Please, PLEASE release KerbalEDU's mod for normal players.

[Whirligig Girl]

A lot of us would love to play using KerbalEDU's features like the vector arrows and flight recorders, etc. We already have KSP, we don't need the special price reductions, we don't even want another copy of the game. We just want to play KSP with these awesome extra features!

[_Augustus_]

That would be nice...

[longbyte1]

This is planned. See https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/kerbal-teachers/umqH5kmW1Nk:

As of launch, anyone can buy KerbalEdu, you don’t need to be a school, though only educational institutions (includes libraries, museums etc. too) will get it at a discount. We also intend to bring some limited features (mission editor!) available for those who only have regular Kerbal Space Program. We don’t have an exact roadmap for that just yet, but be assured that our intentions are to make this available to as many gamers in the KSP community as possible. We will let you know!

[Dunbaratu]

This is planned. See https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/kerbal-teachers/umqH5kmW1Nk:

That's not REALLY what the OP meant.

When you pay TeacherGaming for KerbalEDU, Presumably a very sizable percentage of that price is money that TeacherGaming passes on to SQUAD to pay for SQUAD's product embedded inside TeacherGaming's product.

For those of us who already have paid for KSP, the inability to buy JUST TeacherGaming's mod work, and instead having to basically pay for stock KSP twice, seems a bit ... off.

[longbyte1]

That's not REALLY what the OP meant.

When you pay TeacherGaming for KerbalEDU, Presumably a very sizable percentage of that price is money that TeacherGaming passes on to SQUAD to pay for SQUAD's product embedded inside TeacherGaming's product.

For those of us who already have paid for KSP, the inability to buy JUST TeacherGaming's mod work, and instead having to basically pay for stock KSP twice, seems a bit ... off.

You should petition, then.

[panarchist]

That's not REALLY what the OP meant.

When you pay TeacherGaming for KerbalEDU, Presumably a very sizable percentage of that price is money that TeacherGaming passes on to SQUAD to pay for SQUAD's product embedded inside TeacherGaming's product.

For those of us who already have paid for KSP, the inability to buy JUST TeacherGaming's mod work, and instead having to basically pay for stock KSP twice, seems a bit ... off.

You're not paying for stock KSP twice, you're paying for stock KSP once, and a modified version of KSP with hooks in the code to fully integrate the EDU mod. They're two different products which happen to share a large part of the code base, but they require separate executables, their own dev and integration time, QA testing, and marketing to Educational organizations. All that work and expense has to be paid for.

Kerbal Edu is a separate product - Squad is under no obligation to release the Edu-specific features to owners of "stock" KSP, nor should they be. If you really want those features, you already have a few options:

1. Buy a license of Kerbal Edu

2. Develop your own mod to emulate the features in Edu

3. Wait for one of the talented mod developers in the current community to come up with a similar feature (no guarantees)

4. Petition Squad to release the features in "Stock" KSP (also no guarantees)

Look at it from another perspective - Squad spent all this time and money researching, developing, testing, marketing, and distributing a new product geared specifically for educational institutions. Some of that likely went to paid contractors, some in house, some to other 3rd parties, and now many people in the community (not speaking about you or anyone in particular) are asking for that to be given to the community gratis. Some even think it's *owed* them. That's simply not the case. KSP Edu is a product, not an add-on. We don't get it for free.

[Master Tao]

Look at it from another perspective - Squad spent all this time and money researching, developing, testing, marketing, and distributing a new product geared specifically for educational institutions. Some of that likely went to paid contractors, some in house, some to other 3rd parties, and now many people in the community (not speaking about you or anyone in particular) are asking for that to be given to the community gratis. Some even think it's *owed* them. That's simply not the case. KSP Edu is a product, not an add-on. We don't get it for free.

You're really close with "3rd parties." KerbalEDU is a TeacherGaming product based upon KSP which was developed with guidance and support from SQUAD – it's an add-on, but only currently available when purchased with a new KSP license. Several of the KerbalEDU modifications would be nice to use at home, so we'll have to see which features TeacherGaming wants to include in the versions available to regular KSP players.

What do you all say to giving the TeacherGaming people a chance to respond before starting any petitions? AFAICT, none of them have been on the forums since two days before this thread was posted.

