This latest update brings something new and special to the game. Introducing the B.M.A.C, two exciting new robotic models joining the Marine forces.

The Bipedal-Mobile-Automated-Custodian and Bipedal-Mobile-Automated-Countermeasure are here to help and serve your needs. Play as one of these new marine models with up to 10 different variants for you to choose from. The B.M.A.C. also includes two brand new voices with all new taunts and requests. Community Development Team members Vlaad and Sweets worked very hard with our team over the last couple months developing the models and sounds respectively, and a HUGE shout out to Rune for all the trailer help and going beyond the extra mile. We’ve had so much fun building these into the game and hope that you’ll enjoy them too.



The rest of the patch has some nice new UI updates and other tweaks. We aren’t stopping here and have some very exciting things to come with our December update, so stay tuned!

Check out the full changelog below to see all the goodies contained within.

Remember all sales of NS2 and DLC directly affect our development budget and allow our team to continue work on NS2.


Gameplay

• Shotgun

Added back a damage falloff (0-25% damage reduction from 6m to 12m)

Optimizations

• Improved application start up time and behavior.
  
• Resolved GUIView:Load related frame time hitch when picking up a weapon
  
• Drastically reduced the amount of frame time hitching caused by the help screen when dropping or picking up a weapon.
  
• Improved memory management of webviews

Tweaks / Improvements

• Added 10 new Marine full conversion skins called B.M.A.C
  - Skins come with new models, voiceovers, sounds and effects.
  (A very special thanks goes to Zavaro and voice actor Carl McGahan for your voices!)
  - They come in 3 different DLC price tiers – buy yours today and support continued NS2 development!

• Added new team info HUD bar

Main Menu

• Limited frame rate to 60 frames per second in the menu to improve background art asset preloading and reduce GPU usage.
  
• Added Changelog and News windows
  
• Added menu button for our official Discord server (next to the Wiki button)
  
• Added Quit menu so you can choose between disconnecting, moving into the ready room or closing the game
  
• Customize Menu
  - Added Store button
  - You can now cycle forwards and backwards through the available skins by using Left or Right mouse buttons
  
• Server Browser
  - Made the refresh button more visible – you really can’t miss it now.
  - Added back a separate column for the map names
  
• Improved alt tabbing and application window resize and focus behavior. Fixed various issues related to changing resolution, window mode or switching to another application. Basically it feels snappy and responsive now. (Thanks Salads!)
  
• Fixed the loading background’s aspect ratio to fill the screen at all ratios (Thanks Salads)
  
• Added a detection for running in Wine
  
• Disabled out of process crash handler when running in Wine

Fixes

• Fixed supply costs for Armories, Observatories and Sentry Batteries
  
• Fixed that commanders could build additional structures even when the supply limit was reached by preselecting given structures before reaching the limit.
  
• Fixed a client script error that occurred when a veteran tried to join a team at a bootcamp server
  
• Fixed that ARCs didn’t take any corrosive damage by Infestation after their first deployment
  
• Fixed that pregame throwables stutter when thrown
  
• May your target see your snowballs flying at their face smoothly now
  
• Fixed that Alien Tunnels collapsed even if the second entrance was rebuilt, causing entrances to not connect to each other.
  
• Fixed structure only damage did affect babbler shield real goodly. (Arcs can’t destroy babblers on you anymore)
  
• Fixed that damage to the babbler shield didn’t stop new babblers from hatching
  
• Fixed that a Gorge couldn’t re-attach their own Babblers
  
• Keep those cuddly things warm again! Just don’t forget to give them out still, you greedy Babbler incubators..
  
• Fixed babbler mine icon in the alien buy menu
  
• Fixed that the Shell Hive upgrade icons in spectator view displayed in red despite their status.
  
• The worst color. You know it. I know it.
  
• Fixed that the voice chat bar overlapped with the spectator player info elements
  
• Fixed a few render-related crashes.
  
