Cheating; A meditation on it's definition in modded KSP

[Xavven]

On 9/3/2017 at 5:46 PM, Van Disaster said:

( Response to Xavven's post): I feel you're taking the stock elitist ego-stroking approach that mods must by nature make the game easier, and that anyone using mods is an unskilled scrub. That's an awfully long way from true ( quite a few make it considerably harder ) & you're probably cheating yourself out of experiences nicely put together mods would provide you; for instance, I've had a whole bunch of things relating to life-support mods over the years I'd never have got with plain stock. You're also implying that everything in stock is carefully balanced, and while it's better now than a couple of years ago I'm not sure I'd agree. I don't actually find this a particularily good game without mods.

 

That's a complete straw-man argument. I never called anyone an unskilled scrub, I called it playing in a different class or division.

[agrasyuk]

its personal. "cheating" is when you feel like you "cheating", meaning you let MJ or whatever mod do what you feel like you should be doing yourself. and since its single player you only "cheating" yourself out of fun. I don't do infini fuel, warp drives or Hyper edit, I like to ascend, setup rendezvous/maneuver nodes and dock myself since those are activities I enjoy to perform. executing nodes however I relegate to MJ as I like how it is warp to and execute in one button press. takes the mundaneness out of it for me + real spaceship has to have capacity to execute preprogrammed maneuvers so I don't feel like cheating at all.

YMMV

[regex]

5 hours ago, Xavven said:

I called it playing in a different class or division.

That's true, there are certain divisions of difficulty:

Level 1: Modded with overly powerful parts

Level 2: Stock

Level 3: Modded with life support, colonization, career gameplay enhancements, etc...

Level 4: Realism Overhaul/RSS

Level 5: Realism Overhaul/RSS with Principia

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, regex said:

That's true, there are certain divisions of difficulty:

Level 1: Modded with overly powerful parts

Level 2: Stock

Level 3: Modded with life support, colonization, career gameplay enhancements, etc...

Level 4: Realism Overhaul/RSS

Level 5: Realism Overhaul/RSS with Principia

Level 5,000: What NASA actually does.

[regex]

4 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Level 5,000: What NASA actually does.

Reality doesn't run on Unity engine though.

[Maelstrom Vortex]

Cheating: Making easy anything you would consider a worthy challenge outside of normal game mechanics via non-interface manipulations. 

Notable exceptions: When the game breaks or bugs in a very serious manner costing you a lot of effort in resolving a challenge. Then fixing it via "cheating" is justifiably not cheating. 

Example: Mod change caused a craft to become invalid on the way to its destination. Acceptable cheat in my opinion: replacing craft with rebuilt craft at destination with fuel levels adjusted accordingly.

Example: Craft destroyed by update, award campaign value of funds to create original craft and start over again.

[Xavven]

4 hours ago, regex said:

That's true, there are certain divisions of difficulty:

Level 1: Modded with overly powerful parts

Level 2: Stock

Level 3: Modded with life support, colonization, career gameplay enhancements, etc...

Level 4: Realism Overhaul/RSS

Level 5: Realism Overhaul/RSS with Principia

I totally agree with this. I don't think anyone would think that modding the game to be harder is cheating.

[Kerbal pancake]

Cheating for me is what I decide is too unrealistic. Such as lost crew respawning of turning on infinite electricity to open the solar panels when you can just Eva a kerbal and extend it manualy

[p1t1o]

You know what I think is "cheating"? Asking people what is cheating.

You're supposed to know instinctively, I do, asking people is cheating.

[John FX]

On 03/09/2017 at 7:48 PM, klesh said:

cheating will now constitute completing a mission outside the parameters given by the mission author

That was always the only thing you could ever do which was cheating. If you break the rules of a challenge then post your entry and claim you have not broken the rules, you have cheated.

In all other situations you have been having fun playing the game.

[Nikolai]

It seems to me that a sandbox game like Kerbal Space Program is functionally closer to a toy than a game.  A game implies rules -- rules by which play is conducted and points scored and all that sort of thing.  A toy is an implement for play, not an arena for play.  Once you have a toy, you can invent games to use it -- but there's no set of rules that one must play by with a particular toy.

