How mods work

[Hdeedose]

Hi ,

So , I play KSP for a bit of time now , and I want to try some mods . The problem is ... I don't know were to start ! What do we have to do to install mods , how to play to lots of mods at a time , and finally , which mods shall-I choose ? I have no idea which mods exist and which mods are the best .

If you know the answer for one or more of my problems , can you answer me , please ?

[XLjedi]

Mods are nothing more than files contained in their own folder that are then added to your GameData directory in the KSP root folder. 

The game ships with certain "mods" already installed.  For instance the "Squad" folder contains all the parts you are using.  There might be a couple extra folders in "SquadExpansion" that would be the extra DLC content from the "Making History" and "Breaking Ground" expansions.

You could create your own mod to add a mission flag to the game by putting 256x160 PNG graphic image(s) into the GameData directory with the folder-file structure: "GameData\MyFlagMod\Flags\mycoolflag.png"

You can add as many folders/mods as you like. There are several mods that have dependencies which require other mods in order to work.  The best tool available to manage this is: CKAN.  Just add the CKAN executable to your root KSP folder and it will manage the retrieval and installation of mods for you.  It also will tell you which additional mod dependencies that may be required in order to run the mods you want.  The mods:  Module Manager, ClickThroughBlocker, and ToolbarControl are almost universally required and CKAN will most likely prompt you to install them.

Just look for the CKAN KSP mod and that should get you going! 

As a start, and aside from mods already mentioned above as just required dependencies...

You could try: 

Kerbal Engineering Redux (KER) - for lots of good info displays

Waypoint Manager - for adding/managing your own navigation waypoints

VesselMover - can be handy for putting stuff in water near the KSC

Chatterer - adds some kerbal background chat

Launch Windows - helps you figure best times to intercept other planets

Docking Port Alignment Indicator - is pretty neat, but not really required

Kronal Vessel Viewer - if you want to take nice pics of your creations for blueprints and so forth

Kerbal Konstructs  - is cool if you want to add your own bases/locations to Kerbin and other planets

The graphics mods are playing catchup a bit right now with the 1.9.1 shaders, so you might have to wait on those a bit.  The number one mod for visuals I think is:

Scatterer - adds clouds and looks pretty

Environ Visual Enhancements (EVE) - adds better textures and city lights

 

That should get you started!

 

Edited March 13, 2020 by XLjedi

[Zhetaan]

53 minutes ago, Hdeedose said:

The problem is ... I don't know were to start !

@XLjedi has some good advice for you.  However, not all mods are on CKAN, and CKAN won't help you choose which ones to use.

54 minutes ago, Hdeedose said:

What do we have to do to install mods

Most mods can simply be copied into the Gamedata directory, which is in your KSP installation directory.  Most mods also come with installation instructions (usually consisting of what I just told you) but some mods have special requirements.

56 minutes ago, Hdeedose said:

how to play to lots of mods at a time

Install many at a time.  If you have a slow processor or not much memory, you may have a problem with too many mods, but there are some players who routinely run more than 100 mods and have no trouble.  Usually, the major problem with running many mods is that they sometimes try to make different changes to the same things, and that causes a conflict.  The second most common problem with running a lot of mods is that you can't update very quickly when Squad releases a new version of KSP because you have to wait for all of the mods to update, too.  Sometimes, mods are abandoned, and then @linuxgurugamer collects and updates them.  That takes time, though.

1 hour ago, Hdeedose said:

finally , which mods shall-I choose ?

The best answer I can give you is:  it's your game, so choose what you like.  There are mods to increase realism (and a suite of mods collectively called Realism Overhaul that is built to that purpose).  There are mods to decrease realism (Toy Solar System mods do this), and mods to completely replace the solar system with something else for new and different challenges (Galileo's Planet Pack does this).  There are weapons mods for epic space battles if you want to have them.  There are mods to increase the difficulty if you find the game too easy, or to extend it if you finish your tech tree too early or find that there are not enough planets for your liking.  There are mods to tell you when you have upcoming manoeuvres for your rocket (such as Kerbal Alarm Clock), mods to increase the available information about your rocket as it flies (Kerbal Engineer), mods to make it fly more realistically through atmospheres (Ferram Aerospace Research), mods to fly it for you in case you want an autopilot (MechJeb), and even a mod for you to write your own autopilot in computer code and then have it fly the rocket for you (kOS).

