About the 'this should be stock' argument

[Evanitis]

I keep seeing that comment a lot, but I don't get it.

I mean there are mods that I couldn't play the game without by now. Some of those might take some time to get patched to a new version once it's released - but it will be done eventually. I bet the authors of the these would still do their releases, even if KSP included similar features - that already seems to be the case with some mods.

 

So... what's the merit of a stock feature compared to a mod that does the same perfectly well?

Edited January 11, 2016 by Evanitis

[Randazzo]

23 minutes ago, Evanitis said:

I keep seeing that comment a lot, but I don't get it.

I mean there are mods that I couldn't play the game without by now. Some of those might take some time to get patched to a new version once it's released - but it will be done eventually. I bet the authors of the these would do the same, even if KSP included similar features - that already seems to be the case with some mods.

 

So... what's the merit of a stock feature compared to a mod that does the same perfectly well?

There's not going to be a simple answer for this, as it could vary from mod to mod, but let's take KER as an example. A goodly number of folk consider a Delta V readout to be a basic necessity, and therefore deem that it "should be stock". They are not necessarily wrong. Usually it's just a players opinion and they post a thread for others to pile on and voice their similar (or contrary) opinions.

Ultimately Squad has a vision for their game and if something suits it, some incarnation of it may become part of the stock game. Should this happen, it would be balanced to fit within the core experience. Mods may or may not be balanced in this way.

Edited January 11, 2016 by Randazzo

[regex]

8 minutes ago, Evanitis said:

So... what's the merit of a stock feature compared to a mod that does the same perfectly well?

Matter of opinion.

For instance, having something like KER in stock/vanilla would likely mean it would be severely reduced in functionality to fit the silly stock meta of starving the player for information and thus you'd still end up installing KER.

[Evanitis]

20 minutes ago, Randazzo said:

There's not going to be a simple answer for this, as it could vary from mod to mod,

Not to mention people to people... hece I started the thread. I'm interested in opinions.

Though I had the impression that Squad's vision is a very modular game, where each palyer can pick features made by other players to suit their playstyles. Thus I'm puzzled why it matters to someone if a functionality we decide to use is made by the devs or modders. I'm very open to see the other side of the coin... I'm just failing to do so.

[Workable Goblin]

41 minutes ago, Evanitis said:

So... what's the merit of a stock feature compared to a mod that does the same perfectly well?

Potentially increased stability/performance (since the feature is directly built into the game instead of being bolted on from the outside).

Less trouble to maintain and update (is updated with the base game, no need to worry about the game's folder structure or install mono or etc. etc.)

Potentially better integration (again, since it's built directly into the game instead of being bolted on).

That's just what I can think of off the top of my head, so I'm sure other people can come up with other advantages.

[Francois424]

I think the idea stems from the fact that Mods needs to be maintained.
They need to be maintained for almost every patch, and not everyone has the time to (freely) fix their mods in a timely manner.
I had 2 favorite mods of mine stopped being supported, and because of a license thing, could not be fixed by a 3rd party and re-uploaded.
And don't get me started on conflicts mods can cause with the game, either benign small little glitches or straight out game killing ones. 

Now on the other hand, stock features are automatically supported, debugged, and maintained.  You *know* the thing will work well and you don't have to wait 1-4 weeks for them after each update.

I would believe that the most important mods to be "Stock" would be an EVE-alike, and obviously Kerbal Engineer. 
Kerbal Attachment system (even without the wrench and tools) would do wonder since we now have ISRU, and would be useful to strut your motherships up in space after assembly.
Thankfully, the 3 I just mentioned tend to update themselves rather quickly after an official version release.

Then comes the hundred of parts ppl feel are missing from the stock game, which are dispersed in over 30 different mods or more, which may or may not get updated and the parts might glitch or not work anymore (just like the Orion capsule I managed to find, only to noticed it was glitched as hell and would not attach at all in the VAB).

Stock makes everything better... for the most part.   Still not satisfied with the current aero here, but better than it was.

[Superfluous J]

If it's in stock, it'll work out of the gate. Well, probably. You get the point.

If it's a mod, it can:

• Become broken with an update, and may not be fixable. See Kerbal Konstructs.
• Become abandoned, possibly never being picked up by someone else. Generally if a mod is popular someone will pick it up, but it's never a guarantee.
• Change in a way you don't like. Granted so can Squad, so I suppose that's a wash but at least complaining that Squad broke your toy doesn't make you a jerk, as you paid for that toy. You didn't pay for the mod.

