NS v3.2 changelog

March 1st, 2007

New Features

• Bind-able alien movement abilities (blink, leap, charge)
  • Movement abilities can be bound directly using +movement.
  • Movement abilities can still be selected as a "weapon" and fired (no change).
  • Movement abilities can be used in the readyroom but play at a much lower volume.
  • Set "r" to default +movement in the keyboard bindings.
  • Changed description for "Reload" to "Reload/alien movement" in the keyboard bindings.

• Added teleport feature to hives
  • Players may now use an active hive to be teleported to the next hive with an 0.8 second cool-down per player.
  • If a player uses a growing hive, it triggers 'The Enemy Approaches' Alert and makes it available for both hive and movement chamber teleportation.
  • Gorge spit can also be used to trigger 'The Enemy Approaches' on a growing hive.
  • Normal friendly fire no longer makes a hive available for teleportation.
    
  • Hive teleport order is determined by the top-to-bottom order shown on the alien HUD.
  • If a player can't reach a hive to use it, standing directly under the hive while pressing use will also work.

• "Ghost" placement model for marine structures
  • When a marine structure is first placed by the commander, it will be a ghost structure.
  • A ghost structure is partially transparent (but still solid) and will be immediately recycled for 80% of the resource cost if touched by an alien player.
  • A ghost structure can be attacked and damaged without triggering an immediate recycle.
  • The commander can choose to recycle a ghost structure in the same manner as an unbuilt structure.
  • When a marine player starts to build a ghost structure, it will turn into a normal unbuilt structure.

• NS on HLTV
  • NS now sends minimap updates to a connected HLTV server.
  • NS now sends particle system templates to a connected HLTV server.  Spores, Welder sparks etc. should display when spectating via HLTV.
  • NS now sends hive information to HLTV.
  • Every 30 seconds, the HLTV server rebuilds the information so recently connected players get the data too.
  • Various bug-fixes to improve the HLTV experience ( detailed later in the changelog ).

New map co_umbra ( by Kalessin ) co_umbra is a large combat map which features long, wide corridors with moderate cover and high ceilings. Despite the apparent advantage the marines may have, the aliens can utilise the extensive ventilation network and the many concealed ambush points to hamper the marine's progress. There are three routes linking the alien half of the map to the marine side, each route converges in the centre of the map where most of the action takes place. Because of the size of the map, it is important that the marines play aggressively to be able to secure a victory.

Gameplay changes:

• Reworked the Alien hive-based armor bonus.
  • No armor bonus for the second hive.
  • For the third hive aliens get an armor bonus equivalent to two hive armor in previous versions.
• Modified lerk flight
  • Increased the base lerk speed to 650.
  • Reduced the effect of celerity on lerk flight from 25 to 20 ( per chamber ).
  • Lerks now lose more speed when they climb, but still dive quickly.
• Onos Changes
  • Increased Health from 700 to 950.
  • Added knock-back effect to charge so that the Onos may not be blocked by aliens or marines.
  • Charge causes damage at a rate of 80 health per second, as long as charge contact is maintained.
  • When using charge, the Onos will be propelled forward as long as +attack/+movement is activated and the Onos has enough energy.
• Lowered blink fire rate so energy drain is reduced.
  
  • Blink maximum speed unchanged.
    
  • Blink requires you to press your +attack or +movement key for double the time, but energy is drained at half the rate.

• Changed cloak behavior to be more consistent and intuitive.
  • Cloaking takes 1 second to begin.
  • It takes 12, 8 and 4 seconds to cloak depending on the number of sensories.
  • When near a sensory chamber, an alien player always cloaks as if under the effect of 3 sensory chambers.
  • Teleporting via a movement chamber or hive cause the player to uncloak.
• Modified defense chamber healing effect:
  • A player or structure is only healed by a single defense chamber at a time.
  • A target is now healed for the usual 10 health points and an additional + 3% of its maximum health (per DC healing tick).
• Web changes
  • Webs now harden 1.5 seconds after being formed.
  • Unhardened webs can be destroyed by marines walking through them without causing the player to get entangled.
  • Web sounds updated to reflect the new behavior.
  • Changed web rendering so they are consistent and easily visible in all render modes ( i.e. visible with the alien flashlight on ).

