Why cant Squad take some of the mods and make them part of the vanilla?

[Eric S]

Really? I'm sorry, but how come a game that has a forum where mods are posted, documentation on how to make them and even has a site dedicated to publish mods so people can use them IS NOT ABLE TO TRACK THE NUMBER OF MODS???

There's quite a difference between knowing that a mod exists and knowing how it impacts the game, particularly in combination with any other mods that might interact with that mod. We've seen cases where while mod A and mod B work fine individually, the game crashes if you install both of them. That takes the knowledge and testing required to meet your expectations through the roof.

[MR4Y]

There's quite a difference between knowing that a mod exists and knowing how it impacts the game, particularly in combination with any other mods that might interact with that mod. We've seen cases where while mod A and mod B work fine individually, the game crashes if you install both of them. That takes the knowledge and testing required to meet your expectations through the roof.

Your argument stresses on a different part that has no relation to the quote I responded to. Stating that some mods might not work well with others (a likely assumption within the realm of possibility) is different than stating that you wouldn't support mods because you don't know how many mods are out there.

[r4pt0r]

Really? I'm sorry, but how come a game that has a forum where mods are posted, documentation on how to make them and even has a site dedicated to publish mods so people can use them IS NOT ABLE TO TRACK THE NUMBER OF MODS???

Okay, there might be some other mods out there that are not cointaned within this community, although this is almost impossible at best. KSP is not that big of a game anyways. We're not talking about Fallout 3, Skyrim or even DOOM levels of modding here.

Either you do two things:

-Don't support mods at all and keep with the unlikely scenario that 'because there are too many mods everywhere, we can't possibly support them.' (status quo)

-Assuming the highly unlikely scenarion from above is existant, support only mods posted in the forums or in Curse.

i think that would be a complete waste of resources. the devs should focus entirely on stock, let the modders be. if you have trouble with a mod, post in the mod forum or contact the modder yourself.

Why on earth would they be responsible for the mods they didnt make?

[MR4Y]

i think that would be a complete waste of resources. the devs should focus entirely on stock, let the modders be. if you have trouble with a mod, post in the mod forum or contact the modder yourself.

Why on earth would they be responsible for the mods they didnt make?

Valid consideration, but you're missing my point.

The excuse given for not supporting mods is 'there's no way for us to know how many mods are out there', which is completely false, since not only there is an entire forum section dedicated to mods, but also a site dedicated for the publishing of mods.

If resources will be wasted (if they're not being wasted already) by supporting mods or not, that's an entirely different matter.

[rtxoff]

Your argument stresses on a different part that has no relation to the quote I responded to.

That argument can also be applied on that respond to the quote.

[MR4Y]

That argument can also be applied on that respond to the quote.

Yes, but only if that was a valid excuse, which it wasn't.

[rtxoff]

Yes, but only if that was a valid excuse, which it wasn't.

Actually it was no excuse at all. To excuse something you have to do something wrong. I don't think they did something wrong. To not support modded installs is the only way how it can work at the moment.

This applies also to other business. For example no car manufacturer will guarantee that you car will still work (safely) if you start modding it with modding parts from other vendors.

[Eric S]

Your argument stresses on a different part that has no relation to the quote I responded to. Stating that some mods might not work well with others (a likely assumption within the realm of possibility) is different than stating that you wouldn't support mods because you don't know how many mods are out there.

You're implying that they're saying something they're not. Here's what you quoted:

To clarify further on our support of mods. We don't ensure that we'll provide support modded installs simply because it's a practically impossible task to account for all the plugins and add-ons that are out there and assist players in the use of features we're not familiar with. However, that's very different to us supporting the use of mods, which we absolutely do.

To which you replied:

Really? I'm sorry, but how come a game that has a forum where mods are posted, documentation on how to make them and even has a site dedicated to publish mods so people can use them IS NOT ABLE TO TRACK THE NUMBER OF MODS???

Given the phrase "the use of features we're not familiar with" I really don't think that they're discussing tracking the number of mods that are available, but rather having enough familiarity with those mods to be familiar with the features of all those mods. So yes, I do think my reply targets what they seem to be saying. It's your reply referring to tracking the number of mods that seems to miss the point.

We don't have to argue about whether or not they can know how many mods are out there. Either they can't, in which case it's very unlikely that they know all the features of them, or they can, which doesn't by itself gain them the ability to know enough about them all to provide support for them.

[Red Iron Crown]

"Account for" is not the same as "have an accurate count of". I think that's the source of confusion.

