The Faded

The Faded is a game mod where a team of marines have to hunt the Faded. While the Kharaa Faded team has to hunt and stop them. It is based on "The hidden" from HL2. (http://www.hidden-source.com/about.htm)

Forum thread: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/126496/hidden-mod/p1
Workshop deprecated (older) mod: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=156700641
Workshop newest mod version: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=453756688

Since June 2013 I am working on the mod to keep it alive and full of new features.

Updated for at most the following Faded version: "The Faded 0.22.7 Afterlife experiences"

For those interested in tutorial, I suggest looking at the one that were done for the Hidden, most of them are also good for the Faded. Here are two that in my opinion are good.

1. Hidden source advance tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEa0oe9-xds
   
2. Hidden source expert tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvemjj-aoCY

Changelog:
Change log 0.22.7 Afterlife experiences

* Features
- The Faded can now pick a corpse with him and attach it to walls and ceilings
- Add the rifle on the armory weapons list
- Add a GUI health icon above corpses for the faded

* Balance
- Increase base round timer and reduce per-marines time bonus
- Increase by 5% babbler players walk speed

* Fixes
- Increase napalm gas release delay
(A marine does not hurt himself anymore when throwing the grenade)
- Fixed flame mines not working
- Fixed lights changing with babblers proximity
- Fixed rookies having the fadeblink tooltip always displayed on screen

* Others
- Reduce dependencies on NS2 files (less chances to break on build)
- Remove deprecated faded messages

Change log 0.22.6 Afterlife experiences

* Features
- Improve the napalm grenade:
--> The faded is now only put in fire if present in the cloud for more than 1.2s
--> The napalm is released faster and the cloud cover all the area travelled instead of the final point nade location.
- Rework the lighting system:
--> Map shadows are back :)
--> Rebalance bright and dark area
- Add an aura to the Faded (the closer to a marine the stronger):
--> Decrease sanity regeneration (for pressure)
--> Decrease ambiant light (except flare, flashlight and battery)

* Balance
- Increase flamed area lifetime (from 5.6s to 10s)
- Review the babblers spawn location algo
--> Spawn to the RT/corpses the closest to a marine but away from at least 22m

* Fixes
- Fixed flame mines acting as regular mines
- Fixed faded HP/AP bar not properly working
- Fixed the ugly light from the flare
- The flare light now disapears smoothly
- Fixed 2 server side console errors

* Others
- Add cloud effects after a stab
- The napalm cloud is now a light source

Change log 0.22.5
* Marine can attach grenade to wall and detonate them remotely
Change log 0.22.4.1
* Fake marine now have a warning message when detected by a veteran
* Rework the Heavy shotgun knockback to take into account the faded momentum instead of replacing it.

Change log 0.22.4 Afterlife experiences

* Features
- Stab improved
--> Now the faded has two stab: "poison" and "lethal stab". The lethal stab
kill instantly a marine if there are no marines in line of sight.
- Fake marine improved
--> The victim now is still "alive" on the scoreboard

* Fixes
- Fixed fake marine visible in red on minimap for non Veteran
- Fixed growl damages not working correctly
- Fixed alien team not having the right fake marine name for friend
- Fixed the hunter "path" pointing to the ground when the faded was gripping to a wall

* Others
- Minor network improvement

Game mod rules

This first section is about detailing everything on how the core is managing the mod.

Game rules:

Faded selection:

To be the Faded, a marine has to kill one, basically. More in details the one who kills the Faded is added to a list. When the round end, each marine on this list gets 80% chances to be the faded (until we reach the Faded limit number (1 Faded for 6 marines)). Otherwise the Faded is randomly taken from the other marine. If the Faded win (and is alive) he gets 60% chances to be the Faded again.

Faded health and armor

The Faded start with a base health and armor amount, and get a bonus for each marine in game. The whole amount of HP/AP is then split. If there are two Faded, they both have half of this amount.

