Have you "cheated" like this?

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, A_name said:

Sp where in the cheat menu do you mark a contract as completed? Asking for a friend...

 

37 minutes ago, jlcarneiro said:

Well, a friend told me you need to press ALT-F12, then click on "Contracts", then click on "Active" and then click "Complete" on the desired contract...

I think I have the same friend. He mentioned to me that you can also use it to cancel contracts without affecting the weights and without taking the rep penalties.

[kBob]

4 hours ago, Razorforce7 said:

Change the cheat menu to another name please. Cheating is a unfair advantage against someone or based on predetermined criteria "rules"...

I think that's a good idea.  And should they ever add multi-player they would have to disable a bunch of stuff in there (or everyone in a session would have to agree to use them which might be a bit cumbersome and lead to arguments).

[Gardevoir11]

14 hours ago, Hay said:

I use cheats to test my landers and to bring stuff to my stations when I'm lazy

When I did that I deducted some of my money to feel a little bit less "cheaty".

[paulprogart]

20 hours ago, Razorforce7 said:

Change the cheat menu to another name please.

This is getting pedantic, but it's actually not officially called the Cheat Menu, it's called the Debug Toolbar.  (Citation:  the API docs, and also if you watch closely "Debug Toolbar" is what it says when it first opens, before the tab title quickly overwrites it.)  The Cheat Menu is an informal name.

Now there is a Cheats Tab in the Debug Toolbar, so is that name justified?  Well let's see... 

Set Orbit and Object Thrower are easy, because they're clearly cheating physics.

The Difficulty tab is really just a bunch of aliases for Difficulty Settings so I'm not sure why that's under Cheats.... historical reasons maybe.

The main tab is interesting as it has a bunch of different options... some are clearly other physics cheats.  Some are odd options that actually seem more like debugging options, so perhaps those don't belong there.  But the rest I would classify as economics cheats.  The game does have a fixed set of economic rules, and while you can argue about how much sense those rules make, these options clearly subvert those rules.  So they're cheats.

However, you'll be happy to know that the portion of the Debug Toolbar dealing with Contracts does not fall under the Cheat tab.  So, you can mark contracts complete at will and rest assured that, according to the game, you are not "cheating", you are merely "debugging".

 

[Alshain]

The only time I have 'cheated' is when I either was just testing or goofing off, not really playing a career or when the game bugs out.

[TheKosanianMethod]

I've cheated almost every Mun landing I've done. I use Infinite Fuel alot. I also use Hack Gravity whenever my rover flips.

Edited March 25, 2017 by TheKosanianMethod

[jlcarneiro]

On 23/03/2017 at 9:09 PM, 5thHorseman said:

I think I have the same friend. He mentioned to me that you can also use it to cancel contracts without affecting the weights and without taking the rep penalties.

What a shame! This cancel-without-penalty thing he didn't tell me...

[Urses]

On 24.3.2017 at 11:34 AM, Gardevoir11 said:

When I did that I deducted some of my money to feel a little bit less "cheaty".

It is like a testing Configuration you buy computerruntime on a flightsimulator

[AlamoVampire]

On March 23, 2017 at 4:10 PM, Physics Student said:

Most recently I started using MechJeb and It feels like cheating.

It shouldnt feel like cheating imho. Mechjeb is an autopilot, which is a tool. Saves you the effort of manually repeating the same task for the Nth time. 

Way I see it? If autopilot and other automations are good enough for NASA then they are welcome in my own space program  

Just sayin  

[maceemiller]

I only use the set orbit cheat to test my landers....no point going somewhere to find out your landers broken in some way. Once satisfied I start the mission from the launchpad....if it goes wrong I try to revert back to launchpad and do it again. I like it like that

[Red Stapler]

I just cheated last night.  I feel so ashamed (not).  My Jool Miner needed a bigger relay for a mid-transit maneuver (Yeah, I know...my maths were wrong) so I Alt-F12ed an RA-2 care package to rendezvous with the ship.  

Alas, Bill was a not amused he had to go on a space walk half way through his freeze dried pizza packet.   

[moronwrocket]

On 3/24/2017 at 5:34 AM, Gardevoir11 said:

When I did that I deducted some of my money to feel a little bit less "cheaty".

That is one benefit I really liked about Kerbal Construction Time.  Once you have visited a planet, you can start a "simulation" in orbit of that planet, with a chargeback based on length of the simulation.  So testing EDL on Duna becomes a lot more like real engineering.

[Gh0stReaper]

I would revert simply because I don't want to have the hassle of trying to recapture.

[moronwrocket]

On 3/24/2017 at 5:34 AM, Gardevoir11 said:

When I did that I deducted some of my money to feel a little bit less "cheaty".

