ferram4

@ObsessedWithKSP: Added a simple prevention to the code, hopefully it doesn't break anything. @Sevio: The simplest version possible should already be there to play around with; I uploaded it maybe an hour or so ago. If that doesn't work, more extreme measures might be necessary.

We're going to end up with this being a big official thing, aren't we? Alright, let's play ball. So, how do we set things up so that an "expert" for one mod can't impersonate an "expert" for another? Otherwise experts for competing mods might decide to cause trouble for their competitor. Who decides and how do they decide whether a mod gets to have "experts" or not? Or will the admins / moderators issue "expert" status at modder will to anyone they deem, regardless of how many users their mod has / how much support it actually needs? If it's the former, what about mods that would be able to make use of "experts" but can't get them sanctioned for whatever reason? If it's the latter, doesn't that dilute the effectiveness of the approach and result in lots of people gaming the system to have a title (because let's admit it, being acknowledged by a modder to know what you're doing wrt support for their mod is kind of impressive)? And then there are the issues where users will cross wires and try to get support from an "expert" for mod A in a mod B thread, because that "expert" happened to post there for whatever reason. This sounds like it's designed to smash into all the things I was worried about when I mentioned not wanting it to become too official.

64 bit is a complete nightmare. I've seen it crash when my memory usage is at 2.5 gigs, and there's not much rhyme or reason to it. I know a few ways to exacerbate a crash, but nothing on how to cause them reliably. In particular, lots of exceptions being thrown seem to make it worse. In any case, if you can do so, play on 32 bit instead. Even if you get the odd crash on loading because you installed a new mod and you went over the limit, it's at least at the beginning before you put any work in.

@Greys: I think the idea has merit, but it can't become too organized and official. If it does, then we're looking at users perceiving this support group as a bunch of gatekeepers, there to keep them from reaching the modder. If it's organized enough that that becomes the perception, users will become far more hostile towards both the support group (who the user will believe is wasting time) and the modder (who the user will believe simply doesn't care to listen). Support volunteers will burn out, and the modder will have to handle even more work and hostility when it's done. Ultimately, this is a worst-case scenario under this idea, so I'm not too worried about it, but it's a possibility. A more concerning possibility is that users don't accept any of this group's word as good as the modder's. It'll turn into the constant problem of people telling them that they want to "speak to [their] manager" as it were, though that would basically amount to dismissing what any of them say and instead demanding an answer from the modder. So this raises the question of how we avoid this happening, since then it turns into more demands on the modder, and given how some users can get, this is something that needs to be considered. Especially if it's a situation where it's the user's own fault, and they might take talking to someone who isn't the modder as reason to dismiss the answers as "obviously wrong, they don't know what they're talking about." @KerbMav: That is a completely different subject. This topic started to discuss how some competent users can help modders more, and how some informal already-existing systems can be made slightly more formal so that we can focus on more important things. Your suggestion has nothing to do with that, and your "modder support group" doesn't even support modders; it exists only to support users. Please don't derail the topic by shifting its focus away from Greys' idea.

It doesn't care. It knows about vertex points in space, nothing more. It uses that to approximate a convex shape around the part. Anything more complicated would result in the drag calculations becoming really nasty and loading times would suffer as a result. FAR mostly takes advantage of the fact that you find very few one-piece complicated messes to generate the approximate geometry used for it. Stop over-complicating it. It's not that complicated. It never has been, and probably never will be, because then drag characteristics suddenly vary greatly based on not only visible part shape, but modeller style and skill (for how they handle normals and how many, and how quickly they change).

FAR and NEAR don't know about faces. They only know about verts, really. Drag numbers can be displayed by activating them in the FAR debug menu in the Space Center scene.

