To CKAN or not to CKAN?

[SmashBrown]

1.1 is here yay! So now i can return to ksp and mod the crap out of it. Whilst i'm waiting for my favourite mods to be updated, perhaps you kind folks of the ksp forums can answer me the question in the title, i used to use kerbalstuff to keep me posted as to when mods were updated, but alas that seems to have dissapeared :(. Does everyone use ckan now? is there anything else that has replaced kerbalstuff? My favourite mods , spaceY, Near Future, Mk IV spaceplane, Dmagics science, scansat, the list goes on. Oh yeah! And hello to all again!

Edited April 22, 2016 by SmashBrown

[swjr-swis]

CKAN is a nice starting point, and most bigger mods end up listed, so you'll probably not need to search further.

But not all mod authors actively use it, some even avoid it. So you may still want to scour the Add-on section of this forum, where most mod authors post about their mods, to find direct download links from other places like SockPaced, Hitgub and SurgeForce (names changed to protect the innocent), and even some self-hosted pages.

Edited April 22, 2016 by swjr-swis

[InsaneDruid]

As this is a 2 part question, i'll give two ansers:

1) The successor to kerbalstuff is Spacedock (https://spacedock.info/)

2) CKAN all the way! There is no "Spacedock OR CKAN", just spacedock AND ckan.

[Gaarst]

GitHub for me.

I don't like when programs mess around with my files. I want to be the only responsible for mods installed wrong (also one of the reasons why I don't use Steam).

And GitHub also allows you to find mod prereleases that are even buggier than the mods themselves (but newer, so I have to use these).

[Tex_NL]

Everything CKAN can do, you can do by hand. Not everything you can do by hand can be done with CKAN.

For me CKAN belongs in the same category as STEAM: no way, not now, not ever!

[katateochi]

As others have said KerbalStuff has been replaced by http://spacedock.info/kerbal-space-program 
spacedock has inherited KerbalStuff's codebase and the spacedock team are working to improve/update it, so somethings might not be right atm, but it's a work in progress and is already much more stable that KerbalStuff was.

I also recommend CKAN. It's not a solution for finding new mods (use spacedock and the forums for that), but it's a great way to manage the mods you want to install.  Probably it's most useful aspects are knowing if a particular mod needs other mods to also be installed and updating your installed mods. Unlike steam it won't by default just update things without you telling it to. If you just want to update one mod and leave others as they are then you can, very easily.  
One of it's other less talked about features is being able to export your installed mods to a file called a meta-package (basically just a text, well xml, file containing a list of your installed mods).  If you want to setup a new install, you can export your mods from one install and then have it install the same mods in just a few clicks.
(and you can manage multiple KSP installs with different mod setups with it).  

[SmashBrown]

Thanks for all your helpful replies peeps! I have been soooooo looking forward to this release. I will check out Ckan i guess then, but most likely i'll just use spacedock and manual install like i used to.TO DUNA!

[superdavekerman]

Don't forget KSP-AVC. It doesn't install anything for you, but it checks on load and gives you a download link.

[Prometheus]

When you have 80+ mods because reasons, it gets very tiresome checking every. single. thread. for updates. CKAN streamlines that process down to 4 clicks. But if a better version of a mod isn't on CKAN yet I'll do a manual install... And if CKAN screws up, I can always do a manual install.

Also, what's all this Steam hate?

[Aghanim]

CKAN to KSP is like package manager to Linux distributions, yes you can always manually install and update your programs (mod) but why do that if that can be automated?

But there is that possible problem that CKAN might upgrade your mod incorrectly, which can bother mod authors

[danfarnsy]

Oh, the things we have strong feelings about. CKAN. No CKAN. Steam. No Steam. I know we don't talk about religion directly around here (I believe there's a forum rule about it), but I find it amusing how people get religious about KSP. In fact, I was talking with my buddy the other day about putting on white shirts and ties to knock on doors and tell people about the glory that is Kerbal Space Program.

