ferram4

No, but they did accomplish their goal. By naming the title that and making the first post entirely about stuff that has largely not been advocated for (at least not as a, "the entire game should be this way" thing), OP has successfully framed the argument so that anyone arguing for any slight increase in realism is associated with unfun things. Very good manipulation of others, I must admit, but it would probably be best for the mods to look into changing the title and making a note at the beginning of the OP about that, because it's actually hindering the discussion quite badly. I would argue that that would be worse. With a decent aerodynamic model (one with drag / lift distributed over the vehicle and with drag / lift forces based on shape and orientation), much higher density ends up making any stability issues much more severe; if a rocket is unstable with air-like densities, you'll have no hope of controlling it with water-like densities, and if a rocket is too stable and just a lawndart at air-like densities, you have no hope of getting it to turn with water-like densities. Besides that, even without specific aerodynamic failure features that will be able to tear rockets and planes apart in flight quite easily. Don't believe me? Both FAR and NEAR have configs that include a line called "areaFactor" that scales up aerodynamic forces. Since aerodynamic forces scale linearly with both area and desnsity, doubling the areaFactor is equivalent to doubling the density of the atmosphere. Now, I doubt you would want actual hydrodynamics, since that would require an area factor of ~815 to convert air into water, and that would actually make the atmospheric drag worse than in stock by a hell of a lot (you'll be looking at terminal velocities of ~10 m/s, which makes sense if you've ever seen something sink). Setting areaFactor to something like 10 is closer to stock-like forces, so go and try that. See how much progress you make with that.

The vast majority of those threads were from much earlier than 6 months ago, but were lost in the Great April Forum Purge of 2013, and not many licensing discussions have happened since before then (largely because everything was handled, but for a few people who insisted on continually throwing flak at anyone considering licenses more restrictive than CC-BY-SA or GPL). Largely, it has all ended up going the way this one has, just taking longer, in general.

Licenses have been required for a damn long time, and most of the mods that existed before licenses were required are dead and gone. They've been required for well over a year and a half now, and we've covered this stuff many times in that timeframe. It's not that people didn't care then and care now, it's just that it's that time again to rehash something that was already settled because new people arrived.

By answering my statement here: With this: Your example had near nothing to do with my point, which was that trying to force free licensing would drive existing mods away. You responded to that concern by saying that it would be a good thing; I'm sure you can understand why someone would interpret this as, "killing off mods with restrictive licenses is good."

I see a bunch of people arguing that they dislike the terms of the license because it doesn't let them do what they want with it. Frankly, it comes off as entitled and disrespectful, considering that you get something for free but then insist that it somehow just isn't good enough. ...you're seriously arguing for killing off mods? How the hell is this beneficial?!

Mod authors have the choice to pick any mod license they like, including restrictive ones. This is good because it allows modders that are deeply uncomfortable with others continuing their work to still release it, and so we all benefit. Arguing that restrictive licenses hurt the community (and thus we should [require open licenses / heavily censure modders that choose restrictive licenses / any other ideas intended to subvert restrictive licenses]) is based on a questionable premise, which is that mods with restrictive licenses would be released with more open licenses under those circumstances. If that premise is untrue for even one author, then the community has been hurt by the lack of a mod being released to the public. Even so, mod authors should not be required to license based on someone else's interpretation of "the greater good." It is their work, their time, and their effort that goes into those projects. It should rightfully be them that choose how the results of their effort are used. There is nothing to discuss, as mod licensing is fine as it is. Forcing free software licenses will kill off quite a few mods that are unwilling to go that way, and that will be very bad for all of us. Ultimately, I have to agree this thread is pointless, as this has been discussed many times before.

Both FAR and NEAR use the same names for their internal modules to maintain consistency. You will simply need to make sure that they activate in the presence of NEAR. Also, please don't violate anyone's licenses in the process. That's not cool.

Sure you can, it's not deep in the code. Just a few config files it seems.

