Is "No Mods" the solution to the Kraken?

[GarrisonChisholm]

Greetings all. I'm on Y2 d200 in my first play-through, have done minimal manned landings on Mun & Min, and now have over 20 active Probes/Satellites/Landers in the Tracking Station- and not Once have I had the Game crash or a random catastrophic failure, even though I am playing on an extremely poor & slow platform. Despite everyone advising I should download mods, many arguably nearly necessary, I cannot help but conclude that Mods are the root of most problems for most users.

Is there any Mod which is 100% proven to not cause failures, and is "No Mods" the way to go- or, do I have a Kraken around the corner in my 1.0.2 game irregardless of playing completely stock?

[regex]

The "Kraken" bugs show up regardless of mods.

[TimePeriod]

Mods do increase the likelihood of things going haywire and I have found things go more-so haywire with 1.0.4 which is unfounded or at least sufficiently documented.

I do not encourage you to get any mod or play zealotly stock by any means. It is just for you to decide that.

[LostOblivion]

I play with mods and don't have any issues.

[yorshee]

Most mods' forum posts state if there are known issues that have yet to be solved, though there could always be some bugs in 'em that haven't been found yet. There are a couple of gamebreaking bugs in the stock game so your career could be ruined even if you don't use mods - these bugs have to do with the grabbing claw, and another is how service/cargo bays handle heat management. I periodically make backups of my game that I can revert back to if something breaks, whether it's mod-caused or not.

[Xyphos]

I play with mods and don't have any issues.

I wish I could be in denial too, but alas, the game crashes on a constant basis without mods installed.

[Captain Sierra]

This game is supposed to be a highly moddable game. If "no mods" is the answer to the game's problems, then Squad should stop advertising mod support. I find it insulting how rapidly support requests on modded installs get dismissed.

[Xannari Ferrows]

Mods or not, you will at least be visited by both him, and Mr. NaN.

[xtoro]

I haven't had any crashes since 1.0.2 which weren't related to too many mods (out of memory). And I play very close to the memory limit. That's on my Windows installation. On my Linux install, I've never had a crash, ever, and I mean over several years, and playing with 40+ mods using well over 5 Gigs of RAM.

[OddFunction]

Unmodded client crashes as much as modded for me. Happens maybe once every 3-4 hours of gameplay.

I would argue that nobody should play 100% stock though... Claws bugfix modules is essential, no matter what!

[Captain Sierra]

Unmodded client crashes as much as modded for me. Happens maybe once every 3-4 hours of gameplay.

I would argue that nobody should play 100% stock though... Claws bugfix modules is essential, no matter what!

Throw KER onto that list. While overkill for many players, it fixes the whole "information deprivation == gameplay" philosophy which is complete bogus.

[regex]

Throw KER onto that list. While overkill for many players, it fixes the whole "information deprivation == gameplay" philosophy which is complete bogus.

<insert "but guesswork makes me hardcore" retort>

[User Unrelated]

I've recently been playing very mod LIGHT (not totally stock, but no huge parts packs or mods that change gameplay)

And I have just as many issues as I did with lots of big mods.

My choice was less the crashes' fault, and more just a paradigm shift in how I enjoy playing. (Mostly, I could never decide what to do when I had 4 different end-game goals, and 90 different styles of boosters to get me there)

[Hannu]

Despite everyone advising I should download mods, many arguably nearly necessary, I cannot help but conclude that Mods are the root of most problems for most users.

Stability depends on your computer (hardware & software). But typically mods increase probability of crashes. If you find stock KSP enough interesting and feel crashes very annoying it may be a good idea to play stock. However, at least I feel that stock KSP is not very interesting game. It is too restricted and I its "engineering is not fun" philosophy is exactly complement to what I want. It is just a platform on which mods make the game I want to play.

Is there any Mod which is 100% proven to not cause failures,

There is not and there will never be any computer program which can be guaranteed to be bugless.

[Jr6150x]

As a stock purist I have barely ever met the kraken. The best way to meet him in stock is to do something stupid with the intention of hailing the kraken. This doesnt mean he wont appear a couple of times. Beware the minmus EVA kraken!

[GarrisonChisholm]

Unmodded client crashes as much as modded for me. Happens maybe once every 3-4 hours of gameplay.

I would argue that nobody should play 100% stock though... Claws bugfix modules is essential, no matter what!

I have avoided even researching the Claw due to what I've read about the issues it brings. I figure I can live without it until 1.1.

Xannari; "you will at least be visited by both him, and Mr. NaN." // ...Mr. Nan?... O.o

[LostOblivion]

I wish I could be in denial too, but alas, the game crashes on a constant basis without mods installed.

No, really, it hasn't crashed for me since 0.90. Not once, for around 300 hours of game time since 1.0 got out.

[problemecium]

It's really more about what you DO in the game and what kinds of things you make. I could easily have a game on Year 99 with a hundred flights in progress if I just launched a bunch of Mk1 pods into space and timewarped at KSC for years. On the other hand if you go all Whackjob or Danny2462 on it you could break the stock game on Day 1 with your first launch.

Sure, they're extreme examples, but the point here is that simple ships and missions leave the game more stable than complicated ones.

And then there's this: You'll never experience bugs with cargo bays if you never use cargo bays, you'll never have docking bugs if you never dock, you'll never have re-entry bugs if you never re-enter an atmosphere, etc.

[klgraham1013]

I have avoided even researching the Claw due to what I've read about the issues it brings. I figure I can live without it until 1.1.

Xannari; "you will at least be visited by both him, and Mr. NaN." // ...Mr. Nan?... O.o

"Not a number." I think it's when the maths get confused. Someone else probably has a better explanation.

[soulsource]

1.0.4 is barely playable, regardless of mods. The self-heating bug is just, well, the opposite of fun.

My suggestion: Use 1.0.2. It has a nasty memory leak with temperature gauges (workaround: disable them and/or edge highlighting), but apart from that it's reasonably stable, with and without mods.

[Randazzo]

"The Kraken" is what drove me to mods, specifically the Stock Bug Fixes. As it turned out, that was just a gateway drug.

[Torquemadus]

I play all stock and my encounters with the Kraken have been extremely rare. However, I play on hardcore custom difficulty, meaning I tend to fly minimalist missions with small ships. It's possible that I might run into more problems if I used large space stations or bases.

[katateochi]

Given enough time, everything will break. Given less time; the Kraken (and it's various relatives) will show up and throw things at you.

Seriously though, you can get horrific bugs in the pure stock game, play it long enough and something really odd will happen. Some mod make it worse, others make it better.

[r4pt0r]

I play 100% stock now, and I still get krakened occasionally. The Klaw is a big culprit, do not timewarp with a klaw. I also sometimes get problems with the utility bays, phantom torque issues.

On the whole though, if I avoid the klaw and the utility bays, I can play for many hours with no problems.

[SAI Peregrinus]

I play with quite a few mods (159 installed according to CKAN) and don't run into Kraken issues. Mostly due to avoiding the Klaw and the stock service bays. KAS & Universal Storage are better (less buggy) solutions to the problems both attempt to solve. Then again most of those mods aren't part mods, and I don't do things that the readmes say are unstable (like putting a docking port on the end of an Infernal Robotics arm and hoping I can dock with it).