulk skin, which is rewarded free for a limited time for unlocking “Unleashed”.
  • Added a new main menu background.

• Remind the server operators to add the map to their mapcycle!

• Bot “Evolution”:
  • Alien bots evolve now into Lerks, Fades and Oni.
  • Improved the Lerks, Fade and Oni bot behavior.
  • Alien commander bots now manage better with their team ressources
  • Marine commander bots will also research The MG now.
• Aliens:
  • Alien Vision
    • Gorges and Babblers are highlighted and outlined in green
    • Friendly units are highlighted orange instead of red and are less highlighted than enemies
    • Enemy parasited outlines are now yellow to differentiate from friendlies
  • Lerk:
    • Spores:
      • Spores are now a ranged ability like Umbra
      • Spores require now biomass 4 (instead of 6)
      • Lowered damage to 15 health points (was 20)
      • Increased energy costs to 16 (was 8)
    • Umbra:
      • Umbra requires now biomass 5 (instead of 4)
  • Onos:
    • Boneshield
      • Boneshield requires now biomass 6 (instead of 5)
      • Added a new visual effects for bone shield
      • Boneshield now cost only 20 energy (instead of 40)
      • Boneshield restores now 112.5 armor per second (was 100)
      • The cooldown time of Boneshield now depends on how long it was used
      • The maximum cool down has been increased to 12.5 seconds (from 10)
      • You can now trigger Boneshield again after a misclick, and not have it instantly go on full cooldown
      • You can move now very slowly
  • Cysts:
    • The health points of a mature Cyst is now based on the length of the cyst chain to the hive. Cysts will have a minimum of 200 health points.
    • The Cysts redeploy radius has been increased to 7 (was 6)
    • The Cysts chains will now update when a hive is destroyed or completed.
    • Optimized cyst chain code to run faster
  • Hallucinations
    • The cooldown of hallucinations has been increased to 12 (was 6)
  • Silence Upgrade
    • Silence also stops attack sounds from playing
• Marines:
  • Flamethrower
    • Increased rate of fire by 50%.
    • Increased costs to 12 pres (was 10)
    • Lowered damage to 8 (was 16)
    • The Flamethrower now does more damage to structures over time (up to an additional 50% damage) when directly damaging a structure.
    • Removed Flamethrower making hit targets weigh more.
  • MG
    • Improved the sounds
• Health bars
  • Enemies are now marked (when first hit) based on server-authoritative damage, to make them more accurate
  • Updated the line of sight routine to make the hide and show correctly
• Blood splatter HUD damage effects have been improved (Thanks IronHorse!)
• Server browser
  • Ping and performance values will now be displayed via icons in the server list.
  • Choosing a server list tab will also reset the server list slide bar.

Fixes

• Fixed a critical script error when babblers tried to cling to a dead gorge causing the server to lag until the map got changed.
• Fixed that the Alien Vision outlined the skybox.
• Fixed the dropped MG outline not being red.
• Fixed that marines with a MG didn’t have a red ammo bar for Commanders
• Fixed that Umbra didn’t block any damage from the MG.
• Fixed that Lerk ragdolls did not dissolve.
• Fixed Hive-UI Icons scaling misalignment for 16:10 resolutions
• Fixed that the Alien Vision made entities blur when you blinked as Fade.
• Updated a few outdated in-game descriptions.

After the successful construction of a new mining station on asteroid codename: Kodiak, the crew of the Industrial Construction Vessel “Caged” sent out a distress signal. ALTERRA Corp quickly dispatched a private military unit to investigate the source of the distress, what they found was an empty vessel and no signs of human life…

Welcome to Caged, the newest official map in the NS2 universe. A throwback to the original NS1 Map by Nelson ‘manah’ Ferryman, Flaterectomy and other community contributors and testers have worked to honor the original but also offer a new take for the current state of play. Caged offers players a fun four techpoint map with plenty of res and unique rooms and corridors for epic combat engagements.



What would a new map be without some other goodies? As a special treat, players who play on caged for two hours or more within the first week of release will unlock a new skulk skin. This can only be earned until June 10, 2016. After this date you will only be able to trade or buy it from players that earned it in the community marketplace. Get it FREE while you can!



Travel deep into the heart of Caged and see what skulks in the cold darkness. With its piercing blue eyes and ravaging look, this Skulk is sure to make many a marine wary of the fight ahead.



Update 301 sees continued tweaks to the new features we’ve added over the last few weeks and also sees a newer variant of Alien Vision and Spores! With the help of Ironhorse we have gone over a lot of the effects and cinematics and made them friendlier to engagements and less screen clutter. See more in the update log below.