[Whirligig Girl]

Heck, I'll be honest, I'd pay for the mod if I had to, but not if I also have to pay for a copy of KSP along with it.

Are there any TeacherGaming staff at the KSP Forums?

[MarkZero]

There are indeed some of us from TeacherGaming here at the forums.

Thank you for all the interest in KerbalEdu. We thought only people associated with education would be interested in getting it

Let me try to clarify our relationship with Squad: We are a for-profit (small startup) company and our very business model is creating education versions of entertainment games and selling those to schools in agreement with the original creators of the game. We first did this with Minecraft and MinecraftEdu and now with KSP and KerbalEdu.

Your concerns and inquiries have been heard and we promise to look into them with Squad as soon as possible. Let’s see what we come up with

Edited January 7, 2015 by MarkZero

[BudgetHedgehog]

Throwing in my support for being able to buy EDU separately. That flight recorder looks sick, honestly wouldn't mind paying for that.

[skrit manfrat]

For those of us who already have paid for KSP, the inability to buy JUST TeacherGaming's mod work, and instead having to basically pay for stock KSP twice, seems a bit ... off.

I can completely understand where you are coming from, and I am of two minds on this matter.

on the one hand, squad have neglected many major components that are included in kspEDU that by rights SHOULD be in the stock game

on the other hand, kspEDU was developed primarily by a third party, and had essentially only tech support and QA testing from squad, so in my eyes, there is not a case for mismanaged funds here, i would expect squad to provide some form of tech support for a company who has clearly done amazing work and some fantastic coding, in return for the massive amount of hype/attention kspEDU has given the stock game. this is fair and reasonable in my opinion.

as a result, i think it would be extremely unfair to the kspEDU crowd to provide their top-notch "mod" for free considering how much effort and particularly money has been put into it.

this is taking into consideration my opinion that kspEDU's business model is immoral, but that is my own opinion, and nowhere near a mainstream view. and is in all likely-hood, extremely biased

I am seemingly unable to quote, but to sum up my thoughts on this matter, (@MarkZero) -

you are doing fantastic work, and making leaps and bounds ahead of what ksp's "dev" team considered feasible; or couldn't be bothered attempting; it's hard to tell. please don't be discouraged by any controversy around this, what you have created is fantastic.

My own thoughts on the matter are as follows:

KSP edu is developed by a separate team to squad, they have put time and money into creating this product, which is a fairly specialized product, and not at all suitable for the average billy on the street.

however, it contains features that have long been asked for, and often denied (not naming any names here)

therefore i think it would be tragic for these features not to make it into the stock game.

it is up to squad whether to "attempt" to create these features themselves, or contract teachersgaming to implement some of these required features.

my prayers rest on the latter

@ObsessedWithKSP, my mother always taught me if you ain't got nothing nice to say...

I apologize profusely for my typing, i have been up a long, LONG time drinking and watching spaceX's fantastic (and largely successful) dragon launch.

so many red-underlines it's not funny.

TL;DR please give us these features squad, but please don't take over kspEDU at the same time.

be gentle mods, I'm trying.

Edited January 10, 2015 by vexx32
Attempted to be gentle. Unsure if successful.

[Crimson Sunrise]

It's a sad thing when a 3rd party company does a better job of adding features users want than the company that developed the original game.

Sure, you could get into a sort of agreement with the company in question and have those features in the core game and maybe sell said game to schools as an educational version (like Adobe, Autodesk and others do). -snip-

Or...It's because of monetary reasons.

Edited January 11, 2015 by KasperVld

[longbyte1]

It's a sad thing when a 3rd party company does a better job of adding features users want than the company that developed the original game.

Sure, you could get into a sort of agreement with the company in question and have those features in the core game and maybe sell said game to schools as an educational version (like Adobe, Autodesk and others do). -snip-

Or...It's because of monetary reasons.

Squad can do/could have done anything they want/wanted with KSP, in terms of scope. It's a sandbox game. However, they have decided that the vanilla game scope should be a comical but otherwise realistic representation of rocketry, for grins and laughs, not for accurate, academic studies. TeacherGaming's KSP extends the scope of the game to cover more educational aspects of the game, like Isp falloffs for instance. (In my opinion, KSP should be like Garry's Mod: something well-rounded in features but also limitless in expansion. But that's something else entirely.)