That is one benefit I really liked about Kerbal Construction Time.  Once you have visited a planet, you can start a "simulation" in orbit of that planet, with a chargeback based on length of the simulation.  So testing EDL on Duna becomes a lot more like real engineering.  The simulation feature has been split into its own mod, so you can use that without KCT. 

 

[Leafbaron]

Since it is a single player game there really is no "cheating". There are rules set by the player that, when broken may be considered cheating by the player in question. However, the rules I set for myself and play with constantly ebb and flow, what constitutes cheating one day may be standard procedure the next. 

 

Leafy. 

[Hodo]

I havent done anything like the OP, but I have accidentally walked away from the keyboard to find my SSTO is now on its way to a stable orbit around the Mun... instead of a 250km orbit around Kerbin.  

 

So that lead to a revolutionary design for me... a rescue craft.

[MGCJerry]

I've cheated with mechjeb back in 0.25.

Now hear me out before you people start flapping your fingers in disgust. I built an awesome skycrane lander with 4 oversized rovers to take to Mun and mine kethane. Flawless flight all the way up until I was landing then RCS decided to not work. Plenty of EC, plenty of monoprop, no disabled crossfeed and RCS worked fine earlier in positioning before burns. Nope. Crash, crash crash... So I let mechjeb land it. It also failed.

So I resorted to hyperedit and landed it that way. heck, RCS still didn't work. Mechjeb was able to land the rest of the landers fine.

[Ty Tan Tu]

On 3/28/2017 at 1:37 PM, AlamoVampire said:

It shouldnt feel like cheating imho. Mechjeb is an autopilot, which is a tool. Saves you the effort of manually repeating the same task for the Nth time. 

Way I see it? If autopilot and other automations are good enough for NASA then they are welcome in my own space program  

Just sayin  

Some of the games I am playing in sandbox lately are very expansive, and are more strategic in nature. A re-supply mission to an orbiting space station might be just a small part of the over all mission at any given time. So. Mechjeb is invaluable to me. I find myself playing the 'Mission Controller' more than the pilot. Delivering a ferry boat to Laythe, so you can link two different Lathe stations on different islands together, might be the main mission. The docking of the re-supply ships can be left to my Kerbal pilot. Mechjeb lets me do that.

But back to the original thread. I cheat all the time. I keep a R&D game going in which I play all sorts of 'what if's'. Unlimited fuel and battery are as common in those as are my deletion of the the games. I think it stretches my imagination. After I accomplish it in my 'what-if' game, I start working on how it could really work.

Kebal Space Program is not meant to limit your imagination.

Cheat.

And then go back and do it without cheating. 

[MaxwellsDemon]

Some things that are "cheating" to person A are not to person B.  Since in most cases A and B are not in direct competition, it's largely personal taste.

Things that I have never done... not because I turn up my nose at "cheating" but because doing it that way just wouldn't seem like fun to me:

• using hyperedit or some sort of editing feature to place a vessel or base in space or on a planet/moon.  For me, the fun is in getting it there and building it there.
• using unlimited fuel/etc.  Feels too much like 'magic' to me (and the overpowered nature of KSP already comes close to that).
• changing difficulty settings midstream in a career.  I start a new career to do that.  (Not that starting a new career takes much effort, as I have Career Restart Syndrome...)
• using the debug toolbar for anything.  It takes me out of the proper mindset-- it's like a giant sign saying "THIS IS A COMPUTER PROGRAM."  Of course it is, but I don't need that reminder.

On a couple of occasions I have edited the persistent file-- usually to rename a Kerbal or to correct a situation that was clearly due to an illogical program fault.  I'm not too fond of doing that for the same reason as avoiding the debug toolbar.

MechJeb and Gravity Turn have never felt like cheating to me, because IRL nobody ever flies to or from orbit by seat-of-the-pants piloting.  That's completely unrealistic to me.  I find myself using MechJeb less and less as time goes on for much beyond information screens and automatic certain repetitive functions.  It was great for learning certain techniques, such as rendezvous and docking, but I'm to the point where I prefer doing it a different way than MechJeb does it... but I still don't turn up my nose at it.

But as I started with... it's personal, and your mileage may vary.  I avoid the things that feel like peeking at the crossword puzzle answers to me, because that takes the fun out of it.

[strigon]

I'm simply appalled by the lack of integrity of some of the users here.

I'll have you know that with every new save, my #1 rule is that I'll never use the debug menu for anything other than actual debugging. If I make a mistake, I own up to it and pay the price.

I stick to my guns, too; right up until the first time I lose a spacecraft to it