@nli2work: It uses the entire visual mesh, excluding specific transforms used by Firespitter modules, since until now they have been the only ones where such values need to be ignored. I may need to add a way to add additional exemptions for Karbonite modules, depending on what you're doing. @Jovus: <clippy>It sounds like you're having trouble finding that perfect middle ground between the extremes. Would you like some help?</clippy> Anyway, the problem is that gravity turns are technically chaotic trajectories (the end conditions and path are highly dependent on small changes of the initial variables), which means that it's really easy to over correct from launch to launch. I've found something like a 5 degree initial turn at 100 m/s, holding that orientation until the velocity vector meets the orientation vector, and then following that up to about 30 km or so where you start trying to have your own ideas about what's a smart orientation to take tends to work pretty well. The specifics generally vary with the TWR curve of the rocket as a function of time.

@Motokid600: If you're using the Real-Life settings, those are ways to increase the mass of the rocket needed to real-life scales, not to stock scales. Since all the mod parts are ~64% the size of real life stuff, of course they're going to be too small; they are! You want FAR-to-stock, either universal or atmo-only. I'd advise universal, just because atmo-only is kind weird, I only added that because I knew people would want it to not affect their exo-atmospheric shenanigans. So, progress report: Working on proper RF integration, found some bugs on the RF side the NathanKell was kind enough to fix. Overall, looks good. Fixed the issue with flat Isp curves and extend curve to 0 causing problems. I'll end up adding some more presets for RSS-users, so they can ease into using RSS, and then I'll release a new version.

Nexus Mod Manager is not good for KSP for the same reason as any other mod manager: the second it breaks, it means more support requests for me. Frankly, any game where a mod manager is considered necessary probably isn't a game that should be modded, IMO. I'm not just against nexus. I'm against all mod managers because they hide what happens from the user (so they have no idea how the mod was installed), they make the barrier to entry lower (meaning more nasty, entitled users), and they can make many more support requests if they break (because all of a sudden, every single person using the mod manager will have the same issue). Users don't update when they're told an update is out either, so that feature isn't very useful, unless it updates against their will (which it shouldn't, tbh). And all of that ignores the fact that it's one more place to upload things, which makes pushing a release more complicated.

It's not about the development environment at all, which hints that you haven't been reading my complaints. It's that it will result in more support requests for us modders. The development environment has jack to do with support requests, and interestingly, more users is going to mean more support requests, which means more work for me... so how is this easier for me again? Which is due to modders needing time to get the mod working with the update... no amount of additional package managing-meta data schemes is going to fix that. Packaging schemes cannot fix code that does not work. And what happens when the manager breaks? It will break. They always break. There's no way around it, because software is not perfect. When that happens, and the support requests land in my thread, will there be fewer support requests? Will there be fewer when everyone's become too accustomed to push-button-receive-mod to get around the broken system? Every time a mod manager scheme gets proposed, it ignores failures of the manager and it ignores that it will not be updated forever... so what happens when your analysis includes that?

And yet, all of those criticisms were not followed by reasons why they would not work. We have all pointed out again and again why these ideas are not beneficial to modders; you being able to point to a single statement doesn't erase those. You're proposing an idea that inevitably means more support work for me. Unless you're talking about paying me a handsome sum of cash (and I mean, a lot of money) every time someone downloads / updates my mod through any of the many methods being suggested to cover the sudden increase in workload, then yes, it must be that way. You don't get to add more work with no benefit without me being against it. All of the concrete ideas have already been discussed, argued against, and decided to be not worth it / ineffective. A very few have stubbornly trudged on despite modder wishes. Continuing to talk about the same ideas, again and again, doesn't really help. Then ultimately, we have no quarrel, since you will never achieve that. Good to know, I don't have to worry about any of the recent package managing / mod managing ideas going anywhere and making this more difficult for me.

I already told you that such a "solution" does not exist, not without perfect coding on someone's part (which as we all know, is never going to happen). And if it's imperfect coding, it's less work until it breaks, at which point, it's a hell of a lot more work. You can't do anything for us. You don't like that answer, but it's the truth. If something could be done to help, it would have been done long before you arrived here. All you can do is things that will make everything more difficult for modders.