Veteran selection:

Veteran are randomly selected among the marines alive at the end on the round (victory or draw after a timeout) until there are 1 Veteran for 5 marines. That means that if there are less than 1/5 marines alive at the end of the round, they are promoted. A Veteran alive, keeps his veteran (or become the Faded if he kills one).

Scoring system:

The score is mainly based damages done to the Faded. As a marine, 30 points means that you have done 30% of damages on a Faded, 70% means 70% damages. As a Faded there is a shared pool of 100 points divided on the amount of marines.

Then there are some minor event that also give you some points: reviving an other Faded friend, kill a marine, power up a building, etc.

Note that killing an hallucination do not award any points, it only print a fake random amount of points on screen.

Respawn places:

• Players and building (Marines and Faded)
  When the round start, 2 tech points and all the RT are reserved for the Faded, and the rest of the tech points are for the marines. Then, the Faded team spawn on a random RT or tech point and the marine team (if greater than 6) is spawned randomly on the remaining tech points. A phase gate is dropped at each marine tech point and the main base is one of them.
  
• Battery
  Two are dropped on a random RT on the map, once one is killed or a building is powered up.

Anti camp:

If a marine stay on the same area for too long (45s), then babblers spawn and a warning is displayed on screen. If he keeps camping then the delay for the next 4 babblers egs is 5 seconds. So do not try to fight them, I doubt you will event be able to kill them as fast as they spawn.

Win/Lose:

Marine, to win, have to kill the Faded, and Faded have to kill the marines. Otherwise it's a draw game.

Alltalk:

Alltalk is off by default, but the Kharaa team has the ability to turn it off alien side by pressing the "drop" key (most of the time it's 'g'). They can then work together while hearing marines.

Others:

• Friendly fire is on and up to 90% for the marine team. There is no friendly fire for the Faded team.

The Marine team

When you play the Faded, you will most of the time walk on a map where the only source of light will be your own flashlight.

For now there are marines and Veteran. Veteran are players who survived the last round. They have the armor 1 and weapons 1 upgrade, a better sanity pool and extra 10% speed bonus (while having 110hp by default).

Veteran also have a permanent access to the minimap in game and see fake marines in sight in red, while a regular marine would have seen him in blue. They have also the ability to detect them if one dare to come to close from you. You can trust the attack order that is raised at this moment. One last point also, you can trust Veteran as they will always be real (can't be ♥♥♥♥♥).

Veteran ingame are represented by a blue icon above their head with the weapon they are holding.

- Primary weapons

When the round start, you can press "buy" (most of the time it's 'B') to select the weapon you are going to use. You can choose a primary and a secondary weapon from the list displayed. Keep in mind that all the weapons below have been balanced and behave a bit differently than in ns2.

* Note the cool background flame effect.

• The Rifle

  
  The rifle is the default weapon on the faded. It is accurate, have a pretty good amount of ammo loaded on the clip and for now is the most powerful weapon in term of dps (damage per second).
  
  
  

  
  While not the best weapon for short engagement, it take sense with teamwork and allows you to give a strong cover to your team, and keep harassing when he is retreating.
  
  Tips: Try to only reload on safe places or under cover, as the Faded is certainly waiting for it to attack.
  
  
• Damages: 13.5/hit
  
• Dps : ~243/s

[/td]

Clip size : 65 bullets

Reload time: Legacy

[/td]
[/table]
[/td][/tr][/table]

The Shotgun

The shotgun is mostly untouched from it's regular NS2 version. Good at close and mid range it can inflict a good amount of damages on the Faded while being the perfect choice:

• Even with a really short engagement time, you are deadly
  
  
• Shoot while reloading: you are always a threat, even alone
  
  
• You can deal a strong 170 damages to the faded in a single shot, at least half of his hp with a lots of players.
  
  
• The pistol is a good backup when out or against any other enemy (babbler ?)

