Why don't you use [certain] mods?

[Blaarkies]

2 hours ago, Tex said:

... and I do use Tweakscale quite frequently, because it's fair with its resource and weight scaling and doesn't actually introduce new parts, just resizes existing ones.

The hardest part in stock is building big ships practically. All the structural considerations, keeping down part count for Ion engine craft and refueling the 20+ fuel tanks on the craft because there was no bigger tanks. Doesn't tweakscale remove that difficulty then?

[Gameslinx]

On 03/02/2017 at 1:35 PM, Snark said:

So, by contrast, what do I like to run?  Broadly speaking, two categories:

• Stuff that adds fun / interesting / challenging content to the game, such as planet packs (like OuterPlanets, New Horizons, Galileo's Planet Pack) or well-balanced part packs (like SpaceY).

From a fellow mod creator myself, who is currently developing the Olei Planet Mod/Pack, I am looking for feedback.

As you say you like planet packs, may I ask what yourself looks for when choosing the right ones? Are there any cool ideas you have? A lot of planet variations have already been covered, but I'd like to keep mine as stockalike and true to the game as possible, as well as having variety and diversity.

Thanks!

[Snark]

2 hours ago, Gamel0rd1 said:

As you say you like planet packs, may I ask what yourself looks for when choosing the right ones? Are there any cool ideas you have? A lot of planet variations have already been covered, but I'd like to keep mine as stockalike and true to the game as possible, as well as having variety and diversity.

I may be the wrong person to ask, because I'm incredibly nit-picky and stingy when it comes to planet packs, much more so than just about any other type of mod, so my answer is likely to be discouraging to you.  And I would hate that, because the last thing I would want would be to discourage anyone!

Lots of words below, but basically it boils down to "I only want to play really super-professional-looking packs that are clearly the result of stupefying amounts of labor by their creators", which of course whittles down the possibilities a lot.

Details in spoiler section so you can skip to the actual point if you're not in the mood for a rant. 

Spoiler

I don't experiment and play around with planet packs "just to try them out", as I might do with something like a parts pack.  I basically refuse to even look at them unless there's strong evidence that they'll blow me out of the water, which is a pretty high bar.

Why am I such a curmudgeon about it?  Because it's a huge commitment for me.  Once I set up a planet pack, that's it for that career.  A KSP career playthrough is an investment of a lot of hours for me, and I really, really don't want to start one off if there's any likelihood that I'll get deep into it and just go "meh" and either not have fun or be bored with it.  A planet pack pretty much completely defines the structure of my career's "story arc"-- if it turns out to be a poor choice, the career's simply torpedoed and I need to start over from scratch, and I'm left feeling letdown, like I wasted my time.  (As opposed to something like a parts pack, where if I get unhappy with it, I just uninstall it and move on with my career.)

I've been playing KSP for nearly three years now, and there have been only three planet packs I've been willing to try, and those are really massive investment of effort by their creators.  They are:

• Outer Planets
• New Horizons
• Galileo's Planet Pack

What are the things I want from a planet pack?

• Interesting and original.  (i.e. not "here's a bunch of dwarf planets that are all basically just copies of Dres in different colors")
• Not "gimmicky"  (i.e. not over-reliant on bizarre planets that try to use extreme parameters to simulate novelty)
• Playable in stock.  (I don't generally play stock, but I want planets that I could play in stock if I wanted to.  So, nothing that requires science-fictional interstellar drive.)
• Content-rich.  That is, the planets are lovingly crafted and have lots of detail and look distinctive.  They have to be at least as pretty and detailed as stock.
  • This one tends to be the show-stopper.  I've glanced at a lot of planet packs that I immediately said "nah" to...  not because they're bad, or that their creators did anything wrong, but simply "this isn't something that someone spent literally hundreds of hours making and refining."  That's a pretty high barrier to entry for me.
• Not buggy.  (It's really easy to have weird terrain glitches if one isn't careful.  Doesn't take much in the way of planetary bugs to suck all the enjoyment out of my KSP time.)
• Performant.  (Planets and their textures can be memory hogs.  It's easy to write something bloated that bogs down the machine.  It's a lot harder to write one that looks detailed and beautiful, but makes really efficient use of the computer's resources.  Takes a fair amount of technical skill, I gather.)

I'm slightly more willing to try a planet mod that just adds one planet somewhere, if it doesn't otherwise disturb the stock solar system-- because then, my risk is greatly reduced.  It's more like a parts pack:  i.e. it's just an additional shiny bit, and isn't the whole point of my career, and I can uninstall it without any consequences (other than losing ships around that one planet, which is fine) and without interrupting my career.

