Come Play Natural Selection

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 3:34 pm

Damn your lazy ass Flayra

CoasterKing · Post by **CoasterKing** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:02 pm

The hitboxs are my major pet peeve in NS eg. it took me forever to figure out that you can't shoot a fade above it's legs when it is behind an rt. I also hate getting shot after I'm around a corner but I think that has more to do with the HL engine than NS itself.

Anyway I'm not looking forward to the update as I haven't played for a while and will probably get owned

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:42 am

CoasterKing wrote:The hitboxs are my major pet peeve in NS eg. it took me forever to figure out that you can't shoot a fade above it's legs when it is behind an rt. I also hate getting shot after I'm around a corner but I think that has more to do with the HL engine than NS itself.

From what I understand, the 'hitbox issue' isn't ctually anything to do with hitboxes - its that for some reason when people login / leave a server they get actually different hitboxes depending on when they joined, so like, if the second person to join a server goes skulk their hitboxes are screwed up so they're almost impossible to hit (I don't know what the actual join place / class choice is, its just an example)

area · Post by **area** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:31 am

So lets kill time by playing Science and Industry 1.0 which was recently released

. Or, more appropriately, NS. Which I still need to re-download

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 11:24 am

No update yet but they released a changelog...

Code: Select all

O Regeneration now overflows health into armor in a single tick when applicable.
O Blast effect from Onos gore and Xenocide no longer affect teammates.
O It is no longer possible to place/keep a waypoint on a cloaked alien.
O Removed ex_interp from cvar locks.
O Added lightgamma to locked cvars. Value cannot be set below 2.0.


O Updated ns_eclipse
- Removed doors in Marine Spawn
- Layout adjustments to Marine Spawn
- Fixed clipnode issues in South Loop (invisible "ledges")
- Additional lighting tweaks
- Removed added pipes in Triad
- Fixed damage issues on weldable doors
- Attempted to smooth over infestation 'terrain' in hives (single convex clip brushes)
- Fixed lips in vent to marine spawn and other vents for smoother navigation
- Replaced old infestation texture with a new one

They took the doors out of eclipse marine start

someoneElse · Post by **someoneElse** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 5:55 pm

Nyarlathotep wrote:No update yet but they released a changelog...

They took the doors out of eclipse marine start

I'm sorry but am I missing something here?

Didn't they already remove EVERY door on the map previously?
Whee, we got two doors back for all of one point release of a beta..

Seems to me the further along they get, the less detailed the maps become.Soon it will all become an infested de_dust anyhow

someoneElse · Post by **someoneElse** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 3:21 pm

Beta 5 release expected sometime this weekend.

http://natural-selection.org/v30b5-changelog.html

Basically, aliens no longer spawn in combat with their upgrades. This, combined with the idiotic 'aliens win' timelimit means 'marines build up and rush the hive in heavy armor to butcher waves of spawning skulks.'

And my previous statement stands as bast doesn't have the revolving door or the elevator. Okay, the revolving door is still THERE, but doesn't open.

Hawq · Post by **Hawq** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 3:28 pm

So the only thing that kept aliens alive in combat is getting taken out? I disliked combat before seems I'm gonna really hate it now

CoasterKing · Post by **CoasterKing** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 6:36 pm

The combat changes sound interesting but I'll have to play it before I'm convinced. At least wave spawning is in there...

Hawq · Post by **Hawq** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 1:39 pm

By the way since no-one else has posted it Beta 5 is out now I shall expect a steady stream of players in #ns once everyones got it

area · Post by **area** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 12:23 am

I'm installed and ready to go.

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 5:19 am

Commander, I'm standing by.

CoasterKing · Post by **CoasterKing** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 11:11 am

Well I just played a quick game on the newly added classic map and I wasn't that impressed. Maybe I will like it more once I've learned the layout properly but right now I'd rank it alongside ns_agora in terms of crapness.

someoneElse · Post by **someoneElse** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 1:56 pm

I don't know what they did, but beta 5 runs at about half the framerate of the last beta 4 at the same settings, and then steadily drops down over the course of a couple of seconds to a whopping 15fps, at which point I give up and close it.

Whee.

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Wed Dec 22, 2004 6:38 pm

NS v3.0 beta 6 changelog

Gameplay changes
O Aliens have innate regeneration at a rate of 2% per second, this regeneration will always heal at least 1 point of health or armor and stacks with DC healing, but doesn't 'stack' with Regeneration.
O Alien upgrades cost 0 resources.
O Gestating to skulk costs 0 resources.
O Sieges no longer damage friendly players.
O Siege now does 330 Damage.
O Turrets now prioritize players over structures.
O Offense Chambers now priorities players over structures.
O Parasite now takes precedence over Scent of Fear image (allows players to see that their Parasite hit when using SOF to help teammates track enemies).
O Parasite now has a different icon based on if the target was a player or a structure.
O Bile Bomb's range has been increased by 15%.
O Cat-pack cost has been reduced from 4 to 3.
O Marines near Sensory chambers show up as if detected by Scent of Fear.

