The_Rocketeer

Hmm, semantics tbh. I don't think you've addressed the point of my post at all. But I'll have a little nibble here. It's conventional wisdom that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and yet scruffy books are thrown away in preference to neat new copies all the time. Conventional wisdom doesn't mean truth or consensus, it means general acceptance. You can accept all kinds of things without agreeing with them. Personally, my experience of the forum is substantially coloured by the requests and remarks of the dissatisfied, in many different shades, over various often-personal bugbears and issues. I have often not agreed with them, but that doesn't mean dissatisfaction hasn't been and isn't a major theme of my experience of the forum's activity. YMMV. When it comes to statistics, I would have thought the moderator team was more empowered to access that sort of thing than a humble denizen like myself, so you tell me? As for the finished question, we'd have to take that on a case by case basis over each issue to draw any meaningful conclusions, and that wouldn't really belong here in this thread. In your opinion it's all good, in others' it's not. Good for you. Gtg now, work beckons

Again, it's my understanding that the terms of sale (and the actual thing sold) differ substantially depending when you bought a product and in what medium. Licensing a song on iTunes and buying a vinyl record of the same song carry completely different entitlements. The difference is owning a copy that belongs to you, vs owning a licence to have copy that does not belong to you but that you are allowed to possess and use by the IP owner. You might be right locally. You might even be right more generally, and I'm out of date, but you haven't put down any evidence yet that demonstrates this. Of course not, but it does mean that they're not selling a product, and again as far as I'm aware product law and service law just ain't the same thing.

I may be in error, but my understanding is that if you buy software and download it digitally, you are not buying a physical copy of the software but a licence to download and use it. This makes it not a product, but a service. There are relevant issues affecting the music and video industries. If you did not buy a hard copy of the game on physical media, you don't own the game or any copy of it that you possess. As I said, I may be wrong, but this is my understanding.

Hate to break it to you, but you never really did. There were always clauses that allowed the terms to be amended in such a way that would force you to either accept those amendments or stop playing. Continuing to play under the old terms was not and never has been an option.

Huh? Nobody's saying that's a thing, are they? I mean, it's a product. For sale. Either you think it's worth it (and you plunk down the ol' hard-earned doubloons), or else you think it isn't (and you don't). How does "obligation" or "support" enter into it? It's a business transaction, like buying a pair of shoes or a movie ticket. Not seeing any moral dimension, here. Who's "guilt tripping" anyone? Citation please? Why would it? And why would they? They've been working on this stuff. They're a business, not a charity. They work on stuff in order to make money, which implies selling stuff rather than giving things away for free for no reason. So of course they're charging for new stuff, why wouldn't they? In my opinion, it's fair to say, @Snark, that conventional wisdom on the forum about KSP's development is that a lot of stuff in the game has been (and remains) sub-par, a lot of stuff should have been more 'finished' for a game at release and is still waiting to be updated, and a lot of hubub about DLCs and expansions has been about the funding and support of future development, including the fixing of some of these issues. I don't think @Johnny Wishbone is saying anything that a lot of people haven't been thinking for a while/at least thought at one time. For old hands who literally did support this game from it's infancy, it's a bit of a slap down to tell them their baby's all grown up and is selling it's own product that we can decide either buy or not buy. We're emotionally invested in this, and the direction of future development (of DLCs and core content) is a personal issue for many of us. For many of us, the relationship with Squad/KSP hasn't been transactional for a really long time, and it's a tough call whether that's something we'd want to welcome back, especially once you've seen what's actually being offered. Edit: FWIW, I'm an old enough player that I don't have to buy the DLC either. If I'm impressed, I'll probably buy a copy for a friend.