Max damages: 170

Dps: ~193/s

[/td]

Clip size : 6

Ammo : 10

Reload time: Legacy

[/td]

Pellets : 17

Damages per pellet: 10

[/td]
[/table]

The Heavy shotgun

The heavy shotgun is an upgraded version of the shotgun designed to reward old school player with the "one shot one kill", or the "no pain no gain". A player with this weapon that miss can be pretty sure he won't be alive to shot again.

A short difference summary between the shotgun and the heavy shotgun.

• Pros
  
  • Extremely powerfull
    
  • Heavy damage type
    
  • Knockback on hit
    
  • Can shoot both barrel at once
  
  
• Cons
  
  • Slower fire rate
    
  • Slower reload rate
    
  • Only 8 single shot allowed
    
  • Need a lots of ammo
    
  • Only effective at really close range

According to the spread of this weapon, a vicious Faded will probably stay at a safe range and make you wast your shot before finishing you off. You better use your pistol or wait for him to get closer.

Single shot dmg: 204

Double shot dmg: 324

[/td]

Single shot pellets: 68

Double shot pellets: 108

Damages per pellet : 3

[/td]

Clip size : 2

Ammo : 6

Reload time: 40% slower

[/td]
[/table]

The Flamethrower

Like the Grenade launcher, the Flamethrower is a support weapon that is difficult to use alone.

While relatively low when we talk about direct DPS damages compared to the other weapons, it has been designed to be a pain for the Faded and will make the difference between an alive or dead Faded. To be effective the marine has to burn the Faded at least twice. It also has the ability to burn corpses (marine and Faded) and at least deny him to eat. You can also destroy a fake marine and force him to undisguised (spy check), but remember that friendly fire is on.

Summary:

• Burn the Faded (at least twice to be efficient)
  
• Burn corpses
  
  • Deny the faded to eat
    
  • Deny the faded to disguise
    
  • Deny the faded to respawn
• Drain his energy
  
• Fake marine/Spy check (TF2 like)
  
• Deny short Faded engagement

With this weapon the Faded is most likely to kill you first, and in a single raw. Staying with your team is the most important things for you to stay alive.

Direct flame damages: 6/s

Flamed surface damages: 2/s

Energy damages: 2/s

[/td]

Burning damages: 6/s

Burning duration: 7s

Total burning damages: 42

[/td]

Damages on teammate: half

Clip: reduced by 40%

[/td]
[/table]

Tips: Think about how easy it is then for your teammate to shoot a burning Faded in a completely dark map ?

The Grenade launcher

Like the Flamethrower, the grenade launcher is a support weapon. Its main usage is about covering marine's back (preventing the Faded to freely came in and out) and, using the alternate fire, reveal the Faded in a large area using pulse grenade. Pulse grenade also have the ability to slow down the Faded attack speed by 20%.

Summary

• Shoot grenade behind the group, or in empty way to prevent the Faded from harassing
  
• Shoot pulse grenade in close combat to reveal the Faded
  
• Grenade are much more powerful (explosion area) than in NS2
  
• Cons
  
  • Grenade do not explode on impact if you are too close from the Faded
    
  • Relatively slow reload time
    
  • Pulse damage does twice more damages on the owner than on the Faded

Grenade direct hit damages: 165

Pulse direct hit damages: 40

Pulse energy damages: 10

[/td]

Grenade radius: +56% (7.5m)

Pulse radius: +42% (10m)

[/td]

Damages on teammate: 90%

Clip: Legacy

Reload: Legacy

[/td]
[/table]

Tips: This weapon is really useful combined with either the "hunting" ability (see "secondary weapon"), or as a Veteran (so you have the minimap and known where the Faded is able to came)

[/list]

- Secondary weapons

After purchasing your primary weapon, you can use a secondary one (just in case, you know). You can choose between the welder, some mines and grenades and the ability to hunt the Faded down.

