What is the rationale behind playing completely stock?

[sgt_flyer]

Outside of some info mods like KER or rcs build aid, i like to play stock. Tried some mods, but i always come back to stock building -

1st, because people will be able to play & build upon my .craft files without having to download any specific part mod i could have used.

2nd - because i like having to find ways to use the provided stock parts to create new looks / mechanisms

[GoSlash27]

What he means is this:

EVERYONE in the community has access to stock KSP. (provided they bought it) You have access to it. I have access to it. Slash has access to it. Everyone starts with stock, and therefor stock is the biggest group of people because it literally includes everyone.

Not everyone can run mods, especially RO, so that group of people is naturally much smaller than the stock group. If Slash focuses on stock craft, it can be used by everyone in the community, because we all have access to stock KSP. It may not work in RO, but thats a given. Just cause you play RO doesn't mean you don't have access to stock. If you made RO craft, yeah they would work for you. And anyone else who has your exact RO config. But for anybody else, with stock or a different RO config, most likely it won't work as intended.

So Slash didn't mean that RO users weren't part of the community as a whole. He just meant that the whole community has access to stock, therefor by making stock craft he can appeal to the whole community.

^This, but mainly this:

I did not wake up this morning thinking "you know... those people who use (insert mod here) aren't really part of the KSP community and I think I'll imply that obliquely in a thread unrelated to that subject without being clear about it".

IME people who use the phrase "are you saying" are generally just looking for a reason to intentionally misinterpret someone else's statement for their own purposes. The answer to that question is almost always "If I had meant to say that, I woulda said that".

Best,

-Slashy

[Gerandar]

Because the game is easy enough without some part mod making it even easier. only mods I use are KER and KAC and even without those I can get anywhere I want in sandbox/career

[falloutaddict]

Oh, I like the assumptions that everyone playing stock is elitist. Thank you for assuming that even though you don't know me.me .

Now, I use KER and EVE, but I consider myself a stock player. And I probably play that way until I'll get bored (I can stop playing completely by that point, though) there's a number of reasons for that:

1) I have experience playing heavy-modded Minecraft, so I know how it feels. At some point I stopped playing Minecraft and started playing RedPower, IndustrialCraft, Thermal Expansion, etc. While that's nice, I can't get back and play vanilla anymore, it became a different game for me. I might get there at some point, but while stock works for me, I'll play stock.

2) I don't want to bother with managing all the stuff, updating, running out of memory, finding which mod caused that nasty bug, etc.

3) Now this is a bit too global, but still, I want to respect developers work and give some feedback. It's quite often to point some balance issue or suggest a feature, and get a response like "use [mod name]". You are not helping! It's like suggesting to devs to abandon all development except for the engine and bugfixing, and I think I have actually seen such suggestions. No! Stock should be playable as it is without mods so if I think there's an issue with it, I point it out. For the "respect" part it is just making me cringe when people start discussing how worthless Squad is because fairings don't separate in two parts. Seriously...

Answering from mobile so sorry for stupid mistakes and bad English.

I didn't assume that, and didn't really get that vibe from anyone else but I can be pretty dense sometimes too. Ignore any haters either way, those are all perfectly valid reasons to play stock. That's what makes this game great is that you can play it or mod it just about any way you see fit and that the problem some of the time is that some people have their own idea how to play and everyone else should do the same. Of course I think this is really just a small vocal minority, most people seem to have a live and let play attitude.

[Mister Dilsby]

You use the exact same reasoning for using KER (automate something you could do, but don't think you should have to do) as others give for Mechjeb, but somehow your particular choice is more legit?

It's really perfectly consistent. I make no comment about whether KER, MJ or anything else is 'legit'. I'm merely saying that if you let the computer do it for you, you can't take any credit for having done it. I certainly don't expect anyone to be impressed that I know how much dV my ship has if KER told me the answer--though if I were doing those calcs in my head, while burning, I might be a little pleased with myself. Similarly, I'll applaud a pilot who can nail a dead-stick landing on the runway from orbit or dock to a ship with naught but a whiff of mono (or, none at all!) But if MJ does those things for you? Well, then bully for MJ. But I still might like the ships you designed, or the pictures you made of them.

