Natural Selection 2 Build 198 Adds Welder | Site of the Gaming Dead

Posted under News by Erik Johnson on Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 -

Unknown Worlds has announced the completion of Build 198 of Natural Selection 2.  Those who have pre-ordered the game can play the build in the closed beta on Steam.

This update adds a welder item that players can use to repair damaged armor and structures.

From the complete change log:

Features

• Added welder, which can be purchased from the Armory (after the commander researches them for 10 team resources). This will allow marines to fix structures and repair marine armor. This means they can no longer +use each other to fix their armor. The welder replaces your axe if you buy it. Only marines with a welder can repair each other’s armor or power nodes.
• New animated marine waypoints, to really grab your attention and make it clear what the Commander is telling you to do. Added small arrow which indicates direction of waypoints which are not on screen.
• Now marines get an automatic build order if they are near an unbuilt structure and don’t already have an order
• Observatory passive ability (now shows nearby enemy structures and aliens with motion-tracking like circles). Also shows cloaked enemies with circles and allows ARC to target blips. Adds “blips” to minimap.
• Added new builder view model and FX, which automatically deploys when a marine builds a structure (bye-bye, old sparks).
• Added new build menu for the Gorge. This is where you choose cyst, hydra or future structures. Moved Cyst to ability #1 and Hydra to #2 and added keybinds for speed. Ignore the “goo wall” for now (it’s not in yet)…
• Minimap now shows the team color of structures, a view cone for you and blinking red icons when structures are taking damage.
• Location names are now always drawn over all other mini map icons.
• MACs now auto repair nearby structures.

Balance

• Reduced Gorge energy cost when dropping structures for better responsiveness.
• The distance MACs look for structures to build or heal has been increased from 5 meters to 10.

Fix

• Fixed rare Server script error caused by a Sentry being destroyed in some cases (Thanks Matso!)
• Don’t block a Commander’s ability to build due to Gorges structures.
• KMAxentityRadius is too large at 25m (now 15m). Lessens chance of Commander not being able to because they have too many structures nearby.
• Fixed script error caused by a Commander giving a defend order to a Marine for a resource point.
• Fixed crash when running Overview on certain sized maps.
• Make sure parent entities get updated with correct Shared.GetTime()
• Fixed potential crash when outputting a log message more than 2048 characters long.
• Fixed bug preventing build structure orders from working properly when given to a MAC if the order distance from the MAC was greater than 10 meters.
• Fixed script error caused by Marquee selecting two Resource Points.
• Fixed bug allowing a Commander to Marquee select themselves which resulted in console spam.
• Fixed script error caused by a Hive finishing evolution right after a Gorge was killed.
• Fixed script error caused by a Jetpack Marine getting killed.
• Fixed script error caused by a Hydra getting a kill after it’s owner had changed teams.
• Fixed script error caused by ordering a Drifter to build a structure and then going to the Ready Room.
• Fixed script error when a Grenade detonated after it’s owner no longer existed.
• Fixed bug causing the Rifle to stop functioning properly if the player reloaded and then alternate fired very quickly.
• Fixed bug causing error message referring to “ui/info.dds” to appear in the console often.

Improvement

• Updated ScenarioHandler which loads the scenario file from the local file system in addition to a web server (Thanks Matso!)
• MACs will now automatically heal nearby structures.
• Improved appearance of Marine waypoints.
• Completely darkened rooms will be visible for Commanders.

SDK

• Fixed displaying Entities in the Decoda Watch Window.
• Added local variables to the script call stacks written to the log.
• Added signal emitters and listeners, these are intended for use in the map editor to allow entities to communicate, the crushing MAChine in Mineshaft is an example.
• The DeathTrigger can now be setup to activate when it receives a signal with a “kill” message.
• Any animation tags from a dynamic prop (fans, crushing MAChine, etc) will now be emitted into the world as a signal.
• Changed the Overview generator to use the entire map if no minimap_extents Entity was specified.
• Added Shared.GetModelName() function for converting a model index back into a file name.
• Added Shared.GetAnimationGraphName() function for converting an animation graph index back into a file name.
• Any map entity that is in either the “CommanderInvisible” or “CommanderNoBuild” group will prevent the Commander from building.

Tags: Beta, first person shooter, Natural Selection 2, Unknown Worlds, update