These last few weeks of development have been very interesting with new features and balance tweaks and we have appreciated all the feedback. Thank you again to our Playtesters and Leads for helping us get through the faster rate of updates to the game. Also a big thanks to those of you in the public that have been coming and playing the public beta with us, it has been a huge help. We have seen a recent influx of new players to the community and we hope we can only continue to grow these numbers in the future, but this also happens with your help in supporting and helping the new players feel encouraged. Thank you to those of you taking the time to teach and show new players why we love this game so much!

UPDATE LOG

Tweaks / Improvements

• New Map Caged by Flaterectomy:
  • Remake of the original NS1 map ns_caged
  • 4 Tech Points and 10 Resource Points
  • Added loading screens for Caged (thanks Samus)
  • Added an achievement “Unleashed” for playing on Caged for 2 hours
  • Added the new “Abyss” skulk skin, which is rewarded free for a limited time for unlocking “Unleashed”.
  • Added a new main menu background.

• Remind the server operators to add the map to their mapcycle!

• Bot “Evolution”:
  • Alien bots evolve now into Lerks, Fades and Oni.
  • Improved the Lerks, Fade and Oni bot behavior.
  • Alien commander bots now manage better with their team ressources
  • Marine commander bots will also research The MG now.
• Aliens:
  • Alien Vision
    • Gorges and Babblers are highlighted and outlined in green
    • Friendly units are highlighted orange instead of red and are less highlighted than enemies
    • Enemy parasited outlines are now yellow to differentiate from friendlies
  • Lerk:
    • Spores:
      • Spores are now a ranged ability like Umbra
      • Spores require now biomass 4 (instead of 6)
      • Lowered damage to 15 health points (was 20)
      • Increased energy costs to 16 (was 8)
    • Umbra:
      • Umbra requires now biomass 5 (instead of 4)
  • Onos:
    • Boneshield
      • Boneshield requires now biomass 6 (instead of 5)
      • Added a new visual effects for bone shield
      • Boneshield now cost only 20 energy (instead of 40)
      • Boneshield restores now 112.5 armor per second (was 100)
      • The cooldown time of Boneshield now depends on how long it was used
      • The maximum cool down has been increased to 12.5 seconds (from 10)
      • You can now trigger Boneshield again after a misclick, and not have it instantly go on full cooldown
      • You can move now very slowly
  • Cysts:
    • The health points of a mature Cyst is now based on the length of the cyst chain to the hive. Cysts will have a minimum of 200 health points.
    • The Cysts redeploy radius has been increased to 7 (was 6)
    • The Cysts chains will now update when a hive is destroyed or completed.
    • Optimized cyst chain code to run faster
  • Hallucinations
    • The cooldown of hallucinations has been increased to 12 (was 6)
  • Silence Upgrade
    • Silence also stops attack sounds from playing
• Marines:
  • Flamethrower
    • Increased rate of fire by 50%.
    • Increased costs to 12 pres (was 10)
    • Lowered damage to 8 (was 16)
    • The Flamethrower now does more damage to structures over time (up to an additional 50% damage) when directly damaging a structure.
    • Removed Flamethrower making hit targets weigh more.
  • MG
    • Improved the sounds
• Health bars
  • Enemies are now marked (when first hit) based on server-authoritative damage, to make them more accurate
  • Updated the line of sight routine to make the hide and show correctly
• Blood splatter HUD damage effects have been improved (Thanks IronHorse!)
• Server browser
  • Ping and performance values will now be displayed via icons in the server list.
  • Choosing a server list tab will also reset the server list slide bar.

Fixes

• Fixed a critical script error when babblers tried to cling to a dead gorge causing the server to lag until the map got changed.
• Fixed that the Alien Vision outlined the skybox.
• Fixed the dropped MG outline not being red.
• Fixed that marines with a MG didn’t have a red ammo bar for Commanders
• Fixed that Umbra didn’t block any damage from the MG.
• Fixed that Lerk ragdolls did not dissolve.
• Fixed Hive-UI Icons scaling misalignment for 16:10 resolutions
• Fixed that the Alien Vision made entities blur when you blinked as Fade.
• Updated a few outdated in-game descriptions.

Greetings!

Squad 5 badges are handed out by the Natural Selection 2 community and us developers to show our eternal gratitude to those who helped growing NS2 and its community.

Anybody who makes a sustained, positive, and reasonable effort to support NS2 and / or the vibrancy of its community may be awarded with a blue icon.

Silver and Gold are 'big deals' and are only awarded extremely sparingly for outstanding efforts.

Thank you all for your contributions even if you haven’t made it into Squad 5 yet, and thank you to those who took the time to nominate them.