• Fixed client crash due to using an invalid shader reference
  
• Fixed that GUIItems displaying text with non-zero alignments would sometimes be culled for being off-screen, even though they were still on-screen.
  
• Fixed that if only a few babblers were removed on your babbler shield, they’d instantly repopulate instead of waiting the normal 2.5 seconds.
  
• Fixed Tundra Exo minigun showing the Kodiak skin on one of its arms.
  
• Fixed that enabling the Entity update routine delayed caused various script errors. Various script errors could occur by mixin logic that assumed that OnUpdate was called at least once before OnInitialized.

Sounds

Maps

• ns2_Caged ( Thanks pSyk )
  - Removed Gorge Bile spot in Shipping by moving the crane directly below the ceiling.
  - Fixed wall ARCs and similar wonky ARC spots between Shipping and Ventilation.
  
• ns2_Derelict ( Thanks pSyk )
  - Fixed hole in map, which enabled Lerks to get outside.
  - ns2_Origin ( Thanks pSyk )
  - Reduced map size and travel times slightly by moving Biodome and Furnace ( plus adjacent areas ) closer to the center of the map.
  - Updated loading screen to accommodate changes (Thanks Samus)
  - Slightly nerfed ARC spots in Generator and Smelting room.
  - Nerfed the GL bounce spot outside of Ventilation.
  - Removed some ambush spots between Marine Start and Computer Lab.
  - New, cleaner connection between Ore Extraction and Generator with another little vent to help Aliens in that area.
  - Minor changes to Water Treatment-Maintenance connection to improve combat and reduce frustration for Skulks running up the stairs into a Marine.
  - Various fixes.

Tools

SDK

• Added console command “dump_tracer_info”, which prints a description of all the bullet tracer effects to the console.

Known Issues

• After a Tunnel exit is rebuilt, tunnel flinch animations still play inside the Tunnel forever, only if a player remained inside during this process. (you have to not die before its rebuilt)

Thank you for all the feedback on Update 329. This hotfix should serve to improve your experience.

A note to our Linux users; Although we no longer directly support a Linux client, please be aware that NS2 does run when using Proton. If you are unable to start NS2 via Proton (right click at Library entry -> Properties -> check Force the use of a specific steam play compatibility tool -> select latest version of proton) please confirm that your system is compatible to dxvk (see https://github.com/lutris/lutris/wiki/How-to:-DXVK ).

Tweaks / Improvements

• Removed the DirectX 9 render option and defaulted all clients to DirectX 11. A lot of clients have been frequently crashing due to a bug in the DirectX 9 render pipeline
  
• Renamed the Atmospheric Quality options and added a warning to make users aware that the high and extreme options are only meant to be used on really powerful systems
  
• The Anti aliasing graphics option will default to FXAA instead of TAA. We had a lot of users reporting performance issues with TAA enabled on low to mid-tier hardware
  
• Make sure to cleanup unused intermediate GUIView objects when done rendering GUIStyledText. Leftover GUIViews could cause performance issues
  
• Added the current count of GUIViews to g_stats
  
• Improved the menus fonts (AgencyFB) so they are easier to read and don’t look as blurry
  
• Improved the server console fonts scaling to be easier to read
  
• Disabled MouseButtonOne as possible binding to toggle the console to avoid that users become unable to interact with the menu without editing the remote option file manually

Fixes

• Fixed that the remote option (bindings) reset at every launch of the game for some users due to a faulty xml node name. And added safety guards to the engine for this to not happen again
  
• Fixed that users on windows 7 without update KB2670838 installed couldn’t start the game due to missing support for DirectX 11.1
  
• Fixed TAA causing black pixel artifacts under DXVK (used by Proton)
  
• Fixed that some weapon tracers were never destroyed causing performance issues
  
• Fixed that some art assets were not properly precached for new menu
  
• Fixed profile pictures in the friends list did not always display correctly
  
• Fixed that the new server browser didn’t take reserved slots into account
  
• Fixed that the menu text entry cursor was blurry / wasn't using distance field font correctly
  
• Fixed that some spectator UI elements blocked input from passing to the main menu.
  