In all of that variety, you should decide what you want to do in KSP that you can't do in stock and then see whether there is a mod for that (I'll tell you in advance that there probably is).  If you want a logistical and planning challenge for your Kerbals, then you should consider mods for life support.  If you want a logistical and planning challenge for your rockets, then you should consider mods that modify the construction of rockets, or possibly a part failures mod.  If you like gathering science, then you should consider a mods that extends that capability with new experiments and situations.  If you like bases and resource management, then you should consider a colony mod.

One of the large mod repositories is SpaceDock (I included a link).  It has a number of different categories of mods, including lists of popular mods that you can browse.  Not every mod is on SpaceDock, but many of the very good ones are.

The Add-on Releases forum also has a library of mods; it's a sticky post near the top and also at this link.  It's a more comprehensive list of what is available, but it does not sort by popularity because there is no way to track the number of downloads.  You should look at the forum to see what the most active mods are right now and see whether anything piques your interest.  The first three or four pages will tell you most of the most popular mods.

However, there are, at current count, 140 pages of mod threads in the Add-on Releases forum.  Some of these are repeats of old mods under new managers, and many are abandoned mods (for many different reasons; Fine Print, for example, was incorporated into the stock contract system, so it technically stopped being a mod in the purest sense of the term), but there are simply too many to give a good direction except to tell you what my preferences are and let you use that as a basis to determine your own preferences.

For my part, I prefer mods that increase the difficulty and extend the game.  I use Community Tech Tree, Outer Planets Mod, MKS (a colony and resource mod), the entire Near Future Technology suite, USI-LS (a life support mod that incorporates mental health in addition to food), Connected Living Spaces (it requires that your kerbals move through vessels in kerbal-sized corridors), Kerbal Construction Time (it makes rockets take time to build), kOS (the write-your-own-autopilot mod that I mentioned before), and about three dozen others that have the same general theme, plus all of the utilities and other mods necessary to keep these ones playing well together in the literal play-the-game-without-crashing-to-desktop sense.  I also deliberately keep an old version of KSP with Kerbal Sports: Jebediah Kerman's Fishing Challenge, because fishing in KSP strikes and always has struck my sense of whimsy.

In addition to all of that, I mod some files myself, such as reworking the large ISRU unit and fuel cells to be about 10% efficient compared to the stock versions, because I enjoy the logistical challenge that arises when you force KSP to more closely obey the laws of thermodynamics.

It's most important for you to see what you would like and to try that.  Also, I will warn you that it is best to prepare a new career save for mods because some mods can be very unkind to existing installs (don't install a life support mod when you have crewed vessels away from Kerbin).  If you need any further advice, please don't hesitate to ask.

[Hdeedose]

Thank you so much for your answer .

I downloaded 4 mods (Airplane plus , Kerbal planetary base system , Tac Life Support and Module manager) , I got that !

And the parts of Kerbal planetary base system just dont appear ... HELP !

[HebaruSan]

5 hours ago, Zhetaan said:

CKAN won't help you choose which ones to use.

CKAN has two features that can work in tandem to help you choose which ones to use: category tags and download count tracking. For example, if you decide that you want to install a planet pack, you can select the planet-pack tag to see the list of planet pack mods, then sort by the Downloads column to see which ones are the most downloaded:

A few notes:

• Some mods do not have a value in the Downloads column because they are hosted on sites that do not provide this information (ModuleManager is a good example of this)
• For mods with multiple host sites available (e.g., GitHub and SpaceDock), only one will be checked for download counts (the one that is configured to be used within CKAN)
• The download counts reflect all users, not just CKAN users

[pincushionman]

It is also recommended that, especially if you bought the game through Steam, you copy the entire game folder to a new location on your hard drive and install mods into that copy, keeping the “main” install clean. This will prevent inadvertent automatic upgrades to the game itself from breaking your savegames.