As to why that attitude persists, I think it's because for many flying is the raison d'être of the game and doing natural logarithms is not.

In any case my snarky comments were in the spirit of "you're a filthy cheater for not using TAC!" "No, YOU'RE a filthy cheater for using time warp!" and were not intended to be a swipe at your gameplay or anyone else's. I should have considered how sensitive an issue this is and been less dogmatic. Peace?

[LittleBlueGaming]

Basically this. That's why I prefer stock at least.

I honestly view things like mechjeb as cheating, but when that was my sig I got reported "multiple times". There are no depths of depravity mod players wont go to.

Also you absolutely do not need dv or anyother KER numbers added to the game to play it. I manage just fine. I agree with this article, where Harv says "In the end, it takes away a gameplay element because it takes some of the guesswork and some of the trial and error and figuring out for yourself what the delta-V is. It might take some of the magic away."

Remote tech and TAC and KAS might be fun, but I enjoy the game Squad made, just as they made it*.

*With the exception of chatterer and EVE. I like my game to look and sound pretty. Forgive me for cheating.

Cheat - verb

1. act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, especially in a game or examination.

I can't for the life of me understand why playing a game designed to accept mods with mods is cheating. Cheating doesn't apply in a single-player game with no competition. It's a sandbox game, it's impossible to cheat a sandbox game. Using MechJeb isn't dishonest, nor is it unfair, nor does it give you an advantage over another.

Yeah, if you're doing a challenge and use mods you're not supposed to, that's cheating... because it's no longer a single-player experience.

Play the game how you want to, and let others play how they want to. Nobody is hurting anybody until they start degrading others for how they play.

Sometimes I like playing stock because it feels like I'm doing everything. I'm running a space agency, and piloting the crafts, and calculating transfers and delta-v. Other times I like playing with something like MechJeb, because then I can act more like a higher-up. I don't specifically do the piloting, I may plan a maneuver and then just tell my pilot to execute it.

It's a great game with many different flavors.

Edited May 26, 2015 by LittleBlueGaming

[Red Iron Crown]

As to why that attitude persists, I think it's because for many flying is the raison d'être of the game and doing natural logarithms is not.

That's true, but the thing I don't get is those who think other parts of the game are the raison d'être, like building or planning, don't look down their noses at those who don't do those things themselves. It seems to be particular to piloting, and I'm at a loss as to why.

[regex]

That's true, but the thing I don't get is those who think other parts of the game are the raison d'être, like building or planning, don't look down their noses at those who don't do those things themselves. It seems to be particular to piloting, and I'm at a loss as to why.

Oh, the planners and the builders definitely look down their nose (or can easily be perceived as doing so) at non-stock players, most especially in the realm of procedural parts and using mods that calculate delta-V.

[r4pt0r]

That's true, but the thing I don't get is those who think other parts of the game are the raison d'être, like building or planning, don't look down their noses at those who don't do those things themselves. It seems to be particular to piloting, and I'm at a loss as to why.

The stereotype of the hotshot "fighter jockey" with the air of superiority about him has to have some root in reality.

I'd think its that.

[Admac]

I've gotten a huge number of hours in pure stock, before I really knew what mods were good for, but in the end I was running out of reasons to play, and grow as a player.

In pure stock you don't need to be good at building massive launchers, because there is no reason to launch anything but a science mission, and they are't all that big. There aren't any reasons to build a spacestation other than to transfer and store fuel, so you are limited in design aspect there as well. I'm a huge fan of mods that give me new objectives (USI pack is the big one) new ways to do it (NFT, KAS and SpaceY) or make the game make more sense(Mechjeb/ FAR).

