Update from SS3 team

[Richard Methot - NOAA Federal]

Hello SS3 users,

Here's a short update on what we've been working on for SS3.

• In February,  we completed a fix for the calculation of equilibrium conditions for reference points when using the low fecundity (option 7) spawner-recruitment relationship.
• Currently, we are working on an interaction between growth type and seasonality after a user noticed that time-varying Gompertz growth with non-annual seasonality was not performing correctly.
• Next up will be an upgrade to the weight composition approach to make it more robust to the bin sizes.

All of the above were first noticed by users and we appreciate them taking a close look at the details of their model outputs.  We have a pretty good testing regimen, but our suite of test cases does not encompass all possible SS3 configurations.

One other bit of news.  We have decided that attendance at the Office Hours has not been enough to warrant continuing to dedicate time to them.  We will continue to have occasional webinars and will announce them through this Forum.  Next will probably be one on the growth - seasonality interaction because we are taking a comprehensive approach to examining that interaction across all permutations.

Rick