New Year Balance Updates — Natural Selection 2 News

This set of changes is targeted at refining some aspects of game pacing, making some quality of life improvements, and adds some new Matched Play exclusive changes that will only be employed when playing the Matched Play game mode. One of the key changes that will apply to both player counts is the reduction of p-res per tick. Now that servers have been playing with 10 versus 10 for some time, and with the introduction of Matched Play 6 versus 6, we felt this was the right time to re-introduce this p-res rate which will make lifeforms and weapons alike slightly more precious.

Changelog

Gameplay

General:

Resources:
- Player p-res income rate is now 0.1 per tick (down from 0.125)
- Alien starting p-res is now 15 (up from 12)
  - Fade Cost reduced to 35 (down from 37)
  - Onos Cost reduced to 55 (down from 62)
- Increase Marine starting pres to 20 from 15
Healing Softcap:
- Softcap is now 12% eHP/s with an 80% penalty for excess healing (from 14% / 66%)

Kharaa:

Commander
- Removed the ability to research Onos Charge as the onos now always has charge
Lerk:
- Movement
  - Strafe force changed to 8.3 (from 7)
  - Lerk glide makes a sound if a Lerk is gliding above 4.5 speed
  - Added an air brake functionality to the Movement Modifier key (default is Shift key) that will slow glide speed down to 4.5 speed for silent gliding. Lerks will maintain a 4.5 speed glide while the key is pressed.
  - Increased glide minimum speed clamp to 4.5 (up from 4)

Spikes
- Reduce Spread to 3.3 (down from 3.8)
- Projectile size reduced to 45mm (from 60mm)
Spores
- Move research to Biomass 6 (up from Biomass 5)
Umbra
- Increase research cost to 30 (up from 20)
- Increase research time to 75 seconds (up from 45 seconds)

Fade
- Blink energy cost changed to 12 (down from 14)
- Metabolize
  - Cost changed to 10 (down from 25)
  - Now restores 20 energy (down from 35)
Tunnels:
- Removed "Infested Tunnel" upgrade
- Tunnels now become Infested Tunnels automatically upon reaching full maturity
- Mature health changed to 1400/250 (up from 1250/200)
- Time to Mature changed to 75 seconds (down from 120)
- Tunnel resource cost changed to 8 tres (up from 6)

