still the most fun you can have in NS2, by far

Fixed for build 341

Can't add you because you "not receiving invites"
Here's my Blueberry#1414

Sure, ping me on discord and I can give you the gamestrings to translate, and then you can give the translated one back (Katzenfleisch#9424). (the code is truly a mess btw, i'd rather not publish it on github)

Hey can you upload your mod on GIthub? I want to make Russian translation for it.

I fixed several issues regarding skulks not behaving as they should in combat, and also took the chance to actually make the extra hard skulk hell wave truly hard (because it was too easy anyway :D). If someone beat that PM me i'd love to get feedback from it.

Description updated

mod is now working with kf_farm map

Mod was automatically republish with a new ID due to the new workshop update from UWE

I am looking for feedbacks regarding the extra hard skulk wavem difficulty wise and perf wise (client and server side)

Already did

Hey please post a comment here when you update in 340 so we can update our configs asap

Extra hard skulk hell wave added, gl hf :p

As much as the server can handle. In practice it plays best with 8-10, it's good up to 14, but above that the server is too loaded, and the code is reducing the amount of bots to keep the server tick stable enough.

How many players this mod are supposed to play?

Check my important features post, it goes into much more depth about the current version of Defense!

Thank you for the update this will actually make me install the game again.

okay because I was playing on v1 solo and found it not only much more manageable since I was alone, but better looking as well. Having the enemies clumped up was easier to handle, and I just hunker down in the control room as their pathing struggles to get in there, giving me a fighting chance to defend the doorway.

yes, I got asked to add several outer layer on the map to make it easier to defend. Replacing the texture of the outside area with metal instead of dirt could be done as well.

We played on it for an hour with ~6 marines and it turns out pretty well:
* The fight area is larger (meaning aliens are less packed up == less lags, more 1v1)
* I managed to upgrade skulks to climb doors, and lerks to actually use vertical space on an outside map much more
* I added a new winning condition: killing chairs. Since bots will be bots, the round could otherwise last forever because of respawners, and/or marines standing in unreachable locations. That way the round is about "holding": once aliens are in and actually do control the inner layer of the fortress, the round is soon over.

If a mapper wants to build a similar designed map (an outside fortress with several embedded layers), I would be more than happy :), but right now that's all I got.

so the final one is the one where everything looks like it's made out of dirt, instead of the actual metal structure that is v1?

Finally, consider the mod as "beta" still. I hope to get it in a good condition son.

There is a server running with the mod if you want to try it out. On that particular map upgrades are researched automatically (the higher the wave, the more upgrade).

One thing at a time, it took me 2 days just to get the mod in a playable condition, and 2 more to actually tweek the map for lags, stuck spots, and pathing issues. The v1 version is actually the initial version of the map, and ns2_def_troopers.level is the final one. I am not a mapper so yeah the map is pretty ugly but it is playable :p. I got time tomorrow to finish the remaining issues and try to get a guide going.

kinda wish there was a guide for how to play this properly, troopers map comes with 2 versions, 1 looks unfinished and allows you to be commander, the more polished version called v1 breaks your gui permanently if you try to be commander, and I also don't understand how to upgrade myself as marine since I cannot be commander and place things to then get out and build. It's hard to figure out just going in blind and trying to play it.

Never had a chance to play this, glad you've updated it!

I'm still mad impressed with what you're trying to achieve here, not many will work on an abandoned game so that's really cool man :)

I don't think so, I find it good to relax or change your mind, but like any wave like game, it repeats itself. Its replay ability is unfortunatly limited.

However, feedbacks are always welcome to fix this !

Hmmm, could this make the game playable again?

Functional changelog is mostly the following:
* Skulk AI is now the one I used from Sentinel (on hardcore)
* Lerk AI fixed to use vertical space much more
* ns2_def_troopers map updated to cause less lags, and to actually be much easier to defend
* Adding difficulty scaling: the lower the player count, the more damages you do and the more resistant you are.
* removed the boneworm (too tanky perf wise)
* loads of minor tweeks and fixes

Cool, show us that juicy changelog, I might just reinstall to play with it. God knows the base game bores me to death.

