We'd like to take a moment and shine a light on our partners over at the Natural Selection League. Sign-ups are under way for season 10 of great competitive NS2 action and we couldn't be more excited! Below is all the information and links you might need to get involved with the next season, so gather your friends, create a team and get in on the action!

Welcome to the Natural Selection League. If you’re looking for getting more out of your Natural Selection 2 experience, look no further. Power plays, crackpot strats, and the greatest competitive minds of Natural Selection 2 converge here to duke it out on the battlefield. Talk strategy, metagame, and high-level concept Natural Selection 2 on our forums, or enjoy a gather and fight to the top of the food chain. If you’re looking for more information, check the bottom of this post.Any questions can be directed to our help desk or by messaging an admin on ENSL, Steam, by email or Discord. A full list of current admins can be found here.

Brace yourselves, Season 10 is upon us! But.. we will be extended the deadlines for signups for two weeks. The signup deadline for Season 10 is now October 13th. We want the potential to seed a lower division as high as possible, with the intent of more and better matches. A reminder to sign-up if you haven’t already, as time is ticking!For all new players, you need a team of at least six players to compete in Season 10, please read the final section of this post on how to create or join teams.

Gathers have picked up steam and are running again. You can join a gather by registering an account and joining up here. Joining is easy, and practice can come in handy for the upcoming Season 10. Be sure to play more rounds to familiarize (or refamiliarize yourself on Mesh (formerly Docking2), Nexus, and Mineral, as these custom maps are staples of an ENSL season, and some have changed for the new Season.

Some of our mappers have come forward concerning high-level gathers on ns2_ayumi, a reimagining of the Natural Selection 3.0 map of the same name. Huge changes have happened recently with the map concerning balance, and feedback is necessary. Contact Kasharic or Mephilles for more information. If you have another map you’d like to see played in gathers, contact an admin.

If you don't have a team or have yet to join the ENSL, it's easy to create an account or team with the following steps. If you want to register a pre-existing team, skip to step 4.

• To create a team, register an account and create a new team! Creating a team is not necessary, nor is joining a team. If you’re looking to join a team, find a team and select the Request to Join button on their page. You’re free to use the ENSL website without any pressure from any teams.
• Get your players to register and tell them to Join your team in their Agenda, which you can find at the top of the page! You can meet players in-game, in ENSL gathers, or on the ENSL or Unknown Worlds forums. As per usual ENSL rules, you must have at least six players for a valid Season 10 team!
• To accept your players on the team, go to Agenda → Click your team name → Edit and scroll down → Members → Change their status from Joining to Member, Leader, or Deputy. These roles can define what a player is to your team.
• To join the tournament, go to Agenda → Click your team name → Edit (scroll down) → Contests → Join Season 10 Signups. This will reserve your space in the upcoming Season 10. Get ready to rock!
• Verify that your team name exists on the Contest page. If your team does not appear here, please follow these steps again. If all else fails, contact an admin.

We'd like to take a moment and shine a light on our partners over at the Natural Selection League. Sign-ups are under way for season 10 of great competitive NS2 action and we couldn't be more excited! Below is all the information and links you might need to get involved with the next season, so gather your friends, create a team and get in on the action!

Welcome to the Natural Selection League. If you’re looking for getting more out of your Natural Selection 2 experience, look no further. Power plays, crackpot strats, and the greatest competitive minds of Natural Selection 2 converge here to duke it out on the battlefield. Talk strategy, metagame, and high-level concept Natural Selection 2 on our forums, or enjoy a gather and fight to the top of the food chain. If you’re looking for more information, check the bottom of this post.Any questions can be directed to our help desk or by messaging an admin on ENSL, Steam, by email or Discord. A full list of current admins can be found here.

