The more feedback is given by those participating in the Alpha testing, the faster this will go. At the current rate, I'd say about a month or so - but this is just tentative, I'm very bad with deadlines.

I don't understand this part. Isn't sway and deviation an angle which doesn't depend upon the distance to the target? Sure, the the muzzle point and the impact point will be different depending on the angle at different distances; however, the sway and diviation itself are unchanged regardless of the distance.

The only practical application of the normal distance I can see is in the range of the weapon (if it has any effect on it) and the distances at which scopes become less useful.

2. What happens when the muzzle point is at the edge of the red arch...

Base CTH = a value based primarily on the shooter's stats and various other factors. It is anywhere between 0 and 30.
Aiming CTH = a value based primarily on the shooter's stats and various other factors. It increases as more Extra Aiming Levels are added.
CTH Cap = a value based primarily on the shooter's Marksmanship. It can be anywhere between 0 and 100.

Muzzle Sway = Base CTH + Aiming CTH, both depending on the shooter's stats and all the conditional modifiers.
Muzzle Sway is limited to between 0 and CTH Cap.
Bullet Deviation = A value derived from the gun's properties only.

RandomMuzzleSway = a random number between 0 and (100-Muzzle Sway)
RandomBulletDev = a random number between 0 and Bullet Deviation

Muzzle Point = a random point within RandomMuzzleSway distance from the target's center
Impact Point = a random point within RandomBulletDev distance from the Muzzle Point.

Fire a bullet directly towards Impact Point

But the probability of hitting it is 55% (it can be hit with R=0..5, 6 out of the 11 equal possibilities). In fact, the probability of hitting the exact center (Muzzle Sway = 0), one point out of the thousand of points within the area of MuzzleSway, is 9%. Do you think this is realistic?

RandomMuzzleSway = (random(Muzzle Sway Radius*100)) / 100

PPS: To make the bullet deviation completely random, I'd propose the following method.

Again, the pseudo code you quoted above was just an abstract explanation of the process, not the way it actually works. In practice, the randomized deviation is done as:

RandomMuzzleSway = (random(Muzzle Sway Radius*100)) / 100

So the chance of drawing an exact 0 is 1/1000 for a shot whose maximum radius is 10 (1 tile). It may not be 100% realistic to calculate things that way (I'm not very good with maths to begin with), but this is a simpler method that achieves a fairly randomal result.

Regarding my previous question. Does the Normal distance affect the accuracy of shots with iron sights? Or accuracy at all? Because it seems like 75% of the total aperture from 45 degrees will be the same regardless of any distance... And of course the size of people relative to that aperture is constant too.

can I be part of the closed testing?

I have no idea what UDB is. Is it an enhanced EDB?

That remains to be seen. If I went around handing the alpha to anyone who asked, it wouldn't really be "closed". I need people I can trust to deliver useful feedback.

How do I go around convincing you I'm decent at delivering feedback?

@kermi: you could write a short howto on the 1.13 wiki to help others

What's not intuitive?
1) Put your cursor over a target.
2) Right click and/or mouse wheel to reduce the size of the aiming aperture.
3) Left click to fire.

From a "new person" stand point, what more do you need to know?

Now, if you're trying to understand exactly how 3D/2D math is being used to calculate flight paths of the bullets being fired, and how that is used to determine if a target gets hit or not.... or if you're trying to understand exactly how ever variable effects the 3D/2D calculations.... well, honestly there isn't an "intuitive" way to explain all that short of writting a short novel.

PercentHandling directly effects the handling portion of the NCTH system. Handling is pulled directly from the "Handling" tag in Weapons.xml. Bigger weapons are harder to handle/control (i.e., keep stable) therefore have higher Handling values. So, if PercentHandling is a positive number it will increase the overall Handling value of a weapon, making the weapon harder to handle. And therefore a negative PercentHandling should make a weapon easier to handle by lowering the effective Handling value.

EDIT: One more thing. Because "Handling" was originally controled through the ubReadyTime tag, NCTH still uses the PercentReadyTimeAPReduction tag from items.xml as a generic handling modifier. This tag is not stance dependant, though. So if you want a generic, stand independant handling modifier, you can use this tag as well. Unfortunately, PercentReadyTimeAPReduction ALSO effects that actual ubReadyTime which is the APs required to "ready" a weapon. Originally Headrock felt that the time it took to ready a weapon would have a direct relationship to the weapons handling characteristics (big, slow weapons take more APs to ready and are also harder to handle/keep stable). When I integrated NCTH into the release code, enough people complained about these two characteristics being controled by a single tag that I added the "Handling" tag so they could be controlled seperately. I didn't create a seperate "PercentReadyTimeAPReduction" tag specific for handling, though, which is they that one tag still effects both values.

NAS can (and does) use the exact same layout in both tactical and strategic screens. NIV, on the other hand, had to squeeze 55 pockets into an area that basically takes up the entire width of the screen in tactical, and pretty much the entire usable height of the screen in strategic. And both screens have to have a completely different set of coordinates.

First of all Headrock thanks for all your work! I can't really tell how much i like want you did and probably will do