Note that the only way a community member can be considered for Squad 5 is if YOU nominate them here!

Be sure to congratulate these community members, in game or in these forums, they deserve it.

Squad 5 Gold
@Person8880 - For his “Shine” modification and the outstanding support of the server operator and modding community in the last 3 years.

Squad 5 Silver
@Zavaro - Being a PT Lead, MT Lead and now the ENSL Admin. All of these take a phenomenal amount of time and effort, and absolutely deserves our thanks and gratitude

Squad 5 Blue
@Well - For all his work to get Natural Selection 2 speaking Russian. It's a difficult task to translate that much, but it's a worthy endeavor as it brings more players into our community. We appreciate everything you've done.

@Brute - For his “Wonitor” modification. Everybody always like to have fancy graphs about the in-game stats of a server.

@Scatter - For his various mods e.g. “NS2:Assault”, “NS2:Overhaul” and “Modular Exo”. Furthermore, he was always a driving force in ensuring the Australian NS2 Community stayed healthy and strong


@Oozle For being another force inside the Australian NS2 Community. Without him hosting NS2 servers for years Down Under we would have never known how passionate the Australian folks can be about Natural Selection.

Your badges will be ready to claim for use in game by visiting http://hive.naturalselection2.com/ and clicking redeem badges after you've logged in.

Thanks everyone, and congrats!!

Greetings!

Squad 5 badges are handed out by the Natural Selection 2 community and us developers to show our eternal gratitude to those who helped growing NS2 and its community.

Anybody who makes a sustained, positive, and reasonable effort to support NS2 and / or the vibrancy of its community may be awarded with a blue icon.

Silver and Gold are 'big deals' and are only awarded extremely sparingly for outstanding efforts.

Thank you all for your contributions even if you haven’t made it into Squad 5 yet, and thank you to those who took the time to nominate them.

Note that the only way a community member can be considered for Squad 5 is if YOU nominate them here!

Be sure to congratulate these community members, in game or in these forums, they deserve it.

Squad 5 Gold
@Person8880 - For his “Shine” modification and the outstanding support of the server operator and modding community in the last 3 years.

Squad 5 Silver
@Zavaro - Being a PT Lead, MT Lead and now the ENSL Admin. All of these take a phenomenal amount of time and effort, and absolutely deserves our thanks and gratitude

Squad 5 Blue
@Well - For all his work to get Natural Selection 2 speaking Russian. It's a difficult task to translate that much, but it's a worthy endeavor as it brings more players into our community. We appreciate everything you've done.

@Brute - For his “Wonitor” modification. Everybody always like to have fancy graphs about the in-game stats of a server.

@Scatter - For his various mods e.g. “NS2:Assault”, “NS2:Overhaul” and “Modular Exo”. Furthermore, he was always a driving force in ensuring the Australian NS2 Community stayed healthy and strong


@Oozle For being another force inside the Australian NS2 Community. Without him hosting NS2 servers for years Down Under we would have never known how passionate the Australian folks can be about Natural Selection.

Your badges will be ready to claim for use in game by visiting http://hive.naturalselection2.com/ and clicking redeem badges after you've logged in.

Thanks everyone, and congrats!!

Some of the DEV team is currently on DiamondGamers Dallas 2. Join up and hunt them down!

“THIS IS ALTERRA!” First off, how amazing is it that we are at Update 300? The blood sweat and tears that have been poured into this game by so many people over the last few years is nothing short of awesome. Now we look forward to what’s to come.

This update sees us making continued improvements to the server browser and an additional notification for news or updates on first open. After playing many games, reading and discussing feedback with players we’ve made some additional tweaks to newly introduced abilities and weapons. Aliens now have a new ability in Focus, so play around and see what you think. Also on the map front Derelict has seen some performance improvements, thanks Loki!


We would like to introduce the newest skin to the marine arsenal, Skull ‘n’ Crossfire. This black beauty is almost splattered with the blood of its enemies and is enshrined with the skull of the fallen to taunt those foes that dare face it next! Check it out now in the ITEM STORE.

NS2 is currently running a 50% off sale through May 30th, we hope to see some new players on the battlefield. Your help to encourage and inspire teamwork will go a long way to retaining them for the long haul. Thanks for playing NS2!

