Should modding support be added in late in the road map?

[Superfluous J]

Just now, regex said:

This was never part of KSP. Ferram did some amazing work but none of his code made it into the game AFAIK. IIRC NathanKell did a sort of "cube drag" model for the revamp around 1.0 (which was fantastic for the stock game) but it lacked the sophistication of FAR (and the later voxel drag model that Ferram wrote; I remember testing that late one night and watching it divide up a rocket, really cool stuff).

I should have been more clear, what FAR did for the majority of players was it removed the souposphere, which the devs did officially in 1.0

Just now, regex said:

(I also have to wonder if the stock implementation of PreciseNode ever allowed you to directly input delta-V numbers, I never played with it but that was a big reason I took that one on)

The stock precisenode does allow typing in numbers. I prefer it to PreciseNode, in fact, and haven't loaded PN since they implemented it.

[GoldForest]

9 minutes ago, regex said:

Fair points, but one note:

This was never part of KSP. Ferram did some amazing work but none of his code made it into the game AFAIK. IIRC NathanKell did a sort of "cube drag" model for the revamp around 1.0 (which was fantastic for the stock game) but it lacked the sophistication of FAR (and the later voxel drag model that Ferram wrote; I remember testing that late one night and watching it divide up a rocket, really cool stuff).

(I also have to wonder if the stock implementation of PreciseNode ever allowed you to directly input delta-V numbers, I never played with it but that was a big reason I took that one on)

Hopefully no one has to expand on it. I heard something about Lua scripting? Maybe that was a fever dream? That would solve a lot of issues for the casual modder and would probably even obviate the need for a patch manager.

LUA Scripting isn't that great as the mod has to go through a middle-man before interacting with the game, so a little slow, at least from my understanding. It's good for some stuff, but direct control modding is best. Thankfully Nate said it's completely optional whether modders use LUA scripting or not. 

Edited October 25, 2022 by GoldForest

[regex]

5 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

LUA Scripting isn't that great as the mod has to go through a middle-man before interacting with the game, so a little slow, at least from my understanding. It's good for some stuff, but direct control modding is best. Thankfully Nate said it's completely optional whether modders use LUA scripting or not. 

That might be the solution for patch management though, just run the script before loading up the part.

Which brings up an entirely new question, is KSP2 going to willy-nilly load everything into memory like KSP1 did? If it doesn't that might make patch management a whole new ballgame...

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, regex said:

That might be the solution for patch management though, just run the script before loading up the part.

Which brings up an entirely new question, is KSP2 going to willy-nilly load everything into memory like KSP1 did? If it doesn't that might make patch management a whole new ballgame...

For games like KSP, it's kind of required to load everything into memory, otherwise you'll be sitting at load screens for minutes while assets load and unload. You think loading times are bad in KSP with fully modded installs? It will be worse if the game has to load and unload. The best we can hope for is optimized storage of parts on RAM, or even VRAM. 

[Bosun]

On 10/23/2022 at 6:00 PM, Domonian said:

They already specified that modding will be there from day one. Either in the interviews with Shadowzone or Matt Lowne, or in Feature Episode 6 itself, I can't remember. 

My big concern, is that modding will absolutely outpace development.  In fact, I expect modders to be able to finish the core components of the game well ahead of devs reaching a 1.0 status.  

The concern around it I have, is that by allowing mod access from day one, you're essentially crowd-sourcing the rest of your development.  In that, there needs to be a defined policy for mods being adopted in to future releases of the game, with recognition and monetary compensation provided for the coders doing the work.  

The first thing that comes to mind is seeing Kerbin from orbit in the videos - it looks worse than the first versions of Environmental Enhancements mod.  Someone will very quickly make it look better, and it would behoove their development to be able to incorporate that mod in to the final, future release.  But they need to have defined policies and procedures in place for that.  They have a tremendous opportunity here to really speed up their development cycle with this kind of crowd-sourcing, which will be imperative to good reviews and a timeline that doesn't further alienate players.   DCS does this with their 3rd-Party contributors, and honestly, the game's a huge success in the sim crowd because of it.  

Edited October 25, 2022 by Bosun

[t_v]

1 minute ago, Bosun said:

My big concern, is that modding will absolutely outpace development.  In fact, I expect modders to be able to finish the core components of the game well ahead of devs reaching a 1.0 status.  

I think this is true, but I don’t think it will slow development. If anything, this gives free play testing to many alternatives of a system rather than just the one the devs put out to the public. We know that multiplayer is supported by the code. I think that roughly three different models of multiplayer will be active by the time science and progression comes out, since there are no more workarounds and mod devs just have to enable what is already there in the code (plus more or less additional logic). When Intercept releases their version of multiplayer and gets it tested, they not only have feedback on their design but also that of the mods before it. 
 

At that point, intellectual property and fair compensation comes into play, but I don’t think that mods will stunt development, I think they will accelerate it. 

[Kerbart]

15 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

They spent KSP1 dev time writing these things that the community had already created and maintained. Many of them continue to be maintained years after. This is an incomplete list of course: (...)

The existence of a mod doing the thing should not prevent the dev team from making an official version of that thing. Though I do agree it should be available from the start if only so the inevitable mod version can expand on it, instead of being a totally separate thing.

One can argue though that the later added functionality allows it to be in the game without requiring mods. What the motive for that is, and if that's right is not relevant, what is, is that one can say "to do x, you no longer need a mod." Since the very point of MM is modding the game there's little need to integrate it for the sake of "now you don't need a mod for that," because clearly you're intent on applying mods (what's the point of MM otherwise).

Edited October 25, 2022 by Kerbart

[mcwaffles2003]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

One can argue though that the later added functionality allows it to be in the game without requiring mods. What the motive for that is, and if that's right is not relevant, what is, is that one can say "to do x, you no longer need a mod." Since the very point of MM is modding the game there's little need to integrate it for the sake of "now you don't need a mod for that," because clearly you're intent on applying mods (what's the point of MM otherwise).

But as mentioned earlier in the thread, isn't there many things MM can't do since it is only a mod and has restricted access from many parts of the games code?

[Superfluous J]

7 hours ago, Bosun said:

My big concern, is that modding will absolutely outpace development.  In fact, I expect modders to be able to finish the core components of the game well ahead of devs reaching a 1.0 status.

I have this concern as well, but the moment they release the game (EA or not) that ship has launched. Modders WILL mod the game, and yes they WILL release (buggy, incomplete, unbalanced) features before the devs can complete them (in a less buggy, more complete, and more balanced way).

The only way to stop this (which I would have preferred but nobody asks me, and yes I understand about money and time and bla bla bla) is to complete the game before release.

[Scarecrow71]

Again, I will state that I'm hoping for someone to help me understand and learn how to mod so I can give back to the community.  I hope. 

[Superfluous J]

5 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Since the very point of MM is modding the game there's little need to integrate it for the sake of "now you don't need a mod for that," because clearly you're intent on applying mods (what's the point of MM otherwise).

Integrated MM means though that players can more easily modify the game themselves without relying on others' mods. I feel that's an important distinction. Sure, it's still modding but if all you want is some tiny change it's a far easier - and safer feeling to the player - step to use the in-game module manager than it is to install a mod (and maybe a mod manager like CKAN or R2ModMan or (ick) Thunderstore).

Edited October 26, 2022 by Superfluous J