There are arguments on the other side, of course. A favorite of many is "Squad can do nothing right so why even bother?" but I'll never understand that one. If I seriously thought that for more than 30 seconds I would have left this forum years ago.

[Frozen_Heart]

58 minutes ago, Evanitis said:

So... what's the merit of a stock feature compared to a mod that does the same perfectly well?

The advantage of a feature being stock compared to staying as a mod is simply ease of use. Players don't want to have to update the mod each version of KSP as it is extra work. On top of that there is always the risk of the mod creator going dark and it no longer working in the future.

Also the new console versions likely won't have mods. Moving a feature to stock means that they get access to it.

[Kerbart]

47 minutes ago, Evanitis said:

So... what's the merit of a stock feature compared to a mod that does the same perfectly well?

Virtually every update will break some mods. If those are part mods, vessels containing those parts will be deleted from your save. For that reason, mods containing parts are a “necessary evil” that I try to limit as much as possible. Of course YMMV and others happily use dozens of part mods. But I try to limit my exposure to mod parts as much as possible, also because I find it a fun challenge to make do with what stock has provided.

Having said that, I'd like to see that the game provides more basic functionality. Fairings are a great example of things done the right way. I know that a lot of people hate the stock fairings, and that’s fine. And they have multiple mods to pick better fairings from. But... if your fairing standards are low enough (and mine are), the stock ones are just fine and the game is perfectly playable with them. I'd love to see something similar with hinges (not the entire IR nine yards, just two or three parts), propellors & rotors (not that I'm into airplanes but a lot of people are) and a few necessities for basebuilding (primarily the ability to make connecting base parts easier).

There's a mod for that. Yes, in most cases there is. And the mod makers usually leave no stone unturned to make their mod as extensive and encompassing as possible and that is wonderful, and they should definitely do that. But that's what's the problem is for me. Now I have to plow through five pages parts provided by a mod, where really all I wanted was one part x. That's why certain basic things need to be stock, in my book.

[r_rolo1]

Well, I can give to the OP a reason why people ask for a mod to be stock: SQUAD has the source code, the modders for the most part don't ... so SQUAD has the resources to make a more integrated ( and hopefully better ) solution than the modders, that sometimes need to hack the way around the base game.

Say, for example sake, the Quick GoTo mod , that allows you to jump from every scene to any other instead of having to get back to the Space center in between . While I do use the mod and it is a very useful add to the game, it basically hacks the functionality by doing two scene changes in quick sucession ( and the buttons do not mesh that well with the current UI ) and I'm pretty sure that SQUAD, if it wanted to get this feature stock ( like it did with so many others ) would be able to do a better job simply because they would be able to not hack around the game.

On the second point ...well, for any modder that kept developing his mod after the core feature was made stock, I can show atleast another one that simply considered that his job was done and moved on. Say, stuff like the original Sub-assemblies mod ( AFAIK ) ...

[Dizzle]

2 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

If it's in stock, it'll work out of the gate. Well, probably. You get the point.

If it's a mod, it can:

• Become broken with an update, and may not be fixable. See Kerbal Konstructs.
• Become abandoned, possibly never being picked up by someone else. Generally if a mod is popular someone will pick it up, but it's never a guarantee.
• Change in a way you don't like. Granted so can Squad, so I suppose that's a wash but at least complaining that Squad broke your toy doesn't make you a jerk, as you paid for that toy. You didn't pay for the mod.

There are arguments on the other side, of course. A favorite of many is "Squad can do nothing right so why even bother?" but I'll never understand that one. If I seriously thought that for more than 30 seconds I would have left this forum years ago.

This is the big thing for me. If I come back in a few years, the stock features will still work as intended. With a mod, there's no guarantee of that. Then there's things like KER, which for me the game is unplayable without.

[Sovek]

To me, two mods should have been stock a LONG time ago, that is KAS/KIS and KER. TACLS, Scatterer and Procedural Fairings/Parts should also be considered to be a stock thing. Kscale 2 as well, this brings dV back in-line with the old areo and increases the size of rockets from being a tiny thing to get into orbit, into something that ACTUALLY looks like a rocket. I Suppose this could be fixed with a general nerf to the fuel tanks. But there is something to be said about upscaled planets.

Others I would like to see stock, a 2 Kerbal 1.875m command pod. Seriously Squad, There is no inbetween here, and its annoying when you're trying to keep the weight down. Better attention to probe parts, namely things like AIES, with their mini-RCS ports. Vens Stock Revamp, not only does it include alot of (useful) parts, but the parts look waaaay better. Kerbal Alarm Clock, also one the devs should consider making stock. RCS Build Aid is another mod that's been needed to be stock for a LONG time, ever since docking became a thing. Increased use of Tweakables, and better attention to Aircraft. I REALLY think that your early tech should be basic airplane parts, a set of wings, non-retractable landing gear (and better landing gear too, the only retractable LG in the game has 0 give to it at all) and that would allow you early science. KJR is another that should have been stock ever since it was made, and before that even.

