DaMachinator
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Posts posted by DaMachinator
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I'd like to delete or at least deactivate my forum account, but see nowhere on the profile settings or anywhere else to do this.
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It all spontaneously disintegrates because long long ago the atmosphere was a brick wall.
I put the next poster into an empty nearly invincible bunker 10m^2 in internal area along with a 500-lb bomb on a proxmity fuze.
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Fortunately, concrete is far more brittle than a person.
I give the next poster an existential crisis.
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There's some mutual misunderstanding here, then.
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Floor 1424: The room is well-illuminated, but it and everything in it is coated in a substance so black you cannot see the edges of the room or of anything in it, as they absorb over 99.999% of visible light. You stumble your way through the room as if you had been flash-blinded and make your way up the stairs to the next floor.
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I have nothing against authors getting paid for their content. I think it's a great idea. The problem lies in implementing it and the side effects of doing so.
11 hours ago, razark said:Flight sims have quite a large library of free content, as well as paid content. Some of the older paid content even gets released for free later in its life.
You're missing the point here.
The established modders may want to make their mods paid, but cannot do so practically because their mods are licensed in such a way that enforcing payment becomes impossible. And they will in all likelihood raise hell over it in one way or another, either because they personally dislike paid mods or because they feel left out.
Especially all those mods licensed under Creative Commons and GPL licenses, which promote copying. Once paid mods become a thing, modders have a vested interest in keeping other people from copying their work and redistributing it.
But they can't, because of the license on it. It may be possible, if the mod is 100% their content, to relicense it. If it isn't, things become complicated.
11 hours ago, razark said:Let them be. They own their mods, let them do what they want with them, and set the conditions for people to obtain them.
This is not beneficial for the community and not beneficial for the modders. If you don't know what I mean, look around at the modded MC community. Modders there have made a huge deal over losing tiny amounts of ad revenue. This isn't so common any more, but it certainly used to be...
11 hours ago, razark said:That sounds more like a community problem than anything else.
Actually, that's the Internet, where a normal person, protected by (sometimes percieved) anonymity [this is not required, it just helps], knowing that they in all likelihood will never see the other person in the real world, and provided with an audience, will act like a narcissistic psychopath.
11 hours ago, razark said:Yes, and if I were to pay for a mod, I would expect both. If I buy an add-on aircraft for FSX, I would expect the same. If I buy anything I expect it to be worth the money, and for it to either work as advertised, or the seller to make the situation right. Buyers can hold modders to that standard.
In this case, modding ceases to be a hobby and becomes a business. It takes an entirely different set of skills to manage a business and perform the various support jobs therein than it does to be a free content creator.
It also takes much, much more time, and I guarantee you that most modders will not be making enough off of their mods to make even minimum wage, unless they live somewhere where the minimum wage is very low. Even if the game developers take nothing and they self-publish.
Minimum wage where I live in the US is insufficient to cover housing unless you are willing to find a roommate - and you still earn over $10000 a year at minimum wage here.
And yet, modders still are expected not to do things that software companies do to protect their intellectual property and thus their income, like DRM (usually in the form of user authentication, license keys, product activation, etc. DRM does not have to be "you must have an internet connection so we can re-authenticate you every 5 minutes. It means anything used to check that the user is using a legally purchased copy of the product, and, in some cases, that they are allowed to use it.)
11 hours ago, razark said:And yet, it's an established, working, expected thing among flight-simmers.
I'm glad to hear that someone managed to get the whole "actually pay content creators" thing worked out.
Presumably, this community and the modders therein are professional, mature, and in general far more reasonable than every other modding community ever. I wonder if they had this set up from the beginning; that is, the company behind the base software never disallowed paid mods in the first place or even actively encouraged them from the very beginning.
11 hours ago, razark said:I still don't know what's wrong with a creator releasing their work for a fee, if they desire to.
In and of itself, nothing. It's the effects of doing this in a well-established modding community that is a bad idea. Not even wrong, per se, just a really really bad idea.
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My forum account was made in the 1.0.x era. I've been lurking for much longer, though. I started lurking when Green Iron Crown was recent enough that everyone knew what it was, so there were no readily available explanations of who or what it was.
