How do you roll with your modded careers?

[Kyrt Malthorn]

I may have gone a liiiiiiittle overboard....

 

I love mods.

I actually... haven't played with many.  To date most of my games have had a few essentials (KER, KAC, sometimes KIS/KAS) but for the most part I've been attempting to experience the game in a very stockalike way.  I kept promising myself that when 64bit KSP was supported, I'd get into plenty of mods!  I had quite a list.

I finally started a copy of my KSP folder and began adding mods, finally booted it up today and boy it took a while.  So I started a sandbox game to test things and make sure they work and...  umm.  Well.  After fussing with a few parts, the game crashed.  This got me to glance in my GameData folder and, umm...

 

MY GOODNESS I had a lot of mods...

KScale6.4, Extraplanetary Launchpads, KIS, KAS, KAX, Kerbal Krash System, KW Rocketry, Lithobrake Exporation Technologies, Modular Rocket Systems, MkIV Spaceplane, the entire suites of USI (+full MKS and life support) and Near Future, KSP-Interstellar Extended, Planetary Base Systems, SpaceY, SMURFF, Engineering Tech Tree...... and a dozen other little things.

 

This isn't a bug report/support request or anything.  I really should have known saddling an untested game with THIS MUCH all at once, something wasn't gonna play nice.

Anyone had a similar experience?

Bottom line: __________________________________________________________________

For those of the community who mod a lot, I wanna hear how you guys go about deciding what mods to throw together for a given playthrough!  Share fun stories and whatnot.  If you had a really fun career with a particular combination of mods, let's hear it!

[moogoob]

I've had crashing every single time I found a part mod I liked (like Sounding Rockets!), and reverting to stock had been the only way to fix it. If not crashing, then other reasons - stock is better for sharing craft, too. In the end, I decided I just preferred stock. (With the exception of MJ, EVE, Scatterer, etc.)

Don't know if it's just my system that's the issue or the fact that the only time I ever try part mods is "too soon after a new version is released".

[Glaran K'erman]

11 minutes ago, moogoob said:

I've had crashing every single time I found a part mod I liked (like Sounding Rockets!), and reverting to stock had been the only way to fix it. If not crashing, then other reasons - stock is better for sharing craft, too. In the end, I decided I just preferred stock. (With the exception of MJ, EVE, Scatterer, etc.)

Don't know if it's just my system that's the issue or the fact that the only time I ever try part mods is "too soon after a new version is released".

Not too into sharing craft so never bothered with stock past the first couple months I had the game. I definitely agree if it's a priority then that person should for sure stay stock. I just wish stock would include a few more "realalike" parts so I could tick a few mods off my list. I do wonder about your specs/setup because that does seem like a rough time you are having with part mods. 

And to the OP, I would highly recommend starting to add mods in bunches of 2-3, even better if you add them one at a time. Generally mods are well maintained and sometimes depending on their function may even work well past their version number. That being said problems with mods happen all the time so adding them into the mix slowly better allows you to find those one or two that just seem not to want to work for you. I currently have exactly 40 mods all working quite well together! I am sure with a bit of time you'll be able to get all the one you want working sooner or later.

 

[Kyrt Malthorn]

48 minutes ago, Glaran K'erman said:

And to the OP, I would highly recommend starting to add mods in bunches of 2-3, even better if you add them one at a time. Generally mods are well maintained and sometimes depending on their function may even work well past their version number. That being said problems with mods happen all the time so adding them into the mix slowly better allows you to find those one or two that just seem not to want to work for you. I currently have exactly 40 mods all working quite well together! I am sure with a bit of time you'll be able to get all the one you want working sooner or later.

 

Yeah, I've now rolled back to the basics for mods and adding things slowly, with testing.  I just got excited to start playing the super-awesome-career-with-every-imaginable-mod.  I was able to quickly check off simple parts mods that are working fine, now I'm slowly going through the more advanced "gameplay features" mods one by one, in order of coolness priority.

I just wish I had as much time on my hands as I did years back, when I had the patience to accrue over 200 mods on another game (TES:III Morrowind) which worked seamlessly together.