Most of what I suggested would fix alot of the... complaints from players. I'd probably say 95% of them... We got a Kethane-like mod... but STILL no KAS/KIS, no KER.... ugh.

[Findthepin1]

The merit is that it comes with the game. You don't have to install it. You don't run the risk of breaking any files.

 

*human laziness intensifies*

[Xavven]

Pretty much what everyone has said here is right on. Without rehashing those, I'll add one or two more:

1. Mod authors may not have the same artistic skills as a dedicated game development team. This means not only graphics but sounds. I've played mods in other games that just look unprofessional and so ever since I've been pro-stock in almost everything I play.
2. Mods don't go through the same QA that stock does. A game studio has to be committed to squashing bugs or the employees lose their livelihood. If I whip up some code on the side, and 2 years later after I've moved on to other games, someone submits a bug report, do I care? Granted, professional studios can and do abandon support for their games, sometimes way too early, but because of the monetary incentive it's not as common as abandoned mods in my experience.
3. Being totally honest with myself, I can definitively say that I've put more time into my full time career than I've put into any one side hobby. It's common because of the experience factor for professionals to simply be better than hobbyists and amateurs. This isn't always the case -- there are counter examples on both sides, like Sony putting spyware in their products, or gaming communities overhauling old games and extending their life by a decade like with Falcon BMS, but I'm of course speaking in general trends.

[Fearless Son]

6 hours ago, Francois424 said:

I think the idea stems from the fact that Mods needs to be maintained.
They need to be maintained for almost every patch, and not everyone has the time to (freely) fix their mods in a timely manner.
I had 2 favorite mods of mine stopped being supported, and because of a license thing, could not be fixed by a 3rd party and re-uploaded.
And don't get me started on conflicts mods can cause with the game, either benign small little glitches or straight out game killing ones. 

Now on the other hand, stock features are automatically supported, debugged, and maintained.  You *know* the thing will work well and you don't have to wait 1-4 weeks for them after each update.

This is also (I assume) part of the reason why Squad is very selective about making mod content stock: it means that the onus of maintaining that feature is no longer supported by a third-party and now it is something that they have to maintain too.  Sometimes they resolve this by simply hiring the mod maker to keep making content in that vein for them and keep it up to date, but in game development most of the budget goes to personnel costs, and you can only sustain so many within your headcount.  Considering that each new update is free to existing customers, simply acquiring more and more mod-makers is not really a sustainable financial move compared to just letting most of the mod-makers do their third party hobby thing.  

[Renegrade]

8 hours ago, regex said:

For instance, having something like KER in stock/vanilla would likely mean it would be severely reduced in functionality to fit the silly stock meta of starving the player for information and thus you'd still end up installing KER.

This reminds me of the terrible fixed stock Applauncher vs Blizzy's flexible/movable/submenu-able toolbar.. I was happy to learn that we'd have a stock toolbar, until I actually played with it.. :/

 

[Alshain]

I've come to the conclusion no mods should be stock because Squad has yet to implement a single non-part mod correctly.  So please Squad, stop implementing mods into the game... unless they are dead and non-functional and not maintained, then I guess something is better than nothing.

6 hours ago, Xavven said:

Mods don't go through the same QA that stock does. A game studio has to be committed to squashing bugs or the employees lose their livelihood.

This one made me laugh.  Most the mods have less bugs than the game.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Alshain

[Evanitis]

Ugh, what an ugly can of worms I did open. Hope my ignorance didn't offend anyone.

Ok, I get the point. For me the strongest argument here was that the devs make money while improving KSP, while modders generally not. Thus it pollutes my karma to be satisfied with the state of people improving a game I love for free. You modders should be all hired by Squad.

I'll keep that in mind when I feel the urge to post something like -'why on Kerbin you want the devs to dedicate resources for something that's in a perfectly fine and very popular mod?'-

Edited January 12, 2016 by Evanitis

[Xavven]

8 hours ago, Alshain said:

Most the mods have less bugs than the game.

Then why is it that whenever I see a thread about someone's game crashing, the first thing everyone asks is "what mods are you running?"

[Champ]

9 hours ago, Alshain said:

Most the mods have less bugs than the game.

Ref needed. No, your feeling is not a reference.

