Define "Stock-alike"

[Starwhip]

Basically, exactly what the title says. Some things to consider:

• What art style comes to mind?
  
• Kinds of parts.
  
• Contracts, missions, ships, planets...
  
• General feel of the game.
  

I will reserve my opinions to remove bias.

EDIT:

This is just to see what other people feel that "stock-alike" means, and may be interpreted in any manner one sees fit. Hints to the game developers, a morality changer, whatever.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Starwhip

[Sean Mirrsen]

"Stock" is whatever the game, as-shipped, contains. No more, no less. It's not a separate "thing", it's a descriptor in relation to the game itself. Stock game, as made by its developers.

You have to clarify. Do you want to know what "Stock KSP" is right now, or what people want it to be? Because what it is right now is easily quantifiable. And can be summed up as "it is what it is".

[Tweety]

Hmmmm interesting.

I would personally expect stock to look like the parts we currently have EXCEPT porkjet's parts and the SLS parts. I'm not saying they don't belong, I absolutely love those parts, just saying that look far more advanced than the original parts (does that even make sense?!).

Stock on gameplay mechanics, contracts and planets etc, is exactly as I would expect. In the sense that 'hang on why do i have to rescue a kerbal when I'm the only space agency on the planet'. It's the sort of irregularities I would expect from KSP. I don't know why and how i go about explaining my thoughts though.

Just to note, I DO have mods and have run stock for a while too. Before Porkjet's spaceplane parts were added I couldn't live without them, and I have recently add EVE and a visual pack purely for the look of a 'shiny new game'. B9 and other part mods I haven't ever used yet because I just don't think the visuals fit. Again no bias towards any mods, I just like what I like but I'm sure I will in the future.

Tweety.

Edit: Come to think of it I would imagine anything that has been in the game for a while makes that mechanic, part or whatever 'feel' stock. Docking ports were introduced in 0.18 which is when I started playing therefore are stock to me, but I'm sure to others they didn't 'feel' stock when first implemented.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Tweety

[PlonioFludrasco]

IMHO: I define stock only things already into the game as you download it, and their style.

About art style: I think of a stock look as a style that is very similar to the one you can find in stock parts, and that also integrates well with parts of a certain stack: you surely have noted that medium-sized parts have a more cartoonish style than Kerbodyne ones.

Strictly stock, just that.

But there are also things that even if not part of the stock game could fit well in it,

so one can say that are "stock like"

Kind of parts: parts similar to ones found in the original game, that also are not overpowered in terms of performance and not meant to surclass the parts we already have. I consider stock like ships the ones that are made of stock like parts. (banality!)

About planets: anything that is plausible given the scaled down size of the Kerbol system.

I haven't wrote about the other stuff because I never tried them modded.

Even about gameplay, I never installed heavy mods that changes it completely, both because I like current one (but changes are welcome, I never found a release to be worse than the previous, good job Squad!) and because my PC can't handle much more than a couple of mods.

[Arugela]

I liquid made of boiling/steaping meats or vegetables or other substances in order to fill or catch the liquid with some of it's content. Like a tea. Usually to preserve nutrients or utilize materials in cooking and add flavor potentially.

I think the four bulletin points can be summed up within that!!

Edited March 9, 2015 by Arugela

[Guest]

Basically, exactly what the title says. Some things to consider:

• What art style comes to mind?
  
• Kinds of parts.
  
• Contracts, missions, ships, planets...
  
• General feel of the game.
  

Suggestion? Discussion? Why?

Typically "what ships with the unmodified game" has been used as a definition for "stock" on these forums.

[GreenWolf]

I think what the OP is trying to ask is probably more along the lines of "What would you consider to be stockalike?" The definition of stock is pretty obvious. Stockalike? A bit less so.

For me, stockalike describes parts that don't feel like they come from a mod. They have a certain art style that fits the KSP style, and they tend to fill gaps in the stock part line up. So something like Modular Rocket Systems would be stockalike, but something like B9 Aerospace or KW Rocketry would not.

