I've been over this before.

Ranged combat was implemented very early on. It matched the original combat system. During the pre-order phase combat was revised right away. Ranged was not revised to match that system. At the time I figured it wouldn't be that hard to update ranged to match and I did post that ranged should be coming soon. We never got to it. Other tasks took priority and coders that revised combat left the team.

After the official Prelude launch we revised combat completely again (with 2 new programmers, one brought on specifically to revise creatures and combat). With this current system, the original ranged code became obsolete. The combat programmers did start working on code to match the current system but they also stopped working on Xsyon the following year. Their code wasn't good and I scrapped it.

At that point, ranged combat became something that needed to be done from scratch and it hasn't been one of my priorities. I haven't mentioned it as a priority either but as something that I am working towards.

I work on the code in order. Proper ranged combat required many changes. Collision and the path finding blocking system needed to be redone. That was completed but caused the 'trick' multi-story system of building to no longer work. So I spent a lot of time implementing a proper multi-story building system. Next, de-synch needed to be resolved or at least greatly improved. I've heavily optimized many portions of the code and revised the networking (packets) system. Three times I've put synchronization changes up for public testing and hardly anyone cares. The full changes have yet to be patched.

Last year I worked primarily on creatures, combat and the War Server conquest system that I proposed. For most of the year I was injured which made it difficult to sit at the computer for long period of times. During that time I read up on ways to further optimize the code and I've implemented what I learned. All of this I've gone over in my Developer Updates.

Things like a complete overhaul to creatures and combat (which is what I've been working on primarily) take time. Two programmers spent the greater part of a year on just combat and AI. I spent months of my own time completing and reworking parts of the system and adding things like creature migration and tools to gather data for these systems. Going into revising these systems, I knew there would be a long pause of 'meaningful' updates. So I squeeze in bug fixes and improvements that our player base enjoy. Other issues (like compatibility issues that most players don't notice) also take precedence.

Frankly, MrDDT, I don't understand your obsession with Xsyon. You know that we don't see eye to eye on what makes a fun game. I enjoy creativity and immersion in games. Being able to create something (like towns in Xsyon) for me is satisfying and rewarding in itself. I've tried to make systems like crafting, farming, cooking and tribe systems enjoyable in themselves. I enjoy them! Xsyon still lacks a lot that I want to implement, so I keep working as hard as I can on it. But, I think as is it's a fun game. It's more enjoyable to me than other 'sandbox' 'survival' games that I've checked out.

When you come to the forum bringing things up out of context, misrepresenting things I've written, writing things that are simply not true (like that I'm focused on minor bug fixes and building updates) and poking insults at me, I honestly don't know what you're trying to achieve. If you're trying to push me to work 'harder', that's not happening. I've always worked as hard as I can to the point that it's caused many issues with my health. I'm also not going to change my focus. Creature and combat revisions take priority right now but minor improvements and fixes will continue to come as I squeeze those things in while I'm running time consuming tests.

There must be games that are much closer to your ideal! There must be developers that see eye to eye with the things you seek in a game. Even with the upcoming combat changes and conquest system, I doubt Xsyon will satisfy you. Seriously, why don't you seek out a game that you truly enjoy created by like minded developers?