How do you install mods without steam?

[Alpha 360]

I have downloaded a ton of mods yet I haven't seen their effects in the game.

I have absolutely no idea how to get them into the game, all of the tutorials have steam in them and also some thing about a squad folder that is nonexistant

please help!  

[322997am]

You go to your KSP directory and there should be a game data folder in both KSP and the mod? Take whatever is in the game data folder and paste it into the KSP one.

[Pecan]

Most of this PDF on dropbox that I wrote for version 0.90 is still relevant.  Lots of explanation of how to install mods there :-)

[Stone Blue]

1 hour ago, Pecan said:

Most of this PDF on dropbox that I wrote for version 0.90 is still relevant.  Lots of explanation of how to install mods there :-)

Nice guide!!

ONE little thing, if you dont mind constructive criticism, and if you ever update the guide...(You MAY even already know about this)..But

"C:\Program Files\, C:\Program Files (x86), and C:\ProgramData" are not the best places to install KSP to... Anything installed in those folders will need to have administrative rights to run, and since KSP doesnt use a traditional Windows install method using registry keys, this can sometimes cause issues with running KSP...
A better example, would be to just make a new folder in the root C: drive, ie "C:\KSP"...

[klgraham1013]

If any tutorials on KSP modding have Steam in them, I would be wary of those tutorials.

[RocketSquid]

4 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

If any tutorials on KSP modding have Steam in them, I would be wary of those tutorials.

I can only assume that he means they are directing him into steamapps to find the KSP folder.

[klgraham1013]

41 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

I can only assume that he means they are directing him into steamapps to find the KSP folder.

Probably right.

[Mastikator]

Ckan makes everything super easy. Just get ckan, click on the mods you like, press "Apply changes" and go to town

[RocketSquid]

If you do decide to use CKAN, be careful. It may make things harder but many mods don't support it and may end up mangled if you try to install them using CKAN.

[Stone Blue]

2 hours ago, Mastikator said:

Ckan makes everything super easy. Just get ckan, click on the mods you like, press "Apply changes" and go to town

CKAN may be a great tool, HOWEVER, as illustrated in the latest CKAN situation, its not really good advice to suggest CKAN as an alternative to understanding basic manual mod installation... Its SOOOO simple and easy to learn how to do a manual install... If you understand basic folder structure, and how to extract archive files (.zips/.rars), its like a 15 min learning curve and you are done...

THIS has been MY biggest issue with CKAN...

And, PLEASE, I stated my opinion on CKAN vs a simple manual install AS FAR AS BEGINNING USERS go... Anyone is welcome to counter-point, but I'm done, so please lets not turn this into a CKAN shouting match or flame war...

[kcs123]

15 minutes ago, Stone Blue said:

CKAN may be a great tool, HOWEVER, as illustrated in the latest CKAN situation, its not really good advice to suggest CKAN as an alternative to understanding basic manual mod installation... Its SOOOO simple and easy to learn how to do a manual install... If you understand basic folder structure, and how to extract archive files (.zips/.rars), its like a 15 min learning curve and you are done...

THIS has been MY biggest issue with CKAN...

And, PLEASE, I stated my opinion on CKAN vs a simple manual install AS FAR AS BEGINNING USERS go... Anyone is welcome to counter-point, but I'm done, so please lets not turn this into a CKAN shouting match or flame war...

As any tool, you need to learn how to properly use it. It is also true that you first need to understand what is ziped archive and what ordinary folder. You need to understand first how various moder pack his stuff in archive. Some pack only his own stuff and inform you somewhere that you also need some dependency. If you miss that info and only unpack his stuff you end up with broken mod install.

Other moders pack his own stuff and any dependency mod that they have used together in one archive. Most of the times they pack last version of it. Sometime they not. And you end up again with faulty install. Here is full thread page of example of faulty manual install, following this post. Same issue reported on different thread. Probably will be repeated in various random threads too.

As tool for automatic install, CKAN can make mistakes too. Automatic metadata creator or CKAN boot crawler can make a mistake and create bad metadata, as well as humans who do that manualy. To make things slightly worse, CKAN can also create faulty uninstall, due to policy that it should not wipe out any file created inside mod folder that was not existed at the moment of install.

Due to fact how MM works, that it consider some mod as installed by only checking if some folder exist inside gamedata, without checking actual content inside that mod folder, it apply some MM paches on parts that should not be aplied. You end up again with faulty mod install.

Uninstall issue with CKAN can be solved more/less easy. Whenever you encounter frequent (de)install of various mods, it is good to export your installed mods in *.ckan file. Uninstall everything end check out gamedata folder by yourself to wipe out any other files except SQUAD folder. Then install everything again trough previously exported *.ckan file. That will solve 95% of faulty install issues. Other 5% falls into that mentioned faulty install. Have to be fair and say that CKAN staff members do their best, and bad metadata that cause faulty install is solved almost soon as discovered.

-------------------

I'm neither promote manual or CKAN install method. I will let that to anyone to choose method that suits their needs. Point is that ordinary, especialy new users are not informed enough how mods works in KSP. Without enough info, they can't figure out where they have made a mistake with manual install, neither they are capable to supervise automatic tools like CKAN.

It is up to other community members to provide better info to newcomers to avoid any type of flame wars in future.

[Stone Blue]

^^ THIS! EXACTLY... My whole issue that CKAN is actually, kind of an advanced tool... And all too often its the first thing that new users get told to use, instead of taking 15 mins to learn the basic manual method, FIRST...

Edited June 28, 2016 by Stone Blue

[Snark]

Moving to Add-on Discussions.

[blu3wolf]

33 minutes ago, Stone Blue said:

^^ THIS! EXACTLY... My whole issue that CKAN is actually, kind of an advanced tool... And all too often its the first thing that new users get told to use, instead of taking 15 mins to learn the basic manual method, FIRST...

15 minutes of required knowledge does not an advanced tool make. It is a tool for all users, not just advanced users.

[Stone Blue]

4 minutes ago, blu3wolf said:

15 minutes of required knowledge does not an advanced tool make. It is a tool for all users, not just advanced users.

DELETED...nevermind.. not worth starting another argument over...

[Alpha 360]

um, I do not understand you 322997am, I didn't see anything like that, the only thing I see is the Game Data folder with all of the mods inside it. 

[Mastikator]

12 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

CKAN may be a great tool, HOWEVER, as illustrated in the latest CKAN situation, its not really good advice to suggest CKAN as an alternative to understanding basic manual mod installation... Its SOOOO simple and easy to learn how to do a manual install... If you understand basic folder structure, and how to extract archive files (.zips/.rars), its like a 15 min learning curve and you are done...

THIS has been MY biggest issue with CKAN...

And, PLEASE, I stated my opinion on CKAN vs a simple manual install AS FAR AS BEGINNING USERS go... Anyone is welcome to counter-point, but I'm done, so please lets not turn this into a CKAN shouting match or flame war...

I only mentioned CKAN because nobody else did. Putting a folder into another folder certainly isn't hard, nor is clicking on a check box in a list The main benefit of CKAN I see is that it finds required mods and installs them too. Things like Module Manager and Community Resource Pack were things that I used to miss before CKAN. Now I can go into full brainless mode

[Pecan]

22 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

Nice guide!!

ONE little thing, if you dont mind constructive criticism...

Thank you - all suggestions for improvements are always welcome and, yes, I will be updating it when I think KSP is in a stable release.  In this case I used "\Program Files" because that's where the automatic installer puts KSP IIRC.