Ore drilling/fuel refining in 1.0 : a built-in cheat, or not a cheat?

[tjsnh]

So, I'm watching the livestream on KSPTV where they're showing off 1.0.

Roninpawn just demonstrated in-situ mining, using drill/refinery parts on minmus to generate fuel out of "ore" (basically, out of nothing if you're landed and have done a little prep work).

Am I the only one who sees this as basically cheating?

I mean, I can see it adding another element to the game and simplifying refueling out around Jool instead of sending tankers, but it just seems like cheating/nerfing to me. Dramatically reduces the difficulty of things like the "Jool 5 challenge" and so on.

Thoughts?

[r4pt0r]

I do too, I've always been against ISRU as a gameplay mechanic.

[Robotengineer]

I kind of see the stock ISRU as being cheating. However, I plan on making a mod that would utilize the stock ISRU system and making it into a much more realistic ISRU experience.

[Karriz]

As long as it's balanced well, I see no issue with it.

The drills and converter should be heavy enough so that for shorter trips, bringing your own fuel would be more efficient.

It's definitely a welcome addition to the game. Gives the player more options and more things to do.

[Xavven]

Well, if we go to the dictionary meaning of cheating, we get, "to break a rule or law usually to gain an advantage at something" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cheating)

In this case, we'd be referring to the rules of KSP. Who defines the rules of KSP? You could say the game designers/developers define the rules. So if you use mining in the way the developer intended, I think you'd be hard pressed to call it cheating.

What's more, ISRU isn't just a game gimmick. Real space agencies are proposing ISRU as part of future missions to the Moon and Mars. You can get a crash course here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_situ_resource_utilization

My personal favorite example of ISRU being a keystone of a future possible mission is the Mars Direct mission. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct) The proposal is to bring a feed stock of hydrogen gas (edit: correction - liquid hydrogen) to the surface of Mars and use its atmosphere (which is mostly carbon dioxide) to manufacture methane and oxygen (a rocket fuel!)

We can even melt the Moon's regolith (on the real life Moon) to extract useful elements that can be turned into rocket fuel, though some people [citation needed][weasel words] doubt that this is a realistic proposition.

So is ISRU in KSP cheating, or even far fetched? Neither, I say.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Xavven

[Yellowburn10]

Yeah, as long as things are properly balanced, I'm fine with it. Not only if things like mass and what not are ok, but the fact there are 3 steps to make fuel seems like it's balanced. Number 1, use a drill to mine ore. Number 2, store it in an ore container. Number 3, convert said ore into fuel of choice in the ore converter, using a huge amount of power with slow processing.

Yeah, I'd say it's pretty balanced.

[The Yellow Dart]

How can it be cheating? If you use sandbox mode, you use whatever parts you want anyways without limitations. If you think it is too easy with isru, don't use them, just like the nuke or ions. In career they are towards the end of the tech tree and you have to earn access to those parts. If the tech tree is too easy, that is a separate issue fixable by the difficulty settings. There is no cheating KSP, unless you are cheating your own personal rules.

On a side note, I do hope the isru family of parts are HEAVY. I want it to be very hard to get them out there and setup to mine.

Edited April 25, 2015 by The Yellow Dart

[Stealth2668]

Cheating in a SP game? How is this possible?

[Eric S]

I'll agree with "as long as it's balanced" and it certainly looks more balanced than Kethane was. That converter is not small, and it probably isn't light either.

[tjsnh]

Even if it's slow, heavy, and resource intensive - it runs "in the background" including at time warp, so is basically infinite.

It's hard for me to call that balanced. :-(

[Richy teh space man]

I'd have to play with it first before I could decide how "cheaty" it is

[Frozen_Heart]

I don't consider it cheating at all. I doubt I'll use it but calling something that may one day be possible for humans cheating is a bit odd.

And its a single player game. You can't really cheat on that.

[Wallygator]

People! its a game. not reality. there is no cheating. you can make your own rules.

The issue is more likely whether the game system mimics reality enough that it allows a player to engage in play without having to think too much about whether it make sense or not.

So far, it seems KSP is on the right track. However, there are still a lot of areas where the game can be improved - specifically in those areas where critical information needs to be made available to the player. There is NO reason for Dv or other engineering info to be hidden. Kerbeas are not dumb, and the player should benefit from that.

[Xavven]

Cheating in a SP game? How is this possible?