• Reduced Marine Resource Tower Health from 6000 to 5500.
• Increase the points awarded for killing an RT from 3 to 5.
• Leap no longer does Friendly Fire damage.
• When redemption chooses a destination hive, it will not choose a hive under attack unless no other active hive is available.
• If the current hive is under attack, the player will not be teleported to it (assuming that there is another valid destination hive available).
• Reduced bilebomb velocity from 750 to 650.

• Changed ladder functionality for fades.
  • The fade will never stick to a ladder when actively blinking.
  • The fade can only climb ladders when its vertical speed is low ( between -175 and 175).

• Removed telefragging by adding pushback to infantry portals and phasegates.
• Reduced phase gate cooldown from 0.5 seconds to 0.4 seconds.
• Jetpack cost tweaks (to make the JPs less risky as a strategy).
  • Increased JP research cost by 10 res.
  • Increased JP research time by 15 seconds.
  • Reduced JP cost from 15 to 10.
    
  • Players who touch the ground with a jetpack active no longer stick to it.

Gameplay interface:

Improved scoreboard The scoreboard now shows the player's team first. Added resource counts for each alien player. Added icons to display the weapons a player has picked up. This column shows the player's level when playing combat. Added map name and round timer to scoreboard. Fixed a bug where team score was being displayed in the kills column. Allow muting of players on the other team.

Minimap improvements Can now be viewed before the round starts. Structures under attack flash red on the minimap. New colour scheme for minimap sprites. Show the full minimap sprites for the commander on +showmap. Added cl_hudmapzoom 0|1|2|3 to control the level of zoom on the marine in-hud minimap. Added transparent minimaps with cl_labelmaps 0: unlabelled minimap. 1: labelled minimap. 2: transparent, unlabelled minimap. 3: transparent, labelled minimap.

Added new inventory indicators to marine HUD: welder. mines. hand grenades. Updated HUD icons to more clearly indicate the level of marine upgrades.

Added a cloaking indicator to the alien HUD. Modified the alien upgrade HUD icons. Reduced size to make them less obtrusive. Added indicator for available upgrade level.

Updated sprite for generic progress bar.

• Added custom crosshairs

• Five crosshairs types for every weapon.
• The crosshair choices are available in the advanced multiplayer options.
• Can also be selected with cl_customcrosshair 0|1|2|3|4.
• Type one and two include spread indicators, while type three and four stay the same for all weapons.
• Type zero selects the crosshairs from 3.1.
• Crosshairs are available at these resolutions: 640/800/1024/1280.

• Hive sight HUD text
  • Added transparency effect: the farther from the center of the screen the HUD text is, the more transparent it will be.
  • Added cl_labelhivesight cvar (default 1) to allow players to disable hive sight labels on the alien HUD.

Various fixes:

• Minor server performance improvements in the way frequently used cvars are accessed.
• Gorges under attack flash red on the minimap.
• Webs can not be destroyed by friendly fire.
• Fixed a demo playback lockup.
• Fixed a bug where targetondeath was not firing when hives died. ( Thanks Kouji_San )
• Fixed: Losing all upgrade levels when at least 1 active chamber remains.
• Fixed a bug where a player had to click "Readyroom" twice.
• Fixed: flashlight sound is affected by silence
• Fixed: Votemap was not adjusting the required votes when a player left the server.
• The advanced alien sight ( flashlight ) will not be automatically switched off when a player dies.
• Death sprites now determined by the weapon doing the damage instead of the current weapon selected (e.g. no more "stomp" kills).
• Players always see the health indicator for the other team's structures, not the unbuilt status.
• Reverted the animation of a jumping skulk to 3.0 behavior.  This is an animation changed only.
  
