Help choose my mods?

[rottielover]

Looking for assistance. I fully admit that I am a mod lover. And despite my game rig and using Active Texture Management, I still "mod it till I crash it"

I have decided to start a clean install and I want to keep the mod list fairly stock-like. I'm a little burnt out right now on the whole RT and TAC LS and realizim this and that and have decided I want a closer to stock experience.

Here is my starting list:

Planetary Base Systems (stock-a-like, will allow me nicer looking mining bases).

Alternate resource panel

Chatterer

USI LS (seems to be the most stock like life support)

USI MKS/OKS

HGR (stock-like "SoyJuice" I just love this mod)

KIS/KAS

Ship Manifest

Stock bug fix modules

Mods I'm not sure about:

Extra planitary launchpads : Fits well with USI mods, allows base construction, considering part-hider config to force use of USI parts for it

SCANsat I love it, but is the overhead worth it?

DMagic Orbital Science, again, love this mod, but worth it?

Moduler Rocket Systems another love, but maybe the "lite" version?

USI Exploration - love the packrat

Karbonite - worth it given stock system?

Basically the goal is to keep th mod list as short as possible.

Thank you in advance!

[Enceos]

Looking for assistance. I fully admit that I am a mod lover. And despite my game rig and using Active Texture Management, I still "mod it till I crash it"

I have decided to start a clean install and I want to keep the mod list fairly stock-like. I'm a little burnt out right now on the whole RT and TAC LS and realizim this and that and have decided I want a closer to stock experience.

Here is my starting list:

Planetary Base Systems (stock-a-like, will allow me nicer looking mining bases).

Alternate resource panel

Chatterer

USI LS (seems to be the most stock like life support)

USI MKS/OKS

HGR (stock-like "SoyJuice" I just love this mod)

KIS/KAS

Ship Manifest

Stock bug fix modules

Mods I'm not sure about:

Extra planitary launchpads : Fits well with USI mods, allows base construction, considering part-hider config to force use of USI parts for it

SCANsat I love it, but is the overhead worth it?

DMagic Orbital Science, again, love this mod, but worth it?

Moduler Rocket Systems another love, but maybe the "lite" version?

USI Exploration - love the packrat

Karbonite - worth it given stock system?

Basically the goal is to keep th mod list as short as possible.

Thank you in advance!

IF you're not sure about EPL, you can get the lighter version OSE Workshop which was made for KIS and is very lightweight. It will let you build simple probes and stations KIS EVA style, I find the process quite fascinating. It still has KIS limits outside of VAB (no angle snap or symmetry).

There's usually only one reason for modded KSP crashes, which is RAM issue. I don't find many mods which conflict with each other these days.

There's also a reason why my 100+ mods never crash my game.

Almost all of the mods today come out with converted .dds textures and Active Texture Management can't do anything with them. On my install I scanned the GameData for the biggest folders and went over part textures in each of them. Many parts made by Squad and modders have overly big and detailed textures for parts as small as Telus Mobility Enhancer, plus some parts don't really need normal maps. The rule of thumb was: No small part should have texture sizes over 1200Kb (which is 1024x1024px), so I downsized most of the textures to 512px and even 256px in some cases, and deleted many normal maps. In total my 100+ modded GameDada folder now weights only 610Mb, Squad folder included. KSP never crashes.

This is my recipe.

[rottielover]

Wow I have been away for a while! That's amazing really. Thanks for the tip.

After I didn't get any replys for a couple days I ended up just going with what felt right. Everything above made it along with a few extras like universal storage.

I suppose that's a good part of ksp's charm, being able to turn it into just about anything you want it to be.

[SuccinctLemon]

Tantares? Salyut,Vostok, Soyuz, Proton, Luna, Zond, FGB, TKS and all stockalike!

[rottielover]

You know, I've run the Tantares packs in the past. I always felt the look and feel of the parts went well together with other mod parts, but I always had trouble when blending those with stock parts.

That's why I went with HGR (it's a Soyuz like pack). I have felt for a while his parts and textures look and feel more "kerbalized" and slightly less "realistic" looks to them. Hard to describe and mostly a matter of personal preference. I just wish someone would fix the landertron plugin so that the retro landing rockets would work correctly!

Started playing a new career game last night (after having been on hiatus since .90 basically). Pleasantly surprised by all the changes. Once I figured out that scientists can reset experiment packages the sci points rolled in pretty quick. Was able to unlock the first tiers (before paying to upgrade the facility) after a few missions.

Back when the contract system was introduced I found them to be tedious and "grindy", but I have to say that now it feels like the game is more intelligently tracking my progress and is offering contracts that peek my interest more. I used to feel like I would get all part tests, now with the tourism, stations, flyby, docking, explore stuff it's very cool.

So in a nights worth of play I managed to leave off at a point where I have a small station around kerbin, have done a min flyby and now I just need to do some contracts to build funds to upgrade the RD facility.

Can't wait to start mining operations.

[Enceos]

You know, I've run the Tantares packs in the past. I always felt the look and feel of the parts went well together with other mod parts, but I always had trouble when blending those with stock parts.

That's why I went with HGR (it's a Soyuz like pack). I have felt for a while his parts and textures look and feel more "kerbalized" and slightly less "realistic" looks to them. Hard to describe and mostly a matter of personal preference. I just wish someone would fix the landertron plugin so that the retro landing rockets would work correctly!

Started playing a new career game last night (after having been on hiatus since .90 basically). Pleasantly surprised by all the changes. Once I figured out that scientists can reset experiment packages the sci points rolled in pretty quick. Was able to unlock the first tiers (before paying to upgrade the facility) after a few missions.

Back when the contract system was introduced I found them to be tedious and "grindy", but I have to say that now it feels like the game is more intelligently tracking my progress and is offering contracts that peek my interest more. I used to feel like I would get all part tests, now with the tourism, stations, flyby, docking, explore stuff it's very cool.

So in a nights worth of play I managed to leave off at a point where I have a small station around kerbin, have done a min flyby and now I just need to do some contracts to build funds to upgrade the RD facility.

Can't wait to start mining operations.

If you are into career mode I strongly strongly suggest installing the Contract Configurator mod and several contract packs. The Field Research contract pack fixes stock research contracts in a very pleasant way. After installing it you will receive science contracts only for biomes and science instruments that will actually give you science. This contract scans all the biomes of planets you have orbited for available science and gives you contracts with appropriate instruments.

Other contract packs:

Anomaly Surveyor - will send you on a journey across Solar system to find all the easter eggs left by developers

Kerbin Space Station - will reward you for building stations and will provide many missions for vessels marked as station.

Tourism Plus - a better alternative to stock tourism contracts (tourists will want to visit your stations)

To get more contract offers you can change a line this file: GameData\Squad\Contracts\Contracts.cfg

AverageAvailableContracts = 20

Default value is 10, which is a darn small number if you love contracts.

Edited July 11, 2015 by Enceos

[Guest]

I was feeling a bit of frustration myself with the scaling differences between Tantares and the other bazillion mods I use. TweakScale has largely alleviated all that, allowing me to scale parts (and their capabilities) up or down as needed. While I was initially reluctant to use TweakScale, now I find it indispensable.

Not every part is accounted for straight off. But writing your own config files is a pretty easy thing to master.