Patch Notes Update April Update - Patch 2

[Juniper]

You absolutely have a point. But the issue is that negative sentiments can sway public opinion, especially those who are on the fence. And public opinion of the game effects those who like the game too.

Which is better?

Releasing a product that has avoidable & easily identified bugs, or not releasing it until those bugs are fixed & taking the flak for it? Developing complex software means you are going to have bugs... it's about managing those & ensuring that the majority never see the light of day.

I've always been impressed by FD's ability to hit deadlines & release on time, but that clearly comes at a cost.

If someone buys and downloads E: D today, they'll probably play for a very short time before they start encountering lots of silly, minor, things... but taken together create a perception that is, well, not good. Some of these bugs have been around for years, because the more you release quickly rather than well, the more compounded the problem becomes.

People's perceptions are based mostly on that - rather than the noise of a forum.

 

[aRJay]

Just want to add a reminder that just because the effects of a bug are easy to identify doesn't mean that the cause or fix are also easy to find.

 

[zimms]

I worked for 3 years on a system that handled safety systems for nuclear power plants. An error there could genuinely be catastrophic. Releases in those cases had to be ISO certified, or they just didn't happen.

Wild guess on my part, but I assume your company charged more for that software than £20?

 

[Juniper]

Wild guess on my part, but I assume your company charged more for that software than £20?

Correct haha, but we didn't sell a million+ copies of it either.

 

[Factabulous]

Wild guess on my part, but I assume your company charged more for that software than £20?

I'd be interested in a copy for Xbox, I hope they have console support

 

[Juniper]

I'd be interested in a copy for Xbox, I hope they have console support

I'll ask. Was always Windows-only.

The software was actually free, but the USB dongley thing to allow it to run cost upwards of £100K a pop.

Really don't believe economics is the issue here though.

 

[Drelthar]

I'd be interested in a copy for Xbox, I hope they have console support

Crossplay?

 

[Factabulous]

I'll ask. Was always Windows-only.

The software was actually free, but the USB dongley thing to allow it to run cost upwards of £100K a pop.

Really don't believe economics is the issue here though.

My point was that developing software to run on a customer's dodgy platform / console adds a whole other layer of complexity. And then you add on their network setup, controllers etc etc. In some ways I'm surprised it ever works

 

[AlSki]

My point was that developing software to run on a customer's dodgy platform / console adds a whole other layer of complexity. And then you add on their network setup, controllers etc etc. In some ways I'm surprised it ever works

You are so right! In fact I just spent the last 20 minutes rolling back an upgrade to .Net472 because we cant guarantee all of our internal users have it. (Just a Dev, not an FDev). So frustrating!! (At least it was before release)

 

[Old Duck]

My point was that developing software to run on a customer's dodgy platform / console adds a whole other layer of complexity. And then you add on their network setup, controllers etc etc. In some ways I'm surprised it ever works

Whereas developing exclusively for a console removes all that complexity. This is why I'm actually a huge fan of console exclusives (as long as it's my console that gets the exclusives).

So there you go Frontier, make "New Era" a Playstation exclusive, and all your problems will be solved!

 

[amigacooke {macOS}]

I'll ask. Was always Windows-only.

Bah, typical

 

[mearmortal]

We still have the Planet mapping bug after 5 months, any chance it can be fixed in six months

 

[Sebien72]

super, I did'nt test yet, but if it works as intended it's a great news.
I'm agree with the idea of more small fixes against less big fixes

 

[Micha]

I'll ask. Was always Windows-only.

Hmm, that's surprising. And worrying. No matter how well-engineered your code is, deploying it on an unstable stack is hardly confidence-inducing. I'd've thought reactor safety systems would run on a custom real-time OS which undergoes the same stringent reviews as the application itself.
(Eh, sorry, getting rather OT).

 

[znôrt]

We use 'engineers' however the still take an agile approach and are allowed to put buggy code into production.

how does agile sanction getting buggy code into production?

afaik it does just the opposite. agile builds on very conservative practices. actually, one 'commandment' of agile is unless a user story is 'done' (definition of 'done' varies but i would be damned if it doesn't include qa) it doesn't even qualify for the sprint, not even mention to be included in the release.

so actually quite the opposite with what you're saying.

agile is actually just a compendium of very sound ideas and practices, learnt by experience. bosses and third parties trying to make gospel from it for a quick buck or as a silver bullet is just what you would expect from the industry. so just say incompetence, not agile. business incompetence is what stains agile to the point of being superflous, albeit ubiquitous. this is no cave-man revelation, it's just common sense. agile is about doing perfect quality software in a transparent way. that sounds nice but it's not at all what the business really wants, so it's not how it is used.

 

[Juniper]

Hmm, that's surprising. And worrying. No matter how well-engineered your code is, deploying it on an unstable stack is hardly confidence-inducing. I'd've thought reactor safety systems would run on a custom real-time OS which undergoes the same stringent reviews as the application itself.
(Eh, sorry, getting rather OT).

Agree - way OT - but just to set your mind at rest on that point, it didn't manage the safety systems directly. All that stuff is embedded microcode and doesn't change / get messed with. However, it did interface with them, and allowed you to do funky stuff like automatically reverse valves if there was a problem, etc. It also allowed you to visually design new systems, and "test" them out virtually before building it in the real world. It was a really nice piece of software. But anyway, relax.

 

[RooksBailey]

A question about the launcher on the PC:

I've noticed that the launcher seems to be only partially updated with fresh news. For example, it still says "Support Notice: April Update Patch 1 is Live!" despite Patch 2 being now available. In addition to that, I am still looking at "Distant Worlds Resource Initiative" and "Distant Worlds Security Detail" CGs from March 14 being the larger headline items in the right column news section. Other news items are up to date, however. Do I need to manually update my launcher or are others seeing this too?

 

[Captain Willard]

Thanks again FD.

 

[ferus]

A question about the launcher on the PC:

I've noticed that the launcher seems to be only partially updated with fresh news. For example, it still says "Support Notice: April Update Patch 1 is Live!" despite Patch 2 being now available. In addition to that, I am still looking at "Distant Worlds Resource Initiative" and "Distant Worlds Security Detail" CGs from March 14 being the larger headline items in the right column news section. Other news items are up to date, however. Do I need to manually update my launcher or are others seeing this too?

I usually pay little to no attention to the launcher.
But I just checked it now and I have indeed two "news" displayed that were supposed to end on 14th of March.
Rest of the articles seem pretty up to date.
I think this needs a manual intervention from FDev's side. Maybe they forgot to update the news?

 

[RooksBailey]

I usually pay little to no attention to the launcher.
But I just checked it now and I have indeed two "news" displayed that were supposed to end on 14th of March.
Rest of the articles seem pretty up to date.
I think this needs a manual intervention from FDev's side. Maybe they forgot to update the news?

Thanks for getting back to me on this. Just wanted to make sure I didn't need to manually update the launcher. Yeah, it looks like FDev needs to refresh the launcher a little more thoroughly. Honestly, I think the whole launcher needs an update just to refresh its look a bit.

Thanks!