FWIW, any ambiguety challenged in court would tend to favour the consumer, at least in UK and EU Law. This website makes an interesting and relevant read: http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/campaigning/past-campaigns/legal/unfair-terms-in-consumer-contracts.html From above reference: "In Britain, the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1994 say that terms in consumer contracts must be in 'plain and intelligible language'. The regulations also say these terms must be accessible, which means they must use clear design and typography. Consumer contracts are those between a member of the public (a consumer) and a firm that is selling or supplying a product or service to them. If a consumer challenges a term, and it is found to be unclear or ambiguous, the court must interpret it in the way that best favours the consumer. The Office of Fair Trading regularly warns firms to change such terms before they are challenged in court. Similar regulations apply to all countries in the European Union."

Maintaining and developing mods would require playing the game tho, wudn't it? Not reading the EULA doesn't absolve you of your responsibilities under it. The same rules apply to modding whether you use the forum or not.

I'm confused. So are these going to be unsupported, no-further-development mods just maintained for download as the current release? I mean, otherwise it'll be pretty hard for you to deny you've played the game since the new EULA goes live, which if you do you'll have already accepted it. And once the next major release comes out they'll all be broken. So why bother leaving the forums?

I'm in no way setting myself up as an expert, but to the best of my limited understanding... In short, yes. EULAs aren't intended to directly benefit or protect the user at all, they provide legal protection for the producer/provider from action by governments, lawmakers and corporate rivals. The potential costs of not establishing these matters over every transaction, and clarifying the relationship between every customer and the producer/provider, under the worst circumstances, could backfire on producer/provider in the most serious of ways. It's just (very cheap) insurance.

I found some more shrapnel to throw in the well: EULAs exist, amongst other reasons, to make sure that the product/service is being used for the purpose it was sold to be used for, i.e. entertainment, and not for someone else's profit. Besides the obvious commercial rights/intellectual properties issues for the producers, there could be revenues and customs and far-reaching legal implications for companies that allowed undeclared incomes to proliferate amongst their userbase. This would be really, really bad if it wasn't legally established that a producer/service provider was outright saying this was against the terms of their agreement with the customer. So long as you're using the game for fun and not for profit, I don't think there's a single thing to worry about. I'm not denying there are questions that are raised for fanfic works created for non-commercial reasons, but I find it hard to believe that these would become targets even if they do technically exist outside the bounds of the EULA. Where is the harm?

We're all stabbing in the dark, so I'll take a punt: This is probably just Take-Two Interactive bringing KSP into line with their more general legal policies. And it won't affect you or your KSP gaming pleasure at all.

Celestial navigation fascinates me as a concept, but I lack the range and freedom on planet Earth to be able to practice it much. A mod or guide to be able to do this in KSP would be something I would welcome.

This is the most brilliant idea I've ever heard. It's basically the same idea as reducing taxes to nothing forever. It totally has zero drawbacks and everyone would be so so happy.

I think I should have added that I'm in broad agreement about more interesting destinations on other planets. It was that picture in particular that made me think 'I'm sure there's a screenshot that looks a bit like that here somewhere'. The problem is I've been on this forum about 5 years and I'm pretty jaded now as far as some of these really good and popular ideas go, not because they're bad in any sense, but because in my experience the developers haven't shown the slightest inkling of interest in creating many of them for us. In the end you can either attempt to DIY it (and perhaps become a modder-extraordinaire... or not), hope another modder will do this for you, or (in my case nearly always the answer) imagine it the way you want it.

Apart from the vegetation, the children, the footpath and the clouds... what I'm seeing here is pretty much available scenery on Mun, just with the added feature of innavigable terrain.

I have to say that's an epic mobile modular drill rig you have there But these guys are probably onto something with the 'not deep enough' line

A flipped rover is already a mission gone badly wrong. I recommend driving carefully and/or accepting fate.

IIRC, KSC is about 70m above sea level...? Largest tidal ranges on earth are less than 20 meters, so lets be generous in assuming the whole change is upward from normal sea level. KSC is still in no way endangered by the introduction of realistic/semi realistic tidal sea level changes.