[Tyko]

I'm dealing with the same thing as I'm just about to try a new Career start. In addition to my core functional mods (KER, KAC, KIS/KAS, Precise Maneuver, Launch Window Planner) I've been playing with Life Support and also a way to extend the tech tree. I really like the idea of doing research, unlocking parts and building more capable ships - but it can't happen too fast or I end up skipping over all the middle phases.

My challenge with adding parts packs is finding the right balance between feeling challenged and feeling like I need another college degree to understand them. I've enjoyed the Near Future mods a lot because they extend tech without introducing a lot of new things to track. I've really wanted to dive into KSP interstellar, but the range of configuration choices for each reactor type has me a bit overwhelmed.

[dafidge9898]

4 hours ago, Kyrt Malthorn said:

For those of the community who mod a lot, I wanna hear how you guys go about deciding what mods to throw together for a given playthrough!  Share fun stories and whatnot.  If you had a really fun career with a particular combination of mods, let's hear it!

I have over 110 mods. I'm not even sure if I use half of them. I'm currently playing an RP-0 career game in Realism overhaul, and to say the least, it's pretty cool. I'm particularly proud of a launch script my friend and I wrote with another mod, kOS. The cool thing about RP-0 and all the other realism mods I have is you start out launching V2s. You strap on the simple science things you have and send them up, then unlock more science stuff, and send it up again.  You end up modifying the original V2 to meet your scientific research needs. Also, I had a Chuck Yeager moment with Jeb (minus the fire in the helmet). I put him in a rocket plane and flew him up past the Karman line. Upon entering the atmosphere, I get into an unrecoverable spin. I'm at about 20 km when I decide it's time to bail, because I was losing altitude really fast, and if I was able to recover, I would still end up crashing into the ground. I bailed freefell for thousands of meters, gently touching down because I had EVA parachutes installed. 

[SyzygyΣE]

22 hours ago, Kyrt Malthorn said:

Bottom line: __________________________________________________________________

For those of the community who mod a lot, I wanna hear how you guys go about deciding what mods to throw together for a given playthrough!  Share fun stories and whatnot.  If you had a really fun career with a particular combination of mods, let's hear it!

My bottom line when it comes to mods is "if you don't think the game can handle it, don't try to handle it."

I'm running over 180 mods, the majority of which are related with RO, RSS, RP-0 and KSPI-E. My mod folder takes up a total of 3.43GB. The RO suite is challenging but incredibly addictive, perhaps of the sense of achievement after being able to beat that kind of difficulty and achieve the goals of the space program. Designs must become a lot more complex. Rockets must actually look like proper rockets or fireworks and explosions will reign supreme.

Trying to keep all 180 mods updated manually is a bit of a nightmare. To handle this I install the majority of the mods via CKAN. What I can't install by CKAN I either bookmark their development threads or use KSP-AVC to check for updates. CKAN and AVC inform me whenever an update is available and CKAN allows for updates at a single click of a button. There's no need to manually go to dev threads and download from there: CKAN handles that for you.

Downside is that my device isn't all that good at handling the load of all these mods. I'll be needing a better computer to get framerates above 15. Yes, you heard that right—I play the game at an average FPS of 8. Today that dropped to 4 during a launch. That in itself is a nightmare, and it almost borders on hypocrisy—"if you don't think the game can handle it, don't try to handle it." But hey, these mods are just too good to uninstall. Even with that kind of slow motion and lag it doesn't diminish the beauty of the game.

I can tell that when I manage to earn enough money in the future, the first major thing I'll be buying is a brand new computer so I can enjoy KSP at a minimum of 30 FPS. 

Edited August 6, 2016 by SyzygyΣE

[cubinator]

I roll with [Q] and [E]. 

In all seriousness, I wish RSS didn't need so many mods, but I can live with it for the satisfaction of flying over my house in a spaceship.

[Superfluous J]

When staring a new game I choose a cornerstone mod or set of mods, and a goal for the save. For example, my current save the goal is to find all Easter Eggs (seemed appropriate given the recent changes in the game) and to aid in that the cornerstone mods are Contract Configurator and the Anomaly Pack.

Then I add a few helper (or hinderer) mods for flair, and of course all those mods I consider stock, and away I go.