• Fixed various typos in the new menu
  
• Fixed a script error caused by removing a badge that returns to some off-screen part of the tray (only happened with large numbers of badges).
  
• Fixed that the abyss gorge only unlocked after 6 instead of 5 played rounds on Origin

Welcome back to “Colony Zero,” the forgotten mining facility on the moon Freya IV. Greed and a continued push for dominance brought the TSF to this moon, but what they found while mining deep was something they felt was far more valuable than ore or minerals; little did they know it would start a pandemic reaching across the entire galaxy.

Our newest official map, ORIGIN, a remake of the NS1 map, holds the answers to the Origins of Kharaa and is now available to play. You can earn the special Abyss Gorge skin after playing five rounds, but hurry as this skin is only available for a limited time! Thank you to pSyk for all his hard work on re-creating this classic map and to our map testing crew for all of their time reviewing and assisting on the map.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC7q_eterMY

Update 329 also brings another set of balance changes aimed at creating more variation of play and strategy. A new menu system has been designed and built for a better player customizing experience and allows for easier implementation of future features to come. We have officially moved to DirectX 11 and added support for Temporal Anti-Aliasing, both of which can help produce better quality of play and visual upgrades to your game. Additional changes to other official maps have also been added to support better gameplay and help new players learn the maps.

A reminder that with the release of 329 we have officially dropped support for the Linux client of NS2. We will continue to support and update the Linux Dedicated Server. For those using the Linux client, you can still play NS2 via the Steam Play compatibility tools (Proton). Proton is still in Beta and being actively developed so there may be some features or functions that do not work. We have confirmed that playing the game while connecting to a dedicated server does work and in some cases the performance is much improved from the Linux client.

Check out the full changelog on the blog to see all the goodies contained within.

Follow the NS2 Development Roadmap to see our plans for future updates.

Remember all sales of NS2 and DLC directly affect our development budget and allow our team to continue work on NS2.

Our friends at the Natural Selection League are hosting a one-weekend, no holds barred clash of some of the best players and teams in this Open Tournament!

Our friends at the Natural Selection League are hosting a one-weekend, no holds barred clash of some of the best players and teams in this Open Tournament!






Saturday and Sunday (the 29th and 30th) at 09:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT / 16:00 GMT / 18:00 CEST

Update 328 includes an upgrade to Visual Studio 2017 runtime, continued balance tweaks in response to the last update, updates to DirectX 11 (getting us closer to ditching DirectX 9 altogether) and numerous fixes and optimizations throughout the game. We are making great strides in achieving our goal on the roadmap and 329 is looking to be another great update, so stay tuned for public tests in advance of release. Lastly we want to thank all of you that have been purchasing DLC and all the newcomers that have been buying the game over the last few months. Remember all sales of NS2 and DLC directly affect our development budget and allow our team to continue work on NS2.

Check out the full changelog below to see all the goodies contained within.

Note to all Windows users: You will need to ensure the 2017 Visual C++ redistributes are installed on your system! Otherwise the game won’t start after the update. Steam should take care of this during the update process but is known to fail sometimes.

