Natural Selection is OUT!

[THAUmaTURgic]

New half-life mod. And I can't wait to try it after reading the manual last night.

It has a storyline behind it which sets it in the 23rd century with an Alien style feel. Nano-technology for the Marines, Bacterium for the Aliens.

It's a mix between an fps and an rts. The marines have a commander in a command center who has a top down view of the map and he can drop medikits/ammo and start placement on turrets/seige turrets (the marines have to build them though - like a tfc engineer). The aliens have a builder class and hives - no command view but the builders are mobile (with limited attacks - but effective defense). The more hives - up to 3, that the enemy has the more effective the bacterium is and the higher skills each alien has.

The aliens "evolve" through 5 completely different levels. Ranging from the fast and nimble skulks who can wall climb to the flying lerks with their protection clouds and poisonous clouds to the towering elephant like onis with 500 health and 150 armor who can charge and paralyse enemies.


The aim of the game is to destroy the command center of the marines or the hive(s) of the aliens and this will be no easy task. Even if you destroy them you have to make sure all aliens/marines are dead or they can rebuild. Resources are provided by the nano-sludge which feeds the nanites and bacterium - control of this will be VITAL as it governs reinforcements/building/health and ammo.


Set in dark corridors of ships and space stations this game should rocks. I'm really itching to try it as the general consensus is it's very professional for a first release (2 years in development)

[Aarseth]

That looks truely awesome. For a Half-life mod the graphics look sweet as!

check vv (thats the commander view)

[TISM]

You don't seriously think it will overtake Digital Paintball?

(Looks good)

[DirtyHarry]

Originally posted by TISM
You don't seriously think it will overtake Digital Paintball?

ps It does look good thou!

[THAUmaTURgic]

I've only played kharaa (alien) so far. AND i must say that this mod shits over any other mods in professionalism by a long long long way. It's a fuckin tonne of fun too - especially if you get a server with people willing to play as a team.

The maps rock, sounds are realistic, graphics and models are a lot better than other half-life mods. Teams are balanced - seen the game go either way, really comes down to who has the better teamwork.

This is going up on deadly deagle for sure


Oh - the Onus (elephant alien) is quite a laugh Had some alien offense towers up outside "Fortress Marine".

Door opens - ONUS jumps over the towers and charges into the marine stronghold taking out a few marines with him Gotta love the reaction on one of the marines. "What the fuck! An elephant!"


It takes a LOT of teamwork to get to be able to upgrade to the ONUS alien though - have to have 3 out of 3 hives up which is very tricky. Theres something for everybody in this game. The builder alien class has a tonne of jobs - puts the tfc engineer to shame Flyers, wall climbers, teleporters, elephants The marines aren't lacking though. Heavy machine gun = bye bye if you can't climb up that wall and pounce on them quick enough!

[Slaide]

Might check it out dude..

Slaide

[Bemathkata]

yeah, i had a short play and it looks none too shabby..

let me know if its up on deadly deagle..

[TISM]

I was playing NS with Thau into the wee hours last night.
First impression is it's a Damn funky game. Hopefully it's sustains interest.
It takes a bit of working out how to play. Read the manual if you can be bothered. Otherwise jump in blind, with a pro to ask all the stupid questions - like I did (thanks Thau) - it is frustrating to work out otherwise
The team Commander needs to know how to play well or it doesnt work. Don't try it - get the most exp to do it.
Theres approx 13 servers in Oz (147/176 players) so get into it - its going off.

[Aarseth]

btw ppls, the dd server is up on the 27015 port.

It lags a bit but that seems to be a problem with many NS servers atm.

[Mudhoney]

it's very heavy on resources, both CPU and RAM, but esp CPU. This is unusual for a HL mod.

[THAUmaTURgic]

They say it's a bug that should be fixed very soon.

However I still think it will be a high cpu intensive mod - it has to do a shitloads of processing...... Lets hope they can minimise it cause make no mistake that that mod owns

[Aarseth]

I'm now officially a NS junky

[THAUmaTURgic]

LOL fritz - yeah it's bloody addicted.

Liquid Silver, Reaps and Myself did well last night vs the Marines on NS_nothing. We won twice in a row (sux it TISM ).

