Quality Mods Sharing Niches with Stock Features

[Robotengineer]

I'm not clear about that the purpose of this thread is, but that's backwards. When modders volunteered to add content to an unfinished game, they were aware that the game's development might render their work obsolete.

I pretty much agree with this. If modders are disappointed in the "stock'd" version of their mod, they can continue to develop their mod. (i.e, Toolbar)

[RainDreamer]

I don't see what may stop development of a mod when it is made stock except the modder themselves. The developers of the mod can simply just continue with modding if stock feature is still not something they find acceptable. In fact, they might be able to do their job easier when they already has a base of stock codes that is maintained by squad and they can build on easily.

[Xavven]

I'm not clear about that the purpose of this thread is, but that's backwards. When modders volunteered to add content to an unfinished game, they were aware that the game's development might render their work obsolete.

I'm going to jump on the Vanamonde bandwagon as well.

Imagine you are a game developer for, say, a FPS. You put it up on Steam Early Access and you have modelling a Glock 17 on your "to-do" list. Some modder happens to get to it first because you were working on something else for a while. Is it really fair to say that your game is encroaching on the mod, when it was part of your development plan to begin with?

[Armchair Rocket Scientist]

I find myself concerned as I see many high quality Mods that I love being endangered or encroached on by stock features. Some of these Mods have really assisted to make KSP the success that it is today. The future of these mods is uncertain. In many cases, development on these wonderful mods may be slowed or CANCELED all together . I am endeavoring to make an "Endangered Mods List". By "Endangered" I do not intend to say anything definitive, just that these Mod's niches have been encroached upon by stock features.

Endangered Mods List:

• Toolbar
  
• Anatid Robotics / MuMech - MechJeb
  
  
• Ferram Aerospace Research - FAR/NEAR
  
• Deadly Reentry
  
  
• Procedural Fairings
  
• PartCatalog
  
  
• Kethane
  

I'd really like to accomplish these 2 items with this thread:

1. Create a list of Mods that are or may be endangered by stock features.
   
2. Start a discussion on how we can keep these quality-mods relevant as KSP progresses.
   

Honestly, I'm not sure how a lot of this is a negative. A lot of these mods became so popular because of major "missing" core features in the game. If the stock game fulfills their roles well enough I see no reason why certain mods shouldn't be cancelled. Essentially there is no longer a reason for them to exist.

As for the mods listed:

Toolbar is probably here to stay if it's mostly used to make other mods work.

MechJeb is almost definitely staying around. Yes, you can now perform some basic functions like pointing at a node in stock, but that's only a tiny fraction of MechJeb's functionality.

NEAR might die because it sounds like the new stock aerodynamics will be very similar, but that's a GOOD thing. NEAR was pretty new anyway, and people have been clamoring for improved aerodynamics for years. FAR ain't goin' nowhere: it's a core part of most "hardcore" game setups, including anything with RSS.

Deadly Reentry? I can't say, it depends on how Squad handles reentry heating in 1.0. However, it's likely that DRE will still be used to change the reentry model for RSS saves.

Procedural Fairings: that depends on whether Squad implements fairings well. Right now PF's big advantage is that it's extremely flexible, but uses very little memory or space in the parts catalog. If Squad's fairings are like Novapunch or KW Rocketry fairings, I think we'll see a lot of people delete them to free memory and use PF instead.

Kethane: From what I know, Kethane is already dying not because of Squad, but because other ISRU mods like Karbonite do its job better.

[Commander Zoom]

Remember when docking was a mod? Parts larger than 1 meter in diameter? Spaceplane parts?

*looks at join date*

Probably not.

All of those things (and more) are stock now, to our benefit and the game's.

The tone of the OP is, IMO, absurdly alarmist.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Commander Zoom

[Daze]

Why are you guys still talking about NEAR? It is a "joke" from Ferram, it's exactly the same of FAR, but without >1 mach physics and without graph. And since stock aero will have mach effect there's a nonsense to compare new aero and NEAR, at least compare it with FAR.

On DR, "there will be no heatshield" actually heatshield is confirmed and actually it seems that stock version will be more accurate since it will work on heat all over the craft and not just "if temp is bigger than max temp of that part explode".

And for RSS/RO NathanKell is working on RealHeat.

[JedTech]

I'm not clear about that the purpose of this thread is, but that's backwards. When modders volunteered to add content to an unfinished game, they were aware that the game's development might render their work obsolete.

Of course Modders know this. Did I ever put that to question? I'm not complaining about new features. I just wanted to open a discussion about how to keep Mods we love relevant as KSP evolves. For some reason this topic seems to offend a lot of people.

[magnemoe]

I don't see what may stop development of a mod when it is made stock except the modder themselves. The developers of the mod can simply just continue with modding if stock feature is still not something they find acceptable. In fact, they might be able to do their job easier when they already has a base of stock codes that is maintained by squad and they can build on easily.

This, more features in an game makes moding easier, first you get more hooks to work on, secondary you get an stock common framework in bottom.

Yes more complex features might be harder to mod on too simply because they are more complex, the new aero model will make it very hard to make good aerocapture and landing in atmosphere predictions.

