I seriously can't believe you just said that to me. I have spent more time working with the construction rules than anybody, TPTB included, and couldn't be any more familiar with them.
Over and above Chunga's very correct point that claiming to be the greatest construction rules guru the game has ever seen is not conducive to polite discussion, you can't expect jymset to remember the claimed construction aptitude of every poster here or have any idea just how much you use the rules in general. You made mistakes and were corrected, rather politely I might add - please accept such corrections with good grace.
The PROBLEM is that there are multiple sources for errata, some contradicting each other,
Errata is admittedly not in the greatest shape right now. However, I assure you that the devs and myself are working hard to get that in order. I've spent the last month handling nothing but TechManual and TacOps errata, to the exclusion of any other MUL duties. As we speak, Welshman is pouring over dozens of TacOps questions I've handed him, some of which were yours, and probably praying for my untimely demise.
Basic errata priority is that the most recent version of the collected errata is the basis to start off of. From there, rulings made by the devs since then are added in - I am in the process of collecting all of these as I find them and adding them to each core book's errata thread. Newer rulings always take priority. As this might not have been clear, I am making edits to posts to clarify this.
and apparently no desire to keep the PDF's I paid for, ON TOP of the cost of the DTF, updated with the most recent data.
There's no malicious intent to withhold pdf updates. The problem is that Catalyst is a smaller company, and incorporating errata requires the same people that produce new books. Not surprisingly, new material takes priority. Catalyst is working hard to get everything up to date, but it can't help but be a slow process. Our apologies for the delay.
And what about http://www.classicbattletech.com/index.php?action=text&page=TechManual? If its no longer valid take it down, and give a link to the *forum* errata page. Its a huge PITA to try to parse all this crap, and its *impossible* to consisently build any kind of unit in the universe due to excessive issues (need I even mention that grenade launchers *still* aren't fixed from TM, and I've mentioned that 3 times before!).
We're aware of the website errata being out of date in some cases, and are trying to find the time to resolve this. The particular link to the CBT webpage you posted is the most recent collected TM errata - it is not obsolete. However, there have been new rulings made since then. These newer rulings only add to the collected errata; for the most part they do not replace it.
As for your issue with grenade launchers, I have nothing on them at the moment - it is possible your request was lost in the shuffle between forums and/or errata coordinators. By all means, please post your problem in the TechManual thread and I'll be happy to add it to either the internal errata collection or the list of questions to be forwarded to the devs for resolution.
Oh, you mean like how the battle armor table lists the number of shots per missile at (0), or the number of shots for one-shot rocket launchers at (1)?
It isn't like I'm not trying to get answers:
http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,6100.0.html
http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,286.0.html
http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,696.0.html
plus all those ones before the board crashed :(
You'll note you've already had literally dozens of questions answered. I've gone all the way back to the release of TechManual in my search for unanswered questions to add to the current internal errata: I hope to be able to resolve some of your others. ANY question that can be treated as outright errata (e.g. contradictions, missing info, but not issues with unclear wordings, which belong in the rules forums) you can post in the current threads and I
will ensure they are passed along. Don't worry about possible repeats - if it's not in the archived errata threads or already posted as dev-level errata, make a concise report with page refs to the current thread.
We're committed to making the books as good as we can, but 300+ pages of construction rules is not easy to get right the first time around. Your dedication to the game is appreciated, and hopefully you'll use it to ensure that the next TechManual release meets your approval. Thank you.