• Fixed a problem where sieges automatically sighted structures in range that are on slopes.
• Fixed a problem where players could not sight structures on slopes.
• Fixed commander keyboard scrolling ( +scrollleft, +scrollright, +scrollup and +scrolldown ).
• Heavy armour and jetpack are now visible in the readyroom.
• Fixed cl_autohelp in options window.
• Added player list to game menu for steam friends. ( Thanks anakin )
• Improved playback of HUD alert messages ( base under attack, enemy approaches, hive under attack etc. )
• Added support for +commandmenu.
• Fixed: "building under attack" will play on friendly structures after an enemy structure dies in the same location.
• Fixed commander view of alien health rings.
• Fixed server crash related to large numbers of chambers (entities)
  • added server variable sv_structurelimit, which restricts the number of structures that can be built on the map at once (excluding hives, RTs, and CCs).
  • default value is 300.

• Fixed end-of-round player disconnection issue (usually seen on large servers)
  • Chambers and structures no longer play effects when being destroyed during round reset.

• Fixed a textmsg crash.

• Votes against a commander are now retained unless a different player becomes commander.

• Fixed setgamma.
• Fixed slowresearch (sv_cheats 1) for build times.
• Reset the crosshair show count on round reset, fixes the issue where a player's crosshair would sometimes dissapear. problem.
• Fixed onos digestion progress bar.
• Fixed: if an advanced armory is lost and no other armories exist, the observatory and armslab can not be built until a new armory is built.
• Fixed a formatting issue with the server name in the scoreboard.
• Removed the voice- and sound-related signoncommands from ns-hltv.cfg.
• Fixed a logfile print issue for end of round score.
• Fixed a bug where team score was not being reset if mp_tournament mode was changed from 1 to 0 between rounds.
• Crouched lerk flight plays flap animation.
• Crouched alien attack animations now play.
• Aliens can not gestate on steep slopes.
• Eggs no longer take fall damage.
• Fixed a bug where the hive gained 15% health when it completed after it has been killed before.
• Exploit prevention
  • Improved cvar locking.
  • Added ns.wad, ns2.wad and v_wad.wad to consistency check.
  • Removed the cl_rate command from the game.
  • Fixed a bug where the obs affected neutral entities on the minimap for both teams.
  • Fixed silent walk exploit.
  • Fixed a bug where observatory actions ( e.g. scan ) were selectable during research.
  • Fixed an exploit where commanders could place structures silently. ( thanks RouterBox )
    

• Fixed "Auto Director" button in HLTV.
• Fixed a bug where player chat in HLTV wasn't displayed after round end.
• Fixed a HLTV bug where a minimap would become unavailable after map change.
• The HUD initialises correctly when connecting to HLTV directly from an active game.
• Fixed a bug where joining a HLTV server after playing on a game server (either the server you are spectating, or another) would cause sprites and particle effects to display oddly.
• Scoreboard is now updated more frequently for HLTV ( so connecting players get the info ).

• Fixed problematic model hitboxes:

Maps Updates:

• Updated ns_altair ( by KungFuDisoMonkey )
  • Brand new Submarine Bay that now features a res node as well as a Submarine in the pool
  • Added an entrance in Annex to the existing Muck-Pump vent
  • Moved the entrance of a vent from inside the Omega Site Hive to Phi Test Site
  • Moved Air Filtration south to line it up with Life Support Hive
  • Added a vent between Iota Corridor and Life Support Hive
  • Added a vent to connect Ore Pipeline

• Updated ns_bast ( by Mendasp )
  • Added vent between Databank Access and Tram Tunnel.

• Updated ns_caged ( by JazzX )
  • Moved the Command Console to the open area of Marine Start
  • Moved the Marine Start res node to the CC's original location
  • Removed one node from Central Processing and moved the remaining node
  • Added a res node to the Sewer Hive room, and moved Purification's node North
  • Added a res node to Generator Hive room and moved Stability monitoring to the West
  • Permanently blocked the Upper Sewer vent entrance
  • Changed the weldable between Central Processing and Ventilation Access into a breakable

• Updated ns_eclipse ( by MrBen )
  • Removed pillar in marine spawn.
  • Redesigned power sub junction.
  • Removed clipping errors across map.
  • Minor architectural change to south loop to remove snagging.
  • Removed water and infestation from the floor of computer core.