Mechjeb has lots of features who will be useful: only stock replacement is the warp to feature and the dV prediction.

Far will not be replaced but near might very well be, better stock aerodynamic might make far more interesting as the jump is smaller.

Others will change, resources will focus on other resources perhaps making the system more complex and add new resources.

[Twreed87]

Does anybody remember the days before docking was implemented? I wanna say .17 or .18 maybe. Before that, we had mods for docking, but would any of you honestly prefer to go back to that? Even if you like some of the extra features on the docking mods, those are much better being added to the stock docking. I'm sure we're all glad they rewrote the code to allow ships to merge into one, something that docking mods couldn't really do.

I'll take a stock version of something over a mod any day. A mod can always modify the stock version if you prefer it a slightly different way, but if a feature is really essential, I want it done stock.

[Mighty1]

I don't see what the problem is. Many mods have gone the way of the Dodo because they have been incorporated in stock in some way. Look at enhanced navball, fine print, spp, smart ass part of MJ, even docking used to be a mod once.

Squad can't work on all things at the same time by hirinig 200 people so they have to take it in steps, but talented moders concentrate on 1 thing and refine it until perfection. So if a couple of great mods get in the stock game all I can say is "Huray". But as KSP is such a easy thing to mod you can always change stock stuff with moded. That is what FAR did with the aero/drag system and if 1.0 aero/drag model won't be to someones liking they can always swich to FAR.

Edit:

Ninja by Twreed87

Edited March 25, 2015 by Mighty1

[Tweety]

I too see this more as a positive than a negative. The less mods I have to install the better. Besides I'm almost absolutely sure that most of not all of those mods mentioned with have a different incarnations in any updates that are brought to the fore. For example what if procedural fairings allows pretty patterns and colour on the fairings, I will want it even more. If FAR is still more realistic I will still have a separate install for it to pretend that I'm getting paid by the government to make planes and stuff. Mechjeb I'm sure will still have autopilot for those that are more interested in the building than the flying, and those that have launched that rocket for the N'th time and know it so well they get bored of launching it.

All the the other listed will likely be similar yet completely new versions of what they already have due to the more 'modded' friendly code and mechanics.

Tweety

[Caelib]

I don't think "endangered" is the right word to use for this because most of the mods you listed have a feature-set far greater than anything being added in stock. The only mod I can see being completely replaced is Procedural Fairings.

[Technical Ben]

Horse meet car, time to see the pasture.

In a serious reply, I think that Squad do think of the community before taking action. But most of these features were always going to be added down the road (re-entry heat etc). I'm not sure how or why this is a problem for Mods...

[NecroBones]

I'd say that at this point, my 0-Point Inline Fairings mods are definitely endangered. It's highly likely that the best action will be to retire them.

I don't think this is a bad thing. The while point was to add "stock-like" fairings. Once stock has its own fairings, that niche is filled.

[nli2work]

hardly endangered. the mod was created when there's a lack of something. Squad finally including something that is essential to a full game would free up modders to do better things.

[BudgetHedgehog]

I'd really like to accomplish these 2 items with this thread:

1. Create a list of Mods that are or may be endangered by stock features.
   
2. Start a discussion on how we can keep these quality-mods relevant as KSP progresses.
   

1, Fair enough. I don't see how any of those are in danger though, save for maybe DRE as we know it now.

2, That decision resides with the authors. If they see that stock features are as good as their mod, they stop updating it. Nothing is lost as we still have these features, they're just stock rather than modded. If other users disagree and think stock is lacking or the author just gets bored of modding (in which case, stock features, good or otherwise, are irrelevant), the majority of licenses for the mods allow forks which means they can be picked up by others and updated/maintained. And even if they're not picked up for whatever reason, if there's enough demand for it because stock features are lacking, there'll no doubt be a mod that comes along and is a reincarnation of sorts for it (see ISA Mapsat and SCANsat).

Regarding your first point, a lot of those mods do other things than just that one specific stock feature. Stock Smart A.S.S? Where's the autopilot? Where's the node editor? Where's the translatron, the Ascent Guidance, the Docking AP, throttle control, intake manager, autostaging... How is any of that in danger from the wobbly and resource-hungry stock Smart A.S.S. or the as-of-now-not-yet-implemented ÃŽâ€V display? Karbonite will be switching to the stock resource framework that the author himself is creating, FAR is in no danger as it can still be installed on top of the 1.0 aero, regardless of how good or bad the latter is.

Let's pretend that 1.0 is out now. Maybe DRE in it's pre 1.0 form is obsolete, but it's worth asking yourself 'why is it obsolete?'. Is it because stock now does everything DRE did? Then why do you still want DRE in it's old form? For nostalgia? Because it's just doing the exact thing stock is doing now.

When a niche that an animal occupies is encroached upon by a new species to the area, the species is endangered or at least threatened in some way by the new species.

That analogy doesn't really hold. There's nothing to say the animals can't evolve to co-exist and there's nothing to say that a half-implementation of one aspect of a mod's features will completely and utterly render that mod unusable and irrelevant.