• The pistol

  
  Handy secondary weapon capable of finishing off a careless Faded in no time. It will also fire a Flare with the right click. (thanks to the Forsaken moder for the flare code).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• The welder

  
  Well, there is not much to say about it: it weld your teammates and keeps them alive. But keep in mind that a team without any welder is pretty much condemned to death: a bile bomb and two swipe will get ride of any marine alive.
  
  

• Mines (explosive and flame)

  
  Mines are often a good choice when it comes to hunt a nasty Faded, and become even more vicious than him.
  
  For example, one can think about placing one under a corpse to give the Faded something else to eat. Note: Only regular mines do not explode on infestation. I have not killed this marine myself :), it's, hum, the Faded.
  
  

• Grenade (cluster, pulse, nerve and napalm)

  
  Grenades are giving to a marine what the GL gives to the team, maybe better on some case: covering area in need, forcing the Faded to leave his location and reveal him. Grenade are also good to give you a few seconds break on those moment when you really need to reload. Napalm ? yes it is a new type of grenade not in ns2 which looks like the nerve one but with a red cloud and flame damages.
  
  Grenades can also be attached to a surface and detonated remotely using the melee weapon alterative fire (mouse right click by default).
  
  

  Cluster damages: +63% (90)	Cluster radius: +10% (11m)
  Cluster fragment damages: +100% (40)	Cluster fragment radius: +8% (7m)
  Napalm cloud damages: 10/s	Napalm cloud radius: 6m Napalm cloud burn delay: 1.2s

• The Hunter ability

  
  This ability gives the marine a way to know in which direction is the closest Faded (showing a green path), and upgrade his flashlight. The flashlight is smaller but turns red if the Faded goes under the light (even at long range). Also, after we asked Frontiersmen top-secret researcher, the flashlight save the earth (you do not have to worry anymore, feel free)
  

  Автор сообщения: Anonymous: Marine_Server.lua:432

  Flashlight is powered by Marine's beating heart. Eco friendly.

  
  On the left UV flashlight, and on the right the regular one.
  
  
  
  On the left a marine using the ability, and on the right once it has finished.
  
  
  
  This ability, however, has a cost: your pistol, and a secondary weapon which makes you pretty vulnerable on reload time and in the long run but using this ability with the GL, the shotgun or sharing the Faded direction to your team can make a huge difference.
  
  
  Hunting time: 3s

  On screen path duration: 8s

  
  Note also that If the path is not displayed, you better watch the scoreboard. It's most likely the last Faded turns into a Marine.

- The sanity

The sanity (or mental health) is what keeps marine from seeing hallucination (Faded and babblers) and hearing fake noises. The lower your sanity is, the more chances you have to experiment those effects. There are a lots of factor that influence the sanity. The flashlight is the most powerful one and will greatly increase your pool.

The sanity "normal" loss is also scaled, if you are alone while there are 20 marines still alive, it will decrease a lot. Moreover if you are the last one it almost won't.

List of the effects that influence sanity:

• What increase the sanity

  • Flashlight on
    
  • Stay in a group, the larger the better
    
  • Veteran (count as a group of 3 marines)
    
  • Teammates flashlight
    
  • Hitting the Faded (real or hallucination) (use it, you will know if you hit him or not)

• What decrease the sanity

  • Faded growl
    
  • Being hit by the real Faded (swipe)
    
  • The death of a nearby marine
    
  • The stab poison
    
  • Faded proximity (decrease sanity regeneration)

There are 4 sanity stages:

• Safe

  The safest level. The light are at full intensity, you rarely see and hallucination and when you hear some noise the Faded is nearby.
  
  

• Stress

  The level on which you will spend the most time. Low chances for hallucination, but you won't be able to trust any noise. Go to the safe level if you have enough light battery.
  
  

• Panic

  At this point things are getting serious, you are probably under and attack, hallucination came in and out for you to waste your ammo. If you do not reach the stress level quickly It might be the end for you.
  