Tweaks / Improvements

• Main Menu:
  
  • Added a new changelog pop up:
    
    • Will show up after the client has been updated
    • Shows latest changelog
    • Allows you to give feedback on the changes
  • Tweaked the right side of the main menu slightly
  • Replaced the reload, favorite and history icons in the Server Browser to look better.
• Marines:
  
  • Rifle
    
    • Added the new fancy Skull ‘n’ Crossfire skin. http://store.steampowered.com/itemstore/4920/detail/801/
  • HMG
    
    • Thanks for all your feedback on the HMG!
    • Added new sounds
    • Fixed the model textures
    • Renamed it to Machine Gun (MG) because it’s not really a HMG
    • Deals 6 damage to structures, 12 to players
    • Spread is 4.5 degrees
    • Weights twice as much as the rifle
    • Magazine size is 100
    • Has maximum 5 magazines
    • Reload takes about 4.2 seconds
  • Mines
    
    • Increased cost to 10 pres (was 8)
    • Lowered armor to 5 (was 10)
  • Flamethrower
    
    • Decreased cost to 10 pres
  • Power nodes will no longer show enemies on the map unless it is under attack
• Aliens:
  
  • Shade Hive - Added Focus
    
    • Deals 50% more damage to primary attacks
    • Increases the delay between attacks by 50% (slows rate of attacks)
  • Crag Hive - Crush
    
    • Increased extra damage to player to 7% for each shell (21% with 3 shells)
  • Heal/Regeneration:
    
    • If an alien gets healed by 20% of its total health in 2 seconds every further heal is reduced to 20%
  • Hallucination Cloud:
    
    • Spawns now 2 skulk hallucinations if no players were targeted.
  • Revised nutrient mist cinematic to be less obscuring
  • Revised mucous membrane cinematic to be less obscuring
  • Rupture parasite time reduced to 10 seconds ( was 44 seconds )
  • Gorge Build Menu:
    
    • Swapped position of Webs and Babbler Egg. Webs are now in slot 3
  • Babblers now cling to their owner when they hatch from their egg
• Other:
  
  • Increased the damage number animation speed
  • Increased the health bars animation speed
  • Disabled the consistency check for local servers
  • Removed heavy damage effects
  • The local player gets highlighted in the scoreboard

Fixes

• Fixed that the reserved slot count could be negative ending up with server having more slots in the server browser than they really have
• Fixed that the marine weapon icons were not displayed correctly in spectator view
• Fixed that the health bars were wrongly colored in spectator
• The give cheat command will no longer cause script errors with invalid command arguments
• Fixed that the Onos stomp sound repeated itself in spectator view
• Fixed that the Alien Commander did not re-cyst to ressource points correctly
• Fixed that in case a server reported a negative amount of reserved slots the server browser displayed more slots than available.
• Fixed that the Alien Vision wasn’t working on Linux (thanks rkfg)

Translations

• Swedish translations are at 88%, just a little more love!

SDK

• Added Shared.GetAnimationLength() callback. Accepts model name (with filepath) and animation name. Returns length of time for an animation (as a float).
• Added Client.GetClientUpdated which returns true if the client got updated before the last client start, otherwise it returns false.

Maps

• Derelict
  
  • Improved FPS inside Nursery (specifically when entering from flooded biosphere) and Turbines.
  • Several duplicated lights have been removed in Turbines.
  • Added additional occlusion geometry around Heat Xfer and Geothermal.

“THIS IS ALTERRA!” First off, how amazing is it that we are at Update 300? The blood sweat and tears that have been poured into this game by so many people over the last few years is nothing short of awesome. Now we look forward to what’s to come.

This update sees us making continued improvements to the server browser and an additional notification for news or updates on first open. After playing many games, reading and discussing feedback with players we’ve made some additional tweaks to newly introduced abilities and weapons. Aliens now have a new ability in Focus, so play around and see what you think. Also on the map front Derelict has seen some performance improvements, thanks Loki!


We would like to introduce the newest skin to the marine arsenal, Skull ‘n’ Crossfire. This black beauty is almost splattered with the blood of its enemies and is enshrined with the skull of the fallen to taunt those foes that dare face it next! Check it out now in the ITEM STORE.

NS2 is currently running a 50% off sale through May 30th, we hope to see some new players on the battlefield. Your help to encourage and inspire teamwork will go a long way to retaining them for the long haul. Thanks for playing NS2!

