Soylent_keen

Thanks so much for pointing this out. Have CTT and OPT which have their own techTree files and have been dealing with empty nodes, and broken connections. The pre-release sorted everything out!!

Apologies, yes I guess I was posting as I would like to have them (or similar) considered to be included in ksp2, rather than relying on mods.

Sorry for the double post as I added this to another thread already, but wanted to tease this content out into its own thread so it might get more attention. Of course this is my own personal opinion. I have been playing KSP since beta and touch back into the game at least once a year to run a new space program and over the years I have my list of (more or less) essential mods I use whenever I can when playing KSP. A combination of several types of mods but collectively they greatly improve my overall experience with the game. While yes, all these are mods, having to rely on mods for what I would consider base game play leads to an unreliable experience patch to patch. Many of these mods listed below play into each other and really expand on the science elements (more variety has always been better for me), or more meaningfully expand on the kerbals themselves. I find I care much more about the game when I have to consider the needs of the kerbals themselves, giving them a meaningful purpose to be included, and really ups the immersion and realism factor up for me. Factoring in things like life support and basic needs seems pretty obvious to me. They are their own life forms and needing basic necessities of life (whatever that means to them) seems pretty basic as leaving a kerbal in a can orbiting a planet for years seems improbable to me. Besides the needs, actually giving them a purpose! Attaching fuel lines, deploying science experiments, or doing science in labs (vs transmitting science back) are all really meaningful to me in KSP. I think it should be optional to add this but for me I have far less investment in the game without having some collection of these mods below added to my program. *SCANSat: Basically the first mod I ever load. Greatly enhances the unmanned phase of my exploration. Gives a meaningful purpose for sending out probes and playing with orbits so I can map out a planet and use that information for planning ahead to my landing phases (maned or unmanned). KAS (Kerbal Attachment System): Basically an essential mod for me. I love the aspect of having my kerbal's function in a reasonable way. Gives them a more meaningful purpose to actually send manned mission beyond planting a flag. KIS (Kerbal Inventory System): Basically an essential mod for me. I love the aspect of having my kerbal's function in a reasonable way. Gives them a more meaningful purpose to actually send manned mission beyond planting a flag. USI Life Support: Kerbals gotta eat! In my mind this is a necessary/essential element to my game play. Needing to factor in the needs of my kerbals into my ship designs and overall space program adds a realistic and fun challenge. Makes the Kerbals more meaningful from a sandbox perspective. Base game makes them feel much more like cargo. *MechJeb: Pretty much an essential mod. Being able to autopilot operations means I can walk away at times (for life reasons), or have an autopilot handle some of the trickier maneuvers I am not good at. Greatly improves my enjoyment of the game and I consider to be essential to my gameplay. Kerbal Engineer Redux: should really be base functionality. Chatterer: Just makes for a funner, and more immersive game play experience. Easy Vessel Switch (EVS): should be base functionality. Community Tech Tree: Quality of Life (QOL) TextureReplacer: Nice to be able to personalize my kerbals more. USI Kolonization Systems (MKS/OKS): I only play with this lightly, mainly for the expanded parts so I have more base type elements to build. I believe much of this is being addressed in KSP2 already. Transfer Window Planner: Quality of Life (QOL) Maneuver Node Evolved: Just makes flying better. [x] Science!: Basically anything that adds more "science" type things I will add to my game. Exploration and science is the name of the game for me, and doing it in a way that I keep my kerbal's alive. JSI Advanced Transparent Pods: Just a fun aspect to add, though mod support is spotty, so has limited effect. Magic Smoke Industries Infernal Robotics: Having this type of functionality I really wish was base game. The mod itself I have never had reliable results with and usually ditch it, but having robotic arms (etc), would be a fantastic addition to the game. Science Alert: Quality of Life (QOL) Contracts Window +: Quality of Life (QOL) Field Training Lab (FTL): Expands on the focus I like to have with Kerbal's themselves. The base game has a fantastic focus on the ship building/flying/etc, so having more attention on the kerbals themselves is fantastic to me. KSP Craft Organizer: Quality of Life (QOL) WorldStabilizer: Hopefully won't be needed in KSP 2 DMagic Orbital Science Presents: Probe and Rover Science Pack: Again, more science!! Kerbal Planetary Base Systems: Just more parts and the aesthetics are really nice. Plays well with USI Life support. OPT Space Plane Parts: Just love this parts pack. Makes for some fantastic large scale designs. Tarsier Space Technology Continued: Again, more science DeepFreeze Continued: Expands on the focus I like to have with Kerbal's themselves. The base game has a fantastic focus on the ship building/flying/etc, so having more attention on the kerbals themselves is fantastic to me. Surface Experiment Pack - Deployable science for KIS/KAS!: Frankly an essential mod for me. Gives kerbals a reason to be on a surface. Universal Storage II: Just really love and appreciate the molecularity of this mod pack. Thanks for the read!