Support is an issue only when people propose making it more difficult through implementing various schemes. Otherwise it's just an expected part of being a modder. Github already has an issue tracker and wikis that we can use. In any case, it's not going to be useful because users won't go there; there's really no way to force them there either. Support-wise, we've probably got the best we can have.

If everyone complaining that FAR makes things to easy dV wise would listen for a second, I can point you to something that will help: In the Space Center, there is a FAR button that takes you to the debug menu. In one of the tabs in the debug menu, there is an area factor that scales all aerodynamic forces. Increase the area factor by 10. Enjoy return of souposphere with ridiculous sideways lift forces and pods that reenter at 1/3 their original speed.

Let me put it this way: If we get easier "installation" of mods, each of us will get more users and more support requests. If we get auto-updating, everything will be fine until that system breaks, at which point, each of us will have to deal with the swarms of users who have issues, because they'll blame the modder, not the update-system coder. If we get some package managing system, it'll be the same as the auto-updating system, except not just for updating, it'll be for "installing" in the first place. And then there will be the issue of making sure that the package manager always points to the most up-to-date version, which means that I will have to rush out to make sure that people aren't downloading out-of-date versions, because I can't rely on someone else to do it for me. In all of these, I have to do more work; in the latter two, my workload is dependent entirely on the competence of whoever sets up those systems, and I'm not a tremendous fan of other people making this harder for me. Further, the latter two will effectively require me to support that mess as well as my projects, and I'm completely boned if the author of either of those gets bored and leaves. I already spend an amazing amount of time on support requests. I don't want to spend any more time on it. @ATheAlmightyOS: You mentioned that you wanted a solution (to a problem that I don't think is, but that's another argument entirely) that did not interfere with modders. You are seeking a unicorn. The yeti. Faeries. You will not find it. Every solution you will come up with will make things worse for us, since we will have more support requests to deal with. We've already optimized things to make creating and supporting mods almost as easy as it could be; the only places where it could be made easier there are huge risks if the system ever breaks that suddenly things will become worse as users used to package managers become lost at the idea of having to use (horror of horrors) Windows Explorer (cringe) to move files around. And then we'll have to deal with the complaining from that, not you or whoever is running that project. Here is my advice: if you really think that this is such a problem for end users, and you are unsatisfied with the priorities of modders, you should stop what you're doing in this thread. Stop pretending that you're going to help us or that you're trying to. Stop trying to get a sanction from us; we already know we're getting a raw deal here. Support and implement one of those ideas in spite of us. Go ahead, make our workloads heavier. Force it on us. Then maybe we'll hate you as much as you seem to think we do. But you don't want to do that? But you don't want to listen to the answer of modders and stop, so I'm not sure what you're going to do then. The interests of end-users and modders are not aligned perfectly in this situation, and for the things being discussed it's a zero-sum game once you account for imperfect systems.

Why don't you go ahead and explain what any of us benefit from this. So far, everything has been focused on the end user alone (and seemingly at modder expense in the process). And I want concrete examples. All that we have covered by "talking" is that modders think everything is fine, you and a few users think it's horrible, and that our systems work for us so there is no reason for any of us to change it as things stand.

Never trust dev builds to make sense. They're not proper releases (or even pre-releases) for a reason.

No, the one in the GameData folder in the repo itself. That's the dev build.

Known issue, get the dev build on github.

Original Post or Original Poster. Depends on the context, but it points to the first post of the topic or the person who posted it, although the former use is more common here and the latter is more common on reddit. Edit: I am not a ninja, but apparently Boomerang is.

