Meta An Open Letter from the KSP1 mod developer community to the KSP2 player base and development team.

[theJesuit]

@Poodmund add me to the list!  theJesuit AngleCanMods, Simplex Suite

[bcink]

Agreed

[Vanamonde]

A number of posts have been removed. This is not the place to re-hash the history of the game's development nor discuss the game's reviews. 

[Climberfx]

Would love to have one button to port my Omicron Flying Space Car mod from KSP1 mod to KSP2.

lol

Edited March 20, 2023 by Climberfx

[Seadragon420]

i am not a modder but i agree

[Lisias]

An ongoing discussion about the matter is happening here:

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/217495-what-is-keeping-you-from-starting-your-ksp2-mod/

[Moh1336]

I honestly think it is short sighted to think it's a good idea for the devs to work on modding tools and compatibility at this stage of development.

Right now the game is in a very unfinished state hence it being an Early Access title, things are constantly being changed/updated/added/fixed. Releasing and supporting mod tools right now should not be a priority by any stretch of the imagination. When things settle down and become more stable and the end of EA is in sight, then setting time aside to looking the modding side would make perfect sense. Right now is simply not a logical thing to do. Let the devs focus their time where it is truly needed.

I love KSP and the mods it offers and I can't wait to see what the future brings for mods in KSP2 and I appreciate those that are modding right now and developing 3rd party loaders, but now is simply not the time for the devs to be working in that area. I certainly hope the modders from KSP1 will return when the time is right, I can't begin to say how much enjoyment I got from mods over the years, it may take time but we'll get there again.

[Ker Ball One]

On 2/4/2024 at 12:40 PM, Moh1336 said:

I honestly think it is short sighted to think it's a good idea for the devs to work on modding tools and compatibility at this stage of development.

Right now the game is in a very unfinished state hence it being an Early Access title, things are constantly being changed/updated/added/fixed. Releasing and supporting mod tools right now should not be a priority by any stretch of the imagination. When things settle down and become more stable and the end of EA is in sight, then setting time aside to looking the modding side would make perfect sense. Right now is simply not a logical thing to do. Let the devs focus their time where it is truly needed.

I love KSP and the mods it offers and I can't wait to see what the future brings for mods in KSP2 and I appreciate those that are modding right now and developing 3rd party loaders, but now is simply not the time for the devs to be working in that area. I certainly hope the modders from KSP1 will return when the time is right, I can't begin to say how much enjoyment I got from mods over the years, it may take time but we'll get there again.

I agree and would add one thought.  The community should not support the "indefinite early access" business model with mod development or purchasing the game at all.  It is insane that game developers now think that they can charge full price for an incomplete game, and just use the free labor workforce that is the modding community. 
I won't buy KSP2 until they fully complete the basic functionality of the game (at least on par with KSP1), and start actually supporting the game instead of using the perpetual excuse of "it's early access". 

[munix]

50 minutes ago, Ker Ball One said:

I agree and would add one thought.  The community should not support the "indefinite early access" business model with mod development or purchasing the game at all.  It is insane that game developers now think that they can charge full price for an incomplete game, and just use the free labor workforce that is the modding community. 
I won't buy KSP2 until they fully complete the basic functionality of the game (at least on par with KSP1), and start actually supporting the game instead of using the perpetual excuse of "it's early access". 

That's your opinion, but most of us modders think the game is great already, otherwise we wouldn't bother.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

On 2/4/2024 at 12:40 PM, Moh1336 said:

I honestly think it is short sighted to think it's a good idea for the devs to work on modding tools and compatibility at this stage of development.

Right now the game is in a very unfinished state hence it being an Early Access title, things are constantly being changed/updated/added/fixed. Releasing and supporting mod tools right now should not be a priority by any stretch of the imagination. When things settle down and become more stable and the end of EA is in sight, then setting time aside to looking the modding side would make perfect sense. Right now is simply not a logical thing to do. Let the devs focus their time where it is truly needed.