[Hdeedose]

Do you have a link to CKAN ?

[HebaruSan]

3 hours ago, Hdeedose said:

Do you have a link to CKAN ?

Yes! https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/releases/latest

[jimmymcgoochie]

As others have said already, CKAN is probably the best place to start if you're going to dip your toe into mods. It's pretty straight forward to use (once you get the hang of it- I didn't the first time I tried, but have since come around to it) and will deal with all the versions/dependencies/conflicts and also suggest additional mods based on what you're installing (e.g. the Near Future mods all recommend each other, real solar system recommends a load of realism mods etc.)

If you want to do mods manually, either because you don't like CKAN or because there are mods you can't get through CKAN- one example is Soundtrack Editor which requires files to be added outside of GameData so can't be done by CKAN- you can try either SpaceDock (https://spacedock.info/kerbal-space-program) or CurseForge (https://www.curseforge.com/kerbal/ksp-mods) which between them should contain pretty much every mod you could possibly want. It's a lot harder to do things completely manually as versions of different mods get released and you have to go and download/install them yourself plus different versions of mods work in different versions of KSP.

Regardless of how you install the mod, once it's added you can easily remove parts you don't want, edit the ones you do, even delete entire features of the mod e.g. get rid of the antenna feeds system from Near Future Exploration- I did that because it clashes with other comms-related mods I have installed but like the other parts. Editing mods can help you understand how the game works and appreciate the time and effort that went into them, but if you install a different version of the mod your changes will very likely be lost so keep a copy of anything you change outside your game files.

As you're playing on Steam (judging by the screenshots) it's always a good idea to copy the game files from Steam/steamapps/common to another location and then mod that copied version, leaving the Steam one clean and allowing it to update without causing any issues. You can also download other versions of the game by right-clicking KSP and clicking Properties, then the Betas tab and changing the drop-down menu from 'None' to the version you want. A good number of mods haven't been updated to support KSP 1.9 yet so rolling back to 1.8.1 will give you most of the features of 1.9 but with far greater mod support; going back further may cause some newer mods to not be supported at all but there are those on the forums who believe earlier versions were better (cue argument about which one was the best, fisticuffs, food being thrown etc.); try them for yourself and decide for yourself.

Each time you change versions through Steam, make a copy of the game files and keep them somewhere else- you can not only keep different versions of the game on the same PC, you can keep multiple copies of each version with different mods in them, and CKAN can keep up with them all and install the mods you want for each different game instance independently.

 

A few mod recommendations from me:

- EVE and scatterer make planets look pretty with blue skies and clouds. It makes a big difference, and shouldn't impact performance too much; if they do, turn the settings down a bit or drop the game settings down a notch. For the stock system, look up Astronomer's Visual Pack to make the planets even prettier.

- Strategia completely redesigns the strategy system and actually makes career mode better by adding a better sense of progression as you move from simple Mun probes to interplanetary expeditions. 

- ReStock gives the stock parts a new coat of paint, with ReStock+ adding some additional parts that the stock game doesn't have as well as clones of some Making History engines. A lot of work on ReStock was done by the same person who made the Near Future mods so the solar panels in Near Future Solar and ReStock look very similar, as do the gold/silver variants of probe cores in NF exploration and ReStock.

- Near Future mods, if you're done dabbling with pure stock and want more options. There are several different Near Future mods out there and each does one specific thing- Propulsion adds high-end engines which are very efficient but power-hungry, Solar adds lots of solar panel options with a huge range of sizes, Electrical adds nuclear reactors (you'll need those to use the engines in Propulsion), Launch Vehicles adds 5m and 7.5m fuel tanks for huge launch rockets plus some engines that can be switched to burn liquid methane instead of liquid fuel. Related but separate are Cryo Engines (run on liquid hydrogen), Kerbal Atomics (nuclear engines, also run on liquid hydrogen), Cryo Tanks to hold that liquid hydrogen (and liquid methane) and Station Parts Expansion (a whole lot of space station parts which includes inflatable and deployable rotating rings). You might not need them all, but they can all tie in with each other and offer a pretty comprehensive set of options for doing almost anything.