Like everyone else I play pure stock the first few days a new update is out, and I can appreciate it, but there is a fairly narrow range of optimal craft for each science mission in stock, and all you really have is science missions. Tourism and Drilling add some depth, but even those tend to have optimal designs that are reached after a few iterations. With Mods to build infrastructure on surface and orbit to support a wider range of missions it feels like a lot more interesting of a game.

[LittleBlueGaming]

That's true, but the thing I don't get is those who think other parts of the game are the raison d'être, like building or planning, don't look down their noses at those who don't do those things themselves. It seems to be particular to piloting, and I'm at a loss as to why.

There are stinkers in any demographic. I'd bet the vast majority of mod players don't have that kind of attitude, and the vast majority of stock players don't either.

We just have a tendency to want to simplify things, and extrapolate a few cases to be characteristic of a much larger group.

[waterlubber]

It's the easiest way to not be a filthy cheater.

This made my day. I really hope it's satire.

[regex]

This made my day. I really hope it's satire.

Pro-tip: any time I call someone else a "cheater" on these forums you can rest assured it's satire.

[GoSlash27]

That's true, but the thing I don't get is those who think other parts of the game are the raison d'être, like building or planning, don't look down their noses at those who don't do those things themselves. It seems to be particular to piloting, and I'm at a loss as to why.

It's probably just a pilot thing.

Good pilots rely on their self confidence when things go haywire, so I expect some ego there.

A lot of the time, people perceive a "looking down their nose" attitude where it doesn't actually exist. I can't say how much that is, tho'. *shrug*

Best,

-Slashy

[Endersmens]

This made my day. I really hope it's satire.

Pro-tip: any time I call someone else a "cheater" on these forums you can rest assured it's satire.

I mean good grief, look at his sig. He's a mod author for goodness sakes!

[Commander Jebidiah]

I only play with four mods; MJ2, KER, Texture Replacer and ssoundtrack editor.

The main reason for playing stock is;

less parts = faster load times.7

I play with both KER and MJ so i have multiple DeltaV info to compare.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Commander Jebidiah

[Starwhip]

Stock is fun. As long as I'm not doing anything too technical, KSP is fine on its own.

Once it gets technical, I rely on KER.

[nadreck]

When I started with KSP back in .21 I found airless body landings and docking difficult and in fairly short order tried MechJeb - I did try a few other mods - but performance and crashes seemed to be an issue, I did learn to land and dock much better, I first stopped doing rendezvous with mech jeb because I could plan them easily enough and figure out how to interlace planned rendezvous with other activities, then I found out I could dock using a small fraction of the RCS that MechJeb used. No other mod seemed essential to me and when career came out in 0.23 I had no reason to install any mods right away and it would have broken my perception of the game experience to install any mods in the middle of my first career.

I might try some mods again in the future, but there is no part of the game I need them for. I am one of those players who, 45 years ago, doodled rockets in boring classes at school, but my doodles had exponents of e beside them, my copies of A. C. Clarke's "Promise of Space" and Wiley Leys "Rockets Missiles and Men in Space" were so dog eared, especially around the pages with ISPs of engines, or common fuels, also those pages where orbital mechanics were explained in simple terms.

One mod I might go for, or maybe I just find the file and replace it, is the background music, I saw chatterer mentioned here and sometime after the current tech tree is unlocked I might give it a try.

However, I am still finding hard mode career and my objectives for doing as much as I can in as little elapsed Kerbal time as possible and keeping kerbals alive as much as possible as I immerse myself in the stock RP a satisfying challenge (note stock RP often has me trying to 'use' the island airport and creating bases with contrived purposes else where in the Kerbol system). When that stops being a challenge (which may never happen with upgrades to both the game play and the RP backstory) then I will probably seek out mods that enhance the elements of challenge I enjoy.

Slashy, I never thought of the flight planing drone out Kerbol orbit just ahead of Kerbin, but honestly I can usually cobble together a good launch orbit, though using low acceleration craft I replot it each successive orbit, then correct once out Kerbin's SOI.

