Alien Swarm Update Patch Notes (Official) – February 10, 2022

General

• Fixed several rare crashes.
• Cleaned up memory leaks.
• Improved performance by removing unnecessary calculations throughout the codebase.
• Disabled some spammy developer warnings by default.

Aliens

• Fixed Buzzer poison getting stuck if a player died while it was active and did not switch to another marine.
• Fixed Parasites and Xenomites being immune to blast damage when fully submerged in water.
• Killing a large number of aliens at once no longer crashes the game in some rare cases.
• The death animation of Shieldbugs no longer causes rare client crashes.
• Fixed Drones getting stuck when dismounting info_node_climb.
• Fixed a case where Drones would navigate to the wrong location when pathfinding failed.
• Parasites should no longer appear to be growing outside of their egg or spawn at the wrong place when jumping out of an egg with unusual angles.
• Mortarbug shells no longer block moving platforms.
• Buzzers properly enter and exit the sleep state when far from players.
• Drones will no longer “warp” past marines on challenges with very high drone acceleration.
• Aliens with moveclone set do not trigger physics collision code. This improves performance on maps like Cargo Elevator that use aliens in a cinematic way.

Weapons

• Extremely short range shots will no longer cause incorrect decals or impact animations.
• X33 Damage Amplifier and IAF Heal Beacon bounce in place or fall through the floor when placed on a moving platform.
• M478 Proximity Incendiary Mines no longer fall through certain types of dynamic floor.
• ML30 Laser Trip Mines no longer explode when touched by an invisible character.
• SM75 Combat Flares and TG-05 Gas Grenades no longer collide with NPC Clip.
• Fixed an issue where grenades would aim incorrectly if the marine had been hit from behind very recently.
• Fixed collision inconsistencies between mines and various types of throwables.
• The beam of the mining laser no longer gets stuck if the weapon is deleted by a script.

Misc

• Fixed doors getting stuck with negative health if they were killed from the side they were dented towards. Extremely high damage can correctly knock down a door in one hit.
• Sentry bases now use a different skin number for each type of sentry.
• Improved the performance of rm_welcome_message.
• Made the cheat convar asw_unlock_all_weapons available outside of debug builds.
• Added asw_create_generic_emitters_for_drone_gibs, which can be set to 0 to disable some graphics.
• r_drawsprites and r_drawropes are no longer marked as cheats.
• Added statistics support for the Football map.
• Fixed exploits involving client commands (cl_campaignsas, cl_kickvote, etc.)
• Fixed the warning message for an invalid unburrow idle activity.
• Fixed a rare case where a marine dying would not automatically spectate the next marine.
• Fixed the calculation of the fast hack time for 4-wire hacks.
• Fixed scrolling the difficulty from Insane using keyboard or a controller going to Easy rather than Brutal.
• Fixed not being able to draw on some parts of the map in the mission failed debriefing.
• Improved physics calculations when a marine is stuck on a box or near a spawning alien.
• Increased engine limit for pseudosounds, which are used for NPC AI.
• Reduced the delay when starting a mission.
• Added HUD support for having more than max HP.

Client ConVars

• rda_better_weapon_chooser
• rda_faster_radialmenu
• rda_faster_wire_hack_close
• rda_draw_scanner_rings
• asw_tree_sway_enabled
• rda_print_console_objective_completion_time
• rda_print_chat_objective_completion_time

Server ConVars

• rda_marine_backpack
• rda_marine_backpack_alt_position
• sv_clamp_unsafe_velocities
• sv_skip_velocities_warnings
• sv_draw_debug_overlays_release
• phys_applystressdamage

Server ConCommands

• rda_hide_backpack
• rda_draw_backpack
• rda_strafepush

Mapping

• Added the ability to require a held rd_weapon_generic_object to activate an trigger_asw_button_area.
• Added rd_func_jumpjet, which allows the Jump Jets and the Blink Pack to jump to a point inside the volume regardless of pathing.
• Added the ability to mark spawners and aliens to reflect grenades.

Challenge ConVars

• asw_paint_ammo_bar
• rda_grenade_launcher_grenade_ricochet
• rda_grenade_allow_electro_amped
• rda_grenade_electrostun_duration
• rda_grenade_electrostun_range_multiplier
• rda_grenade_launcher_grenade_ricochet
• rda_grenade_max_ricochets
• rda_grenade_post_ricochet_velocity_multiplier
• rda_grenade_reflector_radius
• rda_grenade_search_reflectors
• rda_laser_mine_ownerless_alien_friendly
• rda_marine_allow_strafe
• rda_marine_strafe_allow_air
• rda_marine_strafe_push_hor_velocity
• rda_marine_strafe_push_vert_velocity
• rda_mortarbug_shells_by_alien_sizescale
• sv_enablebunnyhopping
• sv_autobunnyhopping

Game Events

• Added laser_mine_active (entindex, marine)
• Added cluster_grenade_create (entindex, marine, weapon)
• Modified player_dropped_weapon (userid, entindex) – added entindex.

VScript Functions

• void CBaseEntity::SetParent(handle parent) – sets an entity as another entity’s move parent; faster than calling the input from VScript
• void CBaseEntity::ClearParent() – clears the entity’s move parent; faster than calling the input from VScript
• handle FindNearestNPC(Vector Position, bool CheckZCoordinate, float Radius) – returns the nearest character (marine, colonist, or alien) to the given coordinate
• void CASW_Grenade_Cluster::Disable() – disables the grenade’s timer
• void CASW_Grenade_Cluster::Enable() – re-enables the grenade’s timer
• void CASW_Grenade_Cluster::EnableWithReset() – re-enables and resets the grenade’s timer to its original duration
• void CASW_Grenade_Cluster::ReflectBack() – reflects the grenade to approximately where it was fired from
• void CASW_Grenade_Cluster::ReflectRandomly() – reflects the grenade to a random direction