An example of this is Arkas, a nicely done desert planet that lives between Eve's and Kerbin's orbits.  I've played that and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Of course, all of the above is just me-- other people may have different ideas about what they want out of a planet pack.  (For example, maybe some folks like gimmicks.)  So take what I say with a grain of salt. 

 

 

However, if I had to offer one bit of advice, it would be this:  Start modestly.  (Same advice as for any kind of mod.)  In the case of planet modding, I'd express that advice as:  How about starting with just one planet, not a planet pack.  Make it so that the planet is simply added to the solar system, without disturbing any of the stock planets.  Nice things about doing it that way:

• You can really focus your effort on polishing that planet and making it really shine.  Which I suspect will make people more likely to look at it.  I know that I'd rather play with one really well-done planet than a dozen boring, sketchily implemented ones.
• You're making it easier for people to "try it out", because they're not staking their whole career on it.  You're reducing the risk people have to be willing to take in order to try your mod.
• Like any new skill, you're probably going to screw things up quite a bit at first.  Best to screw up something small.    By starting out with a single planet, and working and honing your skills on that one... you can develop the confidence to go after a planet pack for your next project, if you're so inclined. 

 

[Gameslinx]

6 hours ago, Snark said:

I may be the wrong person to ask, because I'm incredibly nit-picky and stingy when it comes to planet packs, much more so than just about any other type of mod, so my answer is likely to be discouraging to you.  And I would hate that, because the last thing I would want would be to discourage anyone!

Lots of words below, but basically it boils down to "I only want to play really super-professional-looking packs that are clearly the result of stupefying amounts of labor by their creators", which of course whittles down the possibilities a lot.

Details in spoiler section so you can skip to the actual point if you're not in the mood for a rant. 

  Hide contents

I don't experiment and play around with planet packs "just to try them out", as I might do with something like a parts pack.  I basically refuse to even look at them unless there's strong evidence that they'll blow me out of the water, which is a pretty high bar.

Why am I such a curmudgeon about it?  Because it's a huge commitment for me.  Once I set up a planet pack, that's it for that career.  A KSP career playthrough is an investment of a lot of hours for me, and I really, really don't want to start one off if there's any likelihood that I'll get deep into it and just go "meh" and either not have fun or be bored with it.  A planet pack pretty much completely defines the structure of my career's "story arc"-- if it turns out to be a poor choice, the career's simply torpedoed and I need to start over from scratch, and I'm left feeling letdown, like I wasted my time.  (As opposed to something like a parts pack, where if I get unhappy with it, I just uninstall it and move on with my career.)

I've been playing KSP for nearly three years now, and there have been only three planet packs I've been willing to try, and those are really massive investment of effort by their creators.  They are:

• Outer Planets
• New Horizons
• Galileo's Planet Pack

What are the things I want from a planet pack?

• Interesting and original.  (i.e. not "here's a bunch of dwarf planets that are all basically just copies of Dres in different colors")
• Not "gimmicky"  (i.e. not over-reliant on bizarre planets that try to use extreme parameters to simulate novelty)
• Playable in stock.  (I don't generally play stock, but I want planets that I could play in stock if I wanted to.  So, nothing that requires science-fictional interstellar drive.)
• Content-rich.  That is, the planets are lovingly crafted and have lots of detail and look distinctive.  They have to be at least as pretty and detailed as stock.
  • This one tends to be the show-stopper.  I've glanced at a lot of planet packs that I immediately said "nah" to...  not because they're bad, or that their creators did anything wrong, but simply "this isn't something that someone spent literally hundreds of hours making and refining."  That's a pretty high barrier to entry for me.
• Not buggy.  (It's really easy to have weird terrain glitches if one isn't careful.  Doesn't take much in the way of planetary bugs to suck all the enjoyment out of my KSP time.)
• Performant.  (Planets and their textures can be memory hogs.  It's easy to write something bloated that bogs down the machine.  It's a lot harder to write one that looks detailed and beautiful, but makes really efficient use of the computer's resources.  Takes a fair amount of technical skill, I gather.)

I'm slightly more willing to try a planet mod that just adds one planet somewhere, if it doesn't otherwise disturb the stock solar system-- because then, my risk is greatly reduced.  It's more like a parts pack:  i.e. it's just an additional shiny bit, and isn't the whole point of my career, and I can uninstall it without any consequences (other than losing ships around that one planet, which is fine) and without interrupting my career.

