Thank you for the prompt response Dimitris (and thank you for moving this to the general forum from tech form, where I should have posted it originally).
So before I get into trying to clarify my gripes, let me say that I love you guys, the work you do, and I love the game. I have since I bought CAMANO not long after its release. So please keep all that in mind with the following...
I'm a mostly computer illiterate Gen Xer. But I have played cpu wargames for a long time. You wrote:
Dimitris wrote: Wed Jul 09, 2025 7:11 am
I could be wrong, but from your description I suspect that the source of your frustration with the game is not the existence of bugs per se (surely you are smart and experienced enough to realize that non-trivial software = bugs), but the fact that the "bug baseline" changes with each major release: Many of the existing issues are fixed, and new bugs are introduced both as the result of new features and also because of the changes necessary to fix the previously known issues.
You're not wrong. I understand that there will always be bugs. That this is a complicated level of coding and new bugs and issues are always going to pop up. The frustrations in the last few years are touched on by mikerohan:
mikerohan wrote: Wed Jul 09, 2025 7:51 pm
Apart form the fact that no trivial software can be bug free, I think that the frustration arrives when things that were working are not working in new versions.
I don't mind or care much about little things: If db issues aren't accurate, or weapons effect calculations are off, or even most of the inevitable bugs that come from complex mission planning etc. As long as the basic functionality of basic aspects of the game work. This is why I've personally, always engaged in a micro-manage style of play...if subtle bugs mess up complex mission plans, etc., I'm fine, I'll just manually override the issues and command specific units or groups to do what I want them to. This has worked well for me in almost all my wargaming experience and worked wonderfully with CAMANO and CMO until the last year and a half or so. Since then, the frustrations have multiplied.
For instance in big, complex scenarios I had built myself up until recently most of them are consistently either unplayable with each new update or frustratingly annoying to play with the new bugs in basic features of the game in each new update. One scenario in particular I built two years ago involving preempting North Korea, I have yet to be able to finish because of this. I was looking back at the issues that made it so for me, and after a quick scan, here's what I mean:
The latest 1.08 B1676 update is playable...but with mission start times ignored it ruins the whole scenario to play. After the OODA loop ends, it's a free-for-all, instead of the time built into my scenario to try and accomplish specific objectives before further consequences intervene. It's playable...but the scenario is ruined.
Prior to that the were the recent new, basic BETA issues: B1645 issue with helicopters ordered to take off with no mission immediately returning to base after take off was annoying. But I could still play, just ignoring all helicopter aspects of the game. B1662: Flights refusing to climb to ordered altitude also was hugely annoying. I could play...but I mean....
The 1.07 B1567 bug that froze that scenario every time when unguided munitions were fired...made that scenario again, unplayable.
1.07 B1500 introduced aircraft not responding to RTB orders or plotted courses.
1.07 B1459 bug where plotted courses would be cancelled was annoying for small scenarios but in large ones with micro-managed style, made it almost unplayable.
1.06 B1436 gave us that strange bug where half my ships immediately began running to UNREP at startup, even to ships that didn't have UNREP capability, and you could not manually override it. Made the scenario unplayable.
1.06 B1405 had a similar bug, where after an a/c unit fired its standoff weapons, they'd no longer follow manually plotted courses and begin spinning in place. Now, it didn't make the game unplayable except for those like me who like to micro-manage and have built large scenarios...having to reissue orders to every unit after firing a standoff missile and replot courses...made my scenario, again, unplayable.
It seems we entered this phase of long working basic game functions being messed up with each new update (As I look back on my own posts in the tech forum) early last year at the start of the 'dark age' with update issues. 1.06 B1328.9 I see was when wingmen in aircraft groups began flying off and doing random things and would not obey manual plot orders. Again, it wasn't technically unplayable...but for micro-managed style of play in large scenarios it might as well have been. The same with a litany of things through last summers 'dark age' on updates: Planes RTB after firing primary weapon in spite of doctrine settings; Groups not changing throttle orders after plotted courses; a/c ignoring flight paths when 'engaged offensive' in spite of doctrine settings, etc.
The cumulative effect of these has been...waiting for the next update to get one basic set of bugs fixed (Which you all have always done well) only to see yet another one pop up.
I get that there will always be bugs. I know no game is perfect. I don't expect perfect. I don't even mind the Refueling issues, or CEC glitches we've had etc....as long as the basic manual orders of the game, things that always and need to work, continue to do so. The frustrations are, as Mike points out, those basic aspects of game play that always did work, popping up over and over with each new upgrade so often.
So that's what I meant by asking if it was possible to leave one stable build open (easy to download for those of us who are technically challenged) where the basic functions of the game are as bug free as possible to play, while also continuing with the fun new upgrades the game has always done so well.
Again, I LOVE this game. I've learned so much about modern warfare because of it (esp. how missiles actually work...and which caused so much strife). So I Don't want any of that to end, and I don't mind the subtle bugs as all that gets worked out. I just want to finally be able to play the thing through in my micro-managed style of play like I always used to be able to do, but haven't been able to do of late.
But thank you again for the response. I do think I need to bail on STEAM...too many times it has forced an update on me that I didn't want to happen. I'll consider that.
Does anyone have a suggestion for a build that is the least basic-bug-free for a micro-manage style of play: Post Tiny Update, until now? (And you want to walk me through how to get back to it as if you had to explain to a 5th grader? LOL).
I still love the developer team and appreciate all they hard work they do and I Still love the game. So much so, I desperately want to just...play it - all my old huge scenario's I built long ago. So, I hope I didn't stir the pot up too much or offend anyone with all this. Call it venting for the sake of catharsis! lol.
Thanks everyone.
