What IS cheating? - The Thread to define the age old question!

[Overland]

So my fellow Kerbalists!

It comes to my attention of late that there is to be a rash that once in a while appears on these forums.. Perhaps a kraken inspired.. in the form of  question without answer, form or substance of any kind..

 IS IT CHEATING TO?...X 

Regretably even while possibly started in honest wonder and innocence.. soon resorts in fires starting, that should only have a place in general proximity to a rocket engine, one does hope anyway.. 

Threads get locked and good people become hurt

Sadly this tarnishes our great community and generates conflict.. in a place otherwise enjoyed and loved by many.. 

Given that KSP itself is about to be released onto other platforms and waves of new people new to the forums and indeed the game.. perhaps even the game style.. eg.. most games have goals.. and one would naturally wonder if X is cheating if they were such conditioned to in previous gaming adventures 

 

I put it to you all, that it is time we answered what IS cheating to the respective person.. so that we may direct the poor soul without direction to this or similar threads. where they may have their fill of what IS cheating.. how to avoid it.. its result in summoning the kracken or all seeing blue-orb

and indeed hopefully maintain the spirit of happyness.. while educating those perhaps.. a little new to our beautiful community

 

This may be a hybrid screenshot thread much like the What did you do today thread.. its my greatest hope though that a great many people might contribute 

to create a long lasting resource of humor, education and fun rather than the initial unfortunate events detailed

perhaps screenshots, explainations.. stories.. anything that'd blend in and help the cause.. to define once and for all.. what IS cheating

 

So!

 

WHAT IS CHEATING IN MY KERBAL SPACE PROGRAM?

 

Is it:

Driving trains.. rather than rockets.. ignoring every single thing regarding space and the beautiful creations squad has made, never touching the orbital dynamics, the gravity whats-its,having delta V being nothing more than a prospective station name or track junction.. admiring kerbol from the surface of a planet and thinking the stars are just painted dots in the sky..  trying to work out if the mun is infact real or made of cheese and the whole thing about the train depot looks disturbingly like a space center like the one NASA has.. yet im never really sure why that is.. especially with the next station being an ungodly distance almost half way across the planet

 

NO .. is it not cheating.. indeed this is the very nature of Kerbal Space Program for me..  Trains, exotic transmissions.. railway practises and other train inspired madness.. for this player.. Kerbal Space Program has become the ultimate land train simulator.. a beautiful planet to drive on full of vast distances, perfect unexpected beauty and a physics engine that while ment for more adventerous things, definately doesnt disapoint...

 

So what IS cheating for me?

 

Simply ignoring 3/4 of the above statement I just made.. ignoring 200km long drives that I enjoy and what have become lore, legend and what is expected within my Kerbal Space Program duties.. driving long distances for a variety of reasons.. 

And replacing it with the likes of strapping aircraft parts on a locomotive.. in a very un-railway like fashion.. and simply flying a spare locomotive to where shes needed..

for this.. I suffer terribly from guilt, a feeling of weakness.. and the constant threat of an angered kraken.. 

 

THIS IS CHEATING!!!.. 

It is very bad indeed, and to be avoided.. bringing with it bad luck, a feeling of being defeated.. perhaps conned out of glory.. it never comes with any degree of happyness and instead leaves me...dead inside.. a shell of a former kerbalist, bringing great shame to my mission, my craft and their crew.. 

A terrible experience for all

 

Infact..

 

it leads to a great sadness 

 

So!,

share fellow kerbalists, let us all see what indeed cheating is to you.. simple.. complex.. quirky.. funny. shameful.. 

all within the beautiful context of KSP and G rated for all to enjoy

 

Quote

(Is a thread about what is cheating, cheating?)

 

Edited January 19, 2016 by Overland

[KerbMav]

Cheating is doing anything that gives you an advantage and at the same time puts another person at a disadvantage.

You cannot cheat in a single player game outside of the rules set for challenges in which you wish to publicly partake.