Tweaks / Improvements

• Main Menu:
  
  • Added a new changelog pop up:
    
    • Will show up after the client has been updated
    • Shows latest changelog
    • Allows you to give feedback on the changes
  • Tweaked the right side of the main menu slightly
  • Replaced the reload, favorite and history icons in the Server Browser to look better.
• Marines:
  
  • Rifle
    
    • Added the new fancy Skull ‘n’ Crossfire skin. http://store.steampowered.com/itemstore/4920/detail/801/
  • HMG
    
    • Thanks for all your feedback on the HMG!
    • Added new sounds
    • Fixed the model textures
    • Renamed it to Machine Gun (MG) because it’s not really a HMG
    • Deals 6 damage to structures, 12 to players
    • Spread is 4.5 degrees
    • Weights twice as much as the rifle
    • Magazine size is 100
    • Has maximum 5 magazines
    • Reload takes about 4.2 seconds
  • Mines
    
    • Increased cost to 10 pres (was 8)
    • Lowered armor to 5 (was 10)
  • Flamethrower
    
    • Decreased cost to 10 pres
  • Power nodes will no longer show enemies on the map unless it is under attack
• Aliens:
  
  • Shade Hive - Added Focus
    
    • Deals 50% more damage to primary attacks
    • Increases the delay between attacks by 50% (slows rate of attacks)
  • Crag Hive - Crush
    
    • Increased extra damage to player to 7% for each shell (21% with 3 shells)
  • Heal/Regeneration:
    
    • If an alien gets healed by 20% of its total health in 2 seconds every further heal is reduced to 20%
  • Hallucination Cloud:
    
    • Spawns now 2 skulk hallucinations if no players were targeted.
  • Revised nutrient mist cinematic to be less obscuring
  • Revised mucous membrane cinematic to be less obscuring
  • Rupture parasite time reduced to 10 seconds ( was 44 seconds )
  • Gorge Build Menu:
    
    • Swapped position of Webs and Babbler Egg. Webs are now in slot 3
  • Babblers now cling to their owner when they hatch from their egg
• Other:
  
  • Increased the damage number animation speed
  • Increased the health bars animation speed
  • Disabled the consistency check for local servers
  • Removed heavy damage effects
  • The local player gets highlighted in the scoreboard

Fixes

• Fixed that the reserved slot count could be negative ending up with server having more slots in the server browser than they really have
• Fixed that the marine weapon icons were not displayed correctly in spectator view
• Fixed that the health bars were wrongly colored in spectator
• The give cheat command will no longer cause script errors with invalid command arguments
• Fixed that the Onos stomp sound repeated itself in spectator view
• Fixed that the Alien Commander did not re-cyst to ressource points correctly
• Fixed that in case a server reported a negative amount of reserved slots the server browser displayed more slots than available.
• Fixed that the Alien Vision wasn’t working on Linux (thanks rkfg)

Translations

• Swedish translations are at 88%, just a little more love!

SDK

• Added Shared.GetAnimationLength() callback. Accepts model name (with filepath) and animation name. Returns length of time for an animation (as a float).
• Added Client.GetClientUpdated which returns true if the client got updated before the last client start, otherwise it returns false.

Maps

• Derelict
  
  • Improved FPS inside Nursery (specifically when entering from flooded biosphere) and Turbines.
  • Several duplicated lights have been removed in Turbines.
  • Added additional occlusion geometry around Heat Xfer and Geothermal.

This week we have brought you a whole bunch of new alien toys including a new ability for the Shade hive which saps health, a new Crag hive ability which allows players to do extra damage to armor, and a totally revamped bone shield for the Onos!

Aliens didn’t get all the love, though. Marines have also received some new toys and changes to their existing tech. A preliminary version of the Heavy Machine Gun (HMG) has been added. This is a gun that was loved in NS1 and one which many of us have always wanted to see make a return in NS2. The HMG was pioneered successfully in Comp Mod, and now it has made its way into the main game.

We’ve also heard your cries and beacons, and recognize that Contamination tended to be very frustrating for Marines. We’ve made some changes to how it works to give Marine players more time to react to it. It will now do its damage over time rather than immediately when the ability is activated.

All of these gameplay changes are sure to shake up the meta, but that’s not all we’ve been doing. We’ve also been making general improvements to the game, including integrating many features from NS2+ as the defaults that new players will see when they play on any server.

We are excited to see how these changes are received and we want to hear from you, especially about how the new abilities and weapons impact the balance of the game and your own experiences. Please come join us at our Discord server or discuss it in our forums. Although we will be playing games as well, if you think something is completely overpowered, we want to know.


Tweaks / Improvements

• Alien abilities have been shuffled around, and two new abilities have been added!
  