• Updated ns_eon ( by Olmy )
  • Moved gunpod resource tower to the center of the room.
  • Raised the command console.

• Updated ns_nancy ( by Lazer )
  • New Vent from Port to Aux Command. Should help aliens defend the port hive a little bit more.
  • Ladders at Cargo moved to the sides to make them less obstructive to movement.
  • Mother hive has been tweaked some to be bit more alien friendly.
  • Bug where some grid floors were causing the commander to be unable to place items on them has been resolved.
  • Added some more optimizations in some areas.
  • Generally improved texture alignment in most locations.

• Remake of ns_origin ( Originally by Cadavar, remake by Menes)
  

  Replaced Biodome elevators with stairs. Modified Biodome architecture. Moved Biodome resource node to North-East of the hive room. Added a vent North-East of Biodome leading to the existing vent system. Moved Xenoform Research resource node to Power Core. Modified Power Core architecture. Added a weldable vent in Power Core leading to the existing vent system. Added a vent connecting the two vent systems of the Biodome area. Added height alterations to the vent between Biodome and Ventilation. Lowered the height of the Cargo Bay ladders. Added a vent connecting the vent systems above Industrial Ante-Chamber and Cargo Bay. Added a vent leading to Coolant Monitoring from the Ventilation/Furnace vent. Modified the height and the length of Ore Extraction. Modified the hallway leading to Furnace from Ore Extraction. Modified the conveyor hallways between Ore Extraction and Cargo Bay to allow an onos to pass. Moved Furnace hive slightly to the East. Fixed Computer Lab railings not blocking fire. Fixed not being able to drop structures and items on certain parts of the floor in Lava Catwalk. Modified the Cargo Bay elevators to prevent instant killing (they now do 45 damage per second). Fixed problem where an onos would need to duck to pass in the Ventilation vents. Fixed the ceiling of Ore Scanner blocking the commander's view. Fixed stuck issues in Ventilation. Fixed clipping issues with the Biodome floor. Fixed sprites appearing in the corner of Cargo Bay. Fixed unintuitive clipping preventing players from going in various areas/corners. Modified the spawn points in each hive and in Control Room (marine start). Modified the ready room. Modified slightly/greatly the texturing in many areas.

• Updated ns_shiva ( by Moultano )
  • Flattened Draft Shafts: no more ladders, no more stairs.
  • Removed elevator in shiva core. Replaced with ramp.
  • Enlarged 2 hallways in steam tunnels.
  • Expanded maintenance and southern hallway overlooking maintenance
  • Expanded walkways in shiva core
  • Changed the animation on welding the node in shiva core to open up the room more. The center now gets out of the way.
  • Enlarged hallway in lower level of generator.
  • Enlarged vents in steam tunnels, cryochambers, tunnel, shipment processing.
  • Enlarged vent entrances in steam tunnels, cryochambers, airlock.
  • Added generator->tunnel vent, and extended cryochambers vent into databurst.
  • Reworked ladders in steam tunnels. (Onos hate angled ladders.)
  • Commander can no longer accidentally build the double node, although gorges still can.
  • Added delay to shivacore weldable to prevent players rushing in and getting smashed.
  • Airlock weldable no longer kills everything inside, and one of the two doors remains open.
  • Moved cryochambers ladder to slightly more protected position.
  • Flattened ceiling of hallway between generator and steam tunnels to ease blinking.
  • Shrunk platform in generator to ease blinking.
  • Moved some of the spawns in datacore to prevent spawn camping.
  • Partially plugged the hole next to elevator in cryochambers.
  • Structures are no longer placeable in outside areas.
  • Widened vent into tunnel
  • Hopefully fixed onos-splatting around shiva core.

• Updated ns_veil ( by MrBen )
  • Minor architectural changes to pipeline.
  • Redesign of c12 area.
  • Removed the infestation of subsector roof so medpacks can now be dropped on hive floor.