[DrMarlboro]

You really can't cheat in this game. It really bothers me when people leave snide comments about how the op cheated because he clipped parts, or ruined the spirit of the game by doing x. I don't understand why people think like that. 

[Overland]

exactly.. hence, Im attempting to create a thread that people will post too. humerous in nature so that similar posts can simply be refered to it and see the best of the community. rather than the worst.. it leaves a bad impression really.. since alot of new players wont actually know what a sandbox game is, I mean true GTA and suchlike is sold as a sandbox open world game.. but is got a goal.  KSP is unique like gmod building mode in that theres no goal or rules as such.. 

for some people the question might seem entirely logical.. and thats where its a tad sad with threads shut down and the worst of the community come to light.. we're better than that

[n.b.z.]

I agree that, outside of forum challenges or similar group activities with an agreed-upon set of rules, it is not possible to cheat in a single player game.

Doesn't mean that I can't have my own little rules while playing in my own little sandbox. For example, in my world it's "impossible" to "simulate" anything on a celestial body using Hyperedit, if I haven't at least landed a probe there for real. A probe is "necessary" to get the data that's required for a simulation.

However, I obviously don't get to yell at others for "cheating" if they break a rule that only exists in my head.

[Evanitis]

1 hour ago, Overland said:

flying a spare locomotive to where shes needed..

You are a horrible person! *slap*

I -never- cheat in KSP. But I used liquid soap to wash my hair once. I felt terrible. Afterwards I considered using shampoo to wash my body to compensate, but two wrongs doesn't make it right. So I live with the terrible guilt ever since. It's a bit better now that I confessed.

[swjr-swis]

Thoughtlessly having thoughts of another person, while the person you should be having thoughts about is thoughtlessly unthought about... is cheating. Apparently. Or so I heard. From .. a friend.

Oh you mean game-wise. I see.

 

Well, KSP is whatever you make it to be. You are engaging no one in competition; you are engaging the limits of the game's environment and of your own creativity and problem-solving capabilities. Anything you build that achieves your intended goals within those limits is fair game. Anything that actually goes beyond and breaks through those limits should be revered moments of enlightenment (or hilarity, or sometimes both).

Since the only one you're battling is you, a simple rule of thumb to keep when it comes to KSP: if something you do feels like cheating, it probably is. To you. Which is the only thing that matters in a single-player experience. So stop doing whatever made you get those cheaty feels, you naughty person you.

A few examples.

Going against all in-game and real-life conventions and logic, and using the Alt-F12 menu to 'allow clipping' enabling you to get a very specific look, because what you want most of all of this design is that it looks the part, is not cheating. The feeling of completion when you see the finished design is completely warranted. The sensation of achievement when it actually lifts off is totally fair. Seeing that your efforts of tweaking the design not only made it controllable, but you even understand why... is one of the absolutely most awesome experiences you can get from this game:

 

On the other hand, giving up in disgust over in-game physics not doing the impossible things you ask of it while trying to make another impossible-physics contraption fly, and just brute-forcing it into the sky by strapping on a set of boosters, now that is cheating:

 

Not that there is anything wrong with boosters. I am totally ok with boosters. They have their place. Rockets thrive on boosters. Some of my best friends use boosters.

 

Edited January 19, 2016 by swjr-swis

[FungusForge]

What is cheating to me?

Gah. That's a toughie, seeing as I don't play Kerbal Train Program.
Hmmm....

I gotta say using SRBs. I don't have any strict rule against using them or anything, but I hardly ever use them outside of joke craft. As much as I love lots and lots of go-fast, I feel like whenever I do use SRBs, I'm either not using them to the best of their ability, or some LFO firepower would do better in its place. Even if this is a hindrance to my space program, this is how I feel about it.

 

E: kinda funny that unfocused orbital vessels are considered "on rails" and your trains lack rails entirely.

Edited January 19, 2016 by FungusForge

[Warzouz]

The answer is obviously 42, even if confirmation would take few million years of calculations.