BoneWall
- No longer flammable
Shade/Shift/Crag
- Structure movement speed increased by 15%
Contamination:
- Cooldown changed to 3 seconds (down from 6)
- Health changed to 1500 (up from 1000)
- No longer flammable
- Biomass Requirement changed to 12 (up from 10)
- Can no longer be targeted by ARCs
Eggs
- Lerk Egg Drop biomass requirement changed to 4 (from 2)
- Lerk Egg Drop cost changed to 40 (from 30)
- Gorge Egg Drop cost changed to 20 (from 15)
- Fade Egg Drop biomass requirement changed to 8 (from 9)
- Fade Egg Drop cost changed to 80 (down from 100)
- Fixed an issue where players can spawn out of a Lifeform Egg and delete it as a result
- Clamped number of Lifeform Egg drops to 2 per Hive
Drifters:
- Hover height to the ground was lowered
- Drifters cloaked by the Shade hive upgrade will now un-cloak from further away (3m up from 1.5)
- Turn rate is instant on the first move command, but will return to the normal turn before moving behavior on subsequent move orders (this effect has a 4 second cooldown)
- Abilities:
  - Enzyme
    - Cooldown changed to 3 seconds (from 12 seconds)
  - Hallucinations
    - No longer affected by mucous
    - Can no longer have babblers attached
    - Hallucination Onos now has 100 HP
  - Mucous
    - Cooldown changed to 3 second (from 12 seconds)
    - Cloud radius changed to 5 (from 8)
    - Shield values now match babbler shield values (except Skulk - remains at 15 HP)
Gorge
- Babblers:
  - Are now Flammable
- Bile Bomb:
  - Biomass requirement for research changed to Biomass 2 (down from 3)
- Web:
  - Webs become visible from slightly farther away ( +1 meter)
  - Webs have only 1 charge (down from 3) (MATCHED PLAY CHANGE ONLY)
- Health
  - Gorge health changed to 190 (from 160) (MATCHED PLAY CHANGE ONLY)
- Spit
  - Gorge spit projectile speed changed to 45 (from 35)
Skulk
- Leap energy cost changed to 55 (up from 45)
- Adrenaline upgrade now grants 60% increased energy regeneration (up from 50%)
Cysts
- Build time changed to 4.5 Seconds (up from 3.33) (MATCHED PLAY CHANGE ONLY)
- Shade hive cyst reveal range changed to 8 (from 6)
- Cyst health changed to 400 near the hive and 200 far away (up from 300 / 200)
  - Health falloff range from the hive room decreased slightly
- Damage bonus from welders changed to 5x from 7x
Shift:
- Echo upgrades cost changed to 2 (from 1)
- Echo Egg cost changed to 1 (from 2)
Crag player healing:
- Fixed issue where Heal Wave was not correctly increasing crag healing by 30%
- Changed Crag to heal eHP instead of a flat value
- Crags now heal players with lifeform specific healing values instead of a percentage:
  - Skulk: 10 (previously 7)
  - Gorge: 15 (previously 11)
  - Lerk: 16 (previously 10)
  - Fade: 25 (previously 17)
  - Onos: 80 (previously 42)
Carapace:
- Base armor bonus reduced
- Now Grants a small armor bonus for each biomass:
  [Biomass Armor Bonus]:
  - Skulk: 5 [1]
  - Gorge: 12 [2]
  - Lerk: 12 [2]
  - Fade: 20 [2.5]
  - Onos: 50 [20]
Regeneration:
- Healing amount changed to 6% (from 8%)
Aura:
- No longer reveals health (MATCHED PLAY CHANGE ONLY)
- Now has a unique UI element for the non-health revealing version (MATCHED PLAY CHANGE ONLY)
Vampirism
- Lerk
  - Vampirism percentage changed to 6% (from 8%)
Onos
- Charge is now a baseline ability and does not require research from the commander.
- Boneshield has been reworked:
  - No longer uses “fuel”
  - BoneShield now has 1000 hitpoints and prevents all damage
  - Boneshield now encompasses the entire onos (not just the front half)
  - While the shield is active, energy regeneration is reduced by 50% (this includes all sources)
  - BoneShield recharge occurs immediately while out of combat, or 3 seconds after BoneShield is deactivated while in combat. Recharge rate is 130 shield hitpoints per second.
  - When BoneShield is broken, a unique sound will play and shield recharge penalty is increased to 6 seconds, visualized by a "broken" shield ui bar.

Marine:

Medpacks
- Heal over time effect no longer expires when a marine hits full HP
ARCs
- Health changed to 2000/500 (from 2600/400) (MATCHED PLAY CHANGE ONLY)
- Commanders can now only create a maximum of 4 ARCs (MATCHED PLAY CHANGE ONLY)
  - Add tooltip to robotics / arc factory regarding cap (MATCHED PLAY CHANGE ONLY)
Pulse Grenade:
- LOS blocking removed
  - Can be used to hit aliens behind RTs
Heavy Machinegun
- Spread changed to 3.2 (from 4)
Shotgun
- Shotgun damage per weapon upgrade changed to ~13.33 (from ~10)
Gas Grenade
- Made much less bouncy
Observatory:
- Build time changed to 12 seconds (down from 17)
Prototype Lab
- Cost changed to 25 (from 35)
Sentries
- Battery cost changed to 15 (from 10)
- Confusion from spores
  - Duration changed to 8 seconds (from 4)
  - Time until next attack effect changed to 4 seconds (from 2)

Supply:
- Sentry supply cost changed to 15 (from 10)
- Sentry Battery supply cost changed to 25 (from 15)
- Robotics Factory supply cost increased to 10 (from 5)

This announcement was written and published by the developers/publisher of Natural Selection 2 on Steam; it is mirrored here unedited for readability, with full credit and a link to the original above. © the respective rights holders. Rights holder and want it removed? Email us — we take it down promptly.