Mod Selection Feedback

[Landwalker]

No idea if this is the appropriate subforum, but it's a question about playing the game, so it's at least initially going in Gameplay Questions...

I'm getting ready to fire up a new (or rebooted) AAR/Mission Report career, and it's going to end up being immensely mod-heavy. Which is fine. But I have a few questions about folks' experiences/suggestions about particular mods and what they recommend for certain things. First, a non-comprehensive list of all the mods currently on the table:

• Outer Planets
  
• Active Texture Management
  
• Chatterer
  
• Community Resource Pack
  
• Community Tech Tree
  
• Contract Configurator, and various packs
  
• Custom Barn Kit
  
• DDS Loader
  
• Distant Object
  
• Planetshine
  
• Precise Node
  
• Firespitter
  
• HeatControl
  
• HGR
  
• Interstellar Fuel Switch
  
• JDiminishingRTG
  
• KAS, KAX, KIS, KCT, KER, KJR
  
• Kopernicus
  
• KW Rocketry
  
• Near Future Construction/Electrical/Props/Propulsion/Solar/Spacecraft
  
• Final Frontier
  
• TextureReplacer, with PimpMyKerbals
  
• Critical Temperature Gauge
  
• SCANsat
  
• Science Alert
  
• SETI (Tech Tree, Contracts, Greenhouse)
  
• Station Parts Expansion
  
• StationScience
  
• DMagic Orbital Science
  
• TakeCommand
  
• Transfer Window Planner
  
• USI (Not all of it, but just assume all of it)
  
• Universal Storage
  
• Ven Stock Revamp
  
• Field Scientist Pack
  Whew! Now, with that all in mind (and especially with things like Outer Planets, SETI, DMagic Orbital Science, and USI in mind), a few questions for the gallery:
  
  1. What are y'all's thoughts on, or experiences with, using RemoteTech or AntennaRange with Outer Planets? Even if I use RemoteTech, I would turn off the signal delay. On the one hand, I would like there to be good reasons for me to put up satellite networks around Kerbin (and of course, would grab related contract packs in the same spirit). On the other hand, I don't want uncrewed missions to turn into a colossal pain in the butt trying to make sure relay satellites are pointed in the right direction and four different crafts are in the right places at the right times, etc. Especially for missions to the outer planets (Jool and beyond). Thoughts?
     
  2. As you can probably imagine, my toolbar is... cluttered. Are there any recommendations for decluttering it? I tried downloading blizzy78's Toolbar, but that didn't help me prune/manage my existing toolbar, it just added a second, smaller toolbar (and one that didn't accommodate everything I had going on in the first place, like ScienceAlert).
     
  3. How much utility would I get out of something like Procedural Fairings?
     
  4. I have no familiarity or experience with FAR, so I have no idea how much benefit I would get from including it. Any? Minimal? Truckloads? Any point?
     
  5. Any glaring omissions you think I should be including, but am not?

  Again, any feedback from the hive mind would always be appreciated, since I don't have any prior experience with the items above.

  Cheers.

[Chiron0224]

I like Dangit!. It's a fun little mod that causes parts to occasionally fail. For me it adds a little bit of unpredictability to a mission. Like getting to Mun and realizing that you have to wave off your landing and spacewalk out to fix a failed thruster so that you can land. One time (thankfully with the old aero) I had a fin break right off my craft at launch. I rotated the vessel so I could still execute my turn at 10k (I basically rotated it so that the missing fin was opposite the direction of my turn). Little things like that. Also I recommend a life support mod. If you don't want anything too intense you can use TAC and universal storage works with it.

[Landwalker]

I like Dangit!. It's a fun little mod that causes parts to occasionally fail. For me it adds a little bit of unpredictability to a mission. Like getting to Mun and realizing that you have to wave off your landing and spacewalk out to fix a failed thruster so that you can land. One time (thankfully with the old aero) I had a fin break right off my craft at launch. I rotated the vessel so I could still execute my turn at 10k (I basically rotated it so that the missing fin was opposite the direction of my turn). Little things like that. Also I recommend a life support mod. If you don't want anything too intense you can use TAC and universal storage works with it.

I had the same thought about life supportâ€â€namely, "Get some!" I probably should have explicitly called it out in the original post, but I am using USI Life Support (which also works with Universal Storage). Just felt like the "Supplies/Mulch" would be easier to manage than the "Water/Oxygen/Food/Waste/CO2" stuff, although I do like some of the TAC elements, too (particularly the aesthetics of the parts and, I think, slightly more variety in sizing).

I don't know about Dangit!... I have enough problems already without random part failures. But maybe it's worth a look... Might make for interesting story-telling, at least.

--------------

Edit: I'm also wondering about folks' thoughts on Procedural Parts.

Edited July 11, 2015 by Landwalker

[micr0wave]

I really like the Procedural parts/fairing/tanks/wings etc. helps a lot when it comes to improve looks/reduce partcount.

Regarding the toolbar, a lot of the mods have setting options to only use blizzy's, and you can make the blizzybar autohide.