Edited January 19, 2016 by Warzouz

[Temstar]

Ultimately, people come to the forum to talk about KSP, and having a common shared baseline gives meaning and context to discussion about KSP. That's why people worry about this whole cheating thing. If you achieve goal A and brag about it, but then another person also achieve goal A but using something (say, a mod like hyperedit) to make that goal easier, and that person also brag about it here on the forum then you will feel that the achievement is unequal.

Of course, this is all very egocentric and in an ideal world there's no need to worry about who's achievement is worth bragging and who's does not. Alas the human condition means it does matter to people.

Let's say for example there are ZERO stock parts, none. When you install KSP you just get an empty parts list. Instead Squad release all the stock parts we know now as an optional mod to the game, must like Asteroid Days. Using the "KSP is a single player game and you can play it any way you want, including any parts pack" argument it makes no difference if there are stock parts or Squad's semi-official parts pack. Yet does this not diminish KSP by taking away a common ground where players can talk about shared experiences?

If you answer is yes, then you can see why people worry about cheating.

Edited January 19, 2016 by Temstar

[Rocket In My Pocket]

"Cheating" is a group social perspective when it comes to video games. Everyone is always arguing that the only thing that matters is what you personally consider cheating but that just isn't true in my opinion.

One of the greatest things about video games, movies, books, etc... is that we and others have had the same experience and can discuss it afterwards, for that to happen there has to be simple defined rules about what constitutes that "experience." Ie. If you cheat your way through a videogame by lets say making yourself max level you will have had a very different experience from someone who actually grinded and struggled through the game and so the two of you will be unlikely to have comparable "experiences" that you can later share or discuss.

So ultimately when someone new to the forums makes one of these threads asking if lets say "MechJeb" is cheating for example, he's entirely justified in wanted to know the community's (or group's) opinion on what would be considered cheating. Because if he uses said mod and no one else does it's going to create a potential barrier between them every time he wants to discuss KSP or ask them a question about it. By definition a game has to have rules to be a game, and we all have to agree on those rules for the game to be fair, since we all agree on these rules something can only be cheating if the others who play the game perceive it to be.

That said, I got no problem with mods or cheating, to each his own. But if someone played KSP by just downloading pre-existing ships and then hyper editing them into place...would you really have anything to discuss with them? You practically aren't playing the same game anymore, you have no common experiences, and odds are that your way of playing (Actually building and flying ships.) is as alien to him as his is to you.

TLDR; It's ok to cheat and/or mod as long as everyone else is doing it! Lol 

[steuben]

A first century roman bureaucrat probably said it best, "what is cheating?". Okay I'm paraphrasing him a bit. 

I figure the US Supreme Court's "Flacid Richard Test"  is probably the best framework for figuring out if it is cheating or not.

[Red Iron Crown]

Playing KSP is cheating. If you want to go to space, you really must spend a lifetime training, studying, and politicking for a slim chance of being selected for an astronaut/cosmonaut/whatever-the-Chinese-call-their-nauts program. Sitting in front of a PC and pressing the spacebar to go to space cheapens the real accomplishment of those who have made it.

Accept that we are all filthy cheaters, then such questions become a matter of degree rather than of nature. If everything is cheating, it changes from "Is it cheating?" to "How bad is this cheating?"

[Tw1]

Cheating in this game would only be doing something and lying about how you did it.  

[HebaruSan]

I do think some of those who ask this question do so sincerely and with good intention meriting a response more in depth than "nothing is ever cheating". After all, the game does now have a career mode which you can lose (at least I think you can??), which engages the problem-solving and advantage-seeking impulses in many of us. Somewhere between installing informational mods and editing fuel amounts in your save file, it's natural to ask, is this thing I'm doing against the spirit of the challenge before me?

While there certainly can be no "one size fits all" answer, I'd suggest that it should be possible to reach a consensus on a handful of playstyle "rule-sets" that attempt to take this question seriously. No, we would never be in a position to enforce them against anyone else, but there are some potential benefits nonetheless: knowing that there are others who play like you do, and as a shorthand for your playstyle, for starters.