As such, I think what people have said about following the rules of a challenge is spot-on.  At that point, you've invented a game to play with the toy, and breaking the rules of that game is cheating.

But cheating with the toy itself?  That seems about as nonsensical as asking, "What constitutes cheating at playing baseball mitt?  State your reasoning."

[p1t1o]

54 minutes ago, Nikolai said:

But cheating with the toy itself?  That seems about as nonsensical as asking, "What constitutes cheating at playing baseball mitt?  State your reasoning."

Theres got to be at least an unspoken rule that eating cottage cheese out of it is a no-no.

Is it modded?

[Ser]

2 hours ago, Nikolai said:

It seems to me that a sandbox game like Kerbal Space Program is functionally closer to a toy than a game.  A game implies rules -- rules by which play is conducted and points scored and all that sort of thing.  A toy is an implement for play, not an arena for play.  Once you have a toy, you can invent games to use it -- but there's no set of rules that one must play by with a particular toy.

As such, I think what people have said about following the rules of a challenge is spot-on.  At that point, you've invented a game to play with the toy, and breaking the rules of that game is cheating.

But cheating with the toy itself?  That seems about as nonsensical as asking, "What constitutes cheating at playing baseball mitt?  State your reasoning."

A toy is a model of something. That means it contains rules in itself to be used in consistence with what it models. For example, if you have a toy dump truck, you cannot pull things with it by definition. But if you unscrew the dump body from it, it becomes a tractor. And therefore it is cheating, IF it is done for simplification purposes. So we should always talk about simplification aspect when speaking of cheating. Otherwise it is just a modification.

So removing funds from KSP career mode is cheating too. But if funds are replaced by some other mechanics, it is a modification.

Exploits are also cheating. They are not modifications but are abusing the imperfectness of the model. Thus asparagus designs are cheating, as well as Kraken drives are, and also landing EVA kerbals from orbit alive is, despite the game allows these.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Ser

[p1t1o]

26 minutes ago, Ser said:

A toy is a model of something. That means it contains rules in itself to be used in consistence with what it models. For example, if you have a toy dump truck, you cannot pull things with it by definition. But if you unscrew the dump body from it, it becomes a tractor. And therefore it is cheating, IF it is done for simplification purposes. So we should always talk about simplification aspect when speaking of cheating. Otherwise it is just a modification.

So removing funds from KSP career mode is cheating too. But if funds are replaced by some other mechanics, it is a modification.

Exploits are also cheating. They are not modifications but are abusing the imperfectness of the model. Thus asparagus designs are cheating, as well as Kraken drives are, and also landing EVA kerbals from orbit alive is, despite the game allows these.

You had rules for playing with dumptrucks?

***

I think its clear that cheating has no fixed definition in any context, other than what is agreed to be cheating at the time.

Ergo, the question become meaningless, or at least rhetorical, like "What is art?" because the answer is "Whatever anyone says it is."

[Ser]

12 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

You had rules for playing with dumptrucks?

 

The name says that at least it is a model of a dump truck, not an airplane. The same for Space Program and the obvious properties implemented by the developers.

[septemberWaves]

Playing kerbal space program instead of going out and building your own real rockets to get to space? Cheating.

(I'm not serious, of course.)

Edited September 6, 2017 by eloquentJane

[p1t1o]

10 minutes ago, eloquentJane said:

Playing kerbal space program instead of going out and building your own real rockets to get to space? Cheating.

(I'm not serious, of course.)

On the contrary, IMO extrapolating a lot of (the more absurd) claims of what cheating is, to the logical conclusion, results in exactly that.

In a lot of ways, piloting a vessel in KSP is harder, practically speaking,  than real life, its just the stakes are a lot lower.

 

[Mr. Quark]

I cheat because I like testing stuff. I installed Kopernicus & Principia for testing with systems. Gravity is fun.

[Nikolai]

4 hours ago, Ser said:

A toy is a model of something.

Some toys are.  Some toys are not.  (What's a diving ring a model of?)  But even if it is, that doesn't imply a "correct" way to play with it.  Is a kid "cheating" when she pretends that her toy truck can fly?  Is it "cheating" when a kid plays with her die-cast model car to exploit ways that it behaves like the thing it is modeling (by running it on the floor), and exploits other ways that it doesn't (by letting it crash into the television at high speed)?