  

• Heavy panic

  You will be dead in second. Hallucination spawning everywhere. Better try to dig your own grave while you still have the time.

A little table to recap when you go from one sanity level to another. Note also that affects are cumulative, meaning that in panic, you have the effect chances of the panic, the stress and the safe all together.

Level / Values	Go to lower level at	Go to upper level at	Hallucination	Fake approach sound	Fake growl
Safe	60	-	-	-	-
Stress	20	80	1% / s	10% / s	-
Panic	1	20	12%/s + Stress	+ Stress	-
Heavy panic	0	20	13%/s + Panic	+ Panic	26%/s + Panic

At last, the faded proximity has an influence on the ambient flashlight intensity. It goes progressively from 100% to 0% according. Keep it up to see.

Screen shot of the ambient light:

- Tactics

Like the "Hidden", not going alone is a good start to stay alive and kill a Fade but avoid groups larger than 5 marines as it quickly become chaos and allows the Faded to sneak more easily. Stay with a group of 3 or 4 with at least a flamethrower and a welder.

The Kharaa team

The Kharaa team is mainly composed of Faded and babblers (because everyone love babblers).

As an alien you play as a sharp and deadly Fade who has been upgraded in order to be the best known hunter.




Babblers can be controlled by bots or players if they have used the babbler player command (see the part about command at the end). They can walk on walls, jump, and attack marines. Mines do not detonate on them. Babbler players periodically spawn during waves (the more babblers on the team, the longer it takes) on RT, and Tech points. They can also spawn directly if a Faded uses his babbler ability.


Note also that as a Marine, when you kill a babbler there is a chance a ammo pack will be dropped.

Unlike marines, Faded players have the ability to talk (voice) in private using the "drop" key. It turns on/off the alltalk alien side.

- Faded abilities

The Faded has the following abilities:

• Primary abilities

  • Swipe

    The main way a Faded has to kill a Marine. Depending on how the Faded land it, damages goes from 25 --> 50 --> 75. For exemple a swipe far on the foot, or away when the marine is on the right/left will deal 25 or at most 50.
    
    

  • Bile bomb

    Like a gorge, but with more velocity. It is used to take care of Veteran extra armor bonus and groups. It can also be used to take down phase gate and battery from a safe distance.
    
    

  • Babbler ability

    In cost for some of your HP, it will throw a pheromone ball that will spawn babblers after a few seconds. This weapon has been designed to create chaos among groups of marines and deal with hunter: Hunters lake the pistol, and equipped with anything else than the rifle they will be forced to leave the area as taking care of them will require time and a lots of ammo.
  
  

• Secondary abilities

  • Leap

    Like a skulk, leap in the air and keep jumping to keep your momentum. It is also used to move quickly from one wall to another in order to get visible the less amount of time: remember, the Faded is stealthy and when not moving he is really hard to see.
    
    

  • Wall grip

    The Faded has inherited this lerk ability. Now it is used to ambush and quickly leave in the air (while regenerating your stamina). Note also that the Faded has a cloak bonus when not moving.
    
    

  • The growl

    The Faded, using the taunt key can generate a loud sound which decreases marines sanity. Damages decrease over distance, the closer the more effective.
    
    

  • The whisper

    The Faded, using the voice chat menu can generate a client side whisper sound on every marines nearby. While it does not have any effect on the game use it to disturbe your target :) (note that the sound origine is the marine, not you. They will not be able to know where you are)
    
    

  • Proximity hive vision and minimap

    The alien team can permanently see any marines throw walls and on the minimap. This allows the Faded team to plan ambush and taking down marines one by one. (like if they were all parasited)
  
  

• Misc abilities

  The Faded also comes with a whole new set of abilities involving corpses, if you were dreaming about something more than killing someone, here is your chance. Tips: corpses are displayed on the minimap as a white blip, use them.
  
