Cheating; A meditation on it's definition in modded KSP

[Neil Kerman]

Please POLITELY state your opinion on what constitutes cheating in KSP and explain your reasoning 

Feel free to argue but BE CIVIL

[klesh]

Usually nothing is cheating in a single player game.  Squad's insistence on selling DLC to the "challenge" crowd will mean that cheating will now constitute completing a mission outside the parameters given by the mission author... I suppose.

[Dman979]

Personally, so long as you're comparing yourself against yourself, like in career or sandbox, I don't think anything you do is cheating.

When you're comparing yourself against other people, such as when you're doing a challenge, you should follow the restrictions of that challenge. Anything else is cheating, IMO.

[ThreePounds]

In KSP? Nothing. And everything. It's a single player game so outside of challenges and other community related things it's anything the player defines. It's exactly that and nothing more.

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

In KSP, wondering "is this cheating?" is the same as wondering IRL "is this wrong?". If you have to ask, you can stop wondering because you already know the answer.

[Van Disaster]

As the others said, there is no such thing. However I like any parts & behaviours to seem coherent & pay some service to the idea of real physics ( hard for a theoretical warp drive, sure ) or I feel I'm cheating myself out of some experience.

Cheating in a challenge is obvious, it has rules, follow them.

Edited September 3, 2017 by Van Disaster

[MaxxQ]

3 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

As the others said, there is no such thing. However I like any parts & behaviours to seem coherent & pay some service to the idea of real physics ( hard for a theoretical warp drive, sure ) or I feel I'm cheating myself out of some experience.

Cheating in a challenge is obvious, it has rules, follow them.

^^^This.  That's why I'm having such a hard time deciding whether or not to get a warp drive mod.

[Xavven]

TBH, my opinion about this has changed slightly over the years.

Think of it this way... Any developer has to balance the difficulty in their game. Any parts, income, control schemes, etc. available to the player have to be counter-balanced with problems to solve that are sufficiently challenging for a player with those tools. Ergo, any time you introduce an outside advantage to a player, perhaps through mods, you unbalance the game in some way. However, the point of a game is to have fun, and the game won't be fun if it is either too hard or too easy, and modding is kind of like setting a personal difficulty level to maximize fun. I wouldn't say clicking "easy" on career mode means you're cheating... just that you're playing career on "easy".

Some say that it is not possible to cheat in a single-player game. My personal position is that you're maybe playing in a different "class" or "division" at the least if you use certain mods. I wouldn't say someone who completed an Eve surface-sample return mission in KSP vanilla had to face the same design challenges that a person with a modded 1000 Isp (atm) engine faced, for example. That's not to say that you're a dirty cheater and should go straight to jail, just that your accomplishment is... different, when using modded parts that change the difficulty.

[Gargamel]

ANOTHER "cheating" thread?  Geesh, cmon people. 

It's a one player game, you play by the rules you set for yourself.    The are no set rules, there are no set objectives.  In fact, it's pretty dumb to be calling it a game at all. 

[Van Disaster]

( Response to Xavven's post): I feel you're taking the stock elitist ego-stroking approach that mods must by nature make the game easier, and that anyone using mods is an unskilled scrub. That's an awfully long way from true ( quite a few make it considerably harder ) & you're probably cheating yourself out of experiences nicely put together mods would provide you; for instance, I've had a whole bunch of things relating to life-support mods over the years I'd never have got with plain stock. You're also implying that everything in stock is carefully balanced, and while it's better now than a couple of years ago I'm not sure I'd agree. I don't actually find this a particularily good game without mods.

 

Edited September 3, 2017 by Van Disaster

[razark]

If you're not playing exactly the way I do, then you're cheating.  

If you're using different mods, cheating.  

Not using mods?  You're not only cheating, but you're also completely missing the point that the game was made to be moddable, so you're doing it wrong.

 

Further, if you're cheating, you're not only a dirty, low-down, evil cheater, but you're obviously not actually having fun.  You're also probably too dumb to realize how much fun you're not having.

[NSEP]

Say, you are cheating in single player, what is the aftermath? Nothing.

[Allocthonous]

The only way I would consider something cheating in KSP is if I were cheating myself out of having fun. Usually that means sticking to the basic mechanics of the game. But sometimes I just want to get something done, or fix an error that would otherwise require repetition of effort to repair. Then the cheat menu or mods or whatever are useful tools for enjoying the game.

Really, cheating only happens when somebody breaks the rules. The rules are the accepted standard of behavior that everybody who is playing the game agrees on. In a single player game, that's just me. If I were playing with friends and passing a save back and forth, like that one community space station project, or if I were competing against others to build a rocket to certain specs and see who got the best results, then cheating becomes a concern. But if it's just me? I know what forms of 'cheating' would impair my enjoyment of the game, and what would improve it. That's all that really matters.

[AlamoVampire]

Not counting challenges nothing is cheating.

Cheating is a means of gaining an unfair advantage by any means outside the convention of preset agreed upon rules over another player. 

That is the definition of cheating I have always followed. In short: cheating in KSP if cheating (outside of challenges) is possible only cheats you out of the sense of accomplishment.

Op 06:11:30

[pandaman]

For 'challenges' - I believe that deliberately doing or using anything that is not permitted according to the rules/parameters set by the author (or otherwise approved by them), in order to gain an advantage should be considered as cheating, and as such punishable by being publicly flogged and fed to the Kraken.  That said the author should also make every effort to be clear about what is and is not permitted, both to avoid accidental 'cheating' in good faith, and help weed out the dirty losers who do try to gain an unfair advantage.

However if you do 'break the rules' of a challenge and declare it openly then that's cool, as long as you don't expect to have your entry automatically treated as legit.  And well done for just joining in the fun too, after all that's what it's all about.