I think you can still "cheat" at a SP game. If someone claims to have beaten Dark Souls but hacked in infinite life + infinite damage weapons, would you consider such a claim valid? Would you consider that player to be skillful at playing Dark Souls? Sure, it doesn't give them an unfair advantage over another player, thus beating another player at the game, but there are still implications when you assume a certain ruleset.

[r4pt0r]

I think you can still "cheat" at a SP game. If someone claims to have beaten Dark Souls but hacked in infinite life + infinite damage weapons, would you consider such a claim valid? Would you consider that player to be skillful at playing Dark Souls? Sure, it doesn't give them an unfair advantage over another player, thus beating another player at the game, but there are still implications when you assume a certain ruleset.

This. Can you really say you did a manned Eve return if you used the infiniglide cheat? things like that. "I beat half-life 2 on hard, but I enabled noclip and godmode".

[Temeter]

I think you can still "cheat" at a SP game. If someone claims to have beaten Dark Souls but hacked in infinite life + infinite damage weapons, would you consider such a claim valid? Would you consider that player to be skillful at playing Dark Souls? Sure, it doesn't give them an unfair advantage over another player, thus beating another player at the game, but there are still implications when you assume a certain ruleset.

That's not an SP component, though, but a competetive mindset for many players. The only way to cheat yourself would be to play the game in a way that isn't fun.

[The Yellow Dart]

I think you can still "cheat" at a SP game. If someone claims to have beaten Dark Souls but hacked in infinite life + infinite damage weapons, would you consider such a claim valid? Would you consider that player to be skillful at playing Dark Souls? Sure, it doesn't give them an unfair advantage over another player, thus beating another player at the game, but there are still implications when you assume a certain ruleset.

But didn't those certain rulesets go out the window when the difficulty menu came? Anyone can change the game to make it very easy now and it is a stock part of the game. Just like the isru will be a stock game mechanic, so everyone will have access to it. Not a cheat. Not a Godmode or a code. This is just a case of not coping with inevitable change. I'm sure people said the same thing when the nuke was introduced, or maneuver nodes. Both made getting around the solar system a lot easier.

Edited April 25, 2015 by The Yellow Dart

[Stratoroc]

That's not an SP component, though, but a competetive mindset for many players. The only way to cheat yourself would be to play the game in a way that isn't fun.

This. Some consider phantom forces a broken mechanic and a cheat, others embraced them and developed K-drives.

[AbacusWizard]

I haven't seen the 1.0 system yet, but I've been playing with Karbonite for a little while, and I think the ability to produce fuel during a mission is wonderful. What I love most about KSP is building colossal interplanetary exploration motherships and flying them on grand tours around the solar system, and harvesting fuel is going to make that much more sustainable--I can only send out so many gargantuan uncrewed fuel tankers before I get tired of it.

The one thing that has bothered me about Karbonite is how possible it is to make one single craft that can simultaneously act as harvester, refinery, lifter, and tanker--I always assumed that there would be some reason that making separate crafts for all of those (a ground base with resource drills, a lander with tanks to carry the resource from ground to orbit, an orbital refinery to process the resource into fuel, and an orbital tanker to move the fuel to whatever ship needs it) would be more economical. Maybe the drills shouldn't be able to operate in close proximity to the processor? Or perhaps the processor should only be able to operate in microgravity?

Ultimately I think what makes the difference between "infinite fuel cheat" and "well-balanced resource harvesting" is that the latter requires the player to set up a well-planned infrastructure first.

[Xavven]

That's not an SP component, though, but a competetive mindset for many players. The only way to cheat yourself would be to play the game in a way that isn't fun.

Well I'll concede that if you make up a different ruleset and then play within the confines of that new ruleset, you're not cheating at that game. (see Calvinball http://calvinandhobbes.wikia.com/wiki/Calvinball)

But it's not the same game at that point. It's your own different game with your own rules. Unless it makes the game objectively harder on the player, you cannot compare any accomplishments to a player using the original rules.

So when someone asks, "is this cheating?" I assume they mean, "at the video game called Kerbal Space Program" which to me assumes stock rules defined by the developer. To say otherwise is just defining your way out of cheating ("well in MY ruleset that I have defined arbitrarily, it's not cheating (by definition)").

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This. Some consider phantom forces a broken mechanic and a cheat, others embraced them and developed K-drives.

What you described is an exploit. Just because a unintentional bug allows you to achieve something, doesn't mean that it's in the spirit of the ruleset. This very philosophical issue is brought up in law, as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_and_spirit_of_the_law

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But didn't those certain rulesets go out the window when the difficulty menu came? Anyone can change the game to make it very easy now and it is a stock part of the game. Just like the isru will be a stock game mechanic, so everyone will have access to it. Not a cheat. Not a Godmode or a code. This is just a case of not coping with inevitable change. I'm sure people said the same thing when the nuke was introduced, or maneuver nodes. Both made getting around the solar system a lot easier.

