Realism vs Stock

[C1DEAN]

3 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Sir, you are absolutely correct. I assume of course, that with that you mean that “stock” would include the mods that I usually play with and none of those filthy heretic mods those troglodytes like to ruin their game with (and that I for obvious reasons do not install).

 

Hah! I get where you're coming from But I, for some reason, I am really fond of Realism.

That being said, I do enjoy going crazy in stock. I once planned a mission to Duna, but when making the return trip home, I realized that I didn't have enough delta-v to get back to kerbin. I barely made it into a highly elliptical orbit around kerbin. Little did I know, I could have made it home with plenty of delta-v. my transfers to and from other planets were horrendously sloppy back then . 

Edited March 29, 2016 by C1DEAN

[Draco T stand-up guy]

22 minutes ago, C1DEAN said:

Yeah, that feature would be kind of cool. It probably would take code a little more complex than the regular game though

Not really. It's essentially putting the realism mods that are available straight into the game and then putting an on/off switch within the settings of the game making that particular mod turned on or not.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Draco T stand-up guy

[C1DEAN]

3 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Sir, you are absolutely correct. I assume of course, that with that you mean that “stock” would include the mods that I usually play with and none of those filthy heretic mods those troglodytes like to ruin their game with (and that I for obvious reasons do not install).

 

Hah! I get where you're coming from But I, for some reason, am really fond of Realism.

That being said, I do enjoy going crazy in stock. I once planned a mission to Duna, but when making the return trip home, I realized that I didn't have enough delta-v to get back to kerbin. I barely made it into a highly elliptical orbit around kerbin. Little did I know, I could have made it home with plenty of delta-v. my transfers to and from other planets were horrendously sloppy back then . 

2 hours ago, Tourist said:

"Realism" is a pretty loaded word in this context, in that without definition it doesn't really mean anything.

 

 

Wow...just now realized that I forgot to finish the title(speed typing and all that). Sorry for the confusion, I meant Realism Overhaul, not Realism. I'll be making an edit to the title

Edited March 29, 2016 by C1DEAN

[C1DEAN]

10 minutes ago, Draco T stand-up guy said:

Not really. It's essentially putting the realism mods that are available straight into the game and then putting an on/off switch within the settings of the game making that particular mod turned on or not.

Hmm..mabye I don't know my code, I thought the complex part would be integrating both game saves into the same game. one with mods and one without mods. 

[Tourist]

19 minutes ago, C1DEAN said:

Wow...just now realized that I forgot to finish the title(speed typing and all that). Sorry for the confusion, I meant Realism Overhaul, not Realism. I'll be making an edit to the title

Ah, that makes sense.

I've been meaning to try out at least RSS for awhile, but I got burned by mods (my fault, not the mods or squad). I'd been playing stock since I started playing (except for KAC and docking indicator) but then added one or two more (mainly hyperedit to test out an Eve ascent vehicle and KER) then suddenly the flood gates opened and I went mod-crazy.

Long story short, accidents happened and my primary career was deleted and I'd failed to make a recent, pre-mod madness back up. 

Might just have to jump back into the mod-deep end soon now that I've learnt my lesson.  

Edited March 29, 2016 by Tourist

[Draco T stand-up guy]

53 minutes ago, C1DEAN said:

Hmm..mabye I don't know my code, I thought the complex part would be integrating both game saves into the same game. one with mods and one without mods. 

If you did it that way it'd be complex but all we really need to do is switch the mods on/off for each individual game. Each save would hold the condition of the mods for that game as each save now holds that it's either science, sandbox or career mode. It'd just be in the game difficulty settings which are saved for each game:

You could another Tab labelled 'Mods' that shows all the mods installed and allows you to switch them on or off but it does require setting a few standards that modders have to adhere to. WoW has the latter option.

I would like a realism 'mod' that is actually part of the game though that can be switched on/off that I don't have to worry about breaking the next time the game gets updated.

[C1DEAN]

4 hours ago, Kllrtofu said:

Good question!

Personally I like both. I play RSS/RO because of the challenge and my love for the history of space flight. But I also play other installs; one with a focus on planes (FAR etc modded), and a more or less stock very Kerbalesque install.

Other than many stock lovers though, I don't really like to play only stock. I just have to 'augment' it with some visual (EVE etc) mods and some quality of life stuff at least. Also Ven's Stock Revamp is an absolute must for me nowadays. And some proper interstaging and fairing mods. To make something kerbally is cool, but gaffer taping stuff to the side of a rocket will always be too much for me. I understand it is the character of the stock game and while I've loved it at first I need some realism at least. The biggest problem I have with stock play vs RSS is the realfuels section. I find it difficult to return to 'liquid fuel + OX' after playing RSS.