I wanted to throw my 2 cents into this thread as well. I have been playing KSP since beta and touch back into the game at least once a year to run a new space program and over the years I have my list of (more or less) essential mods I use whenever I can when playing KSP. A combination of several types of mods but collectively they greatly improve my overall experience with the game. While yes, all these are mods, having to rely on mods for what I would consider base game play is unreliable. Many of these mods listed below play into each other and really expand on the science elements (more variety has always been better for me), or more meaningfully expand on the kerbals themselves. I find I care much more about the game when I have to consider the needs of the kerbals themselves, giving them a meaningful purpose to be included, and really ups the immersion and realism factor up for me. *SCANSat: Basically the first mod I ever load. Greatly enhances the unmanned phase of my exploration. Gives a meaningful purpose for sending out probes and playing with orbits so I can map out a planet and use that information for planning ahead to my landing phases (maned or unmanned). KAS (Kerbal Attachment System): Basically an essential mod for me. I love the aspect of having my kerbal's function in a reasonable way. Gives them a more meaningful purpose to actually send manned mission beyond planting a flag. KIS (Kerbal Inventory System): Basically an essential mod for me. I love the aspect of having my kerbal's function in a reasonable way. Gives them a more meaningful purpose to actually send manned mission beyond planting a flag. USI Life Support: Kerbals gotta eat! In my mind this is a necessary/essential element to my game play. Needing to factor in the needs of my kerbals into my ship designs and overall space program adds a realistic and fun challenge. Makes the Kerbals more meaningful from a sandbox perspective. Base game makes them feel much more like cargo. *MechJeb: Pretty much an essential mod. Being able to autopilot operations means I can walk away at times (for life reasons), or have an autopilot handle some of the trickier maneuvers I am not good at. Greatly improves my enjoyment of the game and I consider to be essential to my gameplay. Kerbal Engineer Redux: should really be base functionality. Chatterer: Just makes for a funner, and more immersive game play experience. Easy Vessel Switch (EVS): should be base functionality. Community Tech Tree: Quality of Life (QOL) TextureReplacer: Nice to be able to personalize my kerbals more. USI Kolonization Systems (MKS/OKS): I only play with this lightly, mainly for the expanded parts so I have more base type elements to build. I believe much of this is being addressed in KSP2 already. Transfer Window Planner: Quality of Life (QOL) Maneuver Node Evolved: Just makes flying better. [x] Science!: Basically anything that adds more "science" type things I will add to my game. Exploration and science is the name of the game for me, and doing it in a way that I keep my kerbal's alive. JSI Advanced Transparent Pods: Just a fun aspect to add, though mod support is spotty, so has limited effect. Magic Smoke Industries Infernal Robotics: Having this type of functionality I really wish was base game. The mod itself I have never had reliable results with and usually ditch it, but having robotic arms (etc), would be a fantastic addition to the game. Science Alert: Quality of Life (QOL) Contracts Window +: Quality of Life (QOL) Field Training Lab (FTL): Expands on the focus I like to have with Kerbal's themselves. The base game has a fantastic focus on the ship building/flying/etc, so having more attention on the kerbals themselves is fantastic to me. KSP Craft Organizer: Quality of Life (QOL) WorldStabilizer: Hopefully won't be needed in KSP 2 DMagic Orbital Science Presents: Probe and Rover Science Pack: Again, more science!! Kerbal Planetary Base Systems: Just more parts and the aesthetics are really nice. Plays well with USI Life support. OPT Space Plane Parts: Just love this parts pack. Makes for some fantastic large scale designs. Tarsier Space Technology Continued: Again, more science DeepFreeze Continued: Expands on the focus I like to have with Kerbal's themselves. The base game has a fantastic focus on the ship building/flying/etc, so having more attention on the kerbals themselves is fantastic to me. Surface Experiment Pack - Deployable science for KIS/KAS!: Frankly an essential mod for me. Gives kerbals a reason to be on a surface. Universal Storage II: Just really love and appreciate the molecularity of this mod pack. Thanks for the read!