Brace yourselves, Season 10 is upon us! But.. we will be extended the deadlines for signups for two weeks. The signup deadline for Season 10 is now October 13th. We want the potential to seed a lower division as high as possible, with the intent of more and better matches. A reminder to sign-up if you haven’t already, as time is ticking!For all new players, you need a team of at least six players to compete in Season 10, please read the final section of this post on how to create or join teams.

Gathers have picked up steam and are running again. You can join a gather by registering an account and joining up here. Joining is easy, and practice can come in handy for the upcoming Season 10. Be sure to play more rounds to familiarize (or refamiliarize yourself on Mesh (formerly Docking2), Nexus, and Mineral, as these custom maps are staples of an ENSL season, and some have changed for the new Season.

Some of our mappers have come forward concerning high-level gathers on ns2_ayumi, a reimagining of the Natural Selection 3.0 map of the same name. Huge changes have happened recently with the map concerning balance, and feedback is necessary. Contact Kasharic or Mephilles for more information. If you have another map you’d like to see played in gathers, contact an admin.

If you don't have a team or have yet to join the ENSL, it's easy to create an account or team with the following steps. If you want to register a pre-existing team, skip to step 4.

• To create a team, register an account and create a new team! Creating a team is not necessary, nor is joining a team. If you’re looking to join a team, find a team and select the Request to Join button on their page. You’re free to use the ENSL website without any pressure from any teams.
• Get your players to register and tell them to Join your team in their Agenda, which you can find at the top of the page! You can meet players in-game, in ENSL gathers, or on the ENSL or Unknown Worlds forums. As per usual ENSL rules, you must have at least six players for a valid Season 10 team!
• To accept your players on the team, go to Agenda → Click your team name → Edit and scroll down → Members → Change their status from Joining to Member, Leader, or Deputy. These roles can define what a player is to your team.
• To join the tournament, go to Agenda → Click your team name → Edit (scroll down) → Contests → Join Season 10 Signups. This will reserve your space in the upcoming Season 10. Get ready to rock!
• Verify that your team name exists on the Contest page. If your team does not appear here, please follow these steps again. If all else fails, contact an admin.

A few weeks back Remi wrote up a blog called “Enter the Roadmap” and today we take the first step down that road with the release of Build 308. One of our biggest hopes is to finally take NS2 to 64bit but there are many hurdles along the way, a big one being LuaJIT. FSFOD and the other programmers have been hard at work on an upgrade to the newest version of LuaJIT and testing, testing and more testing. The upgraded JIT allows for more of the overall NS2 code to be jitted, and additional trace stitching which provides more opportunity for improving existing performance logging.

This update was delayed for further testing a couple weeks ago, but thanks to a few community server ops, playtesters and public players we have spent a lot of time this week finally ironing out the last of the major issues. However, an upgrade to a core system such as this is likely to have some sneaky bugs appear and we hope that you can get in touch with us on Discord or through tech support in the forums to help solve those issues.

CHANGELOG

Tweaks / Improvements

• Upgraded LuaJIT to Version 2.1
  • More code is jittable now (runs slightly faster on average)
  • String operations have been improved which helps with our GUI code
  • Switched to JIT specialized table functions
• Crash dump always saved before showing report dialogue and command line switch to enable a full dump if requested
• Add icon which will flash on screen when a client encounters a script error

Fixes

• Fixed Trace object field access unintentionally always failing to JIT.
• Fixed script error when Alien Commander failed to place a Cyst
• Fixed script error when Alien Commander failed to place a Drifter
• Fixed script error when a ViewModel’s parent entity has been destroyed
• Fixed that rifles sometimes cause a script error because its cinematics have already been destroyed
• Fixed script error caused by entering hive after activating xenocide
• Fixed script error caused by code not expecting there to be nil entries in an entity list

SDK

• Added ErrorCallback Lua event that is fired every time there is an Lua error. The error message is passed as the first argument of the event
• Added `display_errors` console command which will trigger a popup if there is a script error so you don’t need to dig through logs to find the first one. You can also activate this by using the `-debug` launch option.
• Removed out of date and unusable model source assets from NS2 install. This reduces the install footprint by roughly 1.3Gb. The files can still be accessed on the “build_307” Steam branch.