What kinks? I've installed mods like mad, and never run into any. Mods in KSP are amazingly compatible, unless you insist on getting out-of-date unsupported ones. That's because I'm not bundling someone else's work. If I up and leave now, it's not like there will be versions of FAR 0.14 still being downloaded when FAR 0.15 is the most recent version. But if you were to bundle my work, and then abandon it, there's suddenly a download where the "most" up-to-date version is still FAR 0.14 while FAR 0.15 is current. This is a problem of redistribution. Sure, but anyone who asks why will receive a simple answer: there were people who wanted to do stuff with my work that I did not agree with. They were unwilling to respect my wishes, and so, now I must do this to compel them to follow those wishes. I did not want to do that, but was left no choice other than to see someone act in a way that I think would harm this project. It was a difficult choice, and it has ugly consequences, but it was necessary due to the actions of a few in the community. I will rake responsibility for arguing for All Rights Reserved and highly restrictive licenses, but you need to take responsibility for being the root cause. You are the first mod packer to decide to ignore the points made by modders; you are not changing things for the better. At the very least, this will be an entertaining disaster.

Except that states that you cannot change the license of versions already distributed; it says nothing about the original author being stuck with a CC license forever if they use it for a given project.

Please follow the instructions in the sticky. We need the entire output_log.txt and instructions on how to create a craft (and what to do with it) that will produce this issue reliably.

Do you really think so little of users that replacing extracting multiple archives is more work than extracting one? The value of a modpack over the mods individually is the convenience (miniscule) - not having the guaranteed most up-to-date-version (rather important) - certainty of what mod causes what (fairly important). Thinking about this more, this seems like a negative value for users, not a positive one. It's just branded well, like potato chip bags that are half empty to make you think you're getting more than you actually are. And what, pray tell, is it? Everyone will tell you that any modpack they could come up with makes sense, but it's still just a collection of things. More specifically, it's a collection of things that will quickly rot whenever you become bored supporting your particular collection and leave, but don't take down the download. Nah, All Rights Reserved is a fairly good thing to advocate for any new mods. It's pretty simple and easy to understand: I have absolute power over this, you have no rights to it. There's no confusion there, because the answer to nearly all the important questions regarding what you can do with someone else's work is no. It's actually simpler and clearer than any of the licenses we have so far. Simple. Previously, with a smaller community, the effects of someone going off and doing something regardless of our wishes (but that the license allowed) wouldn't be that big: fewer users in general meant fewer support requests, which meant less effort for us. Someone creating a pack against our wishes wouldn't increase the workload that much, and we were a large enough part of the community that we could say that X pack is causing an issue, you shouldn't use it, and that would be effective. Further, we could generally expect people to respect the wishes of modders more than they do currently, and that they would think about the best interests of the project. That's not the case anymore. With WololoW pointing out that no one needs to listen to anything but the licenses exactly, and you going forward regardless of whether we think it's a good idea or not, we will have to make a choice: maintain the current level of support that we do for our works by reducing the negative impact that you can make through restricting licenses, or invoke the, "Nope, you aren't entitled to support, get lost" clause of those licenses. We'd prefer to do neither, simply because that encourages more people to get into modding and come up with cool stuff, but given that most of us care about our projects and the users we have, but need to prevent ourselves from being burned out, I think most of us are likely to start restricting anything that they easily can. I hope you understand the full consequences of what you intend to do. You will be responsible for every bit of code in every mod you distribute; you will need to be familiar with the very large codebases of many plugins. You will be responsible for any odd interaction. You will be responsible for any time wasted dealing with users of your pack that bother the rest of us about anything from it; it's not as if we can keep track of what changes you've made to anything. You will be responsible for keeping every mod exactly up-to-date. You will be responsible for making sure that everyone re-downloads the pack (and 90% of the stuff that didn't change) every update to avoid issues. and most importantly, when you lose interest, you will be responsible for cleaning up whatever mess you have created. You will not be able to do this. You're taking on the workload of as many people as you have mods to include. You will not be able to meet the responsibilities implicit in the role that you are taking on, and we will have to deal with the consequences of that. You are taking on a massive workload for little benefit for anyone, but a huge cost to modders during and after you leave (You're not going to keep all of the support in your thread(s); they will spread to the thread of any mod you pack, simply because enough users gloss over the statements in the OP for it to be a problem). Any miniscule value that you add in the meantime will be destroyed by value lost by modders as a dealing with the consequences.

That is almost certainly an issue with incorrectly set configs, which isn't something on my end.

There really isn't, not without making the GUI code a gigantic nightmare of switches and options (which will inevitably take up all the room you'd save). You'd only save 30 pixels or so getting rid of the flight assistance buttons anyway, they're tiny. Best option is to move it so it's partly off the screen, I'd say.