  
  
  

  • Eating marine corpses

    If the Faded is hurt and need to regenerate efficiently, he will have to eat corpses. In order to do that simply aim at the corpse and press "request medpack" (or wait to see the key being showed on screen).
    
    

  • Disguise as a marine using a corpse

    If eating someone is not enough and you want something even more evil, you can open it's throat and wear the corpse like if was your new fresh jacket. For a marine you exactly look like the one you killed and he has no way to know you are not one of them (you have his name above your head, appear in blue on the minimap, etc).
    
    However, veteran (marine with the icon above them) can see you if you are too close, and on the minimap if you are on sight. Be careful, or quick enough to run away after the job done. Try also to keep a distance from flamethrower, if you get hit by a direct flame you will lose your camouflage, and get your Faded back in flame with a low amount of energy.
    
    Note also that the victim, while you are disguised with is corpse, will stay marked as an alive marine on the scoreboard.
    
    As a "fake marine" the main objective is to go behind an other marine and trigger a stab. Stabbing a marine will moves the Faded out of the marine doll you wear.
    

    • Poison stab (if there is an other marine in sight)

      Inflicts 10 damages to the marine, 85 poison damages and at last 125 sanity damages ! enough to drive crazy any of them.
      

    • Lethal stab (if the marine is alone)

      Same as above, but instantly kill the marine instead.
    
    Note: the weapon holded as a fake marine won't deals any damages on any alive entity (except buildings, AI babblers and hallucinations), use it only to infiltrate yourself.
    
    

  • Revive a Faded

    When a Faded friend dies, a heal order is raised and his location is shown on the minimap. Like for marine corpses, aim at your dead friend and press "request heal". Once the progress bar is completed, 50hp will be taken from you and 30hp will be given to your friend, which will be able to rejoin the fight again.
    
    
    

  • Pick a corpse and attach it to a surface (wall or ceilings)

    The faded has also the ability to carry a corpse with him. This allows him to eat away from the marines and even to attach his meal to a wall or on the ceilings.
    

- Tactics

First of all, you teamwork using the local vocal chat by pressing the "drop" key as a Faded, so only your own team can hear you. Always check where friend are dying, and revive them quickly before the marines succeed on burning the corpses.

How to play a Faded: the Fade as been designed NOT to be a fast hit and run alien as he is visible when reaching a high speed using leap. As a reminder the Faded camouflage depend on two factor:

• Your proximity with a marine

  It affects the quality of your cloak only. Below 75% there is a chance of being seen.
  

• Your speed

  It also affects the quality of your cloak (+15% when not moving, +7% when crouching, +0% when walking, -15% when leaping) and, above a certain speed completely uncloak small parts of your skin. Those making you visible even at long range.

Note: Your cloak is rendered client side: if your cloak says that you have a cloak of (for example) 10%, it's how the closest marine from you see you. If an other one is far then you can be sure he can't see you.

A good way to take advantage of this is to quickly retreat 10+ meters from a marine (single leap) in a safe direction and stand still by gripping yourself to a wall, your on the ground (+15% camo). This can be achieved in less than a second, allows you to attack again in a short amount of time and keeps you invisible. Remember: a visible Faded is a dead Faded.

With large game, you will be able to meet groups of 6+ marine, to get ride of them, you can throw some babblers and bile. This will most of time make them wast a lots of ammo (making them much more unaware). You can then go in, swipe and leave. Remember to crunch if you are used to swipe twice in a row, this will mostly prevent you a lots of damages. Changing yourself is also a good way to kill a single marine a this kind of groups, carefully aim for the one with a flamethrower or a veteran if you are fast enough.

The objective part

While marines can win the game by killing the Faded, they can also collect battery on the map and power up their base. While this would require marines to send an expedition that may be far from their position where the Faded can easily ambush them, it's worth it.

The main base is composed of some primary building, and a prototype labs which is dropped once all the other have been powered up. Those building are permanently protected by a nano shield, have a great amount of health and do not need to be protected.

