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

[Red Shirt]

I've skipped over this thread until now because, oh no, here we go again, but found myself enjoying it today. I use the infamous mods usually involved in the is it cheating threads. I recently landed and ascended to orbit on Tylo by my own flying skills. I can, I normally choose instead to automate. My choice.

I also choose to hyperedit to orbit when testing a new lander/ascent craft. It's a short cut. To me it is like IRL using a wind tunnel or similar to test and work out issues before committing to a few years long mission and finding it was doomed to failure before hitting the spacebar.

Something for the purists to at least consider is that MJ and HE often don't do what you expect of them. With MJ you still need to understand how to pilot to attempt to overcome the issues as they arise. HE is the quickest way I know to summon the Kraken. Neither of these mods will fix poor aerodynamics and shoddy design.

I would not use these helps IF I were to attempt a challenge unless the rules specifically sanctioned their use. Of course it isn't an issue because I have never done a challenge.

Beyond challenge rules, the (wo)man in the mirror is the final authority on what is cheating in a single player sandbox program like KSP.

My personal limits on when I am cheating is F12 use, though I have done it and momentarily change my own rules to allow.

I have gone into a craft file to fix solar panels that game physics (not my stupidity) broke. I justified this by believing an engineer that can change a flat should be able MacGyver a panel.   

Just a thought but why is the use of KER never considered cheating? Everyone knows the only proper way to play is add Moar Boosters and power your way through 

[justidutch]

I have never cheated this game, but am angry that this favour has not been repaid in kind.  Kerbal Space Program has cheated me endlessly.

It has robbed me blind of countless hours of my life which are lost forever.  Perhaps the most precious resource in existence (followed closely by beer) is constantly being drained from me: time.  Is that how a devoted follower and practitioner is to be treated?

[swjr-swis]

27 minutes ago, justidutch said:

It has robbed me blind of countless hours of my life which are lost forever.

Be thankful: you might've spent those hours mining ice in Osmon instead...

[Overland]

The F12 menu can also be a gift in a truly horrible situation such as the earlier builds heat problems

 

4004.. A beautiful 40 class new to the world and making great strides to honour her sistertrains and indeed prove that the 40 class long hood locomotive although inferior to the bulldog stream lined and higher visibility 44 class, was something to be taken seriously

From the cab on her precooler derived long hood I could see a slow gradual glow building up.. A quick check of the temps revealed her hood was burning at 400+ degrees.. But confident in her ability I simply shut down #1 engine and kept going on half power.. Until night time revealed the true horror of her situation..

Locomotive BBQ snout.. 

 

Shutting engines down took days to cool and moments to reheat.  I thought maybe itd be ok in the end but as things climbed to 600 while underway.. A sence of that Id have to send another train shortly to replace her once she exploded effected me greatly.. Now being rather attached to the locomotive herself

 

The decision I made was difficult as I felt it was cheating..but with only the other outcome being the launch of 4005 or 4410 from the yard once she'd been reduced to a pile of scrap due to defective heat physics... I damn well opened that F12 menu.. Adjusting radiation, convection and other things so she didnt have to suffer a terrible fate not of her doing

 

 

Cheating...maybe..

But justified

Sometimes cheats are if you feel strongly enough

Edited January 21, 2016 by Overland

[Halo_003]

Unless you're playing with RSS and Realism Overhaul you're cheating.

Edited January 25, 2016 by Halo_003

[nobodyhasthis2]

13 hours ago, Red Shirt said:

I've skipped over this thread until now because, oh no, here we go again, but found myself enjoying it today.

Yes it is refreshing. Thanks to @Overland for kicking it off with good natured and wise look at personal game choices. He is done in a way that we can't hear the lunatic fringe over the awesome coolness of his trains.     

 

13 hours ago, Red Shirt said:

Something for the purists to at least consider is that MJ and HE often don't do what you expect of them. With MJ you still need to understand how to pilot to attempt to overcome the issues as they arise. 

Yes indeed the purists are so self righteous that any mention of MJ failure is beyond them. Notice they are also ignorant of the MJ techology config settings. At the default settings you going to have start off flying manually in career mode anyway. Nothing can be automated until the technology is unlocked. Even then it starts calculations based on ideal starting conditions and perfect designs. So quite often you have to know when to override the solutions it presents. The ascent module solution often needs adjusted as well based the flight characteristics. Also if Remote Tech is running. Burn time sometimes needs to passed to the offline flight computer as required. Which means it better be perfect. As lost of signal will kill default MJ automation. 

All that is assuming that the defaults are used. With modification it can take longer to start working. At present my own modified MJ settings pretty much make it exactly the same as KER. There is no need for something like Precise Node to place nodes. However it is not much better that using SAS most of the time in early career. Getting it to do anything clever takes at least building upgrades. Around 30,000 in research and lot of science points. So it kicks in latter when the game starts to grind. At this point the focus of the game changes from basic flying to design challenges. It is variation to try in the wonderful sandbox of ideas. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 22, 2016 by nobodyhasthis2

[Waz]

On 19/01/2016 at 8:35 PM, KerbMav said:

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 ...

For some the "extended game" also involves posting pictures of one's achievements. While I don't agree with them, someone who has never gotten to orbit whining in a forum that someone else used Hyperedit to achieve their first orbit (or something less pathetic) fits your definition of someone calling out another person for cheating.

[rkman]

Cheating is breaking the rules in a competition. 

Apparently some people who play KSP think they are in competition with others who are playing this single player game, even when they are not taking part in a 'challenge'. 

 

[SR]

It is only cheating if you are:

1.claiming to other people you didn't cheat

2.when its against the rules of a challenge

[lodger]

I agree with those who go for the 'freedom of choice' option. In the end it's the player who decides what cheating really is. And that probably makes the game so great: because you can always have it 'your way'.

[Evanitis]

I think I figured out the definition:

Cheting in KSP is when someone uses a feature that I don't use to make an aspect of the game more convenient.