Personally, I'll often find myself daydreaming about some concept that I haven't tried before (e.g., "big SRB as SSTO spaceplane fuselage" or "hang glider as space station escape pod"), and then I'll throw it together and iteratively work out the kinks till it flies as intended. For this to be satisfying, it's essential that any difficulties encountered be overcome with fidelity to either stock or "realistic" mechanics, standard-ish parts, etc. Otherwise I haven't actually built the concept as envisioned, but rather just drawn a sketch of it, if that makes any sense. I don't know what I'd call that, but I'm sure it's far from unique, maybe "typical sandbox"?

[Superfluous J]

"Cheating" is when you want to go a different direction than your rocket is going, but you want most of your thrust to go into increasing your velocity, so you veer a little bit to the left or right. That's called "Cheating to the [left/right]."* Anything else in the game isn't cheating.

 

*I don't know exactly where I got this term, but it's closest definitive definition** is the #3 intransitive verb definition here.
**Actual alliteration, alas and agog!

[Scotius]

For some reason i consider Hyperedit, save and persistence files editing etc. cheating. I don't use it even to wriggle my way out of problems caused by bugs and glitches. Even if Kraken eats my base or ship i build and send another one. Aside of that everything goes

[RizzoTheRat]

45 minutes ago, Tw1 said:

Cheating in this game would only be doing something and lying about how you did it.  

Although that's possibly cheating the forum not cheating the game  

 

I'm sure everyone has their own idea of what cheating is to them, and that's likely to change depending on what they're doing at the time.  Personally this game is about me vs physics within the construct of the game, so anything that gave me an unfair advantage like infinite fuel or turning drag off would be a cheat, but for someone who wanted to see how high a pogostick could bounce or just have fun zooming around the KSC in a flying chair they might not be.

Flying trains look a bit cheaty to me though

 

[ToukieToucan]

1 hour ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Playing KSP is cheating. If you want to go to space, you really must spend a lifetime training, studying, and politicking for a slim chance of being selected for an astronaut/cosmonaut/whatever-the-Chinese-call-their-nauts program. Sitting in front of a PC and pressing the spacebar to go to space cheapens the real accomplishment of those who have made it.

Accept that we are all filthy cheaters, then such questions become a matter of degree rather than of nature. If everything is cheating, it changes from "Is it cheating?" to "How bad is this cheating?"

What if an astronaut would play KSP, would that be cheating?

[RizzoTheRat]

Ed Lu's a dirty cheat, spending all that time training at NASA just so he could do better than other noobies at KSP!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHjaqeeoAKk  

[Red Iron Crown]

10 minutes ago, ToukieToucan said:

What if an astronaut would play KSP, would that be cheating?

Yes. KSP doesn't require you to justify the cost of the launch to an oversight committee, the player experiences no G-forces from launching, there's no separation from loved ones, I could go on and on. Playing KSP is cheating, end of story.

[MaxwellsDemon]

Tell me how you can cheat while playing with Lego.  This is Lego with a simulation engine.

[Temstar]

4 minutes ago, MaxwellsDemon said:

Tell me how you can cheat while playing with Lego.

If you use glue to improve the structural integrity then many purists would consider that cheating.

[swjr-swis]

26 minutes ago, MaxwellsDemon said:

Tell me how you can cheat while playing with Lego.

Lego cheats. They never put enough of the exact piece I need in the box to finish my creations, forcing me to buy another box...

[regex]

Not playing KSP in one of the prescribed manners is cheating.

One should always:

• Decide for oneself how to play
• Play my way
• Play without mods
• Play with mods
• Always fly manual
• Use MechJeb to automate routine manuevers
• Write KOS scripts for every craft like NASA does
• Never clip parts into one another
• Use parts decoratively in whatever way possible

Edited January 19, 2016 by regex