A few weeks back Remi wrote up a blog called “Enter the Roadmap” and today we take the first step down that road with the release of Build 308. One of our biggest hopes is to finally take NS2 to 64bit but there are many hurdles along the way, a big one being LuaJIT. FSFOD and the other programmers have been hard at work on an upgrade to the newest version of LuaJIT and testing, testing and more testing. The upgraded JIT allows for more of the overall NS2 code to be jitted, and additional trace stitching which provides more opportunity for improving existing performance logging.

This update was delayed for further testing a couple weeks ago, but thanks to a few community server ops, playtesters and public players we have spent a lot of time this week finally ironing out the last of the major issues. However, an upgrade to a core system such as this is likely to have some sneaky bugs appear and we hope that you can get in touch with us on Discord or through tech support in the forums to help solve those issues.

CHANGELOG

Tweaks / Improvements

• Upgraded LuaJIT to Version 2.1
  • More code is jittable now (runs slightly faster on average)
  • String operations have been improved which helps with our GUI code
  • Switched to JIT specialized table functions
• Crash dump always saved before showing report dialogue and command line switch to enable a full dump if requested
• Add icon which will flash on screen when a client encounters a script error

Fixes

• Fixed Trace object field access unintentionally always failing to JIT.
• Fixed script error when Alien Commander failed to place a Cyst
• Fixed script error when Alien Commander failed to place a Drifter
• Fixed script error when a ViewModel’s parent entity has been destroyed
• Fixed that rifles sometimes cause a script error because its cinematics have already been destroyed
• Fixed script error caused by entering hive after activating xenocide
• Fixed script error caused by code not expecting there to be nil entries in an entity list

SDK

• Added ErrorCallback Lua event that is fired every time there is an Lua error. The error message is passed as the first argument of the event
• Added `display_errors` console command which will trigger a popup if there is a script error so you don’t need to dig through logs to find the first one. You can also activate this by using the `-debug` launch option.
• Removed out of date and unusable model source assets from NS2 install. This reduces the install footprint by roughly 1.3Gb. The files can still be accessed on the “build_307” Steam branch.

Progress! These last couple weeks we have been working towards some of our larger goals for the game. We have had multiple public and private test sessions with the upgraded Luajit changes and it is very close to public release. Dependency on Awesomium has been removed and should help with stability and memory leaks. HIVE 2.0 will be launching in parallel to the existing HIVE sometime over the next week using extensions. This will allow us to test our new system in the public and see how well the algorithms and data collection are working and allow us to make some final tweaks before removing the old version entirely (more detail on this in a separate blog post soon).

Looking to make some changes, update 307 includes a new version of Summit with contributions from Wob and Loki. We have been playing it over the last couple weeks and are excited to see how the public adapts to the new changes. There have been continued debates in multiple Discord channels over balance and a wide range of other subjects lately. These discussions have been very helpful and have lead to some inspired changes that you will see in the log below, so keep em going.

Keep an eye out for a new blog post next week showing our evolving Roadmap for the future of NS2 and some of the exciting updates that we hope to be bringing in the near future.

Skulk on and be happy!

Update 307 Changelog

Tweaks / Improvements

• Skulk Changes
  • Reverted HP to 70/10 (was 85/10)
  • Increased base ground speed to 7.25 to match wall walking speed (was 7.0)
  • Increased non-celerity wall jump force to 6.4 to match the celerity force (was 5.2)
  • Increased sneak speed to be 66% of max speed (was 50%)
  • Made wall jump noises more responsive to your speed to provide better feedback

Although we felt that increasing the Skulk base HP was a necessary step to restore the balance, we agree with the community’s sentiment that it didn’t improve the feel for either side. Our aim going forward is to make it so Skulks feel effective, even while their small health pool can feel punishing. These new changes in conjunction with the melee box increase should make Skulks feel a little bit more maneuverable and able to get a kill, especially during the early game and when planning an ambush.