I love KSP and the mods it offers and I can't wait to see what the future brings for mods in KSP2 and I appreciate those that are modding right now and developing 3rd party loaders, but now is simply not the time for the devs to be working in that area. I certainly hope the modders from KSP1 will return when the time is right, I can't begin to say how much enjoyment I got from mods over the years, it may take time but we'll get there again.

Mod support .. if it is going to be a future the developers consider relevant. Need to be considered from the ground up.

What made KSP1 as successful as it was, larely was due to the modding community.

Much the same with Morrowind, Space Engineers.  Mod support does not need to be implemented early on, but the foundation and thoughts should be. Otherwise you end up with cobbled together monstrosities.. or 3rd party injectors laden with malicious coodies.

[Lisias]

On 2/8/2024 at 4:59 PM, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Mod support .. if it is going to be a future the developers consider relevant. Need to be considered from the ground up.

Considered? Yes. Implemented? Not always.

Premature modding support can be a curse - it will draw resources from development on every new release due breakages in the field.

 

On 2/8/2024 at 4:59 PM, Fizzlebop Smith said:

What made KSP1 as successful as it was, larely was due to the modding community.

But not without some tears and grinding.

Not to mention that things are way different now. For starters, Squad was an indie companie developing an indie game on a time where things are way different from now. KSP2 is an AAA title, expectations are higher and there're way less user support on modding for such title.

You see, people love the underdogs - and not rarely are way more demanding from professionals. See the current Cities Skylines 2 current P/R problems.

An AAA title being sold on AAA prices will not get from the community the same level of complacency as an Indie title being distributed for free (and KSP¹ were available for free until 1.0.0.0 0.13.x).

Oranges and Tangerines - they may look similar, sometimes even taste similar. But don't try to peel them the same way.

 

On 2/8/2024 at 4:59 PM, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Much the same with Morrowind, Space Engineers.  Mod support does not need to be implemented early on, but the foundation and thoughts should be. 

Hummm… I missed that part of your argument before starting my post.

 

On 2/8/2024 at 4:59 PM, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Otherwise you end up with cobbled together monstrosities.. or 3rd party injectors laden with malicious coodies.

I suspect that 3rd party injectors may have their days counted. Unity's is distributing, since 2020 I think, Mono libraries with Reflection disabled and obfuscated binaries. [edit: at developer's discretion]

There're people already working around these limitations, but this means that the Game's binaries will be replaced - forcing them out of Launchers like Steam that can detect game tampering and recover them to original state. This will hugely shrink the modding user base - we are talking people that most of the time are unable to install mods without CKAN, how do you expect they will be able to apply such tremendously intrusive patches on the game?

The game publishers would not allow brute forcing our way using Harmony or similar tools going unchecked for so many time anyway - things go South, the game takes the blame, not the injection tools.

Edited February 12 by Lisias
A fix and an addendum

[munix]

26 minutes ago, Lisias said:

I suspect that 3rd party injectors may have their days counted. Unity's is distributing, since 2020 I think, Mono libraries with Reflection disabled and obfuscated binaries. 

There're people already working around these limitations, but this means that the Game's binaries will be replaced - forcing them out of Launchers like Steam that can detect game tampering and recover them to original state. This will hugely shrink the modding user base - we are talking people that most of the time are unable to install mods without CKAN, how do you expect they will be able to apply such tremendously intrusive patches on the game?

That is absolutely not true, KSP2 runs on Unity 2022.3 currently, and we are not replacing or modifying any of the original files.

[Lisias]

16 minutes ago, munix said:

That is absolutely not true, KSP2 runs on Unity 2022.3 currently, and we are not replacing or modifying any of the original files.

You absolutely can't affirm that.

You don't have a say about how the Game Industry are going to prevent Harmony and similar tools from happening, if this is where they decided to go - and, yeah, at least some of them are doing exactly that.

Quote

Please note that modern Unity3D games (likely version 2018 and above) are currently distributed with a restricted Mono runtime library which disables reflection. The patcher will attempt to identify games with tampered runtime libraries and replace them with untampered versions. Please inform us if/when this functionality fails to replace the library.