The mod is back on the menu !

A shame I actually wanted to give this a try held a lot of promise for something to do in single player.

;(

This mod is really not working anymore, it was one of the first I did and is more of a sandbox than a proper 'clean' mod. As a result and over the years I was not able to fix the high amount of bugs and keep it compatible with the main ns2 version, I am talking about the kind of bugs that take days to fix. The best thing to do at that point would be to redo it from scratch, but unfortunatly that would require at least 2 weeks of full time developpement, and that's for someone who know how the ns2 codebase works already, unfortunatly.

NS2 is a very poorly made game with very cool ideas for its premise. I tried to suck some enjoyment out of it with singleplayer cheats-and-bots games, but this looked liek it was gonna be the pinnacle of what NS2 could offer people as opposed to the poorly optimized heavily unbalanced garbage that is the remainder of the multiplayer base. Is there really no way to get this working? Would have loved to do a wave defense experience playing as marines, earning res as I survive, and eventually facing a horde of Onos with like 20 turrets behind me. I dunno if this mod went that bananas but I still really wanna try it before I give up (a second time) on NS2. Is there any way to make the mod work on the current build of the gaym?

Ah yes I'm familiar with Lua, worked great with Garrys Mod :)
Thanks heaps for the links, I'll have a geeze

NS2 is mostly lua and modding it requires to have some knowledge of it (the entry barrier is not small), also that part of the code is not the easiest to deal with since it has to work with lots of entites, the bot code and custom gamerules :).

You can check here for what a clean mod looks like: github.com:Katzenfleisch/sentinel . If you need some "documentation" I suggest you start here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=802509066

Yeah that's fair enough, a damn shame, I find this is often the problem with multiplayer only games. Once the playerbase dies, it's pretty much game over. Would be happy to give you a hand with it. I know a bit of c++, c#, javascript (who doesn't :P ), pretty privvy with XML and Python. What language do you use for modding in NS2?

I would have love to and made the sentinel mod afterward with a new clean alien skulk AI, but mods rarelly get played nowaday and it's a sink of time (I worked more on it than the sum of all the players who played it so far, it's really consuming time). I dropped the project mostly for that reason. Reviving it would require me at least a full weekend just to get it in a playable state unfortunatly.

Did you end up remaking this mode?

I would love to make maps for you!! i can send some work i have done. i always thought ns2 would make a great defense mod!

If you want to play solo you can simply enable the mod in the "mods" main ns2 menu and within the server browser use "start server". Also keep in mind that this workshop mod is going to be deprecated soon and will be replaced with a new defense mod remade from scratch. It's needed mostly to get ride of nasty bugs, start from a fresh base and resist to next ns2 releases without breaking.

@Katz Any way I can open up my own server solo?

Great mod.

There is a server hosting this mod atm, you can join us :)

How do I play this?

Alien side gameplay added (beta), AI improved (especially lerks outside) and a lot of balancing done on the waves.

Added, but to increase difficulty (bots are faster if far away from action). Instead I scaled damages depending on the number of marines still alive and how they target players.

Yeah I assumed as much from your description of the mod. Thought I would ask anyway.

Suggestion: Maybe you could figure out a way to adjust the movement speed of the bots based on wave to help with the difficulty factor.

I checked some of the bots mod, unfortunatly I can't apply it here since:
* I performed some optimisation on bots to put a lot (a lot) of them on the map moving at the same time, those do not need to get order or to be really aware of the surrounding most of the time, unlike "Realistics bots" which are more real time bots than canon fooder. So my bots are not really 'bots' nor a 'class Alien' but an entity with a collision box (just like babblers). That's why you can't give them order as a Khamander for now and you spawn skulks with the babbler ball :)
* I have no need for bots to walk around, listen for sounds or build and pathfinding is pretty straigth forward (find closest targets, attack the most important one (depending on the lifeform))
* I need additional code to force bot to chance weapon (Spore / Bile bomb / Stomp)