I agree, stock is good but I just like to spice it up a bit. As for playing with RO, I like to keep it original and unique. instead of directly copying the vehicles used in real life, I like to make my own versions and see how they measure up in real life  

[NathanKell]

In order to have mods enabled or disabled per save game, you would need to run KSP's loading process over again.* At which point you might as well start KSP from a different folder.

 

*Because many mods either insert themselves during the loading process and do things, or rely on the loading process to set themselves up, or rely on MM doing its processing.

[Red Iron Crown]

3 hours ago, NathanKell said:

In order to have mods enabled or disabled per save game, you would need to run KSP's loading process over again.* At which point you might as well start KSP from a different folder.

 

*Because many mods either insert themselves during the loading process and do things, or rely on the loading process to set themselves up, or rely on MM doing its processing.

There is also the issue of file duplication for those who are storage space constrained. I typically have five installs active, so that's five instances of the core game, four instances of my "must-have" mods, three instances of the VFX mods I use, etc. I run from an SSD where the supply of space is more limited than on a spinning disk, so this duplication pinches a bit. Being able to consolidate all of these into a single install where I choose the mod profile on initial load would be very welcome.

I might be a bit of an edge case in maintaining so many installs though.

[C1DEAN]

3 hours ago, NathanKell said:

In order to have mods enabled or disabled per save game, you would need to run KSP's loading process over again.* At which point you might as well start KSP from a different folder.

 

*Because many mods either insert themselves during the loading process and do things, or rely on the loading process to set themselves up, or rely on MM doing its processing.

Yeah, that is what I sorta thought the complex part would be.  Integrating mods into one save, and no mods in the other

[Temeter]

I'm inbetween I guess:

Love Realism Overhaul + RP-0, it's an actual historic career and so much more than just a simple mod. The challenges are always interesting, even though the realism mods take a lot of patience. Finding your rockets becoming similar to real vehicles just by the means of necessity is wonderful. Although there is still the 'Kerbal' experimental factor; for example my satellites are all custom made, more similar to another rocket stage than a probe with limited propulsion. Improvisation is a key, even moreso with realistic parts, to even get the most basic things done.

Stock KSP sometimes feels a bit too easy and simple, when I try simple missions like a moon lander. Reaction wheels are a bit weird, and there is little need for fun RCS. But there is still fun and challenge in 'advanced' missions, colonization, space stations, interplanetary aircraft carriers, long range refinery transports, and all that other nonsense which you can't do in a reliastic game. There is also much more capability for travel on another planets surface, which also tend to be more interesting. Heck, touring the moon on high speed trains is a true challlenge!

 

That's btw also why I'm looking fowards to 1.1! Aside from making RO vastly more comfortable, it will also open up all the fun stuff of Vanilla KSP so much more again! Aside from the part-limit, even aircraft carriers are currently bugged. So I'm gonna play a lot of vanilla, display indecent amounts of disrepect towards gravity, and have alot of fun!

[Superfluous J]

While I use a (frighteningly large) number of mods, I prefer my game to "act" stock. If I build a ship and give it to someone else who is playing a stock game, they should be able to fly it. This probably has something to do with the fact that I put a lot of my shenanigans on YouTube and like the idea that others can try to recreate my ideas, but in general it just feels.... "right."

Realism is fine and all and I don't think those who want it are wrong or anything, and I've even toyed with it enough to solidify the above opinion in my mind.

[Armisael]

1 hour ago, Red Iron Crown said:

There is also the issue of file duplication for those who are storage space constrained. I typically have five installs active, so that's five instances of the core game, four instances of my "must-have" mods, three instances of the VFX mods I use, etc. I run from an SSD where the supply of space is more limited than on a spinning disk, so this duplication pinches a bit. Being able to consolidate all of these into a single install where I choose the mod profile on initial load would be very welcome.

I might be a bit of an edge case in maintaining so many installs though.

Have you considered symlinking the duplicated files together? Everything except the gamedata and saves folders should be identical, and you could even link up duplicated mods (saves a little more space, and settings changes would propagate between the different installs).

[Red Iron Crown]

2 minutes ago, Armisael said:

Have you considered symlinking the duplicated files together? Everything except the gamedata and saves folders should be identical, and you could even link up duplicated mods (saves a little more space, and settings changes would propagate between the different installs).

I have, and have tried it. It works, but is cumbersome and easy to mess up. And I don't even want to think of how that would interact with CKAN.