[Albert VDS]

There are some things that can be said about using mods:

- You use them because it enhances the gaming experience. Make it look better, add functionality, new game mechanics.

- You use them to give yourself a challenge. Like food requirements, radio signals or using real planets.

- You use it to make it easier for yourself.

How you look at those things is based on what rules you set for yourself in the game.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Albert VDS

[GoSlash27]

When I started with KSP back in .21 I found airless body landings and docking difficult and in fairly short order tried MechJeb - I did try a few other mods - but performance and crashes seemed to be an issue, I did learn to land and dock much better, I first stopped doing rendezvous with mech jeb because I could plan them easily enough and figure out how to interlace planned rendezvous with other activities, then I found out I could dock using a small fraction of the RCS that MechJeb used. No other mod seemed essential to me and when career came out in 0.23 I had no reason to install any mods right away and it would have broken my perception of the game experience to install any mods in the middle of my first career.

I might try some mods again in the future, but there is no part of the game I need them for. I am one of those players who, 45 years ago, doodled rockets in boring classes at school, but my doodles had exponents of e beside them, my copies of A. C. Clarke's "Promise of Space" and Wiley Leys "Rockets Missiles and Men in Space" were so dog eared, especially around the pages with ISPs of engines, or common fuels, also those pages where orbital mechanics were explained in simple terms.

One mod I might go for, or maybe I just find the file and replace it, is the background music, I saw chatterer mentioned here and sometime after the current tech tree is unlocked I might give it a try.

However, I am still finding hard mode career and my objectives for doing as much as I can in as little elapsed Kerbal time as possible and keeping kerbals alive as much as possible as I immerse myself in the stock RP a satisfying challenge (note stock RP often has me trying to 'use' the island airport and creating bases with contrived purposes else where in the Kerbol system). When that stops being a challenge (which may never happen with upgrades to both the game play and the RP backstory) then I will probably seek out mods that enhance the elements of challenge I enjoy.

Slashy, I never thought of the flight planing drone out Kerbol orbit just ahead of Kerbin, but honestly I can usually cobble together a good launch orbit, though using low acceleration craft I replot it each successive orbit, then correct once out Kerbin's SOI.

nadreck,

Ain't nuthin' wrong with that! A man after my own heart...

The reason I use the drone is because I can set up the Hohmann, drag it around until I get an intercept, and look at the burn timer. It tells me how many days to go until the window opens up.

Like most innovations, it came to me after I got tired of doing things the hard way

Best,

-Slashy

[Red Iron Crown]

Oh, the planners and the builders definitely look down their nose (or can easily be perceived as doing so) at non-stock players, most especially in the realm of procedural parts and using mods that calculate delta-V.

Maybe so, but I haven't seen it. I've seen people say that calculating dV by hand helps get a better grasp of how it works and people should try it (heck, I've probably said that), but never that using mods to calculate it are cheating.

Procedurals are a different thing, that's more of a "would you rather build something out of Lego or sculpt something out of clay" type personal preference. I've seen people claim one or the other is a better creative outlet (I think they're just different types of creativity), can't recall anyone flat out saying procedurals are cheating.

I could be wrong though, someone is bound to think just about anything is cheating, or any mod at all is cheating. The difference is the level of vehemence when it comes to piloting, and the disdain for those who choose to automate it. I can't think of a time when someone wrote "Well, that's no accomplishment because you used procedurals and KER", but the position "There is no accomplishment using MechJeb" is hardly uncommon.

Maybe it is just a pilot thing, who knows? Anyway, not trying to turn this into an eventually-locked MechJeb thread, I think we can all agree that stock players are not cheaters. (Except those who part clip...or edit saves...or use the debug menu...or exploit glitches...aw, nuts.)

[Mister Dilsby]

That's true, but the thing I don't get is those who think other parts of the game are the raison d'être, like building or planning, don't look down their noses at those who don't do those things themselves. It seems to be particular to piloting, and I'm at a loss as to why.