[Wyrm]

Indeed. Ted said that SQUAD supports the use of mods. That is, SQUAD doesn't mind at all when someone modifies their base game to do something it wasn't originally developed to do, and are completely okay with the neat things modders are able to accomplish. This is completely consistent with them having a subforum where mods are posted, documented and supported by their authors, and host a site where those mods are distrubuted.

That said, SQUAD don't support mods  they don't provide help (technical or usage) concerning the mods themselves and aren't responsible for debugging, developing, and updating those mods. That's what support means in computer lingo. As it should be, because SQUAD is not familiar with the mods and have no place maintaining them or providing help for, which the mod authors are in position to do. The addition of the word "use" in Ted's message is a subtle, but important difference.

[JordanL]

They don't support or use mods, they have stated on many occasions. also, as far as I'm aware if you do work for Squad, you also can't run a modded version (that they know about) it's part of their agreement (says a few ex developers) Which is ironic considering how much mods have extended the life of this 'early access' game. I can't speak for anyone else but if there was no mods to play with I would have stopped playing years ago.

I remember some cool mods, I forget the name but there was one that was rockets made of whiskey barrels, man that was a blast to fly.

This is not to say don't they take some good ideas from people and put it in the game, like the Sub Assemblies manager

So the guy working on the mod-loader in KSP can't run mods?

That explains a few things.

[Ted]

Really? I'm sorry, but how come a game that has a forum where mods are posted, documentation on how to make them and even has a site dedicated to publish mods so people can use them IS NOT ABLE TO TRACK THE NUMBER OF MODS???

Okay, there might be some other mods out there that are not cointaned within this community, although this is almost impossible at best. KSP is not that big of a game anyways. We're not talking about Fallout 3, Skyrim or even DOOM levels of modding here.

Either you do two things:

-Don't support mods at all and keep with the unlikely scenario that 'because there are too many mods everywhere, we can't possibly support them.' (status quo)

-Assuming the highly unlikely scenarion from above is existant, support only mods posted in the forums or in Curse.

Eric and Wyrm pretty much nailed it. Sure, we can know how many mods are out there, but knowing exactly what each and every mod does is a very different task. It's like saying that the DVLA know how many cars are on the road, therefore they should know exactly what is contained within each one at all times. Also, to further clarify, I'm not saying that we're opposed to helping those that run mods, just that we can't promise that we're able to help a player with an issue they're encountering due to third-party software being run with KSP; especially as we're not the ones that wrote it and thus have little idea what it may be doing.

Anyway, I feel as though we're heading off-topic here, back on-topic we go!

Edited June 13, 2014 by Ted
One too many nots.

[Red Iron Crown]

I'm not saying that we're opposed to not helping those that run mods

This sentence is hard to parse, and says the opposite of what you meant, I think.

"I'm not saying that we're opposed to not helping those that run mods"

is equivalent to

"I'm saying that we're not opposed to not helping those that run mods"

is equivalent to

"I'm saying that we're opposed to helping those that run mods"

Not trying to nitpick or be a grammar National Socialist, just point out that it's easily misunderstood.

[Ted]

Changed it, had one too many nots in there.

[Creature]

Not to mention they'd drown in SQUAD MAKE THIS AND THAT MOD STOCK OMG!!!!! threads if they openly started implementing mods. It's a slope too slippery to walk on. You may creep there in the dead of night when nobody's watching to grab a gem or two but don't wake up the wolves.

[optimusjamie]

Whilst I admit, there are a number of mods I would love to see become stock at some point, like FAR, EVE, KAC and maybe a 'lite' version of Interstellar, there are a number of issues I can see arising from this, like copyright (related to who owns the mods), balance, system requirements, and as was mentioned above, people on the forums constantly asking for mods to be made stock.

[Vonar]

There's also the question of ram. KSP is currently limited to about 3.5-4 gb worth of ram with the 32 mb unity engine. If the developers start importing large numbers of mods to the core game the games ram usage will go through the roof, and too much content will prove detrimental towards future updates as the developers will half to wrestle with keeping the game under the 3.5-4 gb ram limit. Even with optimizing the code in mods and further game code optimization to reduce ram use there's still going to be a lot of excess ram wasted going towards features that really are optional to the core game.

[vetrox]

and there I was thinking "just because you think it should be stock doesnt mean everyone wants it stock"

Personally the only thing I feel should be stock is dv readouts. I'm quite content with everything else being a mod, especially when the curse client supports KSP. It will make mods so much more accessable and easy to update. I Like alot of the mods that are out there, but i often get bored of them or the restricion they impose. Sometimes I just want to shoot a rocket at the moon, no questions asked! just off the launchpad, reentry effects burning it to a crisp the whole way up with no worries.