[Superfluous J]

6 minutes ago, Armisael said:

Have you considered symlinking the duplicated files together? Everything except the gamedata and saves folders should be identical, and you could even link up duplicated mods (saves a little more space, and settings changes would propagate between the different installs).

A better idea is to symlink everything EXCEPT (non-Squad) Gamedata, so you can update the main game once and then all your installs magically are updated.

I haven't done it, but I've considered it. I did once symlink the ships folder between 2 saves so I didn't have to manually copy ships back and forth.

[Guest]

I love stock, I love realism overhaul, and I live just plainly heavily modded games.  I have multiple installs in the forms of stock, heavily modded, and realism overhaul, and if there's a mod that will significantly change gameplay, like Kopernicus planets, or things like Duna Space Program, I'll add a special installation just for that.  Of course, to me, stock is using stock parts.  I'll still be loaded with plugins like KER, and sometimes HyperEdit for testing SSTOs.

[Temeter]

6 minutes ago, CliftonM said:

I love stock, I love realism overhaul, and I live just plainly heavily modded games.  I have multiple installs in the forms of stock, heavily modded, and realism overhaul, and if there's a mod that will significantly change gameplay, like Kopernicus planets, or things like Duna Space Program, I'll add a special installation just for that.  Of course, to me, stock is using stock parts.  I'll still be loaded with plugins like KER, and sometimes HyperEdit for testing SSTOs.

Same for me: Modded, Stock (though rarely used) and RO. I think OP is talking about stock and realism playstyle.

[Frank_G]

I like mods that dont add parts and dont kill the stock experience. When i play KSP, i want to do creative things, build things that do stuff the way i want them. The restraints of the stock game provide enough challenge to keep the game fun.

I only have one install of KSP on my HD. The mods i use are SCANsat, RasterPropMonitors, Kerbal Engineer, Chatterer, DockingPortAlignmentIndicator, Planetshine, Module Manager and VesselView.

I played much heavier modded versions and i tried realism overhaul, but it kills the fun for me. Nice to try a real scale mission or two, but then its always back to a lightly modded stock installation for me.

[Kllrtofu]

11 hours ago, C1DEAN said:

I agree, stock is good but I just like to spice it up a bit. As for playing with RO, I like to keep it original and unique. instead of directly copying the vehicles used in real life, I like to make my own versions and see how they measure up in real life  

Yeah In RSS/RO I use as litlle parts packs as possible and where possible only use their engines. I love trying to build everything from scratch tailoring to specific missions. And only start building in redundancy with standardized LV's. But even then I will fuel them only as much as needed for the specific orbit or target. Which reminds me... I guess I love RO just a tiny bit more than Stock play.

[justidutch]

I have yet to find myself being bored or restricted or unchallenged by playing stock, so that is still what I do.  But it is really nice to know that one day, when I think there is nothing left to be done in KSP, there are a thousand options out there to change the way the game can be played.  It's a lifetime of entertainment for the initial $22.50 I paid.  Not a bad deal (and I sincerely hope that no one forgets that point...)

[Curveball Anders]

6 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

There is also the issue of file duplication for those who are storage space constrained. I typically have five installs active, so that's five instances of the core game, four instances of my "must-have" mods, three instances of the VFX mods I use, etc. I run from an SSD where the supply of space is more limited than on a spinning disk, so this duplication pinches a bit. Being able to consolidate all of these into a single install where I choose the mod profile on initial load would be very welcome.

I might be a bit of an edge case in maintaining so many installs though.

One solution would to have a launcher that supported user defined 'profiles'.

Where the users could select which mods they wanted in that profile.

Possibly including different save directories (or something like that).

But it's very much a nice-to-have since most people only use one install, and those of us who use 2..n saves rarely have that much storage issues with the resulting bloat.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Curveball Anders
Gramar

[officialmugi]

I use Realism Overhaul, it is one of the things that has kept me playing this game as I have lost interest in the stock game.

[hendrack]

Stock with stuff like RemoteTech, USI Life support to spice things up. RSS is outstanding work, but doesn't feel 'Kerbal' to me.

[Godot]

With regards to the spaceship parts (and fuel and the like) I definitely prefer realism over stock (despite the fact that  my first steps in playing a new major update always are, to start a career in stock mode).

I prefer to play with the Kerbal solar system however (instead of the real solar system mod)

Edited March 29, 2016 by Godot

[Arugela]

I would prefer realism with kerbal being a tiny planet in a tiny solar system and working up in difficulty from there!