• Removed the Twitter ticker since it is not used much
• Added team say console command `tsay` (Thanks Keats!)
• Replaced HTML renderer to use Steam APIs instead of Awesomium
  • Videos will now play on Linux!

Fixes

• Welcome banner was hidden by the load screen (Thanks Brute!)
• Fixed that text input fields didn’t consume key events (Thanks Brute!)
• Fixed that enemies were still considered in LOS for health bar display when hiding behind structures and other players
• Fixed that enemies were not considered in LOS for health bar display when visible through railings
• Fixed that Skulks’ celerity bonus was not being reduced while sneaking
• Fixed a script error caused by telling a bot to attack a clog
• Fixed that higher level tech was not immediately available in Sandbox mode from the Armory/Protolab
• Fixed that missing placeholders in a localization could cause clients to crash (occurred with Serbian selected)
• Fixed a script issue occurring on ns2_caged caused by achievement handling

Map Changes

• Summit
  • Atrium – Depth of arched pillars increased, tree added and its tube, raised platform at back of summit added console for additional ground cover, fences now solid.
  • Datacore – New pillar added to give partial LOS block on TechPoint when approaching from Pipe Junction
  • Reception – Increased height of ceiling and added new pillar
  • Flight Control -Duplicated roof truss and added tv for cover
  • Computer Lab – Added small pillar increased height of ceiling, route from comp lab to sub now has 2 additional ceiling recesses for hiding skulks etc
  • Reactor Core – Slight room alteration + extended angular struts from the reactor prop
• Derelict
  • Fixed overhead bridge in Biome blocking commander view

SDK

• Model Compiler – Fixed a bug that would cause FBX models to use incorrect bones for attachment points.
• Model Compiler – Fixed a bug that would cause FBX models to have cameras incorrectly oriented.
• Model Compiler – Added a directive to the model compiler “material_path_replace”.  Takes an input string, and replaces all occurrences of it with the output string.  Useful for maintaining proper Maya workflow/naming conventions.

Progress! These last couple weeks we have been working towards some of our larger goals for the game. We have had multiple public and private test sessions with the upgraded Luajit changes and it is very close to public release. Dependency on Awesomium has been removed and should help with stability and memory leaks. HIVE 2.0 will be launching in parallel to the existing HIVE sometime over the next week using extensions. This will allow us to test our new system in the public and see how well the algorithms and data collection are working and allow us to make some final tweaks before removing the old version entirely (more detail on this in a separate blog post soon).

Looking to make some changes, update 307 includes a new version of Summit with contributions from Wob and Loki. We have been playing it over the last couple weeks and are excited to see how the public adapts to the new changes. There have been continued debates in multiple Discord channels over balance and a wide range of other subjects lately. These discussions have been very helpful and have lead to some inspired changes that you will see in the log below, so keep em going.

Keep an eye out for a new blog post next week showing our evolving Roadmap for the future of NS2 and some of the exciting updates that we hope to be bringing in the near future.

Skulk on and be happy!

Update 307 Changelog

Tweaks / Improvements

• Skulk Changes
  • Reverted HP to 70/10 (was 85/10)
  • Increased base ground speed to 7.25 to match wall walking speed (was 7.0)
  • Increased non-celerity wall jump force to 6.4 to match the celerity force (was 5.2)
  • Increased sneak speed to be 66% of max speed (was 50%)
  • Made wall jump noises more responsive to your speed to provide better feedback

Although we felt that increasing the Skulk base HP was a necessary step to restore the balance, we agree with the community’s sentiment that it didn’t improve the feel for either side. Our aim going forward is to make it so Skulks feel effective, even while their small health pool can feel punishing. These new changes in conjunction with the melee box increase should make Skulks feel a little bit more maneuverable and able to get a kill, especially during the early game and when planning an ambush.