[Grumman]

You don't appear to have Infernal Robotics. I haven't installed all the parts in my game, but it's worth adding them in piecemeal if you come up with something that needs some moving parts.

[AG5BPilot]

Question 1: (RemoteTech)

(I'm not playing with the Outer Planets mod, but I believe the comments about Joolean moons also apply to some of OPM. I could be wrong. Being further away, they might actually work better. I'd have to do the math to check.)

RemoteTech is a lot of fun, but its interactions with some other mods is a bit wonky. MechJeb, for example, will stop controlling the craft if it loses the comms signal, which makes no sense. The signal delay, while realistic, is, again, a bit wonky with other mods, and unless you're up to writing kOS scripts to control your probes there aren't enough mechanisms in place to deal with the signal delay in an in-game manner. There's also a huge gap between the smallest dish antennas designed for use within the Kerbin system (Kerbin/Mun/Minmus) and the next larger dishes which are designed for communicating with the inner planets. Neither is suitable for communicating between the Joolian moons. The Kerbin dishes don't have the range, and the inner planet antennae have beam widths that are too narrow to use "cone" mode. You can still make it work, but it's harder than it should be.

Question 2: (Toolbars)

For each mod that has a button in the stock toolbar, you have to go to that mod's configuration window and tell it to use the Toolbar mod instead of the stock toolbar. Then got to the toolbar mod and tell it to display the other mod's button.

Not all mods have the option to use the Toolbar mod instead of the stock toolbar, so you may still have a few on the stock toolbar. Most mods have the option, fortunately.

Question 3: (Procedural Fairings)

Procedural Fairings are a little more versatile that stock, although supposedly stock got much better in 1.0.3/1.0.4 when they fixed the fairing weight. They didn't just make the lighter, but the weight's now in the fairing as it should be instead of in the base. So, you know, when you jettison the fairing the mass of the vessel actually decreases. Stock fairings allow more control over the exact shape. Procedural fairings go about it a bit differently and are easier to use.

Question 5:

A few mods I like that I don't see on your list (I may have missed them, or you may already be using them but not included them in your list):

Kerbal alarm clock: This *completely* changes the game for the better in that it gives you a reasonable way to manage multiple missions simultaneously. In my opinion this should be part of the stock game.

Hyperedit: I don't use it to "cheat", but I do use it to run "simulations". Testing Tylo landers without actually having to fly each iteration of the lander to Tylo from Kerbin makes things much more fun. Same thing for Eve ascent vehicles. Note that although it has an option to change Kerbin so it mimics other planets (so you can test rockets for, say Eve, right on the launchpad), although it seems to correctly change the atmosphere and gravity, it does not change the engine performance to match the increased atmospheric pressure. So if you test for Eve on a hyperedited Kerbin, it probably won't work when you're actually on Eve because your rocket engines will be producing much less thrust than they did in your "simulation" back on Kerbin.

MechJeb for when you get tired of manually flying rockets with a keyboard.

Docking Port Alignment Indicator is excellent, and unless you use MechJeb to dock for you, this really helps. In my opinion this should be part of the stock game.

Action Groups Extended is excellent. In my opinion this should be part of the stock game.

RCS Build Aid is pretty nice. It shows you both your wet and dry CoM so you know where to best put your RCS thrusters.

Waypoint Manager lets you manage your own waypoints, as well as showing distance and bearing to the active waypoint.

[Vanamonde]

As this question is specifically about mods, the thread has been moved to Add-on Affairs.

[hab136]

With RemoteTech, you can set up a second "command center" - six kerbals and a large probe core - which will act as a second Kerbin as far as control and delay are involved. (It doesn't help with science transmission)

[Landwalker]

With RemoteTech, you can set up a second "command center" - six kerbals and a large probe core - which will act as a second Kerbin as far as control and delay are involved. (It doesn't help with science transmission)

By "doesn't help with science transmission" I assume you mean "The command center doesn't process science sent to it by probes, so it needs to separately be able to communicate with Kerbin to act as a useful relay point in that regard," correct?

In any case, setting up a meaningful off-world command center in conjunction with USI Life Support (or any life support mod, for that matter) sounds likeâ€â€at least for me, someone who's been outside the Kerbin subsystem all of twice, ever (one-way landing probes to Eve and Duna)â€â€an overwhelming task. Maybe I'm not understanding what'll happen with USI Life Support correctly (I don't have any real experience with that, either), I'm just under the impression that an entirely self-sustaining colony isn't possible, and that it'll always need periodic service visits to top it off.

[Grumman]

In any case, setting up a meaningful off-world command center in conjunction with USI Life Support (or any life support mod, for that matter) sounds likeâ€â€at least for me, someone who's been outside the Kerbin subsystem all of twice, ever (one-way landing probes to Eve and Duna)â€â€an overwhelming task. Maybe I'm not understanding what'll happen with USI Life Support correctly (I don't have any real experience with that, either), I'm just under the impression that an entirely self-sustaining colony isn't possible, and that it'll always need periodic service visits to top it off.

