Natural Selection 2 Kodiak Update

Posted by 6 years ago

Today, a new map: Kodiak, created by community mapper and modder Loki, was released officially as part of Natural Selection 2! This day is the culmination of months of hard work by Loki to create a map that stands proudly alongside the previous eight official maps.

Kodiak is now available for everyone to play, and will automatically download from Steam when you next update Natural Selection 2 via the Steam client. All official servers will be running Kodiak only for the next few days.

Lush vegetation, free flowing rivers, and vistas of an asteroid field characterise Kodiak. Three enormous Biospheres run down the centre, forming the path for a river and dense vegetation. These areas create gameplay the likes of which Natural Selection 2 has never seen, with aliens and marines alike playing hide and seek among the foliage.

There is much more to this story than just a new map. Today, the Kodiak Pack was released on Steam! The Kodiak Pack includes new camouflage armour for Frontiersmen, Exosuits, and Skulks, and a new Kodiak Shoulder Pad. Naturally, when fighting in the forest, you will want to blend in, and you can also wear these new armours on any map!

Kodiak was created by a community mapper: Loki, and for every copy of the Kodiak Pack sold on Steam, Loki will get 50% of the earnings. This means that every time someone buys the Kodiak Pack, they are not just getting sweet new NS2 gear and supporting Unknown Worlds, they are also directly supporting the Natural Selection 2 modding community.

At Unknown Worlds, it is our hope that many people will choose to reward Loki for his efforts in creating Kodiak, by purchasing the Kodiak Pack on Steam. And that happens, this may be the first of many times in which amazing community content is incorporated into Natural Selection 2.

All of the toys included in the Kodiak Pack can be accessed via a new in-game customisation system, accessed through the main menu while in a server. Special Edition, Deluxe Edition, Reinforcement Program, World Championship, and of course Kodiak armour, lifeforms, and badges may be accessed in this menu, and previewed live.

This new customisation system is a hint at what is going on under the hood in the Kodiak Update: Lots. Loki was not the only community member to work on this update, countless others have been working directly on Kodiak to take it beyond the map, and into the core game.

Rantology took charge of the art direction of Kodiak, designing and creating the new items available in the Kodiak Pack, the customisation sytem, and other elements of the update.

SamusDroid was the technical leader of the project, coding in all the new features and fixes. SamusDroid has spent untold hours on engineering the Kodiak Update, and the care and attention he has shown towards Natural Selection 2 and the needs of its players is truly wonderful.

The Unknown Worlds playtest group, now number over sixty dedicated individuals, pulled out all the stops to test, test, test and test the Kodiak Update for hours on end. They also served as Academy Award winning actors in the Kodiak Trailer!

This is a very exciting Natural Selection 2 update. This game is now over one and a half years old on Steam, and by any reasonable standard, that is a long time to go while still receiving active development attention. The Kodiak Update is not just fun, it is also a test: Could this new development method, combining the talents of Unknown Worlds and devoted Natural Selection 2 players, yield even more updates in future? See the full changelog below:

Fixes

Fixed massive lag caused when using webadmin on a server (Thanks bawNg!)

Fixed force even teams causing script errors, server crashes, and ghost player models

Force even teams is now pre-game only and has a new console command sv_forceeventeams

Fixed Insight Spectator System not supporting spaces in team names. Use team1 and team2 commands individually not the teams command

Fixed Alien structures not pulsing red when taking damage from being uncysted (Thanks Mendasp!)

Fixed Hallucinations all being normal variant model

Fixed shoulder patches and visors not fading with a dead Marine

Fixed failing to connect to a server first try with extra precaching on

Fixed unbuilt Command Stations showing “locked” screen

Fixed % in server name breaking the scoreboard

Fixed entering in blank values in option menu numerical input causing script errors

Fixed Skulk growl sound always playing when holding the walk key (Thanks Mendasp!)

Fixed getting stomped by Onos with welder causing running animation

Fixed Fade and Onos view models being outlined

Fixed missing first person view model for Female Nerve Gas Grenades

Fixed Marines that get killed by Stomp play the “stand up” animation before turning into a ragdoll

Fixed flinch animation on Sentry Batteries not looping

Fixed outdated Docking and Tram loading screens

Fixed evolve last upgrade key working with console open

Changed default Marine skin option name from “Green” to “Normal” for consistency with other options

Features

Added new map Kodiak, by Loki

Added Kodiak Update DLC

Added Kodiak camouflage marines, skulks, and exosuit

Added Kodiak shoulder pad

Added an in-game player customization menu (open menu while in game to see)

Added player names to minimap. Added GUI option, and console command minimapnames to toggle the names (Thanks remi.D!)

Added Biodome concept art to loading screens

Added mod download percentage to loading screen (Thanks Dragon!)

Parasited Marine name tags appear yellow (Thanks Mendasp!)

Added console command filmsmoothing will now adjust the mouse movement scalar while in film mode

Improved chat wrapping method to work better over more resolutions

Added port field to create listen server page

Lowered minimum mouse sensitivity to 0.01

Unbuilt structures flash dark red when attacked (Thanks remi.D!)

SDK

Added support for UTF-8 in font rendering

Removed OpenGL support for Windows

Implemented texture atlasing for Rifle and Exosuit textures (Click here for more information on this change)

Fixed Builder not copying over .entry files

Added support for non-clingable geometry to stop Skulks/Lerks/Mines/Clogs clinging to invisible geometry. Use surface = “nocling” in material file (Thanks matso!)

Added support for toggling highlight of models in Alien Vision through code

Added support for animated models using AnimatedModel.lua

Veil – thanks Mendasp!

Fixed Commander building exploits in Sub Sector and The Dome

Fixed exploit that allowed Lerks to get out of the map

Fixed invisible wall in C12 pillar

Biodome

Removed Agri Labs vent from Commander view

Fixed stuck spot in Condensors vent

Docking

Fixed mismatching glass in Landing Pad

Fixed Gorge Bile exploit spots in Landing Pad (Once and for all)

Added nocling geometry in Courtyard and Landing Pad

Fixed hole in Departures

Fixed pathing in Pressure Control

Fixed pipes around Stability Monitoring

Mineshaft

Fixed invalid triangles causing pathing issues

Summit – thanks Mendasp!

Added nocling geometry in Crevice

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