[StahnAileron]

I have a decent selection of mods I usually play with. Of course, it had evolved over time. (I no longer play with a Life Support mod, though I used to roll TAC-LS when I did.) I have most of the popular plug-in mods (KER, MJ, etc.) and a reasonable-ish number of part mods. All this was/is ran with the x64 workaround (I'm still rolling with 1.0.5 until wheels and other things get improved to a stable and reliable point.)

At one point with this set-up (not too long after 1.0.5  came out), I was have random-ish freeze-ups with KSP. It would just sorta lock up on me when trying to launch a vessel, revert, or switch vessels. I thought it was just a time-related stability thing at first (as it would take some time). Then maybe RAM issues. Neither of those were consistent, though. I troubleshot the issue on and off for a couple months. Mods were updating all this time, so I eventually decided to clean up my install of mods and parts I didn't use just to tidy it up. I don't recall exactly how I figured it, but found out my problem was somehow tied to RasterPropMonitor/IVAs.

I don't play IVA at all, so I realized there was little to no need for custom IVAs from the part mods I used. I went around deleting the IVAs assets. Didn't seem to affect anything in a test run, though I think I was still getting the random lock-ups. Remembered RPM and deleted it since it's a pure IVA plug-in. Cleared every up and that copy of KSP runs stably enough for the most part for hours at a time. (I'd have to do something dumb for KSP to crash/freeze on me now.) Performance is still subpar, but I think I got some performance boosts since the game was trying to deal with the IVA views in the pilot portraits. (AH! I think that was what tipped me off! Well, sorta. If I hid the portraits, the game would run a tad better.)

I'm eagerly awaiting 1.2 so I can be up-to-date again (and the performance boost). Though I kinda hope they adjust the renderer for 1.2. Turning on AA on my system in 1.1.x in-game is essential FSAA, so all the text looks like blurry garbage to me. No AA is perfect texts, but the jaggies and shimmers are horribly distracting. Part of the reason I'm still on 1.0.5 in addition to my previous statement.

[Madscientist16180]

I also play with a lot of mods, AVC is listing 60.

I first tought my cpu could not handle it, it is 7 years old now after all, but if i sacrifice resolution, i get a decent frame rate. FPS does start to drop after about 150/200 parts, but i managed to launch a 393 part remote tech satellite array. It was very laggy, but still totally playable.

Only weird thing my KSP does is on start. Anytime i load the game, first time i enter any building, there is a maybe 25% chance the game CTD. If it "survive" entering the very first building, it look pretty much stable, i had play sessions well over 5 hours with no crash. I could try to pinpoint what mod is causing that behavior, but i'm lazy and just live with it lol.

My normal list mods either change something in the way career is played (stuffs like contract configurator, strategia or unmanned before manned), is a utility (KER and such), or is aimed at making colonisation as "realistic" and/or entertaining as possible (USI mods, life support). Plus i like a few mods just to extend the techtree ( Interstellar got great stuffs, as does the near futur suit and a few others).

[DaMachinator]

I play KSP 1.0.5 which means 32-bit which means I cannot install much more than 100 mods. Nonetheless, I get several OOM crashes a day. They are sighed over, closed, and then I restart the game.

I installed KSP Interstellar but for the life of me I have no idea how to use it.

[Kyrt Malthorn]

11 hours ago, DaMachinator said:

I play KSP 1.0.5 which means 32-bit which means I cannot install much more than 100 mods. Nonetheless, I get several OOM crashes a day. They are sighed over, closed, and then I restart the game.

I installed KSP Interstellar but for the life of me I have no idea how to use it.

 

Personally 64bit 1.1.3 has been serving me quite well.  With "only" a hundred or so it's been quite stable for me. The wheels thing hasn't really reared it's ugly head for me, I'm not sure if it's just my system or my crafts.  (Prefer much lighter rovers and planes.)

 

KSP-I is enormously fun but definitely a challenge to learn.   I just got my first warp capable ship that actually WORKED yesterday - in sandbox, after trying off and on for months.  Warp drive was ALL it did, but I learned, so hopefully I can do it again when I get that far for reals.

