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Next SB PRO PE upgrade?


3r22r

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I'm not a friend of newsletters. There's a lot of abuse potential in them, and the obvious privacy issues. However, we usually announce releases well in advance, with an ever increasing frequency as the release date draws closer. So my recommendation would be to check this forum, or the eSimGames.com homepage once a month or so, and as releases are announced, then maybe once a week and you won't miss it.

 

...and even if you were a day late, what's so terrible about that?

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The problem is that we missed the window of opportunity to make a major new release in last September/October. We tried to get it ready by then but it didn't work out. Since then we're stuck with working on contractual obligations, and that will stay this way for a while. We still have some team members working on the terrain engine but even if all remaining issues were reported "solved" tomorrow morning we would still need to launch another beta test. A beta test ties down more team resources than we can afford to assign to non-contractual tasks, and it would be irresponsible to release a new version without a proper beta test. For a release all lights need to be green, and that lamp will remain solid red for a while.

 

So, version 4.023 represents the essence of what came out of the last beta test, as far as 4.019 bug fixes were concerned, so we decided to at least push that part out.

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On 1/20/2018 at 4:02 PM, Ssnake said:

The problem is that we missed the window of opportunity to make a major new release in last September/October. Since then we're stuck with working on contractual obligations, and that will stay this way for a while. For a release all lights need to be green, and that lamp will remain solid red for a while.

 

So, version 4.023 represents the essence of what came out of the last beta test, as far as 4.019 bug fixes were concerned, so we decided to at least push that part out.

I was really looking forward to the new terrain (who wasn't?) so to be honest I'm disappointed it didn't make the cut. It also looks like it'll be a while for another update, but as it is there's plenty of content to keep me busy and entertained until it does arrive. Thanks for the patch!

Edited by Scrapper_511
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Thank you for your understanding.

Our team is much bigger than it used to be ten years ago, but in order to sustain the larger number of programmers we also have to accept more customization work from our other customers. This leads to a weaving of work on the PE version and then on the classroom version again, which is sensitive to delays unfortunately. We can't change contractual obligations easily, so we cannot afford that work on the PE version delays deliveries on other projects.

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On 1/20/2018 at 4:02 PM, Ssnake said:

We still have some team members working on the terrain engine but even if all remaining issues were reported "solved" tomorrow morning we would still need to launch another beta test. A beta test ties down more team resources than we can afford to assign to non-contractual tasks, and it would be irresponsible to release a new version without a proper beta test.

How big is the Steel Beasts dev team, and how many are full-time employees?

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I think the small team puts in a disproportionate amount of effort and the product reflects that.

 

Yes, its not the most popular sim and yes you don't get everything you want inside a month - but what you do get is pure quality.

 

I guess its a Toyota vs McLaren or Morgan type conversation.

 

Of course I wish they had McLaren's R&D budget. ;)

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Hey, 2009 we still had 1 programmer. End of 2010, three. End of 2012, five. Whether we can expand the size to seven or eight (my target figure) hinges entirely on the amount of money that you army guys are willing to spend on purchasing licenses and paying for maintenance (development contracts don't do me much good since they eat up all the additional programming capacity that I need to modernize the code base). With a modernized code base we could be a lot more productive, so that's a bit of a catch-22.

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