Would an aerodynamic model that would make nosecones useful and allow aerodynamic forces to be based on shape rather than mass be better than what we have now? Also, would any such improved aerodynamic model be more realistic than the current mass-based one we have now? If the answer to both of those is yes (as it likely should be, and it's not hard to manage either), then yes, you yourself think that KSP would be "better" with more "realism." You don't have to advocate for Saturn Vs to get to the Mun to be in favor of more realism; you just have to be in favor of some simply changes to make the KSP universe behave more like our own, which will make it more intuitive for new players. Wide, flat pancake rockets with no nosecones being ideal is not an expected outcome, one which is unrealistic and is not expected by players because it is unrealistic, but that is what we have now. More realism != more difficulty, and more realism != less fun. Implementing a proper aerodynamic model would result in more intuitive behaviors (easier) and allow for more interesting design options as a result of new mechanics (more fun).

You're at the very limit of the amount of memory you can use, so the small amount that the game needs when switching scenes is enough to send you over. Either get Active Texture Management or remove part mods that you're not using.

Since this is pretty much a thinly-veiled jab at FAR, I'll just ask straight out: what should they be doing, and have you seen what happens to planes and rockets that go sideways at Mach 1 at sea level? The closest example I can think of was the (still going relatively slow) Proton rocket crash about a year ago where the 3rd stage and payload just straight sheared off (along with the external fuel tanks on the first stage) as it headed towards the ground sideways.

Since you're done, I'll just address one last point then: This assumes that the existence of mod packs would be the same thing as the modding community thriving. It is not. Mod packs offer no value, they are nothing but their constituent mods thrown together in some manner that often makes no sense, and with the serious risk that the constituent mods' original authors will have to clean up the support requests from that pack. Having to deal with support requests for an out-of-date version (because someone made a pack, got bored, and left the old pack up) hinders fixing actual bugs and adding new features. Which means the modding community does not thrive.

That's why most mods have their version numbers and release dates in the thread title. It provides a means for you to determine if you're up-to-date or not. That's all you need to worry about.

I don't touch the visual effects at all.

Which doesn't exactly solve the problem, it just replaces it with a new one: successfully getting their stuff classified as a mod pack. Which should be easy, but we're going specifically with the letter of the license, not worrying about the spirit or intention here. It would simply be easier, clearer, and less likely to be argued away to forbid redistribution and modification, period, and that exemptions need your explicit permission.

Not really. Define "mod pack." After all, if we're going down to the letter of this, everyone who wants to use your stuff will argue that they are not making a "mod pack" but something else, because then that allows them to use your work.

@BLUESHADOW125: What do you mean specifically about the first question? There's no reason you should have a nose cone magically floating in front of a wing, so it won't have any affect on lift or drag (because it's not a realistic scenario at all). But for the second one, yes, a barn door moving fast enough will produce lift. Not much, but it should. @Tigermisu: Firespitter should be compatible with FAR. If it is compatible with FAR, it should be compatible with NEAR unless the configs are not set up properly. If they aren't set up properly, that's in Snjo's domain, not mine.

Ahem: wings do not work that way. Tail planes do provide an amazing amount of lift, often similar (when scaled for area) as the maing wing at the same angle of attack. What you're arguing for is that they shouldn't make any lift regardless of angle of attack; you're basically asking for a hologram of a wing that doesn't actually do anything. Besides the fact that it's completely unrealistic, it's completely unintuitive: why should the player be able to change the laws of physics at their whim? This is hack gravity / infinite fuel level changing of physics, but it doesn't even have the decency to be consistent across all parts! Even the stock aerodynamics are correct in that the tail does shift the CoL back. That's why we add the horizontal tail, to move the CoL back and make the plane more stable. Even if it didn't betray a complete misunderstanding of how tails work (they shift the CoL back and make the plane more stable; that's their job), this would be a terrible suggestion by giving the player god powers as a standard thing and allowing inconsistencies in physical laws for no apparent reason.

No, actually, that's not the worst case. The worst part is something like that happens, and most licenses become more restrictive. This makes the forkers, redistributers and packers upset. Then they argue that we need to forbid restrictive licenses (don't believe this would happen? It's happened in the past with Kethane, the idea is mused about whenever a package manager discussion goes on for too long), and that licenses should be forced to be open or they won't be allowed on the forums. End result is that we're all looking at mods either being forced open against their author's wishes, then dealing with a situation that WololoW can't defend (you can't select the license you want), or mods disappear because their authors are unwilling to meet the terms here. Either way, it's bad.