You make a good point. Is it cheating to set the starting science and funds to max?

Well, the best comparison I can make is playing any game on the easiest settings. Man, wasn't the original SNES Street Fighter II easy to beat on difficulty level 0? Could you say you beat SF2 if you beat it on difficulty 0? YES. But your friend would ask you, "at what difficulty level?"

For some things, like an Eve return mission, the current option sliders we have for KSP don't make much of a difference, so I wouldn't feel the need to qualify whether funds/science were set to max from the get-go, or whether saves were allowed. The bulk of the challenge is in designing the ascent vehicle to have enough TWR and delta-v while still having enough structural integrity to land intact.

For other things, difficulty might play a role. Someone being able to even get to Mun and back on a game set to 10% funds/science/rep has accomplished the almost-impossible, for example.

[Temeter]

Well I'll concede that if you make up a different ruleset and then play within the confines of that new ruleset, you're not cheating at that game. (see Calvinball http://calvinandhobbes.wikia.com/wiki/Calvinball)

But it's not the same game at that point. It's your own different game with your own rules. Unless it makes the game objectively harder on the player, you cannot compare any accomplishments to a player using the original rules.

So when someone asks, "is this cheating?" I assume they mean, "at the video game called Kerbal Space Program" which to me assumes stock rules defined by the developer. To say otherwise is just defining your way out of cheating ("well in MY ruleset that I have defined arbitrarily, it's not cheating (by definition)").

I'm playing the game, so of course I make my own rules up, play after my own ideas, and want to have fun however it goes. That's pretty much following the core definition of most interactive media, and even more so for a open-ended game like KSP. That seperation is personal, so you can't really ask if something is cheating 'by general definition', but only if it is cheating to a person and the way he or she enjoys the game. I'm e.g. played around with infiniglides in my sandbox mode, while I kept that exploit out of my career mode.

If you want to go for a very strict rule interpretation that doesn't include the human element, then no, it's not cheating, because squad implemented it as a part of their rule system. Your question is a catch 22: Either you go for rule interpretition to get a general 'sterile' idea and no personal interpretation (which doesnt really affect how people play), or you go for personal interpretation and don't get a general idea (which varies from person to person).

Btw: I think the system is kinda flawed in how you can mine everywhere independent of ressource density, so I probably will still limited my mining to ressource rich areas (instead of mining in poor areas and time-accelerate for a few days). It is a bit tricky: Ways to limit this, like life support, or some kind of mod to limit the lifetime of a drill, would just add another ressource system atop of our ressource system for the sake of it. Kethane limited deposits were also kinda boring and one dimensional.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Temeter

[Stealth2668]

I think you can still "cheat" at a SP game. If someone claims to have beaten Dark Souls but hacked in infinite life + infinite damage weapons, would you consider such a claim valid? Would you consider that player to be skillful at playing Dark Souls? Sure, it doesn't give them an unfair advantage over another player, thus beating another player at the game, but there are still implications when you assume a certain ruleset.

How does that have anything to do with KSP? Am I hacking? No. I'd be using something in the game. Argument is invalid.

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This. Can you really say you did a manned Eve return if you used the infiniglide cheat? things like that. "I beat half-life 2 on hard, but I enabled noclip and godmode".

Everyone has access to the resource harvesting thing so I don't see how it's not fair. I don't know why you guys are comparing hacks with an IN-GAME mechanic to make your arguments. Probably because you have no point to make.

[Temeter]

Everyone has access to the resource harvesting thing so I don't see how it's not fair. I don't know why you guys are comparing hacks with an IN-GAME mechanic to make your arguments. Probably because you have no point to make.

More importantly, e.g. an eve challenges can easily be limited not to include ISRU. Again a case where rules are made up outside of the game to make the challenge competetive.

[magnemoe]

Cheating in a SP game? How is this possible?

You can cheat like turning off fuel use in the debug menu, you can also cheat by using exploits like infinity glide.

You can not cheat by using existing gameplay mechanism.

[Stealth2668]

You can cheat like turning off fuel use in the debug menu, you can also cheat by using exploits like infinity glide.

You can not cheat by using existing gameplay mechanism.

Even if you use hacks your aren't effecting anyone else so it's irrelevant :/