USI Life Support on its own has two options: take supplies with you for your mission or take supplies and Nom-o-Matics to double your effective supplies. You can build self-sustaining colonies with USI Life Support, but only if you also install USI Kolonization Systems to make the necessary parts available AND you have at least part of that colony on a moon or planet so you can mine for substrate, water and materials to build spare parts for your machinery.

[Yemo]

RemoteTech:

With RemoteTechXF, remote tech is much less of a hassle when you forget to point your dishes correctly. Essentially it allows you to point your dishes even if you do not have a connection. Something like a failsave mechanism.

SETI + RemoteTech:

SETIctt adds a 18Gm dish at the electrics node, for early probe missions to Eve and Duna.

SETIctt also changes the command station requirements to 2 kerbals instead of 6. So you could eg have a 2 kerbal craft in orbit which controls a rover on the ground.

SETI + ProceduralParts:

SETIctt will (from 0.9.1 on) integrate many of the procedural parts extensions and tweaks from the old SETI-BalanceMod. From tank type options (Karbonite) to new parts like Procedural Hybrid Rocket Boosters (thanks to LordAurelius) and Procedural Probe Cores (thanks to SwGustav). It will also provide some more textures, eg for planes and decouplers (thanks to SwGustav).

TweakScale

I would also recommend TweakScale when used wisely, especially for adapters, on which SETIctt relies upon.

Adjustable Landing Gear

That should be stock.

RealChutes

Stock ones are just horribly unbalanced in terms of mass, especially for small probes.

B9 Procedural

With the next SETIctt version, you will have the option to not research all those stock wing clutter parts and just work with B9Procedural and some special stock wings.

Mk3 MiniExpansion and SXT Mk3 Ramp MiniPack

Otherwise the early Mk3 Cargo Bays will be useless with SETIctt.

OSE Workshop

For making those KIS parts in space.

CargoTransportationSolutions (the 1.0.4 version by Olympic1, from the last thread pages)

- - - Updated - - -

Oh and Procedural Fairings.

But I would edit the common.cfg in its folder and just set all minimum sizes to 0.1 from the start, deleting the other restrictions (eg miniaturization), while setting all the maximum sizes to 50, also deleting all the other restrictions.

Then delete all the dummy parts at the bottom, and it would work ok. Unfortunately it does not allow MM modding, as far as I can tell.

[Landwalker]

I have since picked up RealChutes, Tweakscale (which surprised me with its handiness. I'm a fan already.), and RemoteTech. All looking like good stuff!

You keep making it awfully hard for me to continue resisting Procedural Parts. The only things holding me back are 1) Visuals, and 2) Lack of clarity in how it plays with other parts mods. I'm hesitant to dump it into my current mod-monstrosity because of #2 in particularâ€â€having procedural fuel tanks is fine (as long as the visual quality is there), but I really like the differentiation among all my engine parts. It may just be that I don't really understand what Procedural Parts does, and should pop over to the thread for that mod and bother folks about it to see what the actual deal is.

(On the other hand, if all B9 Procedural does is replace the wild clutter of stock wings parts, then sign me up. That stuff's ridiculous.)

I'll have to investigate Mk3 MiniExpansion, SXT Mk3 Ramp Minipack (although it looks like this one isn't 1.0.x-Updated), Adjustable Landing Gear, and OSE Workshop (since I'm already using KIS). Maybe also CargoTransportationSolutions, although I'm already using RoverDude's Freight Transport Technologies.

[Yemo]

I have since picked up RealChutes, Tweakscale (which surprised me with its handiness. I'm a fan already.), and RemoteTech. All looking like good stuff!

You keep making it awfully hard for me to continue resisting Procedural Parts. The only things holding me back are 1) Visuals, and 2) Lack of clarity in how it plays with other parts mods. I'm hesitant to dump it into my current mod-monstrosity because of #2 in particularâ€â€having procedural fuel tanks is fine (as long as the visual quality is there), but I really like the differentiation among all my engine parts. It may just be that I don't really understand what Procedural Parts does, and should pop over to the thread for that mod and bother folks about it to see what the actual deal is.

(On the other hand, if all B9 Procedural does is replace the wild clutter of stock wings parts, then sign me up. That stuff's ridiculous.)

I'll have to investigate Mk3 MiniExpansion, SXT Mk3 Ramp Minipack (although it looks like this one isn't 1.0.x-Updated), Adjustable Landing Gear, and OSE Workshop (since I'm already using KIS). Maybe also CargoTransportationSolutions, although I'm already using RoverDude's Freight Transport Technologies.

Well, the visuals of PP are not outstanding and there are some textures I do not like, but they enable you to slope and customize the form.

So you trade a bit of texture quality for a massive improvement in the form area. Especially for planes and landers (and nose cones and radial fillet tanks and what not).

Also SETI adds some textures/texture variations from SwGustab any myself.

PP does not provide LFO/Jet engines, just a procedural SRB (and then SETI adds the procedural HRB from LordAurelius). So no detriment to engine variety.

B9 just replaces the functionality of all the wing clutter with 3 procedural parts, though it still has some quirks.

While SXT Mk3 Ramp MiniPack is not 1.0.x compatible, SETI fixes the main issues (node attachment) for that part in particular (because I just needed a Mk3 cargo ramp).