Changelog

Gameplay

Merged balance changes we released live 3 weeks ago via our extensions mod

• Undeployed ARC health decreased to 3000/200 (from 3000/500)
• Babblers:
  • New maximum lifeform shield values (total):
    • Skulk: 21 (from 35)
    • Gorge & Lerk: 21 (from 42)
    • Fade: 40 (from 65)
    • Onos: 85 (from 150)
  • Increased spawn rate from 1.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds
• Grenade Launcher:
  • Change structural damage multiplier from 5x to 4x (450 -> 360 structural damage)
• Lerk:
  • Decreased Spike damage to 5 (from 6)
  • Decreased adrenaline energy refresh rate to 30% (from 60%)
• Phase Gates
  • Increased armor from 600 to 800
• Advanced Support:
  • Decreased research costs to 20 team resources (from 25)
  • Decreased research time to 60 seconds (from 90)
• Marine weapons:
  • Dropped weapons expiry now refreshes when a marine is really close/walks over them. So you no longer have to pick them up)
• Cysts:
  • Lower maximum base Cyst HP to 200. Cysts close to a hive (near the Alien naturals) can scale up to 350
  • De-cloaking camouflage Cysts (shade hive passive) should now feel a bit snappier and more reliable
• Reduced Welder cost to 2 personal resources (from 3)

Optimizations

• Improved various expensive world update routines to stabilize and decrease their run-time cost for both Client and Server.
  • Cache mixin methods for each class after first class instance initialization to speed up any further class instance creation (Thanks Las)
  • Avoid expensive closure creations in hot path calls via a loadstring trick (Thanks Las)
  • Precache beacon spawn points at map load so we don’t need to calculate them during runtime (Thanks Katzenfleisch)
  • Optimized tech tree data lookup calls (Thanks Las)
  • Changed behavior of non player entities to not run their update routine every world update tick specially when there hasn’t been any state change
    (Thanks Steelcap & Nin)
  • Limit the amount of time that the client spent on updating GUI scripts every frame (Thanks Las)
  • Added optimized implementation for set and queue data containers to reduce runtime of various hot paths calls

Tweaks / Improvements

• Added badges for the ENSL.org Newcomer and Community Challenge Tournaments
• Added new shiny material shaders for most computer monitors and displays in the game (Thanks RuneStorm!)
• Update anti-aliasing code to latest version of FXAA. Grants a minor improvement to final image sharpness and run-time speed
• Armories and Prototype Labs now has consistent Usable range for Marine and will no longer show the use-key when you are out of range
• Improved the visual quality of shadows, notably when the light source was far away from shadow casters
• Improved shadow rendering for Windows 8 and above clients using shadow comparison sampler features
  • Do note that shadows will have lower visual quality on Windows 7 clients. This is due to missing rendering features in the DirectX API, and those features are only available on Windows 8 or higher
• Added a new "Refraction Quality" option to the graphics menu. "Low" acts like it does currently, while "High" uses some extra samples while rendering the refraction pass to reduce the amount of aliasing introduced (very noticeable in the railgun exosuit's shot trails)
• Added a Lifeform popup reminder for Alien players with "High HUD Detail" enabled. This popup reminds players to evolve to a higher Lifeform once they have enough personal resources and the team could use more of that type
  • Only displays when High HUD Detail option is enabled
  • Only displays when the Evolve Menu is not open
  • Only show for lifeforms when the number of them alive & evolved on the team is less than 20% of the total number of players on a team. (So that it’s only one Gorge on a team of 6)
  • Only show after respawning and player is not in combat, within a 15 second window of time
  • Does not stay on screen for more than 10 seconds
  • Does not show within 30 seconds of round start. (to prevent everyone going Gorge)
• The Scoreboard Personal Resource colors are now yellow starting at 75 and orange starting at 90 because your PRes doesn’t overflow at 100 PRes. (Thanks Handschuh)
• Lessened the likelihood of having duplicate bot names at the same time
• Improved the new Alien Health Bars by ensuring the Upgrade Chamber icons no longer overlap with the Health Bar icons from 720p up to 4k resolutions
• Improved the Alien Energy Bar by coloring white the section of energy that is added by the Adrenaline upgrade