An example of this is Arkas, a nicely done desert planet that lives between Eve's and Kerbin's orbits.  I've played that and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Of course, all of the above is just me-- other people may have different ideas about what they want out of a planet pack.  (For example, maybe some folks like gimmicks.)  So take what I say with a grain of salt. 

 

 

However, if I had to offer one bit of advice, it would be this:  Start modestly.  (Same advice as for any kind of mod.)  In the case of planet modding, I'd express that advice as:  How about starting with just one planet, not a planet pack.  Make it so that the planet is simply added to the solar system, without disturbing any of the stock planets.  Nice things about doing it that way:

• You can really focus your effort on polishing that planet and making it really shine.  Which I suspect will make people more likely to look at it.  I know that I'd rather play with one really well-done planet than a dozen boring, sketchily implemented ones.
• You're making it easier for people to "try it out", because they're not staking their whole career on it.  You're reducing the risk people have to be willing to take in order to try your mod.
• Like any new skill, you're probably going to screw things up quite a bit at first.  Best to screw up something small.    By starting out with a single planet, and working and honing your skills on that one... you can develop the confidence to go after a planet pack for your next project, if you're so inclined. 

 

Thanks for the detailed reply!

I imagine quite a few of my planets fall into those categories. I'm no artist, unfortunately, so it takes a long time to add a mountain to a planet. So far I've been focussing on 1 planet in the pack and telling everyone that's the only 'career compatible' one. I've only spent 200 or so hours making the planets (which I imagine isn't really much when it comes down to it) and there are 12 planets in the mod. Now that I have all the planets I'm going to start drastically improving them, as I know a lot of them have quite a few flat, boring places. One of the planets (Teloslate) is similar to Minmus but has massive mountains instead of those lumpy hills, which I think is original to an extent.

Thanks for the feedback and I'll definitely try and put a lot more work into the mod - quality over quantity

[Terwin]

On 2/4/2017 at 10:27 PM, Sharpy said:

I also quickly get rid of mods that way overstep their bonds. I wanted USI's base parts, and it broke stock ISRU by making it produce only one kind of fuel, changeable only in VAB. I tried Throttle Controlled Avionics, and it would set thrust limiter on random engines in VAB to some stupid values for no good reason. Radio altimeter seemed like a little fun mod except it would never cease displaying its prefs window (two items total) on every single launch. I also avoid half-assed, half-completed mods.

I was not thrilled with the ISRU change in USI-MKS, but fortunately it was only there for 1-2 revisions before it was removed.

note: it could be changed, but only by a Kerbal(Engineer?) on EVA, so it played merry havoc with my automated fuel drones.

One of my current mods(possibly MKS again) tried to gimp ISRU so that they need engineers to work at full efficiency(like drills), so I went in and removed that from the script for much the same reason.

Generally speaking I am a fan of RoverDude's mods, particularly USI-LS(Life Support) and USI-MKS(Colonies), and other mods that give me tools to do interesting things.

From time to time I will have a game with unbalanced mods(Atomic Age and R&D currently, will probably drop them for the next game if I manage to plant a flag on Eve and get home though), but the only thing I have considered and rejected are:

Autopilot: I play to fly rockets

Extra planets: Not until I plant a flag on and return from Tylo, Lathe, and Eve

[cantab]

On 09/02/2017 at 10:43 PM, Gamel0rd1 said:

As you say you like planet packs, may I ask what yourself looks for when choosing the right ones? Are there any cool ideas you have? A lot of planet variations have already been covered, but I'd like to keep mine as stockalike and true to the game as possible, as well as having variety and diversity.

My two cents: In contrast to Snark, I've been greedy and added all sorts of stuff. But as for what I particularly like. If the system is being rearranged I like a challenge. One or more of Kerbin as a moon, inclined orbits, or a non-equatorial launch site will all add a challenge that isn't in stock. I like planets that stand out, offer fun gameplay opportunities, or are just plain awesome. I think "stockalike" is bad for planets because the stock ones are a bit lame. Oh, and Kopernicus-only please. Supporting stuff like EVE and Scatterer is cool, but requiring and bundling those extra visual mods will make me pass your pack by. And I suppose it goes without saying, but make sure you don't have bugs, like touching down but not being landed.

My favourite planet pack I've tried was old New Horizons. The system layout with Kerbin as a moon of gas giant Sonnah which is in an inclined orbit round the Sun gives me that extra challenge I love. Serran was vibrant from orbit and had a stark otherworldly beauty on the surface, Leouch inspired true awe with its giant chasm, and Nolas's canyons let me trench run like the best of them.