I'm the first to admit I don't have a clue about Unity or game engines in general. That said, I do feel like there's a lot of stuff that could have be done with what's available than that has been done, and a lot of 'reasons' why not that don't quite add up, or at least aren't fully explained, and I haven't seen anybody actually asking for voxels yet. So my first thought is about another feature that's lacking, tides. Why is the ocean sphere exactly the same size as the planet's arbitrary sea level? Why can't it be near spherical, and rotate slowly, so that the sea rises and falls gradually? And given that the planet isn't made of one spheroid but two (land and ocean), why aren't terrains made of multiple Unity terrains? Why can't it be made of several overlapping sets, some of them having holes in them, so you can get in to lower levels, and some of them facing inwards instead of outwards, so you can see or touch the ceiling? I'm totally willing to accept the 'well nobody tried that yet' answer, but I read a lot of 'can't be done' without any of the outside-the-box thinking that made planets and orbits possible in Unity in the first place.

@Helmetman I voted before I saw this thread, and only posted here (rather than creating my own thread) because someone else had already had something to say about the Steam Awards this year. While I'd love to see KSP win an award, I don't think organising a collective effort is an entirely organic way for it to achieve that. I nominated based on my own views, not just to bag a win. @softweir If you think that's the class KSP deserves to be awarded for, go ahead and nominate it. I can see where you're coming from, but personally I don't see KSP as a decision-making game so much as a repurposed and accessorised pack of fireworks.

@Rocket In My Pocket total agreement. Even tho KSP isn't that long in the tooth, this is a game absolutely in its prime. Factoring in time since initial alpha release, it's definitely a senior title and top of my 'hours played' by a very long chalk.

I nominated KSP for the Labour of Love Award.

@AdmiralTigerclaw your vision is beautiful and I hope someone mods it, but I have to agree with others that its probably a step too far for stock

The sparks system was obviously implemented either by someone with a primary school understanding of how DC electric circuits work, or deliberately pitched to that level. Calling the units Electric Charge (i.e. voltage) is so cringeworthy it's funny. On the other hand, it is very simple to understand. There's a big difference in the efficiency dynamics and versatility of applications between energy stored in chemical fuels and energy stored in electrical charge. The most obvious is that batteries 'fade' as the stored energy is depleted in a way that gas tanks never do. I think Squad were right to prioritise fun over realism where EC is concerned, because understanding the subtlties of a realistic battery operated spacecraft's power levels would be...hmmm.. daunting. Then again, as a consequence, we're denied the awesomeness of booting up our craft's re-entry systems in the right order to avoid critical mission failure, a la Apollo 13.

No, I'm not. [I've tried to make this point a couple of times now. I realise this is a sophisticated point, so please bear with me while I try to make it once more.] Participation requires positive action. I cannot participate by declining to do something. That is non-participation. By declining to buy the product, I am declining to participate in the market. I am a non-entity, not a negative but a null. I do not matter to the market forces that drive profitability. I only begin to matter if I can be convinced to buy something. With regards to microtransactions, this is a rigged system. If you buy from them, you are supporting to them, encouraging their proliferation, etc. If you do not buy from them, you are not supporting them or encouraging their proliferation, but you are also not denouncing them or discouraging their proliferation. You are not participating. There is no purchase you can make that does these things. If you buy another product that does not have microtransactions, you are outside the system - the reasons why you might have bought that product instead probably have nothing to do with microtransactions given the diversity of quality, style and experience on offer between various products. So in this case you have no voice one way or the other. Only if the two very similar products are in direct competition for the same players and the same money, one having microtransactions and the other not, are you given the opportunity to vote 'against' microtransactions. As far as I am aware, this has never ever happened, and frankly, why would it? I feel like this is pretty fundamental to the point of discussion, and I'm feeling tired of talking in circles around it. That being said I have a more profound respect for you after this conversation than in the past, which I mean as a compliment.