• Removed the Twitter ticker since it is not used much
• Added team say console command `tsay` (Thanks Keats!)
• Replaced HTML renderer to use Steam APIs instead of Awesomium
  • Videos will now play on Linux!

Fixes

• Welcome banner was hidden by the load screen (Thanks Brute!)
• Fixed that text input fields didn’t consume key events (Thanks Brute!)
• Fixed that enemies were still considered in LOS for health bar display when hiding behind structures and other players
• Fixed that enemies were not considered in LOS for health bar display when visible through railings
• Fixed that Skulks’ celerity bonus was not being reduced while sneaking
• Fixed a script error caused by telling a bot to attack a clog
• Fixed that higher level tech was not immediately available in Sandbox mode from the Armory/Protolab
• Fixed that missing placeholders in a localization could cause clients to crash (occurred with Serbian selected)
• Fixed a script issue occurring on ns2_caged caused by achievement handling

Map Changes

• Summit
  • Atrium – Depth of arched pillars increased, tree added and its tube, raised platform at back of summit added console for additional ground cover, fences now solid.
  • Datacore – New pillar added to give partial LOS block on TechPoint when approaching from Pipe Junction
  • Reception – Increased height of ceiling and added new pillar
  • Flight Control -Duplicated roof truss and added tv for cover
  • Computer Lab – Added small pillar increased height of ceiling, route from comp lab to sub now has 2 additional ceiling recesses for hiding skulks etc
  • Reactor Core – Slight room alteration + extended angular struts from the reactor prop
• Derelict
  • Fixed overhead bridge in Biome blocking commander view

SDK

• Model Compiler – Fixed a bug that would cause FBX models to use incorrect bones for attachment points.
• Model Compiler – Fixed a bug that would cause FBX models to have cameras incorrectly oriented.
• Model Compiler – Added a directive to the model compiler “material_path_replace”.  Takes an input string, and replaces all occurrences of it with the output string.  Useful for maintaining proper Maya workflow/naming conventions.

Our latest build continues on the path of refinement and stability, and although small there are some nice changes in this patch. Those of you with antivirus woes when opening NS2 should no longer have an issue as all our windows binaries are digitally signed and secure. As stated in the blog post earlier this week, we increased the size of the melee attack on both the skulk and fade and this change is no longer an extension but part of the vanilla code. We have also decided to slightly bump up skulk HP requiring an additional 2 bullets to make contact.

Behind the scenes we are continuing our work on HIVE 2, which is coming along nicely and should see the public soon! Meanwhile FSFOD has not wasted any time on his upgrade of LUAJit and we will be beta testing those changes starting next week. We are very excited to get some of these new features out into the public, but for now, enjoy the update!

Update 306 Details:

Tweaks / Improvements

• All Windows binaries are now digitally signed, which should make AV & Security programs consider NS2 as a validated program. There are some AV programs that will not take this into consideration however (such as Avast Hardened-mode enabled).
• Warmup Mode Improvements
  • Enemies will slowly take damage while in the other team’s spawn location and will receive a notification to retreat
  • Bots will no longer buy tech or evolve, to prevent overwhelming the enemy team with Onos
• Filler bots will be disabled for listen servers
• Disabled many rookie-only checks in listen servers
• Boosted Skulk starting health by 15hp to 85/10
• Size of Skulk melee has been increased to 1.2, 1.2 (was 0.7, 1)
• Size of Fade melee has increased vertically to 0.7,1.2 (was 0.7,1)

Fixes

• Fixed that filler bots stayed longer in the teams than they should which could lead to uneven teams
• The player list now updates properly in the server details window
• Mod names now update properly in the server details window
• Fixed that the sv_forceeventeams command wasn’t working
• Fixed that the “start commanding” text showed up at unbuild hives (thanks NoM)
• Fixed that commander dropped weapons caused phantom item bubbles