Source: https://nexus-mods.github.io/vortex-api/2020/10/02/Harmony-Patcher-Executable.html

KSP2 may or may not follow that trend - they vowed to allow modding, not to allow Harmony.

But, yet, your statement that my statement weren't true is an exercise on Eristics at best, or pure Fallacy at worst.

 

[munix]

50 minutes ago, Lisias said:

But, yet, your statement that my statement weren't true is an exercise on Eristics at best, or pure Fallacy at worst.

Your statement wasn't true, because you didn't say that it is possible it could happen, you said it will happen:

Quote

There're people already working around these limitations, but this means that the Game's binaries will be replaced - forcing them out of Launchers like Steam that can detect game tampering and recover them to original state. This will hugely shrink the modding user base - we are talking people that most of the time are unable to install mods without CKAN, how do you expect they will be able to apply such tremendously intrusive patches on the game?

There are zero indications that the developers are going to do anything like that, so please, don't spread misinformation (especially considering you're one of the most prominent KSP modders and therefore people are likely to listen to you). If they wanted to do it, then surely they could have done it from the start, since KSP2 started on version 2020.3 and is currently on 2022.3.

Edited February 9 by munix

[Bej Kerman]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

(and KSP¹ were available for free until 1.0.0.0)

Pretty sure it wasn't.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

32 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Pretty sure it wasn't.

According to the Steam Database, the lowest recorded price was $0.16. (Listed Conversion is USD)
That is exceedingly cheap, but not quite free. Perhaps it was some form of taxation on 0.00.

I was pretty poor and didn't get to experience KSP1 until March of 2022. 1500 hours later I almost wish it would have remained undiscovered. 
 

 @munix I'm sure you two really agree and the culprit lies in a bit of overlooked text somewhere.

The long-term AAA title in early access seems to be the new paradigm. Whether the community is more patient depending on the respective rank division of the publisher / producer or not remains to be seen. 

Since 2017 the shift has grown to be much more commonplace. Reddit and various news aggregates that report on tech / gaming are my chief sources for this and they don't often cover the metrics regarding community acceptance. Many people refuse to by AAA titles in early release because of the paradigm shift. Sentiment seems to be that some kind of boycott / passive resistance to this will cause it to go away.

I think its awesome... WHEN the companies use the Feedback from early access to improve the game. Cities: Skylines II is a perfect example of what happens when this is not the case. It has less to do with the patience of the community than it does with outrage over a perception that the Devs have abandoned the community contributing to the title's massive success (The loyal and already established fan base)

There is a lot of feedback to digest and things may be slow going with large portions of the community upset at any given time. But those games that do this are often the ones that redefine a Genre or at least go on to critical acclaim / success. I really hope that KSP2 takes the time needed to make KSP2 something truly amazing. My definition of perfection may vary from other players but that acceptable middle ground is quite large. 

Edited February 9 by Fizzlebop Smith

[munix]

Just now, Fizzlebop Smith said:

 @munix I'm sure you two really agree and the culprit lies in a bit of overlooked text somewhere.

The long-term AAA title in early access seems to be the new paradigm. Whether the community is more patient depending on the respective rank division of the publisher or not remains to be seen. 

Since 2017 the shift has grown to be much more commonplace. Reddit and various news aggregates that report on tech / gaming are my chief sources for this and they don't often cover the metrics regarding community acceptance. Many people refuse to by AAA titles in early release because of the paradigm shift. Sentiment seems to be that some kind of boycott / passive resistance to this will cause it to go away.

I think its awesome... WHEN the companies use the Feedback from early access to improve the game. Cities: Skylines II is a perfect example of what happens when this is not the case. It has less to do with the patience of the community than it does with outrage over a perception that the Devs have abandoned the community contributing to the title's massive success (The loyal and already established fan base)

There is a lot of feedback to digest and things may be slow going with large portions of the community upset at any given time. But those games that do this are often the ones that redefine a Genre or at least go on to critical acclaim / success. I really hope that KSP2 takes the time needed to make KSP2 something truly amazing. My definition of perfection may vary from other players but that acceptable middle ground is quite large. 