  • Crag Hive - Crush
    
    • Increases armor damage to structures up to 15%, when you have 3 shells
      
    • Increases armor-fraction used on players up to 15% (amount of armor that is used when calculating damage) on players by 15%. Does not affect early game balance
  • Shade Hive - Vampirism (replaces Phantom)
    
    • Provides cloaking and heals your health every time you damage players with a direct attack (no spores / bilebomb)
      
      • Lifeform specific values for life leech (at 3+ veils):
        
        • Skulk: 14hp for bite
          
        • Gorge: 15hp for spit
          
        • Lerk: 2hp for spikes, 10hp for bite
          
        • Fade: 20hp for swipe and stab
          
        • Onos: 40hp for gore
  • Shift Hive - Silence
    
    • This was moved from the Shade Hive to Shift, and split out from Phantom
      
    • Makes all movement and attacks silent
• Biomass scaling has been increased for Lerk and Onos to help their survivability in late game
  
  • Lerk has been increased from 2 to 3hp per biomass
    
  • Onos has been increased from 25 to 30hp per biomass
• Onos Bone Shield has been revamped, and now refills armor!
  
  • Costs 40 energy to trigger, can only be held for at most 4 seconds, and a 10 second cooldown has been added
    
  • Regenerates 100 armor / second while in use
    
  • Will now block 66% of damage from the front instead of 75%
    
  • No longer saps energy while in use
• Cysts no longer die when disconnected from hive
  
  • Cysts instead rapidly lose maturity when the chain is disconnected, making them easier to destroy. When reconnected, maturity is regained rapidly.
    
  • Nutrient mist can be used to prevent the maturity loss.
• Contamination Tweaks
  
  • Increased cooldown to 6 seconds (was 5)
    
  • Bile now sprays every 2 seconds, up to 3 times, and can be stopped by destroying the pustule
• HMG has been added, to help deal with those pesky lifeforms
  
  • Note: Sounds and art assets for HMG are temporary.
• Jetpacks now use more fuel based on a weapon’s weight
  
  • Shotgun and Flamethrower now use 7.6% more fuel
    
  • Grenade Launchers use 15% more fuel
    
  • HMGs uses 130% more fuel
• Mine changes
  
  • eHP changed to 40 (from 100)
    
  • Cost reduced from 15 to 8
    
  • You now get 2 mines instead of 3
• Medpacks can snap to players from a slightly larger radius, snapping already existed but previously was not shown to the commander
  
• Alien vision has been replaced with “Huze’s Minimal”
  
• Alien vision will default to On every time you spawn in
  
• Crosshairs have been updated with new art
  
  • If you prefer the old ones, you can still use them by activating this mod: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=686960508
• Power nodes can now be rebuilt at the same speed with a build tool as with a welder
  
• Wrench damage icons now show how hurt teammates are, and have an outline if you have a welder
  
• Dropped weapons expiration bar will now be colored based on how much time is left before it is destroyed
  
• Range circle indicators have been added for many alien commander abilities, as well as a secondary circle to Shifts to indicate the radius of the energy regeneration passive effect
  
• Mines and Welders will be highlighted and show as pickupable even if you already have one
  
• Dropped weapons will be picked up automatically, if you have an empty slot
  
• Server browser:
  
  • Added the ping filter
    
  • The server details window now has a short delay so users can doubleclick at the server entries wherever they like.
    
  • The server count display is not clickable anymore and has a tooltip
    
  • Favorites and History are now a toggle, clicking again at them while show your previous game selection
• Reduced amount Enzyme particle effects obscure view
  
• Death screen blood splatter effects will disappear immediately when you start respawning

Fixes

• Fixed the issue of ragdolls not getting destroyed
  
• Players will no longer have nutrient mist effects applied to them unless they are an embryo
  
• Server browser Join button should work better
  
• Reduce network cost of the concede cinematics slightly
  
• Fixed an issue where welders would build faster with E than with LMB

• Fixed that medpacks got weirdly offset when hovered over marines. It will now show where the medpack will actually spawn

This week we have brought you a whole bunch of new alien toys including a new ability for the Shade hive which saps health, a new Crag hive ability which allows players to do extra damage to armor, and a totally revamped bone shield for the Onos!

Aliens didn’t get all the love, though. Marines have also received some new toys and changes to their existing tech. A preliminary version of the Heavy Machine Gun (HMG) has been added. This is a gun that was loved in NS1 and one which many of us have always wanted to see make a return in NS2. The HMG was pioneered successfully in Comp Mod, and now it has made its way into the main game.

We’ve also heard your cries and beacons, and recognize that Contamination tended to be very frustrating for Marines. We’ve made some changes to how it works to give Marine players more time to react to it. It will now do its damage over time rather than immediately when the ability is activated.

All of these gameplay changes are sure to shake up the meta, but that’s not all we’ve been doing. We’ve also been making general improvements to the game, including integrating many features from NS2+ as the defaults that new players will see when they play on any server.

We are excited to see how these changes are received and we want to hear from you, especially about how the new abilities and weapons impact the balance of the game and your own experiences. Please come join us at our Discord server or discuss it in our forums. Although we will be playing games as well, if you think something is completely overpowered, we want to know.