Some might even say that one of the defining characteristics of a good toy is that it can be used in ways the designer never intended or imagined (e.g., Lego).  Whether or not it behaves in accordance with any real-world counterpart it might happen to resemble is incidental.  The one who plays with it can decide to engage in realistic play or not -- but I'd be hard pressed to call unrealistic play "cheating".

Edited September 6, 2017 by Nikolai
Changed "even it is" to "even if it is"

[regex]

3 minutes ago, Nikolai said:

Some might even say that one of the defining characteristics of a good toy is that it can be used in ways the designer never intended or imagined (e.g., Lego).

Emergent play is the best. One of the reasons I loved EVE: Online so much and why KSP, Minecraft, and other sandbox games with a heavy, enthusiastic modding scene are imcredible fonts of creativity.

[Maelstrom Vortex]

Working with unity and 3 hour memory leaks is more challenging than reality. I mean.. whose reality crashes every 3 hours? Cmon.  

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, Ser said:

The name says that at least it is a model of a dump truck, not an airplane. The same for Space Program and the obvious properties implemented by the developers.

So boats and planes are cheating? They're not space.

[Ty Tan Tu]

The whole SOI (sphere of influence) is a cheat isn't it?

I got some negitive comments for stating this before, but I am not sure people undersood what I was trying to say. For me, KSP is a toy not a game. But you see, I think toys are superior to games. Games have rules and if you do not follow those rules, you are cheating. If you pass Go on your way to Jail and collect $200 , you are cheating in Monopoly. You can't cheat with a toy...

I play sandbox, which might make a difference, but as long as it expands my imagination, I do not give it a second thought when I 'cheat'. Inspired be Hayabusa I wanted to see if I could put a ion powered probe around Minmus. I did not give it a second thought when I just putting it in a LkO. After hundreds of launches, I know how to put x amount of Kg weight into orbit. That was not what I wanted to do with my toy. I just wanted to see how I could do the retrograde burn to put it into orbit around Minmus - and how much fuel I used. How far can I send this craft?

Edited September 7, 2017 by Ty Tan Tu

[Ser]

13 hours ago, Nikolai said:

Is a kid "cheating" when she pretends that her toy truck can fly?  Is it "cheating" when a kid plays with her die-cast model car to exploit ways that it behaves like the thing it is modeling (by running it on the floor), and exploits other ways that it doesn't (by letting it crash into the television at high speed)?

I've intentionally made an accent on simplification aspect. If while playing with a toy truck on the ground a kid sees that he have to drive around the room to get to another corner and decides "My truck has a special ability to fly across the room", that's cheating.

12 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

So boats and planes are cheating? They're not space.

Planes are a part of the game for a long time. What do boats simplify?

I can say that again: cheating is a shortcut intentionally made for simplification purpose. If you ignore the fact that fuel is limited in some way, that's cheating. But I ignore KSP strategies because I don't like what they provide and that isn't cheating because it doesn't simplify anything, though both are the ways of playing the game not exactly as it was intended.

EDIT: by the way, taking into account what developers have said for several times, using MechJeb is cheating too And (I don't want to say that) KER also is. Despite they both are actually more realistic for a space program than the way of trial and error.

Edited September 7, 2017 by Ser

[Nikolai]

4 hours ago, Ser said:

If while playing with a toy truck on the ground a kid sees that he have to drive around the room to get to another corner and decides "My truck has a special ability to fly across the room", that's cheating.

I think this is only true if one embraces your unique definition of "cheating":

4 hours ago, Ser said:

cheating is a shortcut intentionally made for simplification purpose

Under that definition, every new rule added to a sport to simplify it becomes cheating, even if the players follow it.  For example, this year has seen a new rule added to professional American football: Players can no longer jump over the line of scrimmage to attempt to block field goals or extra points.  This certainly simplifies the scoring of those points for the team attempting a field goal or an extra point.

What justification do you have for using this special and singular definition for "cheating", as opposed to a word that is clearer and already accurately reflects the definition you've chosen (e.g., "simplification")?