[Guest]

I don't pick a set of mods for a given playthrough; they're a presistent part of the game for me. Considering how many I have, how many personal tweaks to them I've done, and how generally lazy I am, I'm probably going to be 'stuck' with 1.1.3 indefinitely. But that's fine; I've assembled the perfect game (well, I shouldn't say that; I'm still installing new mods as the days go by), and I'll be playing for years and thousands of hours until I get all the way out to End and Pledna on my science save...

I haven't had any stability issues from mods.

 

2 hours ago, Kyrt Malthorn said:

Personally 64bit 1.1.3 has been serving me quite well.  With "only" a hundred or so it's been quite stable for me. The wheels thing hasn't really reared it's ugly head for me, I'm not sure if it's just my system or my crafts.  (Prefer much lighter rovers and planes.)

Same for me. Changed the wheel weight stress multiplier to 0.0 in settings.cfg and everything's fine. They added this setting in 1.1.3 along with a slip stress one but a lot of people don't seem to have noticed. I had it on 0.1 for a while but tried 0.0 and the results seem even better. I don't like the idea of weight being a problem for wheels in this game anyway, and the consequences of bottoming out on the suspension travel are present already when the tyres break, or something close to the ground explodes, or the craft bounces back up and flips, etc.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Guest

[Francois424]

Must have mods :

• My personal mod that I try and keep updated (I'm not a genius at it, but I usually manage, even if I need help from forum members every now and then).  It features the old mods "Kommit Nucleonics", "IonHybElec_Pack", a self-modded Nuclear Reactor, "Interstellar Radiators" (man did I spend days on making these work, they where SOOOOO outdated), And a few of the "KOSMOS" mod parts... Most of them aren't even updated anymore so I probably have a few hours of work for my next campaign. It also has a two 2-man "pod" (one of which is a He-111 glass cockpit, the other looks like a truck cockpit), it's not really a capsule, but it does the job. 
• I will be adding Outer Planets Mod (OPM), and a few parts from "HomeGrown Rocketry" (since the 64-Bits version is here, I'll fit them), Scatterer, some volumetric clouds or EVE (Will have to browse later)
• Kerbal Engineer
• Kerbal Alarm Clock
• Kerbal Attachment System
• TweakScale & Procedural parts
• GPOSpeedFuelPump  -- which I learned from 5th_Horseman's (now HMV) videos
• ScienceAlert (that is, if it is still supported, haven't checked in nearly 6 months, but I was quite fond of that mod).
• Portrait Stats & Field Experience (Kerbals Auto Level-up while on missions).
• SurfaceLights -- Gotta have MOAR LIGHTS (and I love them)
• FuelTanksPlus & ModRocketSys
• HyperEdit (Not for cheating, but really for testing... Makes testing landers so much easier...  A must have for me now).
• RemoteTech & Origami Antenna (as end-game, "can reach near everywhere antenna")
• Legacy Discontinued Parts (Old KSP parts from Necrobones)
• Parts from KAX, B9, SXT, Kerbonov_Pack, and  NearFuture Solar -- Some of them no longer supported or where changed/remove in more recent version.  Hence me having to update them.

I do not think I am forgetting anything, and once I get all of this working, I will begin my first campaign since March 2016 (most likely in September). 
Started watching KSP videos to put me in the mood (Thanks 5th_Horseman) and it works like a charm.
 

Edited August 8, 2016 by Francois424
Mod Names and Spelling

[Kyrt Malthorn]

12 minutes ago, Francois424 said:

Must have mods :

