[Help Wanted] How Difficult Do Mods Make the Game?

[Right]

+ Reputation to all contributors!

I intend to develop a challenge which permits the use of almost all mods, but with each one used they affect the score of each challenger. Simply put, the easier a mod makes the game, the larger penalty one receives (And vice versa with respect to mods which make the game harder).

Assumptions:

We're talking about design.

Easier/harder

in this context refers to things that allow one to alter their costs, masses, science collection, part counts. (Last one debatable I know, but accept it for now)

Easier

in this context does not translate to saving time in flight. For this purpose, informational mods (I.E. KER, Trajectories, etc...) are largely regarded as not making the game

easier

. Harder does not translate to making piloting more difficult unless it absolutely necessitates more cost/mass/parts as a result.

I need your help to evaluate every mod I can in this respect. Please rate mods that you have played with - especially popular ones in 0.90 - according to the following difficulty scale:

< Less Difficult                                                           More Difficult >

  -100                  -10                  0                  10                  100

Effortless           10% Easier           Neutral           10% Harder          Impossible

Please note: Part mods should they make the game easier, should be evaluated by their most powerful part(s). Similarly mods that make the game harder should be evaluated based on ideal conditions. (For example, how much harder is the game using deadly re-entry with ideal re-entry trajectories)

Post your ratings, or add them directly to my spreadsheet! Feel free to discuss or argue for your ratings, especially the controversial ones. You may change some minds! You may alter your ratings at any time, and you may submit them anonymously.

Think of yourself playing a hardest level of career mode, with unlimited time to test and retest your designs to perfection. Using this mod, does it make the craft cheaper, lighter, or overall more robust relative to career mode goals? If an otherwise stock craft can be made equally functional but with 10% less funds, you might rate that mod as a -10. If a mode requires you to spend 10% more, and add 10% more parts in order to accomplish the same mission, you might rate that mod as a 15.

Final note: Please don't rate mods that clearly do not impact game performance. (Flags, textures, sounds, etc...)

Thanks in advance all!

- - - First Post - - -

I think I'll kick off the discussion on MechJeb's impacts: yes MJ's maneuvers can be handled better by a skilled pilot. However, MJ offers a zero mass alternative to probes for vessel control. So I give it a -3 (3% easier).

Also, I gave RemoteTech a 5 (5% harder). RT does not affect manned operations very much. This fact in conjunction with a kerbal in a command seat weighing only 0.14 (lightest probe is 0.03), RT doesn't impact craft performance too dramatically.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Right

[tater]

Ranking this is likely to prove impossible. Many people claim FAR is "hard," for example. I've only every noticed it was "different" myself. Some people think DRE is actually dangerous… you have to (actively) try pretty hard for it to be dangerous.

Honestly, the hardest mods I have used are life support, because everything all of a sudden has a real time limit. If a Duna mission misses getting orbit with crew… they are DEAD (unless you sent them with a few years worth of LS). Bottom line is all such reviews would be incredibly subjective. I'd rate FAR as 0 (neither easier, nor harder). I suppose DRE is very slightly harder since there is a non-zero chance of destruction. Has only happened to me by planning error though, so 1% harder (whatever minimum is). At most. Any LS makes it substantially harder, what % I have no idea.

Someone else will come in here (likely after not using it) and say FAR must make it 100% harder… so your average will agree with neither of the 2 actual observations.

[Alshain]

I hear the phrase "difficulty mods" a lot but there actually very few of these. Most cases people fool themselves into believing they are harder because they change the way you play from what the stock game does. I guess it depends on what you call "Hard". TAC Life Support doesn't make the game harder, it just adds more maintenance. FAR doesn't make the game harder, it just makes it so you have to fly more like in the real world. DRE doesn't make the game harder, it just makes it so you have to re-enter like a real spacecraft would.

I don't consider any of those difficulty mods. They change things but learning those new techniques isn't any harder or easier than learning to orbit was when I started this game. ( I don't consider RemoteTech a difficulty mod either).

[Right]

I know its hard to be optimistic with a task like this. But we should do our best.

@ Tater

It might turn into a flame fest with passionate people arguing starkly contrasting points, but with some luck we can extract some good information still.

We may find that avid FAR users rate it as 0 or near 0 generally, while stock users who have used FAR for a couple weeks rate it as difficult. The averages will be available for all to see, though I will ultimately not use simple averages for all mods.

How do you think you would rate the life support mod you use?

@ Alshain

As I mentioned in the OP, difficulty here refers to making a stock craft cost more, weigh more, or require more parts. Not to be confused with requires more skill to do. DRE for example will require the use of either heat shielding, more fuel usage for optimize re-entry trajectories, or de-orbit burns to reduce entry speed (all of which increase craft cost).

Edited January 26, 2015 by Right

[Alshain]

As I mentioned in the OP, difficulty here refers to making a stock craft cost more, weigh more, or require more parts. Not to be confused with requires more skill to do. DRE for example will require the use of either heat shielding, more fuel usage for optimize re-entry trajectories, or de-orbit burns to reduce entry speed (all of which increase craft cost).

FWIW, By that standard DRE makes it easier. With DRE you want to come in slow and shallow to reduce heating (without a shield), it takes less fuel to set up a shallow re-entry. Shields are never a required part unless you just want to come in quickly.

[pellinor]

Such a difficulty scale depends largely on the challenge. Otherwise you end up with a car race around KSC that gives extra points of you have deadly reentry, remote tech and life support installed.

Actually the best way to measure the effect of mods to a given challenge is to set up a robust measure of success and then compare the best results of certain mod combinations.

