[Suggestion] Nightly Builds and quality control.

1st Official Post

    I would not normally request such a feature. But I found with the 3 Main Mods I use RP/IC/BC that IC seems to be the most unstable of all 3 of them. The part that hurts the most is when there i usually a major bug with the other 2 main mods we usually get a fix pretty fast once the devs see the bug. And even that they seem to have a few extra nerds on their end who will even create patch fixes and post the .class files for people to download and repair their game.


    Example: Wooden pipes lost their side when you relogged. (Not critical, No Crashes, Just annoying) A member had fixed and shared the fix asap. Then a day or 2 later it was also patched into the main bins.


    So its been 3 weeks and the Quantum Helm as far as I know should be fixed in 1.1. But rather then providing the users with a fix you let major servers crash and crash and even some servers disbanded and or had to bans suits and etc. I mean this was a disturbing thing from what I saw. Luckily the people with port the mod to bukkit and should not be touching anything decided to fix it for us.


    Now 1.1 has dupe bugs, crashes, syncing issues and etc. The problem is we been told its fixed but we don't get the fixes and I assume there will be a 1.65 but I mean who knows we have had this happen before and it ends up being 1.72 maybe instead and we are left with nothing but chaos and disaster.


    I don't know if this is true but since the tester sounded pretty pissed at what happen but it sounded like you guys did not even have testing done for the 1.6x version. I even heard there was a Let's Play Done on it before there was even testing done.


    So this is why I am recommending that IC have nightly builds. If your going to keep it closed source and not join in with Build Craft and other projects then please do nightly builds so we can at least help you iron out these critical bugs before you release them.


    This is coming from a Server admin of a low populated server of 15-20 online at max but still it's been rough for us and sometimes I wonder if its worth keeping on going. My users love IC and love IC a ton I even doing a Let's Play on it but I mean I have to say whats on my Mind I mean I donated to you guys twice because you rock and your hard workers and this not questioning this but its questioning the methods of hot fixes and testing for quality standards.


    I hope people don't get mad at me I know there is a lot more SSP and none admins here but I just saying whats coming from my heart and I really just feel that nightly builds coming from a old school internet user seem to always be one the best things in communities.


    Thanks,
    Kane Hart

    Check out Our Brand New GT New Horizons Server .:Here:.
    Check out Our Brand New GT New Horizons Let's Play Series .:Here:.

    I do agree, doing a proper internet test series with a full array of Forge users would probably go miles towards maintaining compatibility and reducing the frequency of post-launch patches. I don't know about necessarily "nightly" builds, but a mass pre-launch test would be nice for bugs that internal testing might have issues finding (such as SMP errors).


    Support.

    Quote from Alblaka

    Still remember the convo ending with "No, stop bugging me, cables transmitting energy are totally not possible! Use the batterys."

    if you are unsure of the stabilty of updates then do not update

    still rocking the GMA 950 card :D overclocked to the point of smoking. :huh: hahahahaha now i got my 525m now that thing does work 8) :P :D

    • Official Post

    In all honesty, be advised, 80% of the current bugs are caused my either MLMP or MCForge screwing up. We "fixed" a few of them by doing stuff that doesn't make much sense, f.e. explicitely declaring that default IC-Blocks are "Place can be stuffed on me"-blocks... which was meant to be the default setting in first place, and was like that pre 1.1 .


    I do not state we're not responsible for anything, admittedly there are bugs. But constantly porting to new versions overhauling random aspects and influencing f.e. armor renewed makes it ridicolously hard to get stable code running. The fact I don't have much personal time left next to my studies doesnt make it much better, though adding Richard to the team was a good decision, seeing he fixes up craploads of stuff. Stuff most people don't even notice, because it's background errors, optimization or bugfixes we discovered in closed beta.


    We will NOT start releasing sorts of dev builds, because exactly those versions are unstable as heck. And givne the amount of crap spammed int he support/bug section currently, i don't really think i want to handle the support for an even buggier version. Because, as usually, noone will care whether it's a dev or whatever version, it's just a new version. And every bug is new and needs an own thread with minimal description.


    Release schedules are related to a decision based on stability, content and the time passed since the last update.
    Last update was weeks ago, we didn't exactly want to make people wait longer, thus we preferred a slightly buggy version now then a more stable version in a few more weeks, assuming Jeb won't finish 1.2 within that timeframe, resetting our efforts again.


    AND I would like to point out, again, that we changed a whole lot on the underlying engine of IC². The change wasn't as overhelming as the step from IC to IC², but it's still quite noticeable.



    \rant
    Feel free to discuss now.
    As well, moved to the proper forum, seriously "Suggestions" is a CONTENT SUGGESTION forum related to in-game content of the mod.

    hehe, Nothing to discuss really the decision is yours and I respect that. I just enjoy and want to help you provide the best quality control possible. With my own server if it's just pure bukkit, Vanilla, or IC/BC/RP Server. I tend to go through a few days if not a week testing and I mean hardcore testing to find all the bugs and issues we can and report them to their respectful creators.


    But thanks for your reply and thanks for working hard and struggling with some the limitations and impacts of other mods cause!

    Check out Our Brand New GT New Horizons Server .:Here:.
    Check out Our Brand New GT New Horizons Let's Play Series .:Here:.

    Yea the Forge/MLMP thing is really getting on a lot of modder's nerves, its a mix of bad luck and bad code. I know personally that my thread has been and continues to be flooded with people who yell about the Forge Bug (even though the latest two versions have fixed it) and blaming my mod. Then there's an issue I'm running into in 1.1+ for example with MLMP and GenerateSurface not properly running part of my code always or spawning my ore in patterns instead of randomly, it all worked without a flaw in 1.0, but something changed in 1.1 that for some reason now is making any of my GenerateSurface code act up. Good news is last I heard Forge was building its own MLMP inside of itself, which will be so nice and should hopefully void some issues.

    Quote from Alblaka

    Still remember the convo ending with "No, stop bugging me, cables transmitting energy are totally not possible! Use the batterys."

    Quote from Shadowclaimer

    Yea the Forge/MLMP thing is really getting on a lot of modder's nerves, its a mix of bad luck and bad code. I know personally that my thread has been and continues to be flooded with people who yell about the Forge Bug (even though the latest two versions have fixed it) and blaming my mod. Then there's an issue I'm running into in 1.1+ for example with MLMP and GenerateSurface not properly running part of my code always or spawning my ore in patterns instead of randomly, it all worked without a flaw in 1.0, but something changed in 1.1 that for some reason now is making any of my GenerateSurface code act up. Good news is last I heard Forge was building its own MLMP inside of itself, which will be so nice and should hopefully void some issues.


    The problem is not only forge, it is vMC too. Even updates which doesn't change much might do something that's rather unnoticed but screws many things. And Lex is working on a system to make quality-control a lot easier.

    Quote from Bluehorazon

    The problem is not only forge, it is vMC too. Even updates which doesn't change much might do something that's rather unnoticed but screws many things. And Lex is working on a system to make quality-control a lot easier.


    Ah my post must've not gone through.


    Was going to say, I know Lex is working on a new MLMP that is built into Forge (the less to rely on the better) and the new packet 230 and MLMP seem to be having fun. I'm sure its just transitional stuff with vMC conflicting with MLMP.

    Quote from Alblaka

    Still remember the convo ending with "No, stop bugging me, cables transmitting energy are totally not possible! Use the batterys."