Tweaks / Improvements

• Alien abilities have been shuffled around, and two new abilities have been added!
  
  • Crag Hive - Crush
    
    • Increases armor damage to structures up to 15%, when you have 3 shells
      
    • Increases armor-fraction used on players up to 15% (amount of armor that is used when calculating damage) on players by 15%. Does not affect early game balance
  • Shade Hive - Vampirism (replaces Phantom)
    
    • Provides cloaking and heals your health every time you damage players with a direct attack (no spores / bilebomb)
      
      • Lifeform specific values for life leech (at 3+ veils):
        
        • Skulk: 14hp for bite
          
        • Gorge: 15hp for spit
          
        • Lerk: 2hp for spikes, 10hp for bite
          
        • Fade: 20hp for swipe and stab
          
        • Onos: 40hp for gore
  • Shift Hive - Silence
    
    • This was moved from the Shade Hive to Shift, and split out from Phantom
      
    • Makes all movement and attacks silent
• Biomass scaling has been increased for Lerk and Onos to help their survivability in late game
  
  • Lerk has been increased from 2 to 3hp per biomass
    
  • Onos has been increased from 25 to 30hp per biomass
• Onos Bone Shield has been revamped, and now refills armor!
  
  • Costs 40 energy to trigger, can only be held for at most 4 seconds, and a 10 second cooldown has been added
    
  • Regenerates 100 armor / second while in use
    
  • Will now block 66% of damage from the front instead of 75%
    
  • No longer saps energy while in use
• Cysts no longer die when disconnected from hive
  
  • Cysts instead rapidly lose maturity when the chain is disconnected, making them easier to destroy. When reconnected, maturity is regained rapidly.
    
  • Nutrient mist can be used to prevent the maturity loss.
• Contamination Tweaks
  
  • Increased cooldown to 6 seconds (was 5)
    
  • Bile now sprays every 2 seconds, up to 3 times, and can be stopped by destroying the pustule
• HMG has been added, to help deal with those pesky lifeforms
  
  • Note: Sounds and art assets for HMG are temporary.
• Jetpacks now use more fuel based on a weapon’s weight
  
  • Shotgun and Flamethrower now use 7.6% more fuel
    
  • Grenade Launchers use 15% more fuel
    
  • HMGs uses 130% more fuel
• Mine changes
  
  • eHP changed to 40 (from 100)
    
  • Cost reduced from 15 to 8
    
  • You now get 2 mines instead of 3
• Medpacks can snap to players from a slightly larger radius, snapping already existed but previously was not shown to the commander
  
• Alien vision has been replaced with “Huze’s Minimal”
  
• Alien vision will default to On every time you spawn in
  
• Crosshairs have been updated with new art
  
  • If you prefer the old ones, you can still use them by activating this mod: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=686960508
• Power nodes can now be rebuilt at the same speed with a build tool as with a welder
  
• Wrench damage icons now show how hurt teammates are, and have an outline if you have a welder
  
• Dropped weapons expiration bar will now be colored based on how much time is left before it is destroyed
  
• Range circle indicators have been added for many alien commander abilities, as well as a secondary circle to Shifts to indicate the radius of the energy regeneration passive effect
  
• Mines and Welders will be highlighted and show as pickupable even if you already have one
  
• Dropped weapons will be picked up automatically, if you have an empty slot
  
• Server browser:
  
  • Added the ping filter
    
  • The server details window now has a short delay so users can doubleclick at the server entries wherever they like.
    
  • The server count display is not clickable anymore and has a tooltip
    
  • Favorites and History are now a toggle, clicking again at them while show your previous game selection
• Reduced amount Enzyme particle effects obscure view
  
• Death screen blood splatter effects will disappear immediately when you start respawning

Fixes

• Fixed the issue of ragdolls not getting destroyed
  
• Players will no longer have nutrient mist effects applied to them unless they are an embryo
  
• Server browser Join button should work better
  
• Reduce network cost of the concede cinematics slightly
  
• Fixed an issue where welders would build faster with E than with LMB

• Fixed that medpacks got weirdly offset when hovered over marines. It will now show where the medpack will actually spawn

After the response and tracking of a lot of the changes we introduced last week we decided to continue with another update of shakeups. There are some minor adjustments to a few items from the patch after more feedback. Also new this week is a revamped server browser! We have been hard at work to create a better way to filter and sort the list and even provide more information to the user before choosing what server to connect too. Our week to week experiments and changes have been very interesting to watch and see what works and what doesn’t and we aren’t done just yet! Over the next couple weeks there are plans for some additional UI changes, maybe a new weapon? A new map? Additional weapon skins? And if we sell more shadow fades then maybe that Onos will appear (hint: go buy more shadow fades).