I remember vBulletin (which I liked better than this even though I never got to use it), and the Rocket Builders subforum, when USI-LS and Kerbalism didn't exist. I remember obsessively reading some fanwork about Jeb and others going to Jool in which Jeb went crazy and the ship had fusion engines and an AI. I don't remember who wrote this fanwork, but it involved a decrepit space station being where it shouldn't and radiation poisoning and death. I remember when Deadly Reentry was required for reentry heat, and being excited when reentry heat was added to stock.
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19 minutes ago, razark said:
Would you like me to specify Microsoft Flight Simulator?
I disagree with making a distinction as you do in 2.
If you go to https://www.a2asimulations.com/store/, you'll find a site for mods as you describe in 3, made for a game.
Clearly I did a bad job defining this.
20 minutes ago, razark said:That doesn't affect new mods, or block the entry of new modders.
So? You can't just wave away the existing modding community. I guarantee you that will not go over well. And modders will become really protective of their mods. Excessively so. For reasons I don't understand, the modded MC community is already like this in some areas. There have been several incidents with modders that caused large amounts of drama.
24 minutes ago, razark said:Don't pay for low quality mods and vote with you wallet.
For reasons explained below, this doesn't work.
25 minutes ago, razark said:Those are problems all software makers deal with.
Modders are hobbyists. They are not really software makers. And it takes a different skillset to manage legal issues and PR than it does to code.
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Were you around for the hell that was raised when Steam did the whole "Paid mods for Skyrim" thing?
The first paid mod for Skyrim was taken down by the author, who subsequently received death threats and ended up deleting his social media accounts.
Why was it taken down?
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It relied upon a free mod for some of its functionality.
- This is far more common in MineCraft than in KSP, but there are still interdependencies.
- Imagine if some mod like one of the fancy spaceplane mods with the custom RPM IVA's became paid, but RasterPropMonitor remained free. It could be argued that the author of the fancy spaceplane mods was exploiting the RPM devs and effectively stealing from them.
- There was HUGE backlash against the author for this. He was essentially accused of whatever the software equivalent of plagarism was, even for another mod of his which was 100% his content.
- Valve and Bestheda did not help with this, which was partially their fault.
Essentially, paid mods become user-created DLC. What do you expect of DLC?
- Support.
- To get your money's worth.
Mods are, almost by nature, unstable. They often break when the game updates.
Why "voting with your wallet" doesn't work:
With free mods, if you don't like the mod or the content is less than it was made out to be, you go on living. It's free, after all.
With paid mods, if you don't like the mod or the content is less than it was made out to be, you've already spent the money. It's too late. You can trash-talk the author all you want, but you aren't getting your money back unless the author makes the illogical decision to allow refunds.
And that's not even getting into the labyrinth of DRM, malware, copyright infringement and the DMCA, the online disinhibition effect [Wikipedia], transferring money over the internet, and what portion (if any) of the modder's income should go to the game devs.
TL;DR: It's been tried before. It failed horribly in a rather spectacular manner
EDIT: Elaboration.
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It relied upon a free mod for some of its functionality.
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2 hours ago, razark said:
How do you draw the line between a mod and a payware flight sim add-on? They're really the same thing, an extension to a game that was developed by someone other than the game developer. There's also freely available add-ons.
When you say "flight simulator", I think of software whose primary purpose is commercial or educational use as opposed to entertainment. It can be used for entertainment but that is not its primary purpose.
I draw the line between "mods" and add-ons/plugins mostly as follows:
- Mods are made for games.
- Add-ons and plugins do not significantly alter the base software like some mods [total conversion]. They add functionality or features not present in the base software [adblockers, support for additional file types for editing software, and similar]
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Mods typically do one or more of the following:
- Add content to the base game [parts, "skins", character models, etc.]
- Modify the base game in an aesthetic manner [revamp/retexture and similar]
- Significantly alter the base game [total conversions, adding new mechanics that significantly affect gameplay.
Some mods can be classified as plugins by this system. In addition, some plugins can be classified as mods [for example, mods that add information readouts and plugins that significantly change the way in which the user uses the program].
Why paid mods are a bad idea for KSP:
- Paid software is held to higher, sometimes unreasonable, standards.
- The modding community is already well-established, and many or most of the mods have licenses that would make monetization difficult, especially if the current author/maintainer(s) is not the original author(s).
- Paid mods incentivize low-quality clickbait, so some form of content curation will be necessary.
- The nature of KSP does not lend itself well to ensuring sure paid mods remain paid. It is highly impractical and in some cases impossible for mod authors to prevent piracy and rehosting.