When we post craft and missions here, we are saying "look at my awesome space program!" Let's say that the elements of an awesome space program are building, planning, and piloting. First, building: there is no fully automated MJ equivalent--you either build your own ships or you download someone else's craft. Since everyone would agree that taking credit for someone else's craft is plagiarism, we only post awesome builds that we ourselves have made.

Planning is similar; there are tools like KER and the online transfer window calculators, but they only do a small part of the job. Something big and rep-worthy like an orbital assembly or Grand Tour mission takes independent thought that no one else can do for you. So, we post our plans and can say "look at my awesome space program!"

That leaves piloting. I think part of the trouble here is that MJ is so darn good at it; in a lot of cases we measure a human's piloting skill by how close (say, in ascent dV) he can come to MechJeb. For a human to be able to do what MJ does takes hours of practice, trial and a great deal of error. Take docking. For those that do it manually, how long did it take you to be able to plot a close rendezvous using maneuver nodes? How long after that to maneuver the ships in visual range, with the navball? How long after THAT to line the ports up, cancel relative velocity, and get that oh-so-satisfying 'click'? Anyone who has done all that is rightly proud of the achievement, and knows that every routine dock that comes afterward is only possible because of the hours spent doing the first one. If you're that kind of pilot, then a big part of your "look at my awesome space program!" will be the ships rescued from the brink of disaster, the tricky orbital assemblies, that Tylo landing you pulled off with not enough TWR and vapor left in the tank. We want to compare ourselves against each others' awesome space programs--and we can't compare our piloting to that of players who use MechJeb, because MechJeb does the piloting.

[GoSlash27]

Maybe so, but I haven't seen it. I've seen people say that calculating dV by hand helps get a better grasp of how it works and people should try it (heck, I've probably said that), but never that using mods to calculate it are cheating.

Procedurals are a different thing, that's more of a "would you rather build something out of Lego or sculpt something out of clay" type personal preference. I've seen people claim one or the other is a better creative outlet (I think they're just different types of creativity), can't recall anyone flat out saying procedurals are cheating.

I could be wrong though, someone is bound to think just about anything is cheating, or any mod at all is cheating. The difference is the level of vehemence when it comes to piloting, and the disdain for those who choose to automate it. I can't think of a time when someone wrote "Well, that's no accomplishment because you used procedurals and KER", but the position "There is no accomplishment using MechJeb" is hardly uncommon.

Maybe it is just a pilot thing, who knows? Anyway, not trying to turn this into an eventually-locked MechJeb thread, I think we can all agree that stock players are not cheaters. (Except those who part clip...or edit saves...or use the debug menu...or exploit glitches...aw, nuts.)

RIC,

If I had to guess, it would be because piloting is the active hands-on gameplay portion of KSP. Using MJ to pilot your craft is kinda like using an AI to control your character while playing a FPS. People are bound to call it "cheating", especially if it performs better than an actual human player.

Not sayin' *I* consider it cheating, mind you. I was always content to let the computer run the routes in Madden.

Best,

-Slashy

[Asharad]

Why do you need a rationale for enjoyment of the stock game experience? It's an entirely subjective opinion to like the game without mods, as much as it is subjective to want mods. I can think of no objective reason for either mode.

PS: I'll pose a similar question: What is the rationale for playing KSP?

PPS: I enjoy minecraft without mods. In fact, I enjoy the older versions more than the new because it provides fewer tools to survive on.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Asharad

[Vanamonde]

I play stock because:

I don't want to mess around with waiting for mods to update.

I don't want to waste my time untangling any additional bugs or mod conflicts.

I don't want to become reliant on something that might be discontinued.

I like to help newbies and sometimes make tutorials, and the base game is common ground for us all to be talking about the same experiences.

But it doesn't bother me if others play with mods, though, and I actually have tried and liked a few mods here and there, but have found none of them to be necessary for my enjoyment of the game.