Ssnake

Try the middle mouse button, works better anyway.

You mean, more serious than the 208 bugs that got squashed since version 2.328 (42 in version 2.370, 123 in version 2.460, and another 43 with version 2.483, not counting the invalid bug reports which still cost serious time to investigate). Maybe we didn't address the bugs that you find most annoying, but we certainly made polls among the beta team to identify the bugs that they considered top priority, and their votes were certainly influenced by their direct experiences in online multiplayer battles. We have to balance the desire for a flawless, well-rounded application and user interface with the necessity to add new content and functions to justify charging money. I remember well the hell that was raised when I pointed out the extraordinary large number of bug fixes to justify that we'd be charging money for 2.460 - the message from at least a very vocal minority was that charging money for the effort of fixing bug was not ethical, to rephrase it in a more polite way. So, the reality is that most people voicing their opinion here in the forum clearly demand new stuff rather than bugs being fixed. We do not intend to follow such a foolish demand but we can't ignore the preference for new functionality either. I too would like to devote half a year to clean up inconsistencies and snags of our current user interface, to make it more intuitive. But the reality is that nobody is willing to pay for that work. eSim Games however must operate profitably to stay in business. If we were after profit maximization above and before all we wouldn't work in this business in the first place. But we're no charity either. The Steel Beasts version history contains a fraction of about 30% that are entries about bug fixes. That is a decent amount of effort devoted to quality control.

Interesting. The plot thickens...

It rarely is a question of desirability. But even small changed can sometimes eat considerably into the limited development time budget. I don't think that the difference in armor protection between M1A1HA and HC are terribly dramatic. The M1 already is a pretty survivable tank, making it "even more survivable" wouldn't change the picture much. Adding these variants seems to make sense to me only as a part of an "M1 family" package.

One of the changes we made was to shorten the Swooosh sound in order to maintain a bit of surprise on the end of the targeted player in multiplayer battles. Of course this may affect a bit the way you perceive the sequence of sounds and events. The problem was that certain "ballet dancers" would stay in their stationary positions exactly to the point when they heard the incoming rounds which turned into some sort of an exploit.

We added "dynamic changes of ambient light level" as a feature, and that is "complete". You are reading "night combat is partially done" into this, and call it a half-implemented feature. We both know that even if you had night vision gear now, it would still not be a full implementation of night combat as other crucial elements would still be missing - illumination rounds, and more importantly, the behavior of computer-controlled units to make intelligent choices whether to switch off engines to listen for the enemy, or to call in illumination rounds to start an engagement against a suspected enemy presence (but not to call for illumination all the time - a proper balance is needed here). At the same time we have other issues on the agenda - 3D infantry, non-combatants, autonomous (civilian) car traffic, network interoperability with other simulations and 3rd party terrain database tools, multisidedness and other elements of asymmetrical warfare. Yes, I have understood that you are primarily interested in night combat at this point, but surely you understand that we can't address everything at the same time.

Yes. Jump into the gunner's position, and out of it, and the stutter goes away. We don't know yet why this happens from time to time.

The cure is to hop into the gunner's place, and out of it. Well, it's not a "cure" but it makes that jitter go away.

We will definitely announce it here, at SimHQ, and through the eSim newsletter of course.

Yeah, I think we can contemplate another round now. Let me think a bit about the theme for the next series of submissions.

Unfortunately that isn't possible. We are already moving into new areas with the classroom version, and we can't just fix a few bugs without introducing these new features (which, at this stage, would only bring bigger problems with them). The question isn't whether the current version of SB Pro PE has a few bugs - it certainly does, and I don't think we will ever see a truly bug-free version. The question is, are the current bugs less severe and irritating that those in 2.460, and I think we can agree that 2.483 definitely is a progress over the immediate predecessor version.

What sometimes gets forgotten is that gun fire is not a laser shot. There is a natural dispersion of shots that follows a Gaussian distribution with typically a standarddeviation of .3 to .5 mils. This means that only 68% of all rounds will land in a circle of .3 to .5 mil radius around your aiming point. If you attempt, for example, to shoot a gap between roadwheels and sideskirts, and that gap is about .1 mil wide from your current position, you have less than a 10% chance to actually hit that small spot! In other words, aiming for specific weak spots works with reliability only if you are close enough. This is a part of the protection scheme of the target, actually. In order to get close you either need to expose yourself while moving close, or you need to lay low and try to hide so you can ambush an unsuspecting vehicle that happens to drive by. But while you lay low you can neither maneuver nor take other targets under fire.

Certainly not "a few years". I could imagine that we have several nice new elements in spring that would warrant a new release. It could however be that by that time there is a big rush for us to get another thing completed by summer which might then delay things - but if that happens I can guarantee that everyone here will agree that it was worth the wait. I just don't know if that will happen just yet.

No... this may change in the future, the models are prepared to some extent for this, although there is still a lot to do here. I don't expect dramatic changes in the near future.

It absolutely makes sense for long range engagements if the computerized gun elevation doesn't work for some bizarre component failure.

Yes, this is a known problem. Hopefully we can address it together with the "load all" bug that only loads type 1 ammo.

Sounds like a new bug, then. Will you write the BZ entry?

It is.

Sounds like a bug... but maybe it just got a new hotkey. You may want to look for "unity sight" in the hotkey dialog box. Could be something like Shift+F4

Usually it's the F3 view. In the M1A1 it is not possible to fire the cal .50 from the unbuttoned position, you must use the commander's weapon station - the good news is, you can do it with closed hatches as well.

No, I can't. I could list the current contracts, but there are more in the pipeline so it is likely (but still uncertain) that by the time that we have completed our current work new work will have emerged. There will be however new crewable ... elements, and a new vehicle, all with unique fire control systems.

There's a mirror in Germany, maybe that'll do good for you.

Ah. Excellent.

More.

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