They are "modding" the game but also making their "mod" a commercial endeavor. They want money, fast. That's why you see TeacherGaming adding many features very quickly: to make their version of KSP something commercially viable and something teachers actually would like to buy in bulk.

[KerbMav]

It's a sad thing when a 3rd party company does a better job of adding features users want than the company that developed the original game.

KerbalEDU is build upon KSP, they added features for learning while KSP received other features, e.g. career mode updates.

And while Squad was/is expanding the foundation of KSP, KerbalEDU "just" added windows and painting to the house.

Basically the KerbalEDU team is much like a modder - with more man-power and funding - only that they do it for a living.

If KerbalEDU becomes a free mod or implemented into KSP - what is stopping teachers to get KSP instead of KerbalEDU?

Why buy KerbalEDU for the class if the students can use their own KSP, only the teacher using the school funden KerbalEDU version?

"Why should I pay for the book?! I already payed for the movie in the cinema!!"

Even me - not really knowing what KerbalEDU has to offer - would like to have some of their features in stock KSP (if only because I hear so many good things about them), but I also see the economic difficulties here.

[Crimson Sunrise]

KerbalEDU is build upon KSP, they added features for learning while KSP received other features, e.g. career mode updates.

And while Squad was/is expanding the foundation of KSP, KerbalEDU "just" added windows and painting to the house.

Basically the KerbalEDU team is much like a modder - with more man-power and funding - only that they do it for a living.

If KerbalEDU becomes a free mod or implemented into KSP - what is stopping teachers to get KSP instead of KerbalEDU?

Why buy KerbalEDU for the class if the students can use their own KSP, only the teacher using the school funden KerbalEDU version?

"Why should I pay for the book?! I already payed for the movie in the cinema!!"

Even me - not really knowing what KerbalEDU has to offer - would like to have some of their features in stock KSP (if only because I hear so many good things about them), but I also see the economic difficulties here.

This argument doesn't hold a lot of water in face of the many other companies that have softwares of all kinds in retail versions that have the exact same features of the educational versions. The only difference is that you have bulk discount for educational versions as well as extra material(not features). As a matter of fact, 99% of educational versions of software are actually stripped down versions of the retail product, which is the complete opposite of KerbalEDU and KSP, where you pay less for features that people who bought the retail game don't have.

Why go the complete opposite way of how other companies have been selling educational versions of software for decades?

[tetryds]

This argument doesn't hold a lot of water in face of the many other companies that have softwares of all kinds in retail versions that have the exact same features of the educational versions. The only difference is that you have bulk discount for educational versions as well as extra material(not features). As a matter of fact, 99% of educational versions of software are actually stripped down versions of the retail product, which is the complete opposite of KerbalEDU and KSP, where you pay less for features that people who bought the retail game don't have.

Why go the complete opposite way of how other companies have been selling educational versions of software for decades?

Because these are two independent products, you pay more for more features, basically.

As you said, on the other programs, you pay less for less features.

[klesh]

There are indeed some of us from TeacherGaming here at the forums.

Thank you for all the interest in KerbalEdu. We thought only people associated with education would be interested in getting it

Let me try to clarify our relationship with Squad: We are a for-profit (small startup) company and our very business model is creating education versions of entertainment games and selling those to schools in agreement with the original creators of the game. We first did this with Minecraft and MinecraftEdu and now with KSP and KerbalEdu.

Your concerns and inquiries have been heard and we promise to look into them with Squad as soon as possible. Let’s see what we come up with

Hi, nice that you would post to help inform us. Thanks.

Perhaps in future dealings with other games, giving the material you come up with to the regular game's current players (whether free, or at a cost) could be something that is worked into your initial dealings with a game company? A way to sweeten the deal for you guys (if they agree you can sell it for a few bucks to current game owners), or a way to sweeten the deal for the game company if they're not biting (you would offer your material to their community for free). A nice thing to bring up from the start.

I hope you're able to work something out with Squad.

Perhaps its because of the

[Crimson Sunrise]

Because these are two independent products, you pay more for more features, basically.

As you said, on the other programs, you pay less for less features.

No. They're not.

So, if I charge for what's essentially a game modification, will you call it an independent product?

Good to know that KSP is actually free software. Where can I get the source code of it?

[tetryds]

No. They're not.

