Assuming these boards had been tested for months by Clark & his team (if he has one), as well as a some UK tank club members, & supposedly had not been found to have any real issues of impact being reported before their eventual release date. Either people believe in that theory, or they believe the issues were already well documented before sale & release of the first boards, yet the boards were released regardless of the issues & consideration to the customers. There might have been other testers from around the world as well, so exactly how many different people had been testing the boards, & under which scenarios, I don't know. For a board that was made to be IR battle capable, I'm not sure how a 12ft-15ft IR range was never brought up by anyone as a possible big issue in the first place, & brought up early on during the testing phase. Either they believed that short distance IR was actually appropriate, or none of the testing group had tested it thoroughly & complained about it. Why it wasn't found out during extensive testing that the damage simulation feature might have needed some more tweaking before release, or at the very least include it but offer a simple warning that it might not work under certain conditions, is also confusing. I'm not so sure that more testing by the same test group individuals would have helped to discover the issues anyway if they hadn't already discovered them, as it might have taken someone testing the board outside that group to actually come across the issues. I think Clark either needed a more diversified & better testing group that could have found the issues well ahead of time during those testing months, or if he got complaints & just ignored them, then he has to learn to use that input to fix things before releasing his products.

In a situation like the damage simulation issue, a company shouldn't just choose a course which will satisfy a group of their customer base, while completely ignoring the rest by not providing a choice or proper warning. The removing of a listed feature, on boards which have already been sold to customers who are expecting that feature to be present, is more of a poor business decision rooted in the flawed mentality that the business can do what ever they want to their products, whenever they want, without taking the needs & rights of all their customers into consideration. It seems there is still an uncomfortable gap between the Western & Eastern business worlds in what is considered "the right thing" (or legal thing) to do in every situation, & maybe there always will be one.

I was just as frustrated & disappointed as anyone with the way the damage simulation was handled by simply removing it, then finding out the IR range was so short on first batch TK20 boards, but I still wouldn't go to the extreme lengths of calling the boards BETA or saying the couple issues with the board reflect Clark's inability to provide a serious product. I guess I would change my mind if feature after feature of the board is found to under perform, need fixing, or completely fail, but I really don't expect that scenario happening. We've been tripped up a couple times, but hopefully Clark will have us all running smoothly with the latest update.

As unhappy as I was initially in receiving 2 TK20-T boards which will not meet their listed abilities as purchased at the time, I won't lose sight of the fact that the TK20 boards can be a game changing improvement, as a complete replacement low cost IR battling solution, for these 1/16 tanks. Clark certainly has made a few mistakes, but is also trying quickly to remedy them. Sure, some people will continue to have a bitter taste left in their mouth no matter how things proceed, which is very understandable. I don't believe people should accept what has happened with open arms or treat what was done with a blind eye, as Clark absolutely needed the bad feedback as well to be given the chance to improve if he was willing at all. He has been given the bad feedback now, with time to ingest it, & his actions going forward will now determine whether or not he listened & learned anything. So I'm remaining patient & tolerant with Clark, regardless of those past mistakes I felt he committed, & once again moving forward with a positive framed outlook & a willingness to try his new TK20E board. Why? Because this hobby desperately needs the various choices & diversity coming from people like Clark, especially since there are so few who are capable, or even willing, to attempt to provide them for us!

The latest TK20E should address the short IR range & allow for >30M battling. The damage simulation was added back to all boards after the 1st batch. Even with the slight increase to $66 for the improved TK20E, hopefully this new board can now actually deliver all of what was once expected of the TK20, which I would consider it a phenomenal work of hardware more than well worth the cost! All this to be determined upon arrival of my new TK20E boards .... so stay tuned!

~ Craig ~