Question about parallel branch development / updates

[K^2]

9 hours ago, LoSBoL said:

I thought the 0.1.0.0 and 0.1.1.0 versions  branches are for 'us' to download earlier versions of the Game through the Steam's  'Beta participation' options?  This goes for KSP as well, where you can revert back all the way to v1.0.5.

It's up to the devs who they give access to which depos. They can use it to let people access older versions, participate in betas, give early access to media, do QA play-tests... Regardless of whether access to older depots is granted to players, it's very common to see a few older versions left uploaded in case a critical bug is discovered and they have to rollback. Or if they want to see if some newly reported bug was also in the older version and was simply unnoticed.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

33 minutes ago, K^2 said:

It's up to the devs who they give access to which depos. They can use it to let people access older versions, participate in betas, give early access to media, do QA play-tests... Regardless of whether access to older depots is granted to players, it's very common to see a few older versions left uploaded in case a critical bug is discovered and they have to rollback. Or if they want to see if some newly reported bug was also in the older version and was simply unnoticed.

So - what explains the series of changes we saw?  e.g. ESA MN, Release MN and Patch 1 MN (with ESA and Patch 1 being virtually identical, but Release a mess)?

 

Also - is there any likelihood that they had to break the game to arbitrarily present it via EA stages, and that it will get better as they 'put it back together again' via adding stuff back in as we move down the Roadmap?

Or are these core feature problems likely exactly what they seem - problems with core assumptions and systems that would be problematic at this stage of development, no matter what?

[K^2]

9 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So - what explains the series of changes we saw?  e.g. ESA MN, Release MN and Patch 1 MN (with ESA and Patch 1 being virtually identical, but Release a mess)?

No idea. Could have been a bad merge, could be different branches, could be something else entirely. It's not really that uncommon for there to be a bad build sandwiched between good ones. QA is supposed to try and catch regressions like that in time, but they don't always have time to test everything. Until we see more updates, it's hard to say if it's systematic or a fluke.

11 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Also - is there any likelihood that they had to break the game to arbitrarily present it via EA stages

I don't think so. No reason to do that. There could be some parts further along that are more finished than others, but are blocked by less finished parts earlier in the roadmap, but other than that, if it was ready, there'd be no reason not to release it.

14 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

problems with core assumptions and systems that would be problematic at this stage of development, no matter what

These definitely exist. I'd be willing to be that multiplayer is one of these. Warp and trajectory stability are probably still issues as well. And the performance problems aren't helping. But there are also a bunch of smaller bugs of the, "The game isn't finished yet," variety that are obscuring a lot of that. Hopefully, devs have a clearer picture of what's a real fire and what just needs some polish and are triaging it appropriately.