The Unfinished Documentation Puzzle

Greetings, everyone.
There is currently a major problem present in Ares' current documentation - many new and current features are undocumented, or only have skeleton documentation. Naturally, this isn't a good thing - we would like Ares' manual to be as helpful as possible, and missing entries tend to cause a bit of a problem in that regard.

In terms of testing, fixing this will also be useful, as it will enable testers to more accurately understand the workings of what they're actually testing, rather than relying on sparse and scattered commit messages and bugtracker comments.

So, to get to the point, please let us know which features are currently in need of documentation. As soon as possible, preferably. It should go without saying that we don't plan on releasing a stable Ares version with half a manual.

Thanks.

Nighthawk.
Project Manager.

Known Blockers?

In preparation for the 0.2 release, we would like to ask anyone using Ares to report previously unreported issues that _must_ be fixed for an 0.2 release (such as broken stock game functionality or completely unusable features) or to revive existing bugs mentioning such issues. To do the latter, either click the "affects me too" link, or comment on the bug saying it's still current and needs fixing for 0.2.

We have several hundred open bugs, and just plain no way of knowing all of them from memory. So if you know of one that must be fixed before release, don't make a big deal out of it, just tell us.

Thank you for your help.

Told you so.

"why are you hiding it if you are barely able to get testers?"
"Personally, I think ares beta version should be open" / "by 'open' I meant the links should not be 'hidden' and be available on the front page."
"I say use these leaks as public testing versions."

Calls to open up our testing process have followed us for years. Numerous times have we been asked why we won't just let everybody test, as that would inevitably lead to droves of reports, due to there being so many additional testers.

Well, it's been a month now since we provided testing builds for everyone.

Nothing has changed.

We are still getting the same amount of reports as before, by the same people.

I previously followed this with three paragraphs of detailed explanation of just how predictable and obvious this outcome was, but the only thing that really needs to be said is: We told you so. If 99.99% of the community refuses to test, that refusal doesn't magically vanish if the only incentive to test is *gone*. But hey, community ideas are always awesome, right?

Anyway, nothing has changed, so we're still waiting for thorough general testing, LAN/Internet testing (especially in regards to frequency of Reconnection Errors) and secondary tests of these issues: https://github.com/Ares-Developers/Ares/wiki/0.2-test-branch-questions-to-answer

Once all looks clear, we'll hammer out release candidates and ultimately the release.

Oh, and btw: Turns out regressions destroyed the fix for Ivan bombs vanishing on deploy quite a while ago. This is something that *should've* popped up in tests back then, but didn't because it didn't properly get tested. Shit like this is the reason we're still testing instead of releasing, and shit like this is the reason the "Ares has been ready for months" crowd can suck it.

Thus, we enter the 16th consecutive month of waiting for testers to unblock Ares 0.2's release.

Unstable build selection improved

The unstable build selector under http://ares.strategy-x.com/unstable/ has been improved to show the branch metadata now.

Go test already so we can kick this release out the door.
https://github.com/Ares-Developers/Ares/wiki/0.2-test-branch-questions-to-answer

Need people familiar with NPatch and other Hacks and Patches

We have exported what was formerly Appendix C of the manual, the Ares <> NPatch feature comparison, into a wiki page of its own: https://github.com/Ares-Developers/Ares/wiki/Comparison-with-other-YR-Hacks-and-Patches

Since we don't use NPatch or other patches ourselves, we are ill-suited to properly reflect the differences between them and Ares. We would appreciate it if community members with current experiences with multiple patches could update that wiki page with the state of affairs of patch differences.

Thank you.