From a 'single player' perspective, then anything goes that the player is happy with as it has no actual effect on anyone else.

For me personally, when doing normal single player stuff, I like to stick to my own 'house rules' and on the odd occasion when I haven't I felt as if I'd 'cheated' myself.

[mk1980]

community challenges aside (of course the author determines the rules and you shouldn't cheat), it's really up to the player what they consider cheating.

if something feels like a cheat to you, you probably shouldn't do it - after all, you're only cheating yourself in single player. what's the point of playing it when you can't enjoy it due to the feeling that you're cheating.

[MrWalrus123]

There is no exact cheating, since it is a single player game. The game has cheats built in, and it meant to be modded. You could have your own rules to what is cheating and what isn't, (no cheating on contracts/missions, no quick saving unless if it's a game breaking issue). Making parts OP, like a cabin that holds +1000 kerbals and weighs 0.01 tons, etc can be seen as cheating in a way. Truly there is no cheating unless if it's a challenge or a multiplayer game.

[BjM]

Think the point is not exactly it's singleplayer, it's more because it's a sim. It gives you some flexibility in what you want to play and what you didn't. It didn't have a final, or goal so you play by your rules. Like to see the stock as a base, or somewhat in the middle of everything. You chance some variables to make your group of rules. In itself you start chosing the sandbox or carrer for start. And more than it you chose how you would play, no restart of mission led to more mission develop on the sheet. Or if you restrict your credits it forces you into some other form of play where the adm building and more consevative mission comes into play. Or you just plug the normal dificult and go do the next mission the game throws at you. And if the variables inside it isn't for your taste you can expand, like if you would like the design of crafts and mission, but not to much the pilot part, than you can plug mechjeb, for example.

I started recently some more complex mission, and use the cheatmenu as an evaluation method. I didn't do calcs for the game,use only the vannila and what it offers. So on a minmus mission, for example, I first develop the lander, jump it to the orbit I would use it and test if it can go and return. When it is ok I revert and build it in the final rocket with all the stages, to orbit, to minmus, the lander and back. And start thinkering with this stages. And even after knowing the physical part can do the mission I still need to do it. Even if knowing the lander can do the landing if I make some mistake and end crashing the lander than it's a rescue mission. But it's my set of rules.

The game is there for your fun. The concept of cheat only comes into play when you are going for a similar goal in comparasion with other atempts (it could be yours or from others). The advantage of staying in some group of common rules is to compare results, other than it play like your heart want.

[Curveball Anders]

29 minutes ago, BjM said:

I started recently some more complex mission, and use the cheatmenu as an evaluation method. I didn't do calcs for the game,use only the vannila and what it offers. So on a minmus mission, for example, I first develop the lander, jump it to the orbit I would use it and test if it can go and return. When it is ok I revert and build it in the final rocket with all the stages, to orbit, to minmus, the lander and back. And start thinkering with this stages. And even after knowing the physical part can do the mission I still need to do it. Even if knowing the lander can do the landing if I make some mistake and end crashing the lander than it's a rescue mission. But it's my set of rules.

I use a sandbox save 'called simulation' (or sometimes a copy of my current career save) for just such design iterations.

For my currently ongoing Duna mission(s) I actually started with science return unit in LKO, then went on (or back) to a stage where my return vehicle and science pack was i Duna orbit, and so on until the last thing I designed was the initial lifter to reach LKO.

That way I can be sure that I haven't done any complete misjudgements or forgotten any vital parts.

Once satisfied I switch back to my 'real' save, build and launch the mission.

Well aware that there are lots of things that can go wrong, esp with long missions where I run lots of other missions in parallel and I'm not always sure that I remember what I was supposed to do when a KAC alarm ("Tend to Duna Express!') goes off

 

[Wallygator]

The title specifies "Modded KSP", but the initial post only indicates "KSP"

What are you asking?

Oh, and I forgot:  NOT ANOTHER CHEATING THREAD??? (face palm)

 

 

[BjM]

1 hour ago, Curveball Anders said:

I use a sandbox save 'called simulation' (or sometimes a copy of my current career save) for just such design iterations

Tried this, didn't had the patience to swap ships between saves. hauahuaha. And, as I'm in the middle of the tech tree I found sometimes a little dificult to remeber what I had reserched and what I didn't when on the sandbox. But somethings I mess things up and could go back to some previous state and end with some stranded ship or some unwanted mission (or the worst, losted jeb).

But, this is a good example of the cheat concept. The game offer tools. Use it to have fun. Both of us are doing very similar things, those test pipelines, with diferent ways and I'm sure that are other out there that play without those tests.

[Curveball Anders]

47 minutes ago, BjM said:

 And, as I'm in the middle of the tech tree I found sometimes a little dificult to remeber what I had reserched and what I didn't when on the sandbox

That why I sometimes use a clone of my 'real' save, just copy the save catalog and rename it Fake

[BjM]

5 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

That why I sometimes use a clone of my 'real' save, just copy the save catalog and rename it Fake

It's pretty simple, but I never thought it. Thanks!

By the way, not sure if there isn't a way, but it would be nice if on sandbox you could check or uncheck on the science build what techs you like to use. For me it would be great, don't know if it deserve to be a feature.

[regex]

If you're not playing Realism Overhaul with RSS and Principia then you're cheating. Base game/modded stock is way too easy.

I enjoy cheating on occasion.

Edited September 5, 2017 by regex

[magnemoe]

Cheating is using the menu to turn on infinite fuel, hyperedit is also an cheat.
Note that this is not in it self wrong, trying to make optimized crafts to work on Eve is very hard without hyperedit to test them. 
Even brute force an Eve accent craft is hard as so much can go wrong.