Well, what we disagree on has nothing to do with the practice of early access, it's about insinuating that the developers are going to block us from modding the game without an official mod loader, which they have shown 0 interest in doing. In fact, they are actively cooperating with us on modding in its current form, rather than trying to prevent it.

[Bej Kerman]

13 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

According to the Steam Database, the lowest recorded price was $0.16. (Listed Conversion is USD)
That is exceedingly cheap, but not quite free. Perhaps it was some form of taxation on 0.00.

Can you tell me how often the price dipped to "nearly, but not quite, free"?

[Fizzlebop Smith]

I was being a smart ass with regard to overlooked text.

 

This is the steam index

 https://steamdb.info/app/220200/

A few filters. Works for any given game

It could be "free" never shows bc it is not a price? 

Edited February 9 by Fizzlebop Smith

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, munix said:

Your statement wasn't true, because you didn't say that it is possible it could happen, you said it will happen:

I will quote myself:

2 hours ago, Lisias said:

I suspect that 3rd party injectors may have their days counted.

Everything else is just fallacy. I would advise you to learn how to disagree without making  the thing a dispute for the Trueness. You are not the Bastión of the True, you can disagree with people without calling them "not true" what's merely a polite way of calling people "liars".

In fact, there's a good way to call someone to correctness exactly on this very post, see below.

 

52 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Pretty sure it wasn't.

I stand corrected. KSP was free up to 0.13.x, and the two Demo releases, obviously. I made a confusion with the 1.0.0 Demo being free (but with reduced content).

My apologies.

[Bej Kerman]

17 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

I was being a smart ass with regard to overlooked text.

 

This is the steam index

 https://steamdb.info/app/220200/

A few filters. Works for any given game

It could be "free" never shows bc it is not a price? 

I checked the price history myself, it has never gone below£7.49. I think it's absurd to suggest that Steam's databases would not record lower prices.

10 minutes ago, Lisias said:

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

Pretty sure it wasn't.

I stand corrected. KSP was free up to 0.13.x, and the two Demo releases, obviously. I made a confusion with the 1.0.0 Demo being free (but with reduced content).

My apologies.

I see, thanks for clarifying.

[munix]

27 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Everything else is just fallacy. I would advise you to learn how to disagree without making  the thing a dispute for the Trueness. You are not the Bastión of the True, you can disagree with people without calling them "not true" what's merely a polite way of calling people "liars".

First of all, I've never called you a liar, as you have quoted, so please, do not put words into my mouth. However, I did misunderstand the meaning of your initial post based on the grammar used, and I apologize about that.

What I did try to make clear with my previous posts, and that you have completely ignored, is that there is no reason for us to believe that the developers that have made a completely DRM-free game, and who cooperate with us on modding using BepInEx, a 3rd party mod loader, and highlight our efforts, would suddenly decide to do the complete opposite and start blocking us from doing it.

[Bej Kerman]

4 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

According to the Steam Database, the lowest recorded price was $0.16. (Listed Conversion is USD)
That is exceedingly cheap, but not quite free. Perhaps it was some form of taxation on 0.00.

Discussed this in a PM, but figured this was worth echoing here as a PSA-lite. $0.16 was the Yen-Dollar conversion, which does not mean the game was on sale for $0.16. It means that the lowest price in Japan was equivalent to $0.16 Dollars. The lowest the game's ever been in Dollars is $9.99 (75% off - this has been the default discount since May 30, 2019). Thought I'd throw this out there before more confusion stems from Steam's currency conversions. 

[Fizzlebop Smith]

According to the Steam Database, the lowest recorded price was $0.16. (Listed Conversion is USD)  <---

Correct.
The cheapest KSP1 has ever sold for worldwide is the equivalent of 0.26 american dollars

[Vexillar]

@Poodmund please add me too - Vexillar, IDFlags