Fixes

• Fixed various DirectX 11 issues:
  • Fixed shadows not being rendered properly
  • Fixed emissive decals not being rendered correctly
  • Some textures would appear corrupted at lower mip levels
  • Fixed Exo Minigun Heat bars being distorted
• Fixed weird “magic hands” animation bug when switching to another weapon after reloading the Machine Gun or Flamethrower
• Fixed Alien Tunnels (including Infested versions) having differing HP values
• Fixed Alien Tunnels not starting with 100% eHP
• Fixed that attached Babblers didn’t cloak/decloak properly with their parent
• Fixed that dropped weapons started to expire near an Armory when a player walked over them
• Fixed that spectating players would rubber-band between players in first-person mode sometimes
• Fixed that a number of Exo HUD elements were misaligned
• Fixed a script error that stopped players from joining bootcamp servers (this was released live already weeks ago through our extensions mod)
• Removed out-dated tip clips about Gorge Tunnels and Babblers
• Fixed the mouse over tooltip in the Options Menu that said you need to restart the game if you apply new menu music
• Fixed that the Lerk crosshairs had a tiny black bar near the top of them
• Fixed that the Unearthed loading screen had an FPS counter in the top right of the last screen
• Fixed that you could not scroll down far enough in the control bindings menu to change the Help Screen binding entry

Sounds

• Fade Metabolize, Onos running rumble sound, and Lerk gliding sounds no longer play after their respective lifeform’s death

Maps

• Unearthed (Thanks Kash!)
  • Move the RT node from Transfer into Toxic pool to prevent Furnace from having 3 "Natural" resource nodes (Thanks Zavaro!)
  • Moved the Briefing RT node slightly further to the west and moved the fencing to the east to make defending easier for marines (Thanks Zavaro!)
  • Added crates in briefing to allow access to the ceiling area more easily. (Thanks Zavaro!)
  • Fixed numerous Stuck spots throughout the map (and ready room/secret room) (Thanks Zavaro!)
  • Added invisible geometry to many areas of the map to smooth out the feeling of movement
  • Tweaked pathing throughout the map
  • Removed a small amount of the clutter in Purification to make play in the area more fluid
  • Increased the size of the raised platform with the RT node on it in Purification to make the area slightly more marine accessible
  • Removed the middle support pillar in Cavity and tweaked the remaining pillars to make the area slightly less alien OP
  • Moved the Cavity RT node to be more approachable for marines
  • Removed collision from railings without the panels and replaced with collision geo to make play feel better for both marines and aliens
  • Minor lighting tweaks throughout the map
  • Made the vent between Toxic pool and Exposure more obviously accessible to marines from the Toxic pool side
  • Made the vent from Toxic pool to Extraction marine accessible from both sides
  • Reduced cover in Transfer to make the room less alien overpowered.
  • Changed the bridges in both Toxic pool and Crevice to be more visually appealing
  • Removed the Passage exit from the vent that leads from Harvesting to Access
  • Closed 2 of the 4 ceiling covers in Furnace to allow for better movement through the room for Aliens
  • Removed the remaining girder arches from Junction to reduce marine frustration in the area
  • Moved the Filtration power node to a less frustrating location
  • Improved collision geo in multiple areas of the map to help bot navigation. (Thanks Nin!)

Tools

• Cinematic Editor
  • Fixed anisotropic filtering and particles sometimes not being enabled in the renderer
• Viewer
  • Add support to view and test Material Swapping via the Materials Window. This only works when opening models. Note: There will be a delay when setting an override material, as it needs to load the resource before rendering it
• Map editor
  • Added a new option for static props called “allowBullets”. It's intended to be used on railing props and other small items like bottles or hanging wires that you may normally have to add collision geometry around. Note that this option will stop melee attacks and projectiles, but will not stop hit scan bullets, parasite, or flamethrowers

SDK

• Added Las’ library for lua closures that are not as expensive to generate during run-time as normal closures. See core/lua/Closure.md for details
• Added a command line option "force_renderer" which accepts either "D3D9" or "D3D11", which forces the renderer to use DirectX 9 or 11, overriding the value in the user's settings

