Mods that every KSP player should have...

[Red Iron Crown]

I've seen many going stock in this community. And many going mod. I also seen statistics on mods usage. If you suggest that people going stock are majority, they aren't, but that doesn't prove anything, it's just a side note.

Can you share the statistics you've seen? I would be surprised if the majority of players modded the game but I certainly could be wrong.

[NielsBohr]

I think that no mods are essential to the game. Now, given previous, and perhaps ongoing, discussion and disagreement over the word “essentialâ€Â, I will try and formulate my modding advice, as carefully as I can.

First though, lets start with why I don’t think mods are “essentialâ€Â, and what I believe essential means. Actually, lets do that in reverse.

In my understanding of the word essential, Ill try this rather trivial example:

If we have a device X, which we can turn on and off, and the mechanism which allows X to turn on and off is called Y. Now, it is obvious to see that Y must be an essential component for X to work. It is indispensable. Not just necessary, but absolutely necessary. Therefore in short, essential = indispensable = prerequisite for the thing to work.

I do not believe, by any stretch of the imagination, that any mod satisfy that definition of essential.

Now, in my experience however, many mods enhance the game play and immersion and essentially provides more things to do, with more parts and better physics and stability.

My most recommended mods would have to be these:

Kerbal Engineer.

Alarm Clock (Very useful for plenty of simultaneous missions)

Ferram Aerospace ( Enhances the physics of aerodynamics, making flying more enjoyable)

Joint Reinforcement

Visual Enhancements

I would say that those are probably the mods I use the most. There are plenty of other excellent mods which expands the parts list, adds new technology, adds new planets and so on. But for a new player, I believe that the above list is a good starting point.

[Starhawk]

Can you share the statistics you've seen? I would be surprised if the majority of players modded the game but I certainly could be wrong.

Max said on the last Squadcast that Squad's numbers show that most players play stock.

Happy landings!

[Padishar]

In my understanding of the word essential, Ill try this rather trivial example:

If we have a device X, which we can turn on and off, and the mechanism which allows X to turn on and off is called Y. Now, it is obvious to see that Y must be an essential component for X to work. It is indispensable. Not just necessary, but absolutely necessary. Therefore in short, essential = indispensable = prerequisite for the thing to work.

I do not believe, by any stretch of the imagination, that any mod satisfy that definition of essential.

The mod that comes closest to that definition is probably the claw related bits of "stock bugfix modules". Some things with the claw are guaranteed to crash the game without that mod (e.g. flying a ship onto another ship's active claw).

[windows_x_seven]

FAR, Procedural Fairings, Editor Extensions, RCS Build Aid, KAX, RemoteTech, TweakableEverything, Texture Replacer, Hyperedit and maybe Mechjeb.

That's my minimum.

[mellojoe]

I don't use MechJeb. I DO use Kerbal Engineer. Really, I just want the Delta-V numbers during the building stage. Anything else is unnecessary.

Kerbal Attachment is fantastic. I ended up using just a few parts out of the whole, and its great. I don't have it installed currently, but when I did the hoses and attchment points and add-on struts were fantastic.

Asteroid Day Mod adds a nice antenna and a single larger solar panel, plus a nice probe body. Still considered "stock" in my opinion.

[Nookos]

Max said on the last Squadcast that Squad's numbers show that most players play stock.

Happy landings!

How would they know about this? The game is spying on us and sending information without our consent? To my knowledge they shouldn't have a clue about what most players are doing. They could know about some players but no way they could say most. That implies they know the game habits of all players.

On topic I couldn't go back to stock. Too many parts missing for my taste ( at least tweakscale needed, and much more). Not enough information provided ( Mechjeb or KER) And once you tried graphics improvement, stock looks sad and empty ( EVE, planetshine, scatterer,..)

[The_Rocketeer]

How would they know about this? The game is spying on us and sending information without our consent? To my knowledge they shouldn't have a clue about what most players are doing. They could know about some players but no way they could say most. That implies they know the game habits of all players.

Well, whenever you install and run KSP for the first time it asks you if you're willing to send anonymous information back to squad for development purposes, and u either say no, yes but not my IP address, or ok! I guess this is where they're getting their info, and when u think about it that's not really spying, it's just using a self-selected sample to assess how players use the game.

[Superfluous J]

How would they know about this? The game is spying on us and sending information without our consent? To my knowledge they shouldn't have a clue about what most players are doing. They could know about some players but no way they could say most. That implies they know the game habits of all players.

No, it implies they know the game habits of most players.

When you start the game for the first time it asks if it can call home. You can see the result of your answer in the settings.cfg file.

It is possible that >50% of players said "yes" to the prompt, and so therefore Squad knows, out of those people, how many use mods, which could also be > 50%. They could infer that, if >50% of users they know about don't use mods, that >50% of ALL uses don't use mods. Or, it's possible that the number of polled users who don't use mods is actually >50% of the total sales they've ever had.

[Red Iron Crown]

How would they know about this? The game is spying on us and sending information without our consent?

As The_Rocketeer said, you consent (or not) to data collection the first time you set up a new install:

Edit: Another ninja? Oh well, I included a pic.

[The_Rocketeer]

No, it implies they know the game habits of most players.

It doesn't even need to be most players, it just needs to be a sample large enough and random enough to be considered representative of the whole. That's real science talking right there!

[Kuansenhama]

Waypoint Manager

KER (Or at the very least a DV readout)

Joint Reinforcement (Mostly for the loading stabilization, but also for being able to move D/E asteroids more easily.)