• My personal mod that I try and keep updated (I'm not a genius at it, but I usually manage, even if I need help from forum members every now and then).  It features the old mods "Kommit Nucleonics", "IonHybElec_Pack", a self-modded Nuclear Reactor, "Interstellar Radiators" (man did I spend days on making these work, they where SOOOOO outdated), And a few of the "KOSMOS" mod parts... Most of them aren't even updated anymore so I probably have a few hours of work for my next campaign. It also has a two 2-man "pod" (one of which is a He-111 glass cockpit, the other looks like a truck cockpit), it's not really a capsule, but it does the job. 
• I will be adding Outer Planets Mod (OPM), and a few parts from "HomeGrown Rocketry" (since the 64-Bits version is here, I'll fit them), Scatterer, some volumetric clouds or EVE (Will have to browse later)
• Kerbal Engineer
• Kerbal Alarm Clock
• TweakScale & Procedural parts
• GPOSpeedFuelPump  -- which I learned from 5th_Horseman's (now HMV) videos
• ScienceAlert (that is, if it is still supported, haven't checked in nearly 6 months, but I was quite fond of that mod).
• Kerbal auto-level-up mod, and the one that display their stars and professions.
• SurfaceLights -- Gotta have MOAR LIGHTS (and I love them)
• FuelTanksPlus & ModRocketSys
• HyperEdit (Not for cheating, but really for testing... Makes testing landers so much easier...  A must have for me now).
• RemoteTech & Origami Antenna (as end-game, "can reach near everywhere antenna")
• Parts from KAX, B9, SXT, Kerbonov_Pack, and  NearFuture Solar -- Some of them no longer supported or where changed/remove in more recent version.  Hence me having to update them.

I do not think I am forgetting anything, and once I get all of this working, I will begin my first campaign since March 2016 (most likely in September). 
Started watching KSP videos to put me in the mood (Thanks 5th_Horseman) and it works like a charm.
 

FYI - ScienceAlert is not currently working in 1.1+, which is quite sad.  The closest thing that's up to date now is ForScience... and it automates the science-getting and moving around of science.  Personally I'd rather do it myself the stock way than 100% automate it.

Also, it's now a stock behavior to show kerbal's name/profession/stars when mousing over their portraits.

 

[Francois424]

1 minute ago, Kyrt Malthorn said:

FYI - ScienceAlert is not currently working in 1.1+, which is quite sad.  The closest thing that's up to date now is ForScience... and it automates the science-getting and moving around of science.  Personally I'd rather do it myself the stock way than 100% automate it.

Also, it's now a stock behavior to show kerbal's name/profession/stars when mousing over their portraits.

 

Nice to know.  So the little orange engineer wrench , and up to five stars on the side of the portrait are stock now ?  Cool, one less mod to download.

A real shame for science alert.  I did not mind moving science around and all that stuff, it was part of the challenge in designing good spacecraft.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Francois424

[Superfluous J]

33 minutes ago, Kyrt Malthorn said:

ForScience... and it automates the science-getting and moving around of science.

 

31 minutes ago, Francois424 said:

I did not mind moving science around and all that stuff, it was part of the challenge in designing good spacecraft.

I use another mod called Automated Science Sampler. Like ForScience it will move stuff into a command pod for you (which I prefer myself) but you can turn that off and still automate the collection of science.

And if you want to trigger the science yourself but eliminate a lot of the clickiness, I can't help but push All Y'All, which lets you right click any science part and select "run all science." All that does is trigger science on all parts that have a science experiment on them that is available to run.

 

[Francois424]

2 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

 

I use another mod called Automated Science Sampler. Like ForScience it will move stuff into a command pod for you (which I prefer myself) but you can turn that off and still automate the collection of science.

And if you want to trigger the science yourself but eliminate a lot of the clickiness, I can't help but push All Y'All, which lets you right click any science part and select "run all science." All that does is trigger science on all parts that have a science experiment on them that is available to run.

 

I liked that Science alert would go "Bubbling" when something was there but I had to do the work myself.  Just getting the warning is what I really want
(To be fair, Science Alert *did* give a menu to run the experiment as well, but you had to click it).  But I often had a key bound to collect all the science myself. 
Kind of a semi-assisted thing.  I guess that's why I'll miss it. 

Oh well, the author might yet update it in the future for all we know.  It wasn't a critical mod for me, but I'm easily distracted and I did not want to keep checking "Am I in the good biome now ?" every 30sec.
I'm a lazy guy, lol.

[Tyko]

13 hours ago, Francois424 said:

I liked that Science alert would go "Bubbling" when something was there but I had to do the work myself.  Just getting the warning is what I really want
(To be fair, Science Alert *did* give a menu to run the experiment as well, but you had to click it).  But I often had a key bound to collect all the science myself. 
Kind of a semi-assisted thing.  I guess that's why I'll miss it. 