And I don't like when my beloved planets get changed on me. New New Horizons came as quite a shock, removing many of the aspects of the mod I'd loved. (New Serran, for example, is rather drab.)

[linuxgurugamer]

I use mods which are useful to me and enhance the game for me.

I don't use buggy mods, and there are a number of mods I don't use because I disagree with the license being used.  Specifically. There are a number of old, dead mods which died because the license did not permit redistribution or forking.  I won't use a mod which has the possibility if dying because the author got in a snit and pulled it.

[Gameslinx]

3 hours ago, cantab said:

My two cents: In contrast to Snark, I've been greedy and added all sorts of stuff. But as for what I particularly like. If the system is being rearranged I like a challenge. One or more of Kerbin as a moon, inclined orbits, or a non-equatorial launch site will all add a challenge that isn't in stock. I like planets that stand out, offer fun gameplay opportunities, or are just plain awesome. I think "stockalike" is bad for planets because the stock ones are a bit lame. Oh, and Kopernicus-only please. Supporting stuff like EVE and Scatterer is cool, but requiring and bundling those extra visual mods will make me pass your pack by. And I suppose it goes without saying, but make sure you don't have bugs, like touching down but not being landed.

My favourite planet pack I've tried was old New Horizons. The system layout with Kerbin as a moon of gas giant Sonnah which is in an inclined orbit round the Sun gives me that extra challenge I love. Serran was vibrant from orbit and had a stark otherworldly beauty on the surface, Leouch inspired true awe with its giant chasm, and Nolas's canyons let me trench run like the best of them.

And I don't like when my beloved planets get changed on me. New New Horizons came as quite a shock, removing many of the aspects of the mod I'd loved. (New Serran, for example, is rather drab.)

I have optional EVE support for the planet, pack, but i'm not focusing any effort on it at all. Two planets have clouds and that's it. Someone else can do the rest!

By Stockalike, I'm talking about relative masses and radii, comparable to the current stock planets. I know some stock planets are definitely quite plain - Duna, Eve, Ike, and so on. Here's a screenshot of the latest one i'm working on, which orbits Dres:

I think that looks very diverse and I'm extremely proud of it, even though it's a 0.1g moonlet (compared to the stock planets)

[Guest]

On 06/02/2017 at 8:39 AM, paulprogart said:

So now that I'm "finished" my career game (by which I mean I've done a crewed return Duna landing mission, which was my main goal) I will certainly consider adding mods in the future.  Actually I was originally planning to treat mods as an additional level of the tech tree once I'd unlocked it all, but the way things progressed it never actually got to the point where I felt I needed to.  (Hey there's a mod idea:  a mod that can deactivate other mods and add them to be unlocked via the tech tree.  I know it'd have a lot of complexities but it'd be cool if someone could pull it off.)

I'm not sure if it entirely matches up with your idea, but a lot of the larger mods support the Community Tech Tree, which adds many nodes further along than the stock ones (scaling up to 4000 science per node) as well as a number of additional branches expanding the stock levels of the tree.

I'd recommend also using this patch as even with over 100 mods I still had gaps that led to unresearchable nodes:

 

Edited February 11, 2017 by Guest

[paulprogart]

1 hour ago, String Witch said:

I'm not sure if it entirely matches up with your idea, but a lot of the larger mods support the Community Tech Tree, which adds many nodes further along than the stock ones (scaling up to 4000 science per node) as well as a number of additional branches expanding the stock levels of the tree

Well kinda, but CTT is just for part packs.  It's certainly a good idea, but I actually meant putting add-on mods that introduce new functionality on the tree.

Although now that I think about it some more, the tree wouldn't be the proper mechanism for that, at least not the way the game works now.  Facility upgrades would be more appropriate.  E.g. upgrade the Tracking Station further to enable KER, upgrade the VAB/SPH to get the aero mods, upgrade Mission Control for Kerbal Alarm Clock, etc.  If you don't have the proper upgrade then the entire mod would be disabled.

So I guess that means it could be just like CTT except for the facilities instead of the tech tree.

[Voyageur]

Never had any desire to use BDArmoury or anything military related. I like to think Kerbals are a peaceful species and are more focused on exploration, not malevolent destruction. 

[322997am]

I use the following mods, because they complement and add to the game:

1. BdA

2. Kis/kas

3.he

4. B9

5. Firespitter

[SSgt Baloo]

I gotta have Mechjeb and some sort of autopilot program that is relatively simple to operate. My hands tremble, and my fingers will sometimes command an unasked-for double-click, so anything that allows me to keep my hands away from making unintentional inputs is a good thing. I also like Easyboard, because getting the Kerbal close enough to board the vessel is a bit of a challenge, so it's nice to give him the ability to let himself in when he gets close enough.