The Aliens are good - they're fairly balanced. Just they are quite advanced to use. You have to know how to kill things properly. Theres a lot of planing involved before you attack something unless you are up to hive 3 Hive 3 with ONOS and fark me dead - Think I killed 20 Marines with just one life (and a forward outpost and reaps to heal me)

[Kursed]

i would have to say the game owns

i was playing last nite also. wanted to play today, but dd has pw.

any chance of someone telling me it??

[oreo]

Originally posted by drukqs
i would have to say the game owns

i was playing last nite also. wanted to play today, but dd has pw.

any chance of someone telling me it??

*cough*

icq me.

[Slaide]

I think we here are small numbers the marines can own the aliens.

Slaide

[TISM]

I dont understand Slaide but I wanna know:-
WHAT NIGHT/S IS WHC NATURAL SELECTION NIGHT?

You Lightning Bolt boys can have the aliens - they stink -.
Give me BIG GUNS and Jump Jets anytime.

[Kursed]

i with tism

ps: thx for msg

[TISM]

It's time to kick ass and chew bubble-gum... and I'm all out of gum.

[Aarseth]

Originally posted by drukqs
i with tism

What stuck down a ventelation shaft... praying that noise was just your stomach?

Or back at base hiding behind 10 thousand sentry guns

[TISM]

This game is effecting my health.

Fritz - Its 12:5am Monday - get off OzForces NS and get some sleep . (so I can get a slot - hehehe)

[THAUmaTURgic]

just played 2 great games on gamearena

Aliens won both of em whosa ya daddy.

Only took 3 hours for the first and 2 for the second BUT WE WON!

This is like aoe2 nights on oldskool wireplay

[DirtyHarry]

yep gr8 fricken game , but ive got no idea about aliens!!!!

me need a fricken gun!

so when is our first war THAU ?

[Mudhoney]

Ok I pretty much understand marines now, but I still don't fully understand aliens, eg. why does each alien see a different amount of resources? Are the resources per bug or pooled?

[THAUmaTURgic]

To help you out mud

Aliens have a fairly complex structure to their upgrades, abilities and resources. It's tough to learn, but once you know it it's pretty clear.


Resources:

They are for each individual alien. There is no pooling. This is a good structure for the kharaa as they usually fight individually

Buildings and Upgrades

The Buildings on the alien side are:

Hive
Resource Chamber
Offense Chamber
Defense Chamber (UPGRADE CHAMBER)
Sensory Chamber (UPGRADE CHAMBER)
Movement Chamber (UPGRADE CHAMBER)

Hive:
Aliens start with one Hive. It's as important as the command center. Objective is to build a 2nd and a 3rd to get some awesome abilities. You can build ONE type of UPGRADE CHAMBER for each hive you build. SO with Hive One we would build a sensory chamber - we could not build a defense chamber or movement chamber until we get hive 2, and say we pick defense chamber when our 2nd hive is up. We could not build a movement chamber until we have hive 3. The order of how you build the chambers is completely up to the team but we usually go with sensory first for the cloaking Hives also play an extremely vital role in the TYPE of aliens we can evolve to and the abilities that they have.

We can't evolve to a FADE (the human like alien with a clan on each hand) until we have 2 Hives and we can't evolve to an ONOS (the rhino) until we have 3 hives. Our abilities are also restricted to the amount of hives we have. For instance, with only one hive the SKULK only has a bite attack and a parasite attack. With a 2nd Hive he gets the leap attack and with a 3rd Hive he gets the xenocide that allows him to explode All aliens are governed by the Hive Abilities. Be very afraid when we get 3 Hives as our abilities and aliens will slaughter even marines with hmg and heavy armor without too many problems. A Marines OBJECTIVE is to stop the aliens building at least ONE hive - Hive 2 ALIENS aren't that powerful - so make it your mission, your passion or you WILL DIE

Resource Tower:

These work exactly like a marines Resource Chamber. Same Cost, Same Hit Points.

Offense Chamber:

Fires Spit Balls - Not very strong but a good deterrant as they do do 50 damage if they hit. There is little difference between the marine sentry and the offence chamber - just until Hive 3, aliens have a hard time taking down marine sentries due to no good range attacks.

Defense Chamber:

Allows researching of defense upgrades. It also provides healing at the rate of about 10 health per second to any buildings and aliens around. You can stack them up to 3 in an area to get 30 health per second. The upgrading works like this:

There are 3 levels of research for most of the alien upgrades. However to get that we only have to have 3 of the type of upgrade chamber ON THE MAP to get the levels. So 1 defense chamber = level 1, 2 = level 2, 3 = level 3. The upgrades are done by each alien - and they have to be redone every time we die (evolving doesn't reset them though so if as a skulk we had cloaking we will have it when we evolve to ONOS).