Paid mods will not necessarily self-curate, either.
TL;DR: While paid mods sound like a good idea it's better just to donate to the authors of the mods you use.
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2 hours ago, kraden said:
@JadeOfMaar I also just sent a probe to Moho. My first planetary transfer (just because it's window was up next) and I totally forgot that @CatastrophicFailure swears it's cursed.... until I noticed that because of the difference in orbital planes I couldn't have picked a worse time to launch
. Good thing that probe has tons of extra delta V, I'm gonna need it.
Edit: while sending a satellite to mun for a contract, I got a message saying that my Moho probe's reaction will failed to 50% (Kerbalism). Thought to myself, "50% isn't too bad for a probe that size, I can compensate with a little RCS", then just a little while later I got a new one saying it failed to a further 25%. Turns out I'll be relying heavily on RCS for this probe. I haven't even made it to Moho yet and I can already tell it's cursed!
I sent a probe to Moho in stock sandbox (Caduceus + Lifter). Not quite cursed, although I should have let the MechJeb unit I was using to test it [It is supposed to be a general-purpose disposable interplanetary exploration probe] land it since it fell over on landing.
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I coincidentally have a temporary existence failure just before the bullet reaches my expected location.
I pour a bucket of 20-sided dice on the next poster from 2 miles above the ground.
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For pure flight simulators, that's more like third-party plugins that cost money. Plus the userbase of a flight simulator will be considerably different from that of a game.
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19 hours ago, ss8913 said:
I've built a semisynchronous sat network using principia.. it doesn't need adjusting too often. semisynchronous is easier; the closer to Kerbin you are, the less the Mun screws up your orbits
plus semisynchronous is high enough for a 3 sat network to stay in constant contact with KSC.
Since when did one need a satellite network to be synchronous?
You just need enough sats that for your given antenna range and orbital altitude at one is in the required viewing range at all times. Preferably in such a way that two will be in range sometimes.
Check out the link in my sig, I made a tool to help with this.
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Nope.
Press the button, and you hear a very satisfying click. You will also receive the mechanical keyboard of your choice, but there is a 25% chance it will be in an inaccessible location like Jupiter's upper atmosphere.
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11 hours ago, razark said:
What's wrong with paid mods? There's a number of companies that have made a business out of it.
Steam tried it. It very much did not end well.
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I roll 1d20 == 20 to evade. Your attack misses.
I shoot the next poster with the USN's prototype railgun.
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Would it be possible to make it an option to connect to the forums using HTTPS?
Given as it is possible to login with your email address, that not everyone implements best practices of using different passwords for every site, and that Wireshark is a thing (yes, even on secured networks), could it be possible to allow using HTTPS to connect to the forums?
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Unfortunately, they still take up space and have mass. They also still emit radiation in other regions of the EM spectrum. I detect them with a wide-spectrum scanner and shoot enough explosives at them to send them on a solar escape trajectory.
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I'd pay at least $60 USD for a KSP 2.0 that uses a physics engine designed specifically for orbital spaceflight with an infinite load range or the ability to force load vessels without being directly player controlled. If this engine also included a FAR-level aero model I'd pay at least $20 USD more.
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How many physics frames must be calculated every second for the game to run in realtime (1 physics second == 1 IRL second)?
How does the physics delta setting affect this?
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I perform a slight course correction, the watermelon misses me by several kilometers.
I detonate a nuclear weapon in space over the next poster. and yes my space capsule is shielded appropriately why do you ask
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I use the presence of an object from the Star Wars universe to selectively manipulate the laws of physics, and it stops in place.
I put all chemical reactions in a radius of 3 metres from the next poster's location into equilibrium, killing everything relying on chemical reactions in that area.
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I am in a tank. The tank's reactive armor resists the blow.
I shoot the next poster with a HEAT round.
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?/10 I don't know either.
. Good thing that probe has tons of extra delta V, I'm gonna need it.
plus semisynchronous is high enough for a 3 sat network to stay in constant contact with KSC.
Delete or deactivate account?
in Kerbal Network
Posted
It looks like my best option is to wait 4 days for the GDPR rules to go into effect and go that route. That should get my email address wiped, at the very least - and that's all I care about, since I'm deleting that email account and I don't want an email address of mine that doesn't exist any more getting password resets, etc.