Game mechanics
O Hitbox code has been much improved, so shooting through the legs of an Onos will miss, while shots on edges of models will now hit.
O Players using Cloaking upgrade will no longer be fully visible at any time unless attacking.
O Players moving faster than walking pace will gradually become more visible the faster they move, but only to a max visibility of 30%.
O Turrets will not fire at aliens with less than 10% visibility.
O Clicking on an enemy structure (visible, non-visible and cloaked) gives a 'move to' waypoint.
O Shotgun range begins to fall off at 500 units, and is then reduced by 1% for every 2 further units, resulting in 0 damage after 700 units, to stop shotgun sniping.
O If you are within 600 units of marine start, you will not be transported in by Distress Beacon.
O Group waypoints will now act like personal waypoints for each player (so when you reach the waypoint, it disappears for you, while remaining for all other players).
O Alien respawn time reduced for teams larger than 6. As the number of hives increase, this time is increased, so at 3 hives there is no difference from respawn rate at 6 players.
O Combat wavespawn now takes a 5 seconds plus 2 seconds for every dead player, up to a maximum of 13 seconds.
O Added 'notready' command to reverse ready status in tournament mode.
O Fixed exploit where structures could be dropped near marines in water to avoid building restrictions.
O Equipment, med-packs, ammo-packs, etc. can again be dropped directly on players.
O Acid rocket now does double damage to armor.
O Knife knockback has been removed.
O Players no longer join a team in the 'dead' state.

Cosmetic changes:
O Added Heavy Armor falling sound.
O Gave each Alien a unique landing sound.
O Updated Jetpack sound.
O Updated LMG clip out and clip in sounds.
O Updated Pistol reload sounds.
O Reverted LMG firing sound back to sound from beta 4.
O Updated welder idle sound to be more obvious when not welding anything.
O Replaced raindrop sprites.
O Added a "player joined team" messages to HUD.
O Updated med-pack model.
O Updated cat-pack commander menu icons to provide a consistent interface.
O Friendly parasited players no longer show up in hive sight, and are no longer notified that they are parasited (Parasite still does FF damage though).
O Hive locations always appears on Hive Sight.
O Unbuilt hives use a different sprite for easy detection.
O Commander Station always shows as closed in combat maps.

beta 6 due end of december... LOTS of interesting changes (I bolded the ones of interest to me) but wheres the announcement on the move to HL2?!?!?!?!?

Hawq · Post by **Hawq** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 1:15 pm

I was readnig somethin in a mag the other week looks like the teams goin a bit commercial, seems the main guy was to start with anyway then left to do the mod as he couldnt get it done where he was working, among the rumours heard are it may get its own engine in future

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 1:24 pm

IIRC Flayra worked on Age Of Empires 1 and 2, then left to make the kind of game he wanted to make, aka Natural Selection...

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 9:31 am

[ January 7th, 2005 ] :: NS, NS retail, NS: Source, NS2, etc. (Flayra)

There's so much confusion and misinformation floating around about all these projects that I think it's time to set the record straight.

First there was Natural Selection. Then I formed Unknown Worlds to make more ambitious retail games. I thought that the best bet for the company's first game was putting NS into retail, on the Half-life engine. This would be like Counter-strike or Day of Defeat in retail, and would've essentially been the same game, but polished up and packaged with the Half-life engine so people could play it without owning Half-life. I then decided that it would be too costly and a little boring too do this project, so it was skipped.

So the next project is likely going to be NS on the Source engine. We don't know for sure if we're doing this, as we haven't had time to evaluate how much work it will be, but everyone on the team is excited to do it, so I think it will happen. We don't know yet if it is going to be a straight port over to Source, or if we're going to redo a lot of the artwork/animations, or if we're going to change a lot of the fundamental gameplay (flamethrowers, physics, etc.). We need to look into it more, see how many months it's going to take (the bad part) and then make a decision. As soon as we know, we'll let you guys know. NS on Source will be done primarily by the current NS team. I'll be doing the game design and overall direction, but the NS team will be doing all the actual work.

The OTHER project, is Natural Selection 2. The game design has been started (hoo-boy, fun stuff), but this will be a full-fledged $50 (or so) retail game, not a mod. It will use a next-generation engine (like Source, Unreal Engine 3, etc.) and will take years and millions of dollars to create. This is what I'm now spending the majority of my time on.

Please trust that as soon as ANY information is available on any of these projects, we will post here on the front-page news of this web-site. You won't have to dig through the forums or IRC chat logs, we're going to broadcast loud and clear. We're also planning on making particularly big announcements to the Unknown Worlds mailing list, so make sure you've registered an account and subscribed there if you're interested.

Hawq · Post by **Hawq** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 1:43 pm

A bump not for a release, sadly but for news of a trailer for the new 3.0 & an interview with a mag about ns on the hl2 engine, grab the trailer from the homepage where theres also a link to the interview, or just go straight to it here among upcoming highlights are:

Probably the biggest content addition is the addition of third-person reload animations. It's great knowing when a marine is reloading, so you can drop off the ceiling and snack on him.

We're planning on releasing v3.1 in another four to six weeks, which will have an exciting new system that we've been working for quite some time. We're not ready to announce the details of this system yet, but we think players will be excited when they see it. NS 3.1 will also include balance changes that arise after 3.0 and possibly a few new maps (including one from Merkaba, of ns_hera fame).

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 3:13 pm

for the fake hope of a new release, but

for that awesome trailer