I like running heavily modded, and CKAN creates some issues while resolving others. The biggest advantage to CKAN is the compatibility checks, which makes mods like Real Solar System and Realism Overhaul, with wide lists of dependencies and recommendations, much easier to manage. On the other hand, CKAN doesn't cast its net as far, and it's polarizing: mod authors who aren't actively pushing CKAN often end up frustrated with CKAN indexing and installs. You'll find many authors who automatically refer users to CKAN help pages and won't provide support if their mod is installed via CKAN. It makes sense, but it can be difficult as a user to navigate. In the end, my Kopernicus installs (RSS, New Horizons) depend on CKAN, while my primary install is handled manually.

I also spend as much time managing my mods as I do actually playing the game. At least I'm not a mod author. How many authors get to actually play anymore instead of fixing bugs and answering forum questions about why something is broken? There's satisfaction in problem solving, for sure, and most authors rightly are in it for selfish reasons, i.e. they make mods they want to use. But we users sometimes forget that the mods (as well as the core game and tools like CKAN) represent the work and ingenuity of the people behind them. Gratitude and kindness are always appropriate.

[RyanRising]

Whether 'tis nobler in your game to ask

for the mod author to upload use CKAN, and save yourself trouble,

or to take the effort and update your mods yourself,

and, by not asking, cease to annoy. To... Okay, I'll stop.

 

[Jacke]

CKAN  is a good idea at heart.  It's like Debian's apt system.

However, it's like Debian's apt system WITHOUT all the Debian developers following the Debian Policy Manual.

That Debian Policy Manual controls the fiddly stuff like package names and version numbering and system directory structure and how to Debianize upstream sources and Debian alternates and substituting files and even where you can use "-" and "_" in package names and version numbers.

That CKAN works as well as it does for some people is close to amazing.  As all that bureaucratic detail in the Debian Policy Manual is important to make sure something this complex and mostly automatic doesn't usually cock up.

Because I got into modding games with the Subsim.com community, I got used to modding most games using the program JSGME and packaging mods into their own directories, which JSGME copies in and removes to enable and disable the mod.  I understand the complexities of this stuff and have learned the ways to make JSGME work for me.  It's what I use with KSP.

I may look at CKAN in the future.  But I know the problems it has had and it can have.  Without the structure like that provided by the Debian Policy Manual.

[Stevie_D]

I used to avoid CKAN for the same reason as others, i wanted to be the only one fiddling with my game files. But when my mod list hit 10+ and it began taking up my entire playtime to -check- the game rather than play it, i installed CKAN.

I was worried it would be fiddly, or not very user friendly (as much fan-made stuff is) but CKAN is anything but. Tick the mods you want, install, have them checked for updates...... it's very very very easy and quick to use. And they download and install SO fast.

CKAN went from peripheral to being up there as essential now for me, nearly rivalling alarmclock as must have.

Kudos to the guy(s) that made it.

[SmashBrown]

Maybe I will end up being converted to a CKAN believer, still waiting on my favourite mods to all be on official 1.1 release. And kerbal foundries looks like it's been dropped for now. Sad days. 

[swjr-swis]

1 hour ago, SmashBrown said:

And kerbal foundries looks like it's been dropped for now. Sad days.

Kerbal Foundries has not been dropped; they're working on updating it to 1.1, but with the way the whole wheels model/physics has changed and is still a bit of a problem in 1.1, and KF being very intertwined with that, it's going to take a bit more than other mods. We need to be patient (or help coding).

[legoclone09]

6 hours ago, SmashBrown said:

Maybe I will end up being converted to a CKAN believer

The only CKAN problems I've ever had are on Linux.

Trust me, stay away from CKAN on Linux. It is troublesome, I had to reinstall all mods about 10 times.

[InsaneDruid]

On 22.4.2016 at 4:12 PM, Gaarst said:

GitHub for me.

I don't like when programs mess around with my files. I want to be the only responsible for mods installed wrong (also one of the reasons why I don't use Steam).

And GitHub also allows you to find mod prereleases that are even buggier than the mods themselves (but newer, so I have to use these).

That's rather funny (actually: sad), as GitHub itself is per definition a tool designed to "mess around with your files" and to control and manage a distributively developed codebase and actively (and automatically) update, create or delete files on the users machine instead of the user doing this job.