Known Issues

• Viewer - Opening Materials Window when the opened asset is not a model causes odd behaviors
• As a side effect from a GUIScale fix that was part of the GUIManager optimizations, the size of GUI elements may differ on some resolutions compared to build 327
• Entering the wrong password when joining a server may incur a crash using DirectX 9
• DirectX overlays (like the Steam overlay) cause performance issues under DirectX11 on some GPUs. We recommend to disable all DirectX overlays for now if you notice frequent frame time spikes (via r_stats)

Check out the epic bash that is the Community Challenge! In this event hosted by our friends at the Natural Selection League, it's community VS community as different servers prepare for battle to compete for the crown of Community Champion! This is a two day tournament held on the 15th & 16th of June, starting at 8 PDT / 11 EDT / 15 GMT / 17 CEST
You can catch streams of this event on the following Twitch Channels:
NaturalSelection2 (Starting 1 hour from this post)
NSLTV (The stream should be starting in a few minutes!)


This Saturday , (June 15th at 13:00 PDT / 22:00 CEST - or 5 hours from this post)
We will have a public playtest of build 328!!

This patch is focused primarily on client and server performance improvements, and as such we think its a good idea to ensure others do not experience anything broken, and that we can adequately stress test our server.

All are invited to join us to play some rounds / break things, ensure the build is stable and provide any additional feedback!

Join our General Voice Channel in this discord to coordinate with us and feel free to show up a few minutes early to ensure you get a chance to play or ask questions. We will give out the server password over voice the moment we begin. It will be on the publicly available Beta branch on our NAPT server.

Unknown Worlds would like to invite you to watch or sign up to play the NEWCOMER TOURNAMENT, an event hosted by our friends at Natural Selection League.

The tournament will be played on Saturday, June 1 and Sunday, June 2.

Saturday (Group Stage):
Start: 19 CEST / 17 GMT / 1 PM EDT
At most 3 matches, with 4 rounds each
All games, if not finished earlier, will end at 00:00 CEST / 6:00 PM EDT

Sunday (Finals):
Start: 19 CEST / 17 GMT / 1 PM EDT
Half-Finals and Finals, played in a best of 5 format

You can catch streams of the event on the Official Natural Selection 2 and Natural Selection League twitch channels!


⦿ Do I need a complete team?
No, you don’t! Everyone can register. It doesn’t matter if you register only yourself, with a few friends or a complete team.

⦿ Who can register?
All players who have not played in any of the NSL seasons can participate.

⦿ Where do I register?
Registration is run by the NSL Homepage homepage. This video explains the process. It is also the page where you can find teams, players, and your results.

Also please fill out this form if you wish to participate to make it easier for captains to sort out teams!


For additional details, please see the Help Document.

Don’t miss any news about the Newcomer Tournament by subscribing to the NSL Steam Group.

For additional help (or to just hang out!), see:
The Official Natural Selection 2 Discord Server
The NSL Discord Server

What has build 327 Unearthed? A lot actually! This new update to NS2 includes a new map, changes to existing maps, new skins, new models, new sounds and new gameplay and balance changes. All told the changelog for build 327 came to be 10+ pages once we included everything. There is so much in this update to sink your teeth into, read ahead for all the details or just jump in game and figure out all the changes in battle. People playing on the new map Unearthed will receive a new alien commander skin and if you like that you might also check out our Catalyst DLC Pack, which has many other skins and now includes a new Sandstorm skin for the updated machine gun model. Remember all sales of NS2 and DLC directly affect our development budget and allow our team to continue work on NS2.

Click here to see the full changelog and all the goodies contained within.
Follow the NS2 Development Roadmap to see our plans for future updates.

Update 326 includes crash fixes, changes to quickplay, spectate updates, bug fixes, and new cosmetics to the Catalyst Pack. In honor of Gorgemas, everyone who has purchased the Catalyst Pack DLC will receive new gorge toxin skins for all the gorge structures. If you don’t own the Catalyst Pack, you can still purchase it and unlock all the DLC skin packs included. Remember all sales of NS2 and DLC directly affect our development budget and allow our team to continue work on NS2.