Asteroid Day.

[Nookos]

Thanks. I ve never seen that pop up. But went and check my settings. It will pop up next time hopefully.

I ll move those stats up towards the modded installs

[TheMoonRover]

Mods that every KSP player should have? Well, I would say none at all.

Kerbal Engineer is always useful (I always have it installed).

MechJeb is useful for showing beginners how it's done, and it's also useful for people who don't have time to do every single little thing (I had it installed for a long time, but I no longer need or want it).

HyperEdit is useful for messing about or getting to places quickly (I use it when making videos).

PreciseNode can be useful, particularly when not using MechJeb (I used to use it, then KSP updated to 0.90 and I couldn't remember what it was called. I'll see if I can find it again.)

The Lazor System had a fun set of tools. Sometimes they were even useful. It's a pity it hasn't been updated for 1.0

Kerbal Alarm Clock could be useful to people who launch ridiculous numbers of ships at a time (I never really have more than 5 missions en route to anywhere, so I never bothered with it).

Distant Object Enhancement is a nice little mod, the only graphics mod I use or would recommend - unless there's one which does good clouds for a sensible amount of RAM without replacing anything else.

And I ought to have a look at this Asteroid Day mod everyone's been talking about recently.

I've never had a bug which was persistent and annoying enough to warrant a bug fix mod, except for the 13 Hell Krakens I had at the Mohole while filming my latest video.

But I wouldn't consider any of those to be essential.

Edited September 15, 2015 by TheMoonRover

[mellojoe]

And I ought to have a look at this Asteroid Day mod everyone's been talking about recently.

It is literally 4 parts:

• large single-pane solar panel [lower part count since you don't need to spam the little ones anymore]
  
• large probe-core with built in 1000 electric units [just a nice looking satellite core, also helps part count by not having to stack additional batteries]
  
• fold-away antenna [just pretty, and a nice option in addition to the others]
  
• science attachment, the B-612 Foundation asteroid tracking camera

I think it also has new contracts, but I haven't played with those.

[Kryxal]

It doesn't even need to be most players, it just needs to be a sample large enough and random enough to be considered representative of the whole. That's real science talking right there!

That depends on if there's any bias in the self-selected sample...

[Feradose]

6.4x scaled system..

[Superfluous J]

6.4x scaled system..

Oh geez if you want to start a flamewar just suggest MechJeb.

[Guillotine]

Is there set of mods that would adjust the game enough so you have to use unmanned before you can progress to manned missions, also contracts to support this. Atm im using KiS, KaS, KeR, Kerbal alarm clock and remote tech.

Finally posting to forum after 152Hours in game almost stock KSP

[Starhawk]

Hello Guillotine, and welcome to the forums!

There used to be a mod called 'Better Than Starting Manned'. I'm not sure if it's still being updated, though.

Happy landings!

[cantab]

Is there set of mods that would adjust the game enough so you have to use unmanned before you can progress to manned missions, also contracts to support this. Atm im using KiS, KaS, KeR, Kerbal alarm clock and remote tech.

Look for a modded tech tree that makes the starting node use a probe core. Alternatively just write a few configs to move parts around in the stock tree.

[Guillotine]

Hello Guillotine, and welcome to the forums!

There used to be a mod called 'Better Than Starting Manned'. I'm not sure if it's still being updated, though.

Happy landings!

Thank you and it was still supported for 1.0.4. This was exact mod iv been looking for http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/61632-1-04-Better-Than-Starting-Manned-Career-Mode-Redefined-(v10-01-Aug-19th)

[The_Rocketeer]

That depends on if there's any bias in the self-selected sample...

Hence 'random enough' of course, Squad doesn't know if it's random or not, but who can blame them for assuming. It's not like they know anything about "real" science

[Brigadier]

"Mods that every player should have" certainly leaves the door open to interpretation. I'll try to meet the spirit of that title by suggesting the following for an improved KSP experience, from my POV. I've played mostly in Science and have started a Career game so this taints my perspective.

Should Have

• KER (or something equivalent), just because that data should be available to any budding rocket scientist. Don't leave home without it.
  
• Kerbal Alarm Clock, because time waits for no one (except for quicksaves and reversions to launchpad)
  
• More system memory. My crashes almost completely disappeared when I upgraded from 4GB to 12GB RAM. (Just thinking outside the box; is this not a mod too??)
  

I've not tried MechJeb or FAR, so can't praise their usefulness.

Nice to Have

• Orbital Science
  
• SCANsat
  
• Science Alert
  
• USI MSK/OKS (too many new parts...I can't find the stuff I need )
  

I have about 30 mods installed (some are dependencies), but these are at the top of my list. I guess I, too, need to try some others based on what I've read here, such as Precise Node and Asteroid Day. Then again, wasn't that the point of the thread?

Disclaimer: No criticisms of others' play styles is stated or implied . You mileage may vary.

[moogoob]

In my opinion, Mechjeb (Kerbal engineer works too) for readouts at the very least. It's amazing how much easier things are with just apoapsis and periapsis readouts visible in flight. Mechjeb's autopilot and manouver planner are just bonuses.

Visually, I like EVE and Planetshine. The first is great (so long as you disable city lights) for its clouds (makes landing on Eve much harder due to the thick clouds!) and Planetshine adds a great deal when in orbit, particularly around strikingly-coloured planets like Duna or Jool.

And other than the asteroid day mod, that's all I usually install.