Oh well, the author might yet update it in the future for all we know.  It wasn't a critical mod for me, but I'm easily distracted and I did not want to keep checking "Am I in the good biome now ?" every 30sec.
I'm a lazy guy, lol.

Automated Science Sampler mostly works with 1.1.3. The toolbar icon used to change to green and animated in 1.1.2 - that doesn't work anymore. Also, it's not entirely reliable with Dmagic Orbital Science. It's still the best solution I've found - the most convenient part is when I'm doing low orbits to collect per biome science. As soon as I drop out of time warp Automated Science Sampler will pop up all of the experiments I can run. I still read each one and choose how to handle it. I just like to be prompted.

13 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

<SNIP> I can't help but push All Y'All, which lets you right click any science part and select "run all science." All that does is trigger science on all parts that have a science experiment on them that is available to run.

haha..I've seen All Y'All in CKAN for months. Never read about it...honestly when I'm scanning through the 500+ compatible apps it didn't jump out at me as something I needed to read...Now that you've pointed out what it does I'll have to take a look (don't judge a book by it's cover, or a mod by it's name)

[Kermanzooming]

I have to be very careful with mods as I'm playing on a not so powerful laptop; visual enhancements are out of scope for me, and I usually avoid adding a lot of new parts (although that increases startup time but probably doesn't impact game performance, right?)

[magnemoe]

On 8.8.2016 at 6:17 AM, 5thHorseman said:

 

I use another mod called Automated Science Sampler. Like ForScience it will move stuff into a command pod for you (which I prefer myself) but you can turn that off and still automate the collection of science.

And if you want to trigger the science yourself but eliminate a lot of the clickiness, I can't help but push All Y'All, which lets you right click any science part and select "run all science." All that does is trigger science on all parts that have a science experiment on them that is available to run.

 

Has to look that up, I use science containers, need two samples+ transmit to get all the data and now its nice to have spares for research labs too. 
new version of forscience messes up this, if it just store the science i could collect and store, then transmit and then I got no more data transmitting it would ignore the experiment in biome afterwards.

[MaxwellsDemon]

The ones I have to have--- to the extent that I didn't upgrade to 1.1.2/3 until some of the mods caught up---

StockBugFix I don't even really consider a "mod."  I can't stand the way parachutes clip into each other in vanilla, for one thing.

KAC Kerbal Alarm Clock:  Should be in stock.  There's really not a good way of keeping up with multiple simultaneous missions without it or some sort of replacement for it.

MechJeb:  Naturally.   I'm no longer dependent on it, but it taught me a lot about rendezvous and docking, for instance, just watching how it did things.  Sometimes my launches go better manually-controlled, but there's something to be said for firing something off the pad, then being able to step away from the keyboard for IRL concerns and come back to find it safely in LKO and ready for the next step.  It's darn handy and phoo on anyone who turns up their nose at it.

[x] Science:  It's tough to play career without some sort of science checklist; this is my favorite of the ones I've tried out.

KCT Kerbal Construction Time: this has really changed my playing, and for the better.  For one thing, sending out a jillion rovers a day to sample science around KSC just isn't practical anymore, so it makes me actually launch stuff and go places to get science.  It also makes me look at contracts more strategically, identifying which ones should be snapped up and which ones should be ignored.  Plus, I like having multiple launch pads.

StageRecovery:  Really helpful to use alongside KCT.

Chatterer:  Adds a good amount of 'background' noise and verisimilitude.

KAS/KIS Kerbal Attachment System/Kerbal Inventory System:  Perhaps not a "must-have" but a "really-like-to-have," opening up a lot of options.  One of my favorite parts of it is to be able to dock two modules and then send out an engineer to install some reinforcing struts.

ScanSat:  Love the additional science gizmos and mapping.

USI Life Support:  This is one I've tried out only relatively recently, and I really like it.  Adds a bit of realism and design constraints without deluging me in accounting work.

Indicator Lights:  Another recent one that I like for the visual clues it gives, especially in terms of battery power remaining.  I haven't found any real use for the base "light" part, but that's not the most important element of it.

 

I think all other mods I have are basically parts packs.  I've tried some others at times, but these seem to be the "core group."

Edited August 9, 2016 by MaxwellsDemon
correction