Ugh, I just got this tonight myself when I added interstellar to my ksp 1.4.2. super appreciate your effort in looking into this. I've always had the plan to add interstellar to my build once this career playthrough reached a mature point of progression but when I stumbled upon this workshop build last month I wondered how I ever lived without it. Love this mod btw, great work!

Actually, since I posted that this morning I already sussed that out and is exactly what I did. Once I got the hang of it it wasn't too bad to update the welded parts. I basically would save the weld off as a sub-assembly and then compare its config file to the welded one and I could see what was missing where and ported it over. I added what I needed though I didn't consider needing to mark anything as hidden.. I haven't noticed it being an issue for me, but I'm using the stock trims. One thing that's still odd that I can't suss out is if I try and weld more than one station part together. A single station part with any number of other parts is fine. two or more station parts and wierd things happen, even with corrected config files for the parts. Either the root part gets flakey (but all other station parts are fine, this was the case with a 2 or 3 long pressurized tube), or if there is a chain of more parts (5 or more), than several parts in the middle either are missing end caps, z-fighting or simple don't render (though their attachment points are there). I may play around with it a bit more and report back what I find, though it would be super helpful to consider having a 'default' base which doesn't rely on B9 at all. Would be amazing to build out sprawling stations without hitting FPS issues. Regardless, amazing mod mate!

@Nertea Fantastic work on this, I really love using this part pack. Gives my stations new life. One questions, and as I'm learning about how mods work and interact with each other I'm guessing the answer will be no or a lot of work on my end but I figure I would ask anyways. In an effort to improve my overall performance I really need to be bringing down my part counts and just stumbled across Weld a few days ago and its helped me out significantly with respect to frame rates. I don't know if there is much more I can do from a hardware perspective (4xSSD in RAID-10 array, 32 GB ram, NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB RAM and an i7-4790K @4.0GHz), so when things slog down I really need to be reducing part counts (also running a heavily modded 1.4.2 KSP). So, the issue here is that the station parts would be a perfect candidate for welding, however the B9 switcher for the upper/lower sections of a part either weld missing, with visible gaps in the station, or all options try and display and z-fight with each other. I tried to take a look myself at the config files and while I think I have some ideas I thoughts I would ask here as well. I guess the simplest would be to rip out B9 from my local copy of station parts? Don't get me wrong, I love having the option, but if I can drop my station part count from >200 to <40 that makes it an attractive idea. Or somehow have a version which does not have the option to pick the trims? Or somehow have a default option so if you don't have B9 it will simply show the default and if you have B9 then it will overlay ontop? The last would seem ideal because it would actually remove the dependency on B9 and open up options for welding. Or even an option to disable B9 options for this mod itself. Sorry, went in a few different directions there, but hopefully someone here can provide some direction.

Thanks a lot for the tip Jade. That whole popping issue was really putting a cramp in my plan to build and deploy and OPT spaceplane from a ground construction facility in minmus!

I can confirm that the world stabilizer solved this problem for me in ksp 1.4.2. After a lot of testing I've been able to identify 2 offending parts, the deployment bay and the large online docking port (same model as the deployment bay). One interesting note, world stabilizer seems to only work with free standing ships. Those attached to the ground with the launch stability enhancer will still pop into the air (1km) then it seems that the stability enhancers get grounded there before world stabilizer kicks in. If you decouple from there the enhancers stay anchored in the air.