SDK

• Texture lock has been further improved.
• Added a new command to the model compiler, “material_path_replace”.  See model tools manual for details.  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ELyjisMUh6TCDubkp5IZTC7SsVrx41j-OdHpHPs4_uU/edit?usp=sharing

Our latest build continues on the path of refinement and stability, and although small there are some nice changes in this patch. Those of you with antivirus woes when opening NS2 should no longer have an issue as all our windows binaries are digitally signed and secure. As stated in the blog post earlier this week, we increased the size of the melee attack on both the skulk and fade and this change is no longer an extension but part of the vanilla code. We have also decided to slightly bump up skulk HP requiring an additional 2 bullets to make contact.

Behind the scenes we are continuing our work on HIVE 2, which is coming along nicely and should see the public soon! Meanwhile FSFOD has not wasted any time on his upgrade of LUAJit and we will be beta testing those changes starting next week. We are very excited to get some of these new features out into the public, but for now, enjoy the update!

Update 306 Details:

Tweaks / Improvements

• All Windows binaries are now digitally signed, which should make AV & Security programs consider NS2 as a validated program. There are some AV programs that will not take this into consideration however (such as Avast Hardened-mode enabled).
• Warmup Mode Improvements
  • Enemies will slowly take damage while in the other team’s spawn location and will receive a notification to retreat
  • Bots will no longer buy tech or evolve, to prevent overwhelming the enemy team with Onos
• Filler bots will be disabled for listen servers
• Disabled many rookie-only checks in listen servers
• Boosted Skulk starting health by 15hp to 85/10
• Size of Skulk melee has been increased to 1.2, 1.2 (was 0.7, 1)
• Size of Fade melee has increased vertically to 0.7,1.2 (was 0.7,1)

Fixes

• Fixed that filler bots stayed longer in the teams than they should which could lead to uneven teams
• The player list now updates properly in the server details window
• Mod names now update properly in the server details window
• Fixed that the sv_forceeventeams command wasn’t working
• Fixed that the “start commanding” text showed up at unbuild hives (thanks NoM)
• Fixed that commander dropped weapons caused phantom item bubbles

SDK

• Texture lock has been further improved.
• Added a new command to the model compiler, “material_path_replace”.  See model tools manual for details.  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ELyjisMUh6TCDubkp5IZTC7SsVrx41j-OdHpHPs4_uU/edit?usp=sharing

It’s been two weeks since our last update, be honest you missed us! Moving to this model has allowed for us to make some much needed changes to our way of implementing and testing changes to the game. This update may seem light, but it has some good fixes and more enhancements to our server browser including a friends filter. This filter will allow you see what servers your steam friends are playing on and get you connected to them.

One of the new additions I mentioned above is “Playtest with the Dev’s,” a weekly opportunity to jump into the beta of next update and play a series of games and give your feedback on the upcoming changes. We strive to make changes that have a positive impact on the community and next to our discord or forums this is a nice direct interface for the players and devs to communicate.

Our newly implemented feedback system has given us some nice results over the last couple weeks. The most selected option for lower rated rounds was “Uneven Teams” and for newer players was “Inexperienced Commander.” To attack these issues we have begun work on a set of new features, the first being a long needed update of our backend Player Skill tracking system HIVE. Hive 2.0 will go a long way towards helping us resolve some old internal bugs, and add some much needed speed to the communication between servers and the database. The second feature is our continued expansion on the tutorials available to players. A new Commander Tutorial is being drafted and developed to give players a better grasp on commanding a team for both Aliens and Marines.

These two features are only the beginning of our Phase 3 plans. We will be starting a new series of QA videos on our YouTube channel to better explain and show off upcoming development on NS2. There will be another blog post next week going into more details on how you can submit questions and feedback for us to talk about in our series.

See the full changelog below and happy hunting!

