More Alpha (Beta) Testers Needed

[Oddible]

I know that 'supposedly' this is the beta, yadda yadda, we were all using GMail while it was in beta for 5 years too, semantics... but...

The latest release .21 had some significant additions that didn't get tested enough and really could have used a more healthy beta test to exercise the new features. Case in point, the fact that Crew assignments don't save when you revert a flight is a rather significant hiccup to have missed the test (and likely not a significant amount of coding to resolve). Seems a rather small and easily fixable issue with a rather high annoyance factor to be missed in this release. Hence my suggestion to get a few more people into the beta *cough* er Alpha program.

[providus]

we all are testers. A simple bug report thread would have helped.

[Sean Mirrsen]

we all are testers.

^ this.

The game's sold as "early access", and we are all testing it and helping its development. The preliminary testing is just to weed out the crashes and glaring gamebreakers, finding the rest is our job.

[zxcvb55]

I've actually been seeing this brought up a lot lately on several different forums, so I've formed my own opinions on the subject. Don't mind the lengthy post. I'll give the tl;dr up front: Squad knows how to learn from each release, and if they think they need to pick more testers or change their whole testing system completely, I'm confident in their ability to do that.

Now for my own opinion on the matter. The issue with adding more testers is that there's a certain degree of diminishing returns. For example, the first 20 testers to make the team might prevent 10 big bugs from making it through. 20 more are added and that will prevent 5 additional bugs from making it into the release, and so on and so forth. However, each batch of testers added is another that needs to be managed by Ted and the developers, and the cost of that management (wading through more minor bug reports, getting everyone to work together, teaching new testers how to do their job, etc) will eventually outweigh the benefits. If a few updates pass, and the need for new testers was very apparent, then it might make sense to take that gamble, but applications for the newest batch of testers closed just three weeks ago.

Indeed, regardless of how many testers you add, there's always a chance that a bug will slip through the cracks, but saying that crew resetting is a "significant hiccup" is a bit of an overstatement. Perhaps if reverting your flight caused the terrain to disappear, reset the entire craft, or maybe

then yes, that would be quite a mistake. It being a "small and fixable issue" actually means it's more likely to make it into the .21 release, especially if it were found late in testing. Why waste time on something like that when there are bigger bugs to fix?

All that said, I can't seem to replicate the bug itself. Moving any part on the vessel in the VAB will reset the crew to default, which may be what you're experiencing, but that's just an unfortunate side-effect of the current crew management implementation. Remember, crew management is still in it's infancy, so there will be kinks to work out. But this isn't like the GMail beta, or any alpha/beta testing system really, it's a product where game changing features are added regularly in large quantities, so early access customers have to expect some bugs.

[dlmarti]

As much as I know this thread is going to end badly, I will add my 2 pesos.

This lastest release has confirmed what Oddible said.

Either Squad does not have enough beta testers, or they had bad ones.

The SAS bugs are so glaring it is ridiculous, even now I do not have a high confidence that Squad believes they are real.

I think they were all testing the same type of crafts, and they were mostly using joysticks.

Even now:

1. Reaction wheels ignore fine controls.

2. New SAS forgets heading slowly (see the aero problem).

3. New SAS has a dead spot around the desired vector, where it will not apply force (I assume to save SAS).

4. New SAS does not change its feedback parameters based on vehicle size/shape.

Commence fan boy flaming in... 3 2 1

[FEichinger]

Heya there

Everything that is to be said has already been said: It's entirely up to Squad and nobody outside can make a reasonable claim about the amount of testers. The quality? Perhaps, but that should be dealt with by posting detailed bug reports, rather than publically discussing the testing team. With that said, I'm closing this thread.

FEichinger