We don't hate you. For the most part, we're just frustrated, because (as you seem to be aware) you're not the first person to come in from outside and start trying to tell us how to do things. To start off, I think you should reflect on the contradiction between "OMG This is screwed up!" and "If you actually read what I am trying to do, you would see my end goal is TO LEAVE MODDERS ALONE." You're really not helping your case here. You know the 2nd most irritating thing about these discussions? That they're always the same formula: person from outside KSP with no knowledge of how modding works in it shows up, suggests something that has been suggested multiple times before, and then becomes upset, frustrated, and sometimes belligerent when they realize that they aren't being received with open arms as some kind of savior of the modding community. It's the same arguments: As an example, mod managers aren't a good thing because it inevitably puts an imperfect piece of software between my users and "installing"* my mods and hides from them what is going on; if an error occurs, they won't have any idea what to do or what went wrong, and will likely come to me about it, and I will be expected to support not only my own mods, but the mod manager as well. You know the most irritating thing? That inevitably, it's by (I think) well-meaning people that simply aren't aware of the issues and consequences of their ideas for modders. I've never seen a thread in this forum started by an established modder asking for any of this, it's always by outsiders, and it really makes me suspicious of the effectiveness of any of these common ideas given the fact that no established modders want to touch them; after all, we know what to expect and what consequences there will be, and if we're not biting, there's probably a reason (hint: there are a lot for pretty much any suggestion). So it's only the new guys who come in that end up suggesting these things, and while they're well meaning, it seems like nearly every single one fails the test of asking themselves, "If this idea is really as effective, easy, and simple as I think it is, with no hidden consequences, why hasn't it been done already? Why am I the one suggesting it?" Of course, that's merely a failure of introspection rather than anything else, but I think it's somewhat revealing. Normally, these threads end up resolving themselves when the standard responses to these ideas are made. They're not standard because they've been dismissed out-of-hand, but because we hear them all the time. However, normally OPs at least accept the arguments or decide to "prove us wrong" by trying something; I don't think I've ever seen the trying something result in something successful though. In either case, both are certainly more respectful and productive than this one has been. I've never really been a fan of most of these projects because they always seem to involve me getting more support requests at some point (either through more users screwing things up, or more users, or hiding things under the guise of making it simpler), but I'm a lot less willing to support them now, since apparently I'm hateful and the way that I do things (which many people have said is fine) is screwed up. Like I said, you're really not helping your case. *I think that calling copying over a folder an installation is kind of a stretch. Hunh, turns out it already supports build numbers... so why didn't the version in that pull request have Build = 0? Hmm...

Because I like making the game fit the way I think it should be. I release it to users so that they can make sure that there are no bugs in it so that when I'm playing, I don't run into bugs. Besides that, dealing with the KSP API is a fun challenge. But now that I've answered your question, I'll ask again: Like what? You obviously have something in mind, or you wouldn't have said this; what was it?

But in the latest package manager shenanigans thread you essentially argued for Squad removing options in what we could do with respect to directory structure in order to support package manager / mod manager programs. I hope you understand that when you go and start talking about what Squad needs to do to make such things happen, and that those things include restricting options for what we can do, that I will consider that you don't want us to have as many options now as we had before. Google is your friend. Think Google is Skynet? Use Bing. In any case, relying on forum / other site embedded search functions is silly at best. Sounds like this is a problem of having too many options... There really aren't any that don't come with their own issues. If it becomes easier for users to install mods, suddenly more support requests will pop up from users that come up with new and even more inventive ways to break things. For mod users, whatever each of us uses right now seems to work quite fine, and very few jump on any of these projects to make things better, since they probably aren't going to make things better. Which doesn't work, because it doesn't include the ability to handle down to the build in versioning, which means that it breaks for FAR hotfixes. Odds are I'll remove it whenever I get around to cleaning things out because of that, since it essentially defeats the purpose of having it there if it doesn't work. Like what? There's really nothing that I think it should do to be honest.

I'm perfectly happy with the way things are right now. Lots of choices for mod repositories and mirrors. Lots of choices and options for directories that mods can be organized into. Lots of options in terms of licensing. I like options; why should we get rid of them, as you seem to be suggesting? What benefits are there to any of this? Why should any of us care to start going around policing what other modders choose for their mirrors or for their directory structures? Why is it my problem?

KJR doesn't search for whether RSS is installed or not, it just stiffens things as best it can regardless. >_> Where do these rumors start?