UPDATE 305 CHANGELOG

Tweaks / Improvements

• Added a Friends tab to the serverbrowser
  • Easily join your friends, wherever they are
• Bots will now fill up empty servers up to 12 slots by default
  • Makes it easier to form teams as player can directly join the team they want to play
  • Makes Warmup mode engaging even without other players
  • Makes it faster to start a game without many human players
  • Bots are ignored by the Warmup Mode check
• The cooldown of Belly Slide and Charge get now displayed by the HUD (Thanks Steelcap!)
• Increased the rate with which each Minigun heats up from 0.2 to 0.3 to compensate for them being independent now
• Autobalance doesn’t stop players from spawning anymore when teams are uneven

Fixes

• Fixed the description of the Machine Gun and Lerk Spores
• Fixed that sometimes you couldn’t evolve if you had babblers attached to you
• Fixed most issues with stuttering when running past clogs caused by desync of the clog collision in the predict world
• Fixed that the server browser was sending significant more pings than needed
• Fixed issue with NS2+ causing health bars to show up when players were spawning in

Map Fixes

• ns2_derelict (Thanks Zavaro!)
  • Fixed Occlusion Geometry in Nursery
  • Geothermal No longer a marine spawn
  • Western Entrance No longer an Alien spawn

It’s been two weeks since our last update, be honest you missed us! Moving to this model has allowed for us to make some much needed changes to our way of implementing and testing changes to the game. This update may seem light, but it has some good fixes and more enhancements to our server browser including a friends filter. This filter will allow you see what servers your steam friends are playing on and get you connected to them.

One of the new additions I mentioned above is “Playtest with the Dev’s,” a weekly opportunity to jump into the beta of next update and play a series of games and give your feedback on the upcoming changes. We strive to make changes that have a positive impact on the community and next to our discord or forums this is a nice direct interface for the players and devs to communicate.

Our newly implemented feedback system has given us some nice results over the last couple weeks. The most selected option for lower rated rounds was “Uneven Teams” and for newer players was “Inexperienced Commander.” To attack these issues we have begun work on a set of new features, the first being a long needed update of our backend Player Skill tracking system HIVE. Hive 2.0 will go a long way towards helping us resolve some old internal bugs, and add some much needed speed to the communication between servers and the database. The second feature is our continued expansion on the tutorials available to players. A new Commander Tutorial is being drafted and developed to give players a better grasp on commanding a team for both Aliens and Marines.

These two features are only the beginning of our Phase 3 plans. We will be starting a new series of QA videos on our YouTube channel to better explain and show off upcoming development on NS2. There will be another blog post next week going into more details on how you can submit questions and feedback for us to talk about in our series.

See the full changelog below and happy hunting!

UPDATE 305 CHANGELOG

Tweaks / Improvements

• Added a Friends tab to the serverbrowser
  • Easily join your friends, wherever they are
• Bots will now fill up empty servers up to 12 slots by default
  • Makes it easier to form teams as player can directly join the team they want to play
  • Makes Warmup mode engaging even without other players
  • Makes it faster to start a game without many human players
  • Bots are ignored by the Warmup Mode check
• The cooldown of Belly Slide and Charge get now displayed by the HUD (Thanks Steelcap!)
• Increased the rate with which each Minigun heats up from 0.2 to 0.3 to compensate for them being independent now
• Autobalance doesn’t stop players from spawning anymore when teams are uneven

Fixes

• Fixed the description of the Machine Gun and Lerk Spores
• Fixed that sometimes you couldn’t evolve if you had babblers attached to you
• Fixed most issues with stuttering when running past clogs caused by desync of the clog collision in the predict world
• Fixed that the server browser was sending significant more pings than needed
• Fixed issue with NS2+ causing health bars to show up when players were spawning in

Map Fixes

• ns2_derelict (Thanks Zavaro!)
  • Fixed Occlusion Geometry in Nursery
  • Geothermal No longer a marine spawn
  • Western Entrance No longer an Alien spawn