ClaytoniousRex

See my reply here.

The Hurricane has not been degraded in any way for 0.9.41. Whenever we make a change to the performance of unit types or weapons we will clearly state it in the release announcement so don't worry about things like this changing behind your back on each release. Abi, what you're probably seeing is a result of your playing on a debug server (Arpinum Debug in this case). Those are servers that are running inside of a debugger. This makes the server run at a slower rate than the normal 30Hz. Consequently, some physics effects can be exaggerated or incorrect. We should have warned you about that ahead of time (in the future we won't leave debug servers running like that).

Release 0.9.41 is now available via Update. On Windows, use Start/Programs/Battlefront/DropTeam Public Test/Game Updater to get it. On Mac OS X, double click on the Update icon in /Applications. On Linux, use the runUpdate.sh script. Fixes in 0.9.41: </font> Fix crash on Mac OS X caused by OpenAL (audio) - see note below</font>Don't allow bots to be voted in as commander</font>Fix crash when registering new accounts if TCP connection fails</font>Don't allow recursive Viper grappling</font>Fix server crash when physical objects become unstable</font>Don't allow digging at flag home positions</font>Fix doppler effects when "Extra Sounds" option is on</font> The OpenAL crash on Mac OS X is one of the two crashes being experienced by OS X users - it is by far the most common one. Apple engineers confirmed that this was a bug in Tiger's OpenAL and this update includes the right fix for the problem, but since this crash is intermittent, it's hard to verify with 100% certainty that it's fixed in all cases. So please continue to send the detail reports to us if you experience a crash!

Great comments, LtCol. I hope you will have time to post more now and then! I'll grant you the main point there, but they're really more 1995. There is, in fact, a fire and forget mode. To use this mode, keep your reticle on target until a lock is achieved before releasing the weapon. In this mode, the missile guides itself to the target so you don't need to manually guide it. It will do a popup when close to the target and strike down into the target's (presumably) thinner top armor. As a consequence, you will frequently kill the target's turret in this mode, so you might still want to use the manual mode to get a chassis hit, etc. More on the "1995"'ness of this in a moment... Much of the equipment used in DropTeam is anachronistic by deliberate design. The Rim is recovering from a sort of "Dark Age", using some remaining extremely high-tech systems (e.g. dropships, ion beams) right along side many more primitive systems that Liveships are still capable of manufacturing. The background story goes into detail about why things are this way in The Rim at the time of DropTeam's setting. It's a brief window in The Rim's history and one that won't last very long. People throughout The Rim will shortly recover the lost capabilities for manufacture of more advanced systems. As that starts to happen, the current anachronistic set of systems will be replaced by higher-tech systems like those you described here. Luckily for all of us playing the game, we can watch this process happen through updates to DropTeam and its sequel. Coming soon due to popular request. Sounds interesting. Can you explain how these would be different from waypoints (how you would like to see them implemented)? So you would like to see these work functionally like waypoints, but give the commander a broad set of icons to draw from?

The message says something like "The server does not match your version x.y.z". What is the x.y.z in your message, Doctor?

Netherby, that all sounds like client-side slow downs. Yes, we're cleaning up the chat interface. And don't worry, hit tests are not done on the client side at all.

That is correct, Netherby. I'll have to go back and look at the component sizes, Ripper.

Abidubi, I'll bet that you were firing at a point that was beyond the mortar's maximum range. It was falling back on the low velocity rounds since there was no hope of reaching the target anyway. Of course, the reticle needs to tell you that this is the case which it doesn't do now.

Thanks for the bug reports. We're on them. Yes, we're pretty much settled on the idea of warnings and countermeasures for ATGMs. Stay tuned. LOL. Nicely put, Drusus. We'll take care of it. Yes, we're cleaning it up.

Can you elaborate please, Poldi?

Hi, Pirate. Can you please hit the "Report..." button on the crash dialog and paste all of those mucky details into a post or email to me? I'm pretty sure it's the same bug we've just fixed, but your crash log will prove it. Thanks, matey -arrrrrr.

Thanks, Netherby. Fixing... Yes, the Viper flight controls need to be simplified (see earlier thread where I admitted the error of my ways).

The Galaxy doesn't repair you, RIPper. It only resupplies your ammo. You have to extract for repairs.

Thanks guys, we've reproduced it here and are working on a fix.

Wicky, the most common cause of this problem is that you're not being careful about casing in your username and/or password. Both the username and the password are case sensitive. So if you registered as "Wicky" with a password "fOObAR" then you MUST also login with "Wicky" and "fOObAR", not with: "wicky" and "foobar" or "wicky" and "Foobar" or "WICKY" and "FOOBAR" etc. Do you think that might be the problem? To be sure, you can register another account but be very careful of casing this time. Or I can reset the password on your existing account if you will give me your username.

Yes, everyone agrees that tracked vehicle steering isn't responsive enough while at speed. Should be a relatively simple fix. Yes, you're right. I think the proper fix here is use the reticle to indicate what's happening instead of just leaving you to click and have nothing happen without explanation. This is probably the only point I disagree with. Once we've collected stats from all servers we'll be able to tell for sure, though. There are many potential issues here. Can you try to elaborate on the main things that are bothering you about it? It has become very clear across many posts that this needs to at least be an option for new players and probably still something even for experienced players. We've had in mind an elegant way of doing this but it might be necessary to do at least some simple text popups sooner rather than later. Not at all, Netherby! Please continue to post observations and ideas. We're very busy right now addressing the main stability issues (such as the crash on OS X) so we don't always have time to post responses immediately, but we definitely read every single post on this forum with care and interest. Completely understood, which is why I agree with the point above.

Yes, we're able to reproduce these problems here so they will get fixed soon. #1 is a memory leak, causing the game to get progressively slower after each match. It finally makes loading so slow that the server drops you before you can get into the next game. #2 is more of a design flaw that needs to be addressed. We will probably give you a little more time before the server drops you and also warn you that time is running out.

With missiles we should probably force manual range off. The only useful ways to use this "feature" are actually basically abuse. (I just used it to get a "swarm" of missiles airborn at a kilometer away before finally flinging them all en masse into some poor new guy who will now probably never play again).

You can already do this. Hit CTRL-D while in a command track to drop deployables. Otherwise, great comments, weasel. I'm really glad you managed to fling an enemy tank with the Viper. It's a darned satisfying thing, isn't it?

Wooooops! Thanks, Drusus.

We're now holding this update because we're close to getting the more serious crashing on OS X fixed. Waiting another short while for this one will greatly expedite getting the more important crash fixed, so it's a good trade.

Yes.

Can the user mv /opt/dropteam/DropTeam/data/Settings.dat to somewhere else? (This is the file in question, BTW).

Email your Dropteam.log to support@tbgsoftware.com. It's likely that you have an OpenAL issue but we will need your log to confirm.

I would rather scroll for 2 minutes. Can you please email the whole thing to me? You might need to compress it to email it. Thanks!