Suggestions for some good to have mods

[Kiwivenge]

Hello, I am quite new to KSP and have not tried any mods yet. I am playing on career mode if that makes any difference.
Are there any mods that are considered essential or just about?
My PC seems to run the game with ease (so far) so maybe some visual enhancement mods would be good. It might be in the game and I just haven't figured it out, but some sort of height above ground indicator might be nice. Sometimes having a chute set at 3000 doesnt cut it when the ground is that high ...

Hmm, not sure, really am just a KSP rookie looking for suggestions.

Thanks ahead of time for any info

[Nightside]

Welcome to the forums @Kiwivenge. 

Ksp mods add so much to the game, but there are a lot to choose from, and a real risk of installing so many that your game runs slow or crashes because of incompatible mods. 

When that happens KSP is not fun. So my advice is to start slow and pick mods that will increase the fun for you rather than just add clutter. 

If you want to design better rockets, you will need a delta-v calculator such as Basic DeltaV by dmagic. 

If you want to find reliable transfers to other planets get Kerbal Alarm Clock. 

Good luck!

[Jengaleng]

It's hard to give someone new to the game advice on mods because you will know what you need as you play through the stock campaign. My suggestion would be to just install mods that fill what you feel is a need and is holding you back. 

I currently run almost 100 mods and the game is completely overhauled. this causes a few issues such as low frames sometimes and I've noticed that my save will corrupt and the game will go into a crash state that you can only recover with a fresh install. 

The shame of this game is that there are many mods that really elevate this game to the gaming standards of today(visually) and those should be integrated to lessen the burden on the end users pc while making the game look stunning(some visual mods make the game look euphoric). Until they implement these mods you really are picking your poison and are always one mod away from breaking the game and starting all over. 

[Alshain]

I suggest that if you are new to KSP, you should avoid mods until you are familiar with what stock has to offer.  However, if you must, I suggest staying away from part and gameplay mods especially until you have more familiarity with the game.  Visual mods, are good for you as a beginner since they don't change gameplay.  My recommendation on these include:

• Stock Visual Enhancements
• Real Plume
• Collision FX
• Distant Object Enhancement
• PlanetShine
• CoolRockets
• Blast Awesomeness Modifier

Informational mods that make life a little easier might be good too though I caution a little more against these until you have earned your wings in stock

• Kerbal Engineer
• Kerbal Alarm Clock
• Transfer Window Planner
• Precise Node or PreciseManeuver or DMagic's Modlet ManeuverNodeEvolved
• RCS Build Aid
• Fusebox

Anything beyond that I strongly wouldn't recommend and in fact wouldn't even mention them given you said you are new.  There are a lot of good gameplay mods out there but you need to figure out how to get to orbit and land on another body first.

[StrandedonEarth]

A simple little mod I'd add to Alshain's list would be "Navball Docking Alignment Indicator" by linuxgurugamer (either that or Kerbal Alarm Clock is the first mod I ever used). It adds a little red circle to the navball when you've targeted a docking port. When you're pointing at that, the docking ports will be perfectly lined up. It makes learning to dock much easier. A tip as far as docking goes is learn to fly the navball. Live the navball. Love the navball. Be one with the navball.

18 hours ago, Kiwivenge said:

but some sort of height above ground indicator might be nice. Sometimes having a chute set at 3000 doesnt cut it when the ground is that high ...

"Landing Height Display" by Diazo will help with that.

Edited June 12, 2017 by StrandedonEarth

[Starman4308]

In addition to the suggestions of keeping it lightweight, and of installing new mods as you feel something is lacking, there are a few mods that offer reasonable expansion to the game without requiring huge amounts of mental investment.

Granted, I probably wouldn't install them yet, just when you start to want to do more things with your game. Alshain's list has the core quality-of-life mods, though Better Burn Time might be added to that list.

The science part of stock gameplay has seemed lacking to me for a while: DMagic has a few good mods for that. His Orbital Science mod adds some new science parts, SCANSat helps you map out other planets, and I think he collaborates on Surface Experiment Pack*, which has fairly involved science projects.

*That's a bit more heavy-weight than SCANSat or DMagic Orbital Science, as it basically requires Kerbal Inventory System and Kerbal Attachment System.

If you're much of a programmer, kOS might be nice to get into, especially if you play with CommNet or RemoteTech a lot.

[Alshain]

@StrandedonEarth I left that one off on purpose.  Alignment indicators fall under that list of things I wouldn't mention to new players   They need to learn why we use them first IMO.

@Starman4308 BBT is redundant with Kerbal Engineer (and in fact KER is more accurate).  That's why I don't list it, its only good if you don't have KER.

Edited June 12, 2017 by Alshain

[Kiwivenge]

Awesome guys thanks so much for the input!
You are very correct in that I do not want to change the gameplay outright with mods. However your suggestions that improve the graphics and looks of the game I will definitely look into. The other ones that come with caution I will look at a bit later, however I have heard that Engineer is quite good without making things easy. It seems it simply gives you information to work with.

One mod I have seen talked about is a science one that helps you keep track of what science you can still cash in on (ot something like that). Not sure how invasive this is to game play but sure sounds handy.

As far as my gameplay, absolutely loving it and have no real need to change it yet. Just rescued my first and then second Kerbal in orbit. My ship was wonky, hardly went where I wanted it to in the atmosphere. Once up there I managed to do what needed to be done to come home with another Kerbal

Loving the game.