Sensory Chamber:

Allows researching of sensory upgrades. Also parasites any marine it touches (means we can see that marine on HIVE SIGHT at ALL times until he dies - no way to remove it). AND it also gives us warnings of any marines in its range with "THE ENEMY IS APPROACHING" shouted out.

Movement Chamber:

Allows researching of movement upgrades. Also allows us to teleport to the HIVE the longest distance away! Like the marine phase gate - just can't teleport us to where we want to go but great for hive defense and moving to other side of map instantly.



UPGRADES

As stated before they are done by each individual alien and have to be redone everytime they die - but they are worth it! Each upgrade costs us 2 resource points, but that isn't too much As an alien you can only research one of each TYPE of upgrade each time. So once you research cloaking (sensory) you cant research scent of fear or enhanced sight until you die.

Sensory Upgrades:

CLOAKING

Makes us cloak when we stop moving - takes about 1 second to shift into after we go motionless.

Level 1: Faded Alien
Level 2: Outline of Alien
Level 3: Invisible completely

ENHANCED SIGHT

Think of it as NIGHT VISION - we see every structure and alien/marine with a white glow.

No Levels.

SCENT OF FEAR

We can DETECT on hive sight any marine that is low on health. Pretty effective for choosing targets

No Levels.

Movement Upgrades:

SILENCES

Reduces the noise we make when moving and attacking.

Level 1: 33% Reduction
Level 2: 66% Reduction
Level 3: 100% - Completely Silent, even when attacking. YOU MARINES SPOOKED YET?

SILENCES

INCREASES our energy regen (the yellow bar on right that we use for all our moves)

Level 1: 33% INCREASE
Level 2: 66% INCREASE
Level 3: 100% INCREASE

CELERITY

INCREASES our speed.

Not Sure if Level Based - but with a skulk it makes you fly like a tfc scout


Defense Upgrades:

CARAPACE

INCREASES our ARMOR ABILITIES

Level 1: +20% DAMAGE REDUCTION, Increase armor points
Level 2: +20% DAMAGE REDUCTION, Increase armor points
Level 3: +20% DAMAGE REDUCTION, Increase armor points

REGENERATION

ADDS HEALTH/ARMOR REGEN

Level 1: 1 Hit Point per second.
Level 2: 2 Hit Point per second.
Level 3: 3 Hit Point per second.

REDEMPTION

WHEN close to dieing and in battle we teleport back to closest hive Very nifty, but it is bugged at times and the actually skill has a % to not work.

Level 1: TELEPORT. Increases chance of successfully teleporting back.
Level 2: TELEPORT. Increases chance of successfully teleporting back.
Level 3: TELEPORT. Increases chance of successfully teleporting back.



HOPE that gives you an insight into how powerful the aliens are, and how vulnerable they can be to a marine squad and commander who knows what they are doing. Pretty surefire that if you let us get to a THIRD HIVE you are in a tonne of trouble - our attacks are just too amazing. Even the flying lerk who is usually weak gets a SPORE CLOUD which is on par with the power of a charging ONUS. I went from 20 frags to 60 frags late last night in a game just with 5 minutes of playing a lerk BEWARE MARINES! We're watching you.

[DirtyHarry]

nice stuff thau , so how do i play aliens again ?

j/k

[oreo]

lol

question 1

the blue bar on the right

what is it?

Question 2?

How do you increase the levels of the upgrades?

[THAUmaTURgic]

Blue Bar on the left for aliens = your resource meter - basically the same as the numbers. More for looks as i'd prefer the numbers.

Increase the level of the upgrades.... 1 Sensor tower on map = Level 1 cloaking. 2 Sensor towers on map = level 2 cloaking. 3 sensor towers on map = level 3 cloaking. Works the same for movement and defense.

So get your builders (gorge) to build more of the upgrade towers. But don't pester them early on too much. Our priority is to get resource towers up!

[Mudhoney]

thanks, thau. The resource thing is still a bit puzzling but I think I understand it enough to be able to function.

Needless to say, the objective of the game is:
for marines: stop aliens expanding, esp to 3 hives
for aliens: expand, esp to 3 hives

[DirtyHarry]

Originally posted by THAUmaTURgic

Our priority is to get resource towers up!

ok so how do you do that