This battery is what will power up a single building in the main base, it is randomly placed on a resource tower (RT). A few are dropped when the round start (often 1 or 2), and each time one one is destroyed. While it is not necessary to protect the building, marines have to defend the battery because if it get lost, the attached building will be powered off with it's upgrade. Marines will need to find an other battery.

The observatory can be considered as one of the most useful building for a well trained team of marines. It provides the passive detection ability it has in NS2 and restore the minimap for every marine still alive and the damage draw. The damage draw is useful in order to guess correctly if a Faded is barely alive or ready to fight after an engagement.

Moreover a Faded using the body of a marine in order to disguise himself will be visible on the minimap in blue if sighted, but without any name, use it. (It will be displayed in red for veteran, no matter if the obs is up or not).

The arms laboratory provide a simple, yet easy way to improve the whole team. It makes available 2 upgrades for the regular marine (armor 1 and weapons 1) and gives and extra 10% of damages to Veteran, making them even more dangerous against the Faded. However, if the battery is destroyed those upgrades are lost.

The armory is a building mostly powered in second or third position for it's resupply ability. It allows each marine to resupply twice (ammo and health) and buy a weapon.

The prototype laboratory is the last resort building. It is dropped once everything have been powered up and provides the best from the frontiers men arsenal. It can be seen as an upgraded version of the armory and the observatory combined as it gives the Faded location on the map for everyone, and drops jetpacks & exosuit. Jetpacks have also been improved and recharge fuel faster. Exos got also speed improvement.

At this point the table has turned and unless the Faded is really a thread, he is not going anywhere. Time to hunt or be hunted.

/!\ Warning /!\ Enabling the prototype lab also increase Kharaa babblers agressivity, they will respawn as soon as they die.

Chat and console commands

There a few chat and console commands that can be useful in game. Chat command have to be written 'as it' on the chat. For example, if you want to unstuck yourself, write "unstuck" on the chat (without the (")). They can also be used with the 'x' key or using the voice menu.

• Chat command

  1. unstuck

     Unstuck yourself at the closest free location, or moves you up a bit.
     

  2. nofade

     removes/adds you from the faded selection. You will always be a marine.
     

  3. spectatefade

     As a marine, if you die, you will turn into a spectator, and back again as a marine the next round.
     

  4. babblerplayer

     Once dead, you become a "babbler player". You will be able to control a Kharaa babbler and kill marines. You will respawn at every spawn waves (around 50s, which means a respawn time around 25s), or if the Faded use his babbler ability.

• Console command

  1. None at the moment

If you are about to host this mod on your server

If you want to start a server running this mod, here are some tips and recommendation that could be useful.

First I suggest you to have a look to the .json configuration file generated by the Faded. (in "%appdata%/Natural Selection 2/"). This file contains the name of the version it is associated to and a new one is generated each time an update comes out. An name example would be "FadedConfig_0.21.4.json".

With this file you can change, enable or disable almost every aspect of the Faded mod.

[...]
      "alien":{
        "leap":{
          "energy_cost":14
        },
        "bile_bomb":{
          "velocity":23,
          "fire_rate":3,
          "energy_cost":20
        },
        "growl":{
          "rate":10,
          "energy_cost":30
        },
[...]

Here is an extract of this configuration file. Just change the value you want and it will be effective at the next server changemap. Also, note that if an update comes (new release of the mod) the configuration file name will change and you will have to change it again if you want your configuration to be up to date. An easy way to fix this is to do a patch file with diff (linux), or to rename the old configuration file with the new name.

When you change this configuration file, modification are logged both server side, and client side when a player just join the server. This is useful when it comes to check if the change is effective or not, and to know how the mod has been configured.

Here is an example of a single log line:
Server side:

Client side:


Also, when cheats are on, flashlight battery and anticamp are disable.