 

[Randazzo]

1 hour ago, Xavven said:

Then why is it that whenever I see a thread about someone's game crashing, the first thing everyone asks is "what mods are you running?"

Memory consumption and mod conflicts.

There's your real answer: Something authored by one unified company is better than many somethings authored by many different people.

[Matt77]

23 hours ago, Evanitis said:

Though I had the impression that Squad's vision is a very modular game, where each palyer can pick features made by other players to suit their playstyles. Thus I'm puzzled why it matters to someone if a functionality we decide to use is made by the devs or modders.

I was going to post something along those lines.  I see KSP as a core "engine", and I add a shedload of features with mods to make it into a game.  The game I play is specific to me, and my preferences are a niche.  That being said, I think stock KSP lacks certain necessities.

11 hours ago, Alshain said:

I've come to the conclusion no mods should be stock because Squad has yet to implement a single non-part mod correctly.  So please Squad, stop implementing mods into the game... unless they are dead and non-functional and not maintained, then I guess something is better than nothing.

Yep.

• Stock toolbar is horrible to use, and inconsistent.  The icons are too big, and you can't customise it in any way.  Why is it in the top right in some scenes and bottom right in others?  Every mod that supports Blizzy's toolbar, lives in Blizzy's toolbar.
• The "new" atmosphere.  I tried it, found it to be inconsistent, a bit hacky, and not very realistic (best example is radially attached parts not being shielded, I think).  Not really sure what they were aiming for but lets face it FAR was already a good, intuitive model where things behaved realistically.  It's improved even more since while stock has just been tweaked and hacked about some more.
• Fairings are a joke.  Procedural Fairings looks like stock and are simple to use.  Stock fairings have one good aspect - the "drawing" of the shape.  I used them once, reverted to VAB, and reinstalled Procedural Fairings.

I'd say keep KSP as a core, and let the mods make it the game for you.  Maybe Squad should concentrate on that core, implement 64-bit on Windows, optimise the hell out of the physics, and work on key features like the UI, the stock graphics and finishing the half-implemented bits like the contracts, policies, tech tree, building upgrades, kerbal experience, BALANCE (why does a rocket cost 10k funds, simple mission rewards 60k funds, and a building upgrade cost 1.3 million??)

Edited January 12, 2016 by Matt77

[regex]

9 minutes ago, Matt77 said:

The "new" atmosphere.  I tried it, found it to be inconsistent, a bit hacky, and not very realistic (best example is radially attached parts not being shielded, I think).  Not really sure what they were aiming for but lets face it FAR was already a good, intuitive model where things behaved realistically.  It's improved even more since while stock has just been tweaked and hacked about some more.

Minor nitpick here, nothing in KSP was going to compare with FAR, which was programmed by an actual aerodynamicist.  Add to that the elephant in the room (or mouse, I guess) of a 1/11th scale solar system and you might as well throw any notion of "realism" out the window.  The stock aero system now flys much like pre-1.0 FAR did, with a few changes to make it more inline with the vanilla game.  For that matter, using FAR in the base game isn't exactly "realistic" to begin with; FAR deserves a much better, to scale planet

And, tbh, pretty much anything was better than the utter crap of a placeholder we had previously.

[Alshain]

4 hours ago, Xavven said:

Then why is it that whenever I see a thread about someone's game crashing, the first thing everyone asks is "what mods are you running?"

As mentioned, it's often a conflict between more than one mod.  This is especially true for mods that alter stock parts because one mod may not be able to predict what another will change.

[Fearless Son]

3 hours ago, regex said:

Minor nitpick here, nothing in KSP was going to compare with FAR, which was programmed by an actual aerodynamicist.  Add to that the elephant in the room (or mouse, I guess) of a 1/11th scale solar system and you might as well throw any notion of "realism" out the window.  The stock aero system now flys much like pre-1.0 FAR did, with a few changes to make it more inline with the vanilla game.  For that matter, using FAR in the base game isn't exactly "realistic" to begin with; FAR deserves a much better, to scale planet

And, tbh, pretty much anything was better than the utter crap of a placeholder we had previously.

I remember reading something Squad said about their default response when anyone asks them "Will you make feature X more realistic?" is to ask themselves, "Would that make the game more fun?"  

Sometimes the response is "Yes" and they devote effort toward that end, sometimes the result is "No" and they let it slide for the sake of playability.  Of course, enjoyment is a subjective thing, and not every person will get the same degree of enjoyment out of various methods of modeling in the gameplay, hence moddability.  

Edited January 12, 2016 by Fearless Son