From all of us at Unknown Worlds, we wish you the happiest of holidays and Merry Gorgemas!

Check out the full changelog below to see all the goodies contained within.
Follow the NS2 development roadmap to see our plans for future updates.

Changelog

Tweaks / Improvements

• Added Toxin skins for all the Gorge structures.
  • Hydras
  • Babbler Eggs
  • Babblers
  • Clogs
  • Gorge Tunnels
• Disabled LuaJIT’s trace stitching to try and resolve in game client crashes.
• Reduced the size of the server performance fields in the move packet to lower the overall bandwidth consumption (Contributed by Steelcap)
  • This is something that will become more robust in the coming patches, further reducing server bandwidth. A requirement if we are to increase server rates.
• You can now block servers in the server browser and in the scoreboard:
  • Blocked servers are only listed at the very bottom of the server list by default. (custom sorting preferences such as sorting by ping will undo this)
  • The server entries of blocked servers are grayed out.
  • Quick play will skip blocked servers.
  • You can manage the blocked servers via the Blocked server tab in the server browser, next to the History tab.
  • Similar to adding a server to your favorites while in a server, you can utilize the scoreboard to click on the Block icon at the top of it.
• Quick Play now lists the amount of servers it skipped.
  • The reasons why a server may be skipped because they are full, passworded, rookie only, blocked or the server operator opted out the Quick Play feature.
• Quick Play will no longer connect you to a server you disconnected from in the prior 10 minutes, unless there are no other servers available.
  • Joined a server you did not like? Quickplay will try to avoid it next time.
• Improved the overhead spectator mode:
  • Added a binding legend to the bottom of the overhead spectator HUD
  • You can now focus a player by just clicking on them
  • Hovering over a player status panel at the sides of the screen will display the hitpoint values.
  • Hovering over a structure with passive abilities will display it’s radius if it has any.
  • Added health bars for non-standard dropped weapons displaying the time remaining until they expire
  • Added the name of the target location to the unit status of Phasegates and Gorge Tunnels for overhead spectators.
• Removed the 32 bit OS main menu warning.

Fixes

• Fixed that Gorge ghost placement models (such as a hydra or clog before it is placed) were color highlighted incorrectly by the default Alien Vision.
• Fixed that certain mods like NS2+ caused the main menu to not load after failing to connect to a server due to a consistency failure.
• Fixed reflections being too intense due to recent changes.
  • Reflection shininess is now back down to sane levels.
• Fixed that the ping server browser filter was applied even when it wasn’t visible at lower resolutions.
• Fixed that the Ranked server browser filter wasn’t applied to custom gamemode server. This caused some players to believe that certain custom gamemode servers are ranked while they are not.
• Fixed that the serverbrowser’s attempt-to-join-full-server dialogue mentioned reserved slots even when none were available.
• Fixed that clicking on servers in the history tab that were no longer available could cause a script error.
• Fixed small visual issues in the Tram and Eclipse menu backgrounds.
• Fixed that sometimes the user’s server Favorites were not saved correctly.
• Fixed a rare server crash related to relevancy portals that would occur when the server was struggling.

Maps


Kodiak

• Fixed stuck spot in a vent from Observation to Hangar Bay

Eclipse Menu

• Fixed flipped text

Tools

• Map Editor
  • Added selection masks for ambient_sound and reverb entities.

SDK

• Rendering Pipeline
  • Changed how the GBuffer stores normals and gloss data.  
    • Shouldn’t notice any visual difference!
    • Normals now stored with only 2 components (x, y).
    • Gloss is now stored in the z component of the normals buffer, instead of the alpha channel of the spec buffer.  This allows gloss to be properly blended with decals (before, gloss would be discarded, as the alpha channel of the texture is used as the blending factor).

Known Issues

• There are still some FMOD related crashes that are being looked into, that represent roughly 20% of known crashes, that mostly occur upon launch or exit of the game.