[Starwhip]

I think what the OP is trying to ask is probably more along the lines of "What would you consider to be stockalike?" The definition of stock is pretty obvious. Stockalike? A bit less so.

Yeah, one moment. You're right.

[Whirligig Girl]

First off, I kind of see a parallel to the visual style of Team Fortress 2 and KSP's stock parts.

There are some different feels even to the various stockalike mods that exist. RLA feels softer and a bit more cartoony than even the stock parts. Near Future Propulsion is a bit sleeker and shiny, but in a retrofuture kind of way. Atomic Age is particularly odd. The artist Porkjet made the existing stock parts to fit in with the Kerbal style, but somehow he has his own distinct style, a bit more subtle than stock parts, and with some things like 2D textures of camera-holes which might be modeled in directly by another modeler. It's in Porkjet's own style, and since his parts are in-game stock, they are by definition stockalike. Stock eXTension obviously does it quite well, because it in fact steals textures from stock parts.

Personally, I think that you lose part of the stockalike feel if you know you can group together a set of parts to a particular mod. So having just a few niche parts is more stockalike to me, simply because it doesn't really expand much upon what the game has. Small things like SXT's 2.5m Cargo Bays or the Mk3 Fuselage end cargo bay thing; or something to that end. The best ever stockalike mod was Kerbal Stock Parts eXtension. Most of it's parts were placed in stock and Claira Lyrae's work on KSPX and NovaSilisko's work on the stock parts are nearly indistiguishable. Add to that the fact that now KSPX has so few parts to add anymore, and it makes it even a bit better.

The fact about the stock aesthetic about how SLS parts and Spaceplane parts look more advanced than the other parts makes sense when you consider tech progression. Low tech parts in the tech tree really do look lower tech, obviously.

And finally, I'd like to end with a statement from Bac9, back when he was remaking the KSC.

First of all, there already exists an established art style within KSP, and it has nothing to do with old buildings: the style of stock parts. It is defined by a few things. First, it is depicting modern pieces of technology like engines and electric equipment, built fairly competently and cleanly, with slight exaggeration of proportions. Second, it usually ignores too small high-frequency detail in favor of nice bulky minimal shapes. Third, it favors hand-painted detail and solid fills instead of gritty photo-sourced textures, and is using a particular color palette of grays, browns and whites, with occasional accents in other colors. It's a very consistent style, and it works well, fitting the characters and the world together.

...

It’s not Kerbal? *shrug* For some reason some people like to think Kerbals are sloppy engineers only capable of producing inherently broken designs held together by duct tape. To them, proposing something prim and proper like a NASA VAB could be built by Kerbals is ridiculous. Well, I disagree. Take a good look at the parts: at the LV-N engine, at 3-man pod, at the landing legs, at ion engine. Those are cleanly executed pieces of impressive technology. Kerbals are indifferent to safety precautions and are very excited about explosions, yes, but they make an impression of extremely capable and very competent engineers. Sure, we know they probably turned a construction crane into a vomit carousel or raced on bulldozers in the process, but I don't doubt for one second they can build buildings similar to real ones, and I don't think it would be out of character for them. Plenty of other stuff like engines is fairly close to how our human rockets look. It's unfair to mistake Kerbals for Orks from a “Certain Universe With 40k In The Name,†or to expect them to build sloppy duct-taped huts.

Just my 0.02 funds.

[billbobjebkirk]

It also involves some design features and a general color scheme.

[nothingSpecial]

What GregoxMun said and cited and also modularity. Stockalike is all about neutral palette that allows different combinations for "bulky-elegant" design.

Porkjet has stockalike-but-modern-but-stockalike (hey, Arnold!) style. NASA pack is less old-stockalike (more contrast details), but now stock and still goes for the same scheme.

[Whirligig Girl]

What GregoxMun said and cited and also modularity. Stockalike is all about neutral palette that allows different combinations for "bulky-elegant" design.

Yes, I almost forgot! ABSOLUTELY NO PREMADE CRAFTS. Kerbin Shuttle Orbiter System, for instance, can only ever be built as the KSOS. It can not be anything else.