So, if I charge for what's essentially a game modification, will you call it an independent product?

Good to know that KSP is actually free software. Where can I get the source code of it?

I did not really understand what you mean there.

What is the problem on selling plugins under the right licenses?

KSP community mods must be open source, but if a modder and SQUAD agreed about making a mod and selling it (just like a DLC), it's totally possible...

So, think about KSP EDU as a proper DLC, you don't need it in order to play the game, but it's not free either.

I agree that people who already have the game should be able to buy it.

But it makes sense if a bundle (KSP+EDU) is cheaper than buying both separatedly.

[Crimson Sunrise]

I did not really understand what you mean there.

What is the problem on selling plugins under the right licenses?

KSP community mods must be open source, but if a modder and SQUAD agreed about making a mod and selling it (just like a DLC), it's totally possible...

So, think about KSP EDU as a proper DLC, you don't need it in order to play the game, but it's not free either.

I agree that people who already have the game should be able to buy it.

But it makes sense if a bundle (KSP+EDU) is cheaper than buying both separatedly.

No problems at all. The problem in question, which is even illegal in my country, is the tie-in sale. You're FORCED to buy another copy of KSP in order to have access to KerbalEDU features. So that's not a plugin, since you can't buy just the KerbalEDU modifications and use them in the copy of KSP you have already.

Also, open source and free software are not the same thing. There's not a single line in the GPL that doesn't allow you to sell a program you made under said license, except that you have to make the modification's source code avaliable and the program must be released under GPL as well. Since Open Source products can be proprietary, you don't have to ask any permission from SQUAD in order to sell a mod, since the mod is a product separated from the game and not part of the KSP license. If SQUAD is planning on 'going Blizzard'...They will have to think twice, because they have no power over who mods their game. Period.

Of course I won't do it, but keep in mind that I could take legal action against SQUAD and the company that makes KerbalEDU because of the tie-in sale, since tie-in sales are illegal where I live.

Also, I cannot think of KerbalEDU as a DLC, because I can't buy it without another copy of KSP, therefore, not following the definition of what a DLC is.

This is just plain wrong and it's a [insert insult here] that just ends up hurting the end user and not SQUAD or the company that makes KerbalEDU.

[Rowsdower]

Hi, everyone. As it stands, KSP and KerbalEdu are two separate products meant for different audiences. While KerbalEdu still remains an education-based product, it was initially exclusive to that field, but opened up to a wider array of people who were interested in trying it out. As it stands, KerbalEdu is developed separately and treated as its own version with educational modifications made to it. At this time, there are no plans for us to integrate KerbalEdu features directly into the core game, however, it's been stated that the door is open for the possibility for Edu-esque features to be implemented into the core game in the future.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Rowsdower
one letter

[Crimson Sunrise]

At this time, there are no plans for us to integrate KerbalEdu features directly into the core game, however, it's been stated that the door is open for the possibility for Edu-esque features to be implemented into the core game in the future.

With all due respect, just the part I quote from your post is (theoretically) new information people don't know about, otherwise this thread and similar ones wouldn't even exist in the first place.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Crimson Sunrise
Missing a crucial word in there.

[Rowsdower]

With all due respect, just the part I quote from your post is (theoretically) new information people don't know about, otherwise this thread and similar ones wouldn't even exist in the first place.

I seem to remember it being brought up on an episode of Squadcast, but if you or anyone else missed this, then consider it reiterated

[Crimson Sunrise]

I seem to remember it being brought up on an episode of Squadcast, but if you or anyone else missed this, then consider it reiterated

Don't automatically assume everyone here follows what the devs are doing religiously. Some people have better things to do than watch a couple of developers trying to sound as corporate as possible while spending an hour or more answering questions by beating around the bush.

[mindstalker]

No problems at all. The problem in question, which is even illegal in my country, is the tie-in sale. You're FORCED to buy another copy of KSP in order to have access to KerbalEDU features. So that's not a plugin, since you can't buy just the KerbalEDU modifications and use them in the copy of KSP you have already.

What if you considered KSP a game-engine. If I buy Portal, I'm also buying in some small way the Source Engine "game'. Of course what is left of half-life or whatever has been completely stripped out. KerbalEDU didn't competently strip out the rest of the KSP game, but they easily could have and what you would have is essentially a rocketgame engine.