If you need me to add some variable there, feel free to ask me by MP or on the forum.

Warning: A long time ago there were some compatibility issues when the Faded was enable with other mod (thinking about ns2+, laser mine, badges, ...). However I do not know from which one, and if it's still generating errors. If so, try do turn them off and it will be working.

F.A.Q (Frequently asked questions)

1. How can I respawn ?

   You can only respawn once per round, when it begins.
   
   

2. I joined during the cooldown but nothing happen, why ?

   When the 3s cooldown of the round is started the game has already been set up: Faded hp and selection, players location, sanity, etc. Making it "working" again would mean regenerating everything every time someone join, and the mod code is not yet ready for that.
   
   

3. But I have seen some players moving from spectator to marine during the cooldown and it was working ?

   Those were certainly using the "spectatefade" chat command (spectatefade as it, no !spectatefade or "spectatefade"). It moves you to the spectator team when you die, and back again as a marine the next round.
   
   

4. Okay, but why can't I join the alien team ? How can I play as a Faded ?

   To be the Alien, you have to kill it or be randomly selected by the game core.
   
   

5. Still, I can't see anything in this mod, it's too dark.

   If it is really too dark, I suggest that you increase a bit the gamma setting of your screen. A quick google search will mostly tell you how to do it on your current operating system. You can also disable reflection and atmospherics on your NS2 graphical settings.
   
   

6. Now that I am a marine, how do I become a Veteran marine ?

   Stay alive, you become a Veteran if you stay alive a whole round and if there is not more than N veteran already selected. (around 1 veteran for 4-5 marine).
   
   

7. Are there also Veteran faded ?

   Not yet, but I have planned to create an evolve menu with faded specifics upgrade.
   
   

8. I am out, how can I heal/get some ammo as a Marine ?

   You can kill your friend and steal their weapons, or you can use the armory and resupply yourself if it is powered up by a sentry battery.
   
   

9. Can I play an other lifeform (like and Onos) ?

   The only Kharaa lifeform allowed is the Fade (except if you turn on cheat, of course (but do not go into a gorge, it's kinda buggy for the moment)).
   
   

10. The Faded growl is to loud and it does not get lower even when I turn off my game sound.

    For some reason, this sound is not affected by the game/effect sound. You will have to decrease your OS sound instead, and maybe increase the sound in game to balance.

Known bugs

1. The leap with any other weapon than the swipe cost twice more enery

2. The heavy shotgun ammo display switching from empty/full sometime

3. Grenades and GL grenade exploding on someone else hallucination

4. Floating marine arms when holding a battery

5. Metabolize icon is displayed has a Faded, but is not turned on. It's a graphical bug

6. Command station icon displayed when using the shift key as a babbler

7. Marines minimap (corpses displayed, and enable without the observatory)

8. If a marine drop the battery on a fade, the fade is stuck

9. If a marine drop the battery in a closed area (a vent for example) it is destroyed and not dropped again

[BLOCKY_DUDE]

naww we want the faded back :(((((

[Sneelas :3]

thanks have a 5 stars :)

[Katzenfleisch]

You need to go to the "Arcade" tab of the browser, be sure you have the "empty" filter marked and join a server hosting it, "Faded mod - Aspheriox" at the moment.

[Sneelas :3]

how to find this mod in browser?

[Katzenfleisch]

Yes, it was down for a few days because it brokes with the new build. Now it's up again.

[Sneelas :3]

any servers with that mod?

[Katzenfleisch]

For now there are no time where the servers are really populated but you will most likely be able to find some the weekend. I am trying to seed them at those moment and we got to play games sometime with 20+ players.

[Kchorniy]

when are the servers normally most populated, is there some specific time?

[Kchorniy]

Oh thats soo cool can't wait for it and btw that was a quick reply

[Katzenfleisch]

Good, I am currently seing if we could add new weapon into the game (with new model, animation and all). Will keep you informed.