Special shout out and thank you to xDragon for allowing us to use his code.

Until next week, happy hunting!

UPDATE NOTES

Tweaks / Improvements

• When a team concedes, everyone is treated to a short sequence showing all the conceding team’s players and structures being destroyed.
• New Server Browser:
  • Highlighting custom gamemodes better by having only two filters, NS2 and Modded
  • Restructured all UI elements for better usability and to better feature the two main filters
  • New fancy color scheme and artistic design
  • No longer showing relative server skill, since it was not very useful
  • Search bar will search for both matching map names as well as server names
• Added an option to disable health bars for those that prefer less visual clutter
• Spectators will be able to see nameplates from further away than players
• Enemy health bar tweaks
  • Changed armor color to be more readable
  • Bile Bomb and spores now also mark enemies
  • Melee attacks now cause enemies to be marked for longer (5s instead of 2s)
  • Fixed that health bars were disappearing semi-randomly as they got close to the edges of the screen
• Added a new achievement for collecting all 15 of the random drop items
• Corrode damage type changed to be more effective vs exos and less effective vs players
  • Damage reduction to player armor changed to 12% (was 23%)
  • Damage reduction to to exo armor changed to 40% (was 30%)
• Phase gates have more of their eHP moved to armor and now has 1500 health and 800 armor (was 2000/550)
• Fade blink movement changes
  • Vertical speed can no longer be converted to horizontal
  • Celerity will have a slightly lessened effect on changing direction
  • Ability to change direction without celerity has been improved
• Marine HUD Parasite icon displays the time left on parasite effect, for Marines
• Gorge:
  • Gorge Webs
    • Now available at biomass 0 and can be placed for Free!
    • Limited to 3 Webs maximum
    • Enemies will be parasites for 10 seconds if they walk through a web
    • Web slowdown effect changed to a 25% reduction (was 85%)
    • Slowdown duration now lasts for 1.5 seconds (was 2)
  • Gorge Babblers
    • You can now only place one egg, but it will spawn 6 babblers
    • Babbler movement speed increased to 7.5 (was 7)
    • Babbler damage type changed to Structural (double vs structures)
    • Babbler damage reduced to 8 (was 10)
  • Gorge Tunnel:
    • Costs reduced to 3 (was 4)
• Increased the amount of personal resources each resource tower grants per player from 1 to 1.25 per minute (by 25%):
  • Reduced Alien starting personal resources to 12 (from 15)
  • Lowered Marine starting personal resources to 15 (from 20)
  • Reduced Lerk personal resource costs to 18 (from 20)
• Onos Gore:
  • Damage lowered to 90 (from 100)
  • Energy cost reduced to 10 (from 13)
• Nutrient mist now prevents structures off infestation from taking damage, and prevents disconnected cysts from taking damage.  Also heals cysts at half crag efficiency.  It no longer requires infestation to be placed.
• Improved damaged exosuit effects as well as minigun and ricochets, to be less vision obscuring (Thanks IronHorse!)
• Umbra changes
  • Duration of umbra cloud reduced to 4 seconds (was 5)
  • Radius of umbra cloud reduced to 4 units (was 6)
  • Flat damage reduction vs all weapons changed to 25% (was 33% vs shotguns, 30% vs Minigun, and 32% vs Railgun)
• Improved fade blink effects to be less vision obscuring (Thanks IronHorse!)
• Reduced the damage Power Surge’s overcharge deals to 25

Fixes

• Fixed that certain commanders abilities e.g. Power Surge did not cost anything.
• Health bars show when a marine is being healed over time by medpacks, again
• Insight health bars are far less colorful (will no longer show parasite and poison status)
• Fixed issue with nameplates allowing players to see where enemies were through walls, if in close proximity
• Fixed issue with fade blink sound sometimes getting stuck looping (Thanks xDragon!)
• Fixed that the crosshair will blink red when players respawn
• Fixed that the nav mesh initialized incorrectly causing issues at some maps (Thanks ZycaR!)
• Fixed that directional damage feedback was only updating at 25hz

Translations

• Completed Finnish translations (Thanks MisterOizo!)

SDK

• Improved camera movement in Cinematic Editor

Maps

• ns2_refinery
  • Changed dimensions of Ready Room join entity to prevent players from being stuck
• ns2_summit
  • Added missing lights in Ready Room
• ns2_veil
  • Fixed various floating props throughout Cargo and Dome
  • Lowered the infamous head-height trashcan. RIP.