[Right]

FWIW, By that standard DRE makes it easier. With DRE you want to come in slow and shallow to reduce heating (without a shield), it takes less fuel to set up a shallow re-entry. Shields are never a required part unless you just want to come in quickly.

Good point! But since you could come in shallow without DRE in stock too, its not making the game easier per se I think

Such a difficulty scale depends largely on the challenge. Otherwise you end up with a car race around KSC that gives extra points of you have deadly reentry, remote tech and life support installed.

Actually the best way to measure the effect of mods to a given challenge is to set up a robust measure of success and then compare the best results of certain mod combinations.

Thats very true! These results would have to be tailored to the challenge. Could you say a bit more about your measurement suggestion?

Edited January 26, 2015 by Right

[Captain Sierra]

I think I can give FAR a crack since I have flight experience with it but am a stock aero guy.

FAR makes aircraft design marginally more difficult. This, however, is negated by someone who is a veteran FAR user not knowing any different. It makes flying more intuitive and makes splaceplane flying marginally more difficult.

On the contrasting side, it decreases the delta V for a standard rocket launch by as much as 1000 for a well designed craft. This, however, necessitates the use of fairings and nose cones and other stuff, increasing mass and cost, but these pale in comparison to the cost savings of the lower delta V requirement.

On this basis, I'd assign FAR a rating of -5 on the basis that those who use it will be familiar with it. Conversely I'd assign users of Kerbal Isp Difficulty Scalar a +5 rating to negate the benefits of FAR (which is exactly what the 'stock, adjusted' preset does).

Tackling some of my more commonly used mods, here I go.

Near Future:

-Solar can increase power output significantly, but at a strong weight penalty. Overall the panels have better charge/mass ratios than stock, but very high costs and masses as a result. I'd assign a -1.

-Electric adds capacitors which have exceptional power density but cannot power anything. ONly when they discharge can they be of use and they require a LOT of Ec storage space (provided by the very large batteries the mod adds which match stock charge/mass ratio). Reactors add VERY high power output but are very heavy and expensive. This mod is generally used in conjunction with the power hungry NFPropulsion engines so I'll assign this one a 0.

-Construction adds a lot of new toys to play with for station building. The catch is that some of it is kind of heavy and expensive. I'd actually give this one a +1.

-Spacecraft adds more options, but really doesnt do anything to make the game easier. An argument could, however, be made that the x8 orbital engine with its high Isp makes it easier. THe command pod's unmanned control systems only come into play when life support is involved*.

-Propulsion adds some VERY high Isp engines which are very power hungry. If the challenge in question benefits (even partially) from reusable infrastructure, the use of this will make life a lot easier. for people. -5.

I can keep going but I'm getting long-winded. /post

*Part of the problem here is that certain mods interact in ways that destroys the balance they were built on, which would fundamentally change the rating. A good example is if someone brought Interstellar reactors to power Near Future engines. These kinds of scenarios are not accounted for by this system and would destroy the weighting system here. Adding in an LS mod would fundamentally increase the difficulty but the use a command pod which does not require pilots can circumvent a lot of that. Mods that alter the gameplay as a whole have much more sweeping effects that compromise the system in ways.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Captain Sierra

[Right]

@ Cpt. Sierra

Very helpful post. Yes the last bit you mentioned is a problem I am privy to. Another example is combining remote tech and life support. One makes manned missions hard while the other makes unmanned missions hard. Their ratings separately and together are different to be sure. For the purposes here, I think it will be best to think about each mod as if it were the only mod installed to a stock game. Fortunately I have a few ideas about how to counteract some of these issues. Please post more about the mods you use later if you feel up to it! I especially enjoyed the analysis.

[pellinor]

Thats very true! These results would have to be tailored to the challenge. Could you say a bit more about your measurement suggestion?

It's probably not what you would like to hear. I'm suggesting to first do the challenge, with separate leaderboards as usual. The results of the challenge will give you a quantitative comparison of certain mods.

If you do it the other way round, first scoring mods by opinion and then do one challenge for all, you'll likely end up with either stock or one mod combination dominating the leaderboard. It's like balancing a new game, very hard to do in advance. Most games are balanced by playtesting, you watch which strategies are successful, and apply tweak after tweak to the rules. In the end, if many different strategies are able to win, the game is balanced.

[Right]

If you do it the other way round, first scoring mods by opinion and then do one challenge for all, you'll likely end up with either stock or one mod combination dominating the leaderboard. It's like balancing a new game, very hard to do in advance. Most games are balanced by playtesting, you watch which strategies are successful, and apply tweak after tweak to the rules. In the end, if many different strategies are able to win, the game is balanced.

Mmm, I do take your meaning. Kind of a catch 22 - need the challenge results to ideally weigh the mods, need to ideally weigh the mods to produce a good challenge in this way.

However, I think I'm going to take a middle ground approach. The entries will be scored using weight variables through a spread sheet. Starting weights will be used as a baseline from this thread, but will be adjusted as certain mods prove to be more or less powerful than their weight factors in.

[tater]

Alshain, I would disagree on life support. In my first stock career in ~august (played a science career once before that) I sent a craft not much different than a munar lander to Duna. No problem. It;s rather a different mission to send it with life support for a year. I'd argue that it's the only mod I have added that has actually made the game more difficult/challenging. You might argue is just adds more mass, and I suppose you'd be right, but it's certainly more difficult to land a munbase for 18 on the jun, than it is to land a stock 1st munar mission that you might do on the 3d launch. If LS is no more difficult, IMHO, then nothing really is (perhaps that is your point).

[Right]

So I have added a second page to the spreadsheet, if anyone feels like they are an avid user/expert in using one or more mods, feel free to list yourself or post so.