- Planetary Base Systems for making surface bases. The best part about them is the detachable rover wheels that can be mounted on the sides of each module so you can land, drive to the rest of the base and dock it together with very few issues. It has deployable habitation parts, a greenhouse that can tie in with life support mods, research labs and even mining equipment and (with NF electrical also installed) a nuclear reactor to power it all.

- Missing History- if you have the Making History DLC this mod adds some extra parts for it like reaction wheels and batteries, although ReStock+ adds similar parts as well in more recent versions. The one thing you should definitely get it for is the conversion of the FL-A10 adapter into a fuel tank, a must have for small rockets and probes; delete the rest if you don't need it but keep that.

- OctoSat for modular probes, unlocks a bit later in the tech tree but is well worth getting for the sheer versatility it allows. It contains versions of almost every part in the game- solar panels, fuel tanks, engines, reaction wheels, probe cores, RCS, science parts, you name it- and yet is small enough to stick on a 1.25m stack, has some powerful communications parts and can even be used as a lander, although you might break the solar panels doing that.

- Gravity Turn, because launching rockets into orbit can be tricky but this will make it as simple as pressing 'Launch' and it does the rest for you. It makes launches much more efficient and will improve with successive launches of the same rocket to use minimal delta-V getting to orbit and leave more fuel for going places afterwards, or a larger payload capacity if you want.

- Stage Recovery recovers discarded stages, as long as you have enough parachutes on them. It can also recover entire vessels and land using thrust, and automatically refunds you based on adjustable parameters for speed, distance from KSC and likelihood of burning up on re-entry. Early in a career game, being able to get 90% or more of the dry mass from your lower stages makes a HUGE difference, and it helps later in the game too.

- MechJeb can automate almost anything- planning and executing maneuvers, docking, landing, plane autopilot and much more besides. Some say it's cheating, but it takes a lot of the guesswork out of planning long distance missions and requires no extra parts as it adds directly to any and every command part* including from mods. (*that I've seen, at any rate)

For planet packs, Kopernicus, the solar system modification mod, isn't 1.9 compatible and only recently became 1.8 compatible so for any planet pack you need to use KSP v1.8.1 or earlier.

 The Outer Planets mod adds additional outer system gas giant systems that resemble the real solar system but at Kerbal scale (which is about 1/10th the scale of the real solar system) and Dwarf Planets Plus adds some additional small planets at varying ranges. XPC revived builds on the stock system by adding some additional moons and does a small amount of shuffling, with compatibility provided for outer planets to put the additional moons for Eeloo around Plock instead because OPM moves the real Eeloo to be a moon of Saturn analog Sarnus. There is also the Grannus expansion pack which adds a second solar system around the star Grannus. A variant exists that makes that the primary star instead of Kerbol aka the Sun, but stick to the basic version and you should be able to use it with OPM/XPC/DPP without any problems.

If you want something a bit more challenging, try JNSQ which redesigns the stock planets at 2.7x scale (around 1/4 real scale) and adds some extras. The rescale is significantly more difficult than stock, as orbital velocity on Kerbin increases from 2200m/s to 3800m/s and delta-V increases to get anywhere, so it's probably best to play through with the stock scale stuff first, but if you want a more difficult game then go for it; there is support for a rescaled GEP and an artistic upgrade called Ad Astra, however Ad Astra isn't 1.8 compatible yet so you'll have to use KSP 1.7.3 or earlier to use that. Kopernicus, the solar system modification mod, isn't 1.9 compatible and only recently became 1.8 compatible so for any planet pack you need to use KSP v1.8.1 or earlier.

I don't recommend going for the real solar system or realism mods until you have a lot of experience at smaller scales, and if you're going to use a life support mod I'd suggest using Snacks to gain experience using a simple life support system before moving on to something more complex like TACLS or Kerbalism.

[Hdeedose]

Thanks very much for all your answers . I downloaded CKAN and all works perfectly . Thank you all for your support .