[Greenfire32]

For some reason this topic seems to offend a lot of people.

That's because when a mod becomes obsolete, the small but vocal minority of zealots supporters will yell and holler about how Squad "stole" the idea from their mod and blah blah blah.

When in reality, Squad has every right to develop their own game.

[John FX]

Yeah add me to the crowd of people saying that either stock will do it better (Hooray!) so there will be no need for the mod or it will not (Boo!) in which case the mod will still have a place.

Even if some people think the stock implementation is better there may be enough people who do not (including the mod maker) for the mod to continue.

Myself I see this as pure evolution. Mods are made, some are absorbed into the stock genepool losing their unique features that made them a separate species and some have enough unique traits that they can find a niche outside of stock to stay alive in and retain identity.

I'm interested to see the stock implementation of DRE and FAR and fairings. It will be nice that players who are 'pure stock and proud' will now make craft that can stand re-entry in DRE and are able to launch in FAR.

It will change the results in a few challenges for sure.

How high can you get in 30 seconds? Not far if you burn up on the way...

[sarbian]

I just wanted to open a discussion about how to keep Mods we love relevant as KSP evolves.

If the mods dev find that their mods are now irrelevant they will retire them. Most modders mods for themselves first and don't need some one to tell them that their work is relevant or not. As long as they use it and they want to maintain it then the mod is relevant, regardless of the stock features.

Furthermore the stock replacement are not always as elaborated, configurable or realistic as all user want and that leave some space for the mods to still be relevant. A case and point is Blizzy Toolbar : the stock bar has only large button in one fixed place and that does not work well when you have/need more than a couple of buttons.

Mods will be around as long as they are wanted.

PS : if you wanted a mod that may really be irrelevant in 1.0 then you could have listed my own DDSLoader. That one is clearly on the way out (unless the Squad version has some serious limitation)

EDIT :

It will be nice that players who are 'pure stock and proud' will now make craft that can stand re-entry in DRE and are able to launch in FAR.

I can't wait to read those too. Strange of some thing that were "too realistic" can become canonical with just a wave of the devs

Edit 2 :

Endangered Mods List:

• Anatid Robotics / MuMech - MechJeb
  
  

Edited March 25, 2015 by sarbian

[Tex_NL]

Another mod to add to your list: B9 Aerospace.

Since the updated Mk2 and Mk3 plane parts I've been playing without B9. If those are expanded even more I really don't see much need for B9 any more. The only things I do miss are the large wing parts and landing gear but those are planned for 1.0

[Sampa]

Yeah, some might say that KW Rocketry might be endangered as well...but I think I will continue using it as I like the engines a LOT more than stock!

[JedTech]

That analogy doesn't really hold. There's nothing to say the animals can't evolve to co-exist and there's nothing to say that a half-implementation of one aspect of a mod's features will completely and utterly render that mod unusable and irrelevant.

I totally agree with your point that mods can and will evolve to co-exist with new features. Any analogy is going to break down at some point.. but I think the endangered animal analogy holds against your scrutiny: There is nothing to say that endangered animals can't evolve to co-exist with others in their niche. Just because something is endangered, doesn't mean it will go extinct.

- - - Updated - - -

Loving @sarbian's reaction!

[Arachnidek]

I don't think there is anything to worry about. Lately there has been a bit of a slowdown in mod developement mainly due to the 1.0 version just around the corner. After it's release there should be loads of new versions coming up as there were in the past with older releases.

[smjjames]

You know, theres the Treeloader and TechManager mods, those are going to be rendered obsolete because stock is going to use a new system for the tech tree. It mainly depends on what exactly changes and a whole bunch of other factors though.

[NightOwl07]

Here is kind of how I see the stock game vs mods.

Stock game should be full featured and functional on its own, mods are for customization.

Here's what I mean.

Squad, like any other game company, has every right to add features to make their game more complete and fulfill their vision of how the game should be. Whether the features were there in pre-planning or were inspired by something they saw is not relevant.

Game companies however are limited by the diversity of their player base, they have to balance the population that want to see Kerbal as a hardcore sim vs those who would rather lob things and watch them blow up with simplified physics, and everything in between (I for example, can't live without FAR, fairings, engine mods, station science, etc, but don't really care too much about 100% accurate reentry heat). The game made is necessarily a sort of compromise product that is 80% good for everyone but perfect for no one. Alternatively, every aspect of the game would have multiple sliders governing its behaviour, not only is it impractical it's probably prone to unexpected behaviour since it will be nearly impossible to test all setting combinations.

This is where mods fit in. They don't need to form core parts of gameplay to stay relevant. They should be there to enhance aspects of the game for those who want it while the stock game handles the rest in a compromised but acceptable form.

Having features integral to the core game can also help to reduce bloat and help with performance by making the code easier to streamline and play nice with each other. I currently have 30+ mods that I need to update with each new version (and breaks my save game if any are incompatible). I will continue to use things like FAR and SCANsat for those aspects of the game I really enjoy, and I'm more than happy to see stock improve those areas that I wouldn't otherwise get a mod for.

Just my two cents.

Edited March 25, 2015 by NightOwl07