Other mods allow me to do things that the stock game does not, like all the airplane mods I have which gave me propeller engines, wings that can hold fuel inside them or cool-looking cockpits that make modeling things like the C-47 or P-38 possible. I love to build planes, and would not enjoy this game as much without mods like these. Some of the mods that give good approximations of real spacecraft (or in-game versions of fictional ones) can be fun, as well. There used to be a mod that came with two engines that had an ISP of 40,000 (no longer available  ) that allowed me to stop worrying about running out of fuel for long enough to actually get a grip on orbital and interplanetary maneuvering.

Some mods, I use because they reduce the stress of playing. I have anxiety disorders and don't want to wind myself up while I'm trying to unwind. The "ejection seat" mod helps me keep calm about the possibility of my plane losing control and killing everyone aboard. Ejecting is less stressful for me than reverting to launch or the hangar. Likewise, there are other mods that reduce the workload of flying a hastily-constructed air or space vessel.

There are lots of great mods for this game. None of them are necessary for everyone, but they are all useful to someone. Thanks to all the modders for giving us these options! 

[IncongruousGoat]

I never plan to install MechJeb. I fly my rockets either by hand, or by an autopilot I wrote and debugged (kOS), or not at all.

KW and B9, just because stock already gives me enough tools to do anything I could want to do with those mods.

Weapons mods, because I don't see the point. For me, KSP has always been serious business. I've never found the explosions to be cathartic.

USI-LS, because it isn't realistic enough.

Any novelty mods, like Red Oktober, whatever mod adds food parts, etc.

..I think that's it.

[Ser]

@Guys,

As I see some of you post that you don't use the mods that are buggy. Do you report the bugs you find to mod authors or just decide to not use the mod? Sometimes I have reporters who report a bug and then just vanish not even letting know whether they quit using the mod or solved the problem by themselves. As if they're saying "screw this, 5 minutes to post logs is too much" while we waste whole evenings and weekends trying to deal with that. I don't know a modder who keeps online diaries saying "Another Saturday passed trying to reproduce that stinky bug reported" but trust me, it takes a bunch of time sometimes and we really need your help to get our mods in the shape that works for everyone.

Edited February 13, 2017 by Ser

[cantab]

In response to that, I would say that some modders impose a "barrier to entry" when it comes to bug reports or even support requests. Expecting detailed logs, asking people to go to Github, and so on. And while that eliminates useless vague bug reports, it's also liable to just send some users away altogether. End users, just like the modders themselves, have neither the obligation to do any work nor the right to expect anything - it's voluntary contribution on both sides.

Personally, after a few times I spent hours trying to pin down a bug before posting about it, and was then promptly told it's well-known and there's an easy solution, I now prefer to just post first. If the symptoms look like a known bug then I can be told about it, either get a possible workaround or wait for a mod update, and it saves me and everyone redoing what's already been done. Only if it's not something that's been seen before am I likely to try and pin down details.

[Archgeek]

On 2/3/2017 at 3:59 AM, Ser said:

[...]

4. I don't use mods that reduce realism, not to mention the ones increasing absurd level of the game (various space sausages etc.)

[...]

But...what about @NecroBones's Burger mod?  Sure, it's got a farting ketchup NTR, but also has radially-attached bacon!  

[Pixel of Life]

I don't use MechJeb because I have no use for automatic launch/landing/transfer/rendezvous systems. All I need is KER for info displays and Throttle Controlled Avionics for thrust balancing and stability control (KSP's stock SAS is crap).

[Yarrula]

The only mod I use is Kerbal alarm clock. It let's me run multiple missions without having to worry about missing a maneuver node. Being able to coordinate launch and arrivals makes it feel more like a space program and less like one guy screwing around by himself.

I used to use mechjeb and ker when I was learning the game (many hundreds of hours ago) but I don't need them any more. I have a pretty good feel for what the stock parts can do. My VAB guesses usually turn out pretty well.

Edited February 16, 2017 by Yarrula

[Joltout]

Only mods I use are visual ones. Though I think the only one I have installed right now is 'Stock Visual Enhancements', I'm pretty sure I've thrown some smaller ones in there somewhere.

But I refuse to use any other mod of any type. I just quite like my game vanilla, less of a hassle when a new patch rolls up and invalidates a whole cluster of mods.