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

[Ser]

11 hours ago, regex said:

In order for there to be a game, rules, and "cheating" there very much does. That competitor can be yourself, peer shame, a challenge, or whatever else you may think up, but there must be a competitor in order for rules to be defined and defied. In other words, someone needs to determine whether you have cheated the defined rules, and whether those rules are malleable based upon circumstance.

Of course there should be a set of rules if we speak of cheating. If you play with no rules that can be broken than there cannot be such a thing like cheating.

4 hours ago, Spricigo said:

Quite the opposite, if there's no such evidence I need to check the entire forum to be sure. OTOH you just need to point at a single post where it exist.  

I may search for that evidence myself, but why should I make the effort to prove your point? Is just not in my interest (either because I'm silly enough to want to 'win' the discussion,  or I'm reasonable convinced I'll not find the posts you refer to.)

Well, you may ask someone else. Everyone who reads at least KSP weeklies regularly knows that, I estimate that's about 50% of active forum members. But if you aren't interested in that "curious fact", I'll live with that. Don't believe me, I'll save my time.

4 hours ago, Spricigo said:

Did it matter?  The fact that mods can be installed is enough evidence to me that there is no code blocking it. Even assuming that is in some way difficult/impractical/impossible to code there's still the other ways to create such rule (license,  modding rules).

When you create an algorithm, it by definition is the set of rules a machine should follow. Thus by writting a computer program you create a set of rules by default. If you don't want to allow a player to go beyond certain limits you just check his coordinates and don't let them change if they don't fit. So having a PC game means you have a set of rules automatically. Unlike a cardboard game where you have to explicitly write the rules of the game down. That's what I meant.

4 hours ago, Spricigo said:

The fact I can break the rules is not enough.  Matter of fact I "played soccer" for a while and no rule was break, then I stopped to play soccer.  At this point I cannot cheat at soccer, I'm not playing it anymore.  I just felt like to "play basketball".

And you cannot say that you've made a soccer goal if it was made when you didn't play soccer. So you have to admit that you didn't play soccer or that you have cheated at soccer. In both cases the goal wouldn't count. It's clear like a sunrise. What I am talking about here is constantly playing the same game by the same rules. If you break those rules, it's cheating.

Too much talking around the same things on and on. Everything else I've already explained above.

Edited September 9, 2017 by Ser

[G'th]

As KSP is a single player sandbox game,  "cheating" only applies to using non-ingame methods of skipping over portions of the gameplay to get to other portions of the gameplay. IE, using HyperEdit to put yourself in orbit of Jool right from the launch pad. But even this isn't really "cheating" in the same sense as it is in a competitive, multiplayer game. 

Something like MechJeb could be considerered cheating in a similar way, as it handles many things for you, but I personally don't consider it so given you still need to have an idea of what you're doing (unless you're doing really simple things you can't always just push "Go to Moon" and have it work 100%) but also because ultimately real rockets are handled automatically like this in most situations. The few situations where they would be controlled by a direct human hand are the parts I actually find fun. Like final phase of landing on a moon, landing a shuttle, and even docking in some cases. 

[Helmetman]

I get some kind of brainwave impression that the posters that ask these questions have their own conditions to what is cheating. That's probably why they ask this. I think that's fun to discuss though in a way. Although I would not call it "cheating" more like...

"What rules do you practice to limit yourself?"

This is simply because the word "cheating" is just, meaningless in the context of this game. And I don't want the English language changed because people forget and/or warp the meaning of the word. The whole concept of KSP is what goes against the meaning of cheating. The same even goes for if you were to play GTA (any version) and freeroam the city in singleplayer. There are no rules. Only when you enter the story mode are you within the contest of the game. You would be cheating something as there's a sudden objective you could achieve against the tools of the story and game concept. The same goes for Multiplayer as it would suddenly be against other players. Ironically the game industry calls it cheating regardless of the context but does everything to deny cheating in multiplayer sessions where the definition of the word holds true :facepalm:

This also confuses me why all those game "cheating" menus and "cheating" tutorials on the internet are called as that because I find the context and the setup of the specific game to determine whether there's a cheating element to it. Why do games not call it the debug panel or toolset panel like in KSP.
Rep to Squad for sanity.

People think it's cheating when you use autopilots and/or vessel information in game because they're rigidly aware of their own piloting and calculus skills.
While some people are bad pilots and don't want to calculate Delta-V. It may be a easy sum, but not everyone is the nerd (#Ilike nerds) that's willing to throw in the same calculations for every vessel launch. 

There's also the saying, "I cheated death" 

So if I lithobrake my craft with landing gear at several dozen meters per second and I survived I have also cheated. My guess is that's not the context you were looking for huh? Still it's true, so I bet everyone has already cheated outside their own constructed norms of what cheating is.
And some of the comments were pretty funny tbh.
 

[kerbiloid]

What is "cheating" in KSP except:
- Planets and orbits zoomed 1:11 with orbital speed 2.6 km/s instead of 7.9, making SSTO and spaceplane as common as a city bus.
- Almost immortal spacemen requiring no food or air, living for decades in a single-seat capsule floating to Eeloo, falling from space on their heads without any consequences;
- A huge ball of frozen fluids waiting for mining right in near-Kerbin orbit (which btw makes a Mun ground base mostly useless);
- An ocean where you must try your best to sink.

P.S.
In other games they add mods to rebalance weapons to make the game more difficult and realistic.
In KSP you just change whole Solar System with RSS.

Edited September 20, 2017 by kerbiloid

[TheKurgan]

1. Cheating to me, is automating something before you can do it manually. Using MechJeb or Gravity Turn when you have not learned to launch, fly, orbit, create maneuver nodes and dock manually first... once you feel you CAN do these things pretty well manually, and now they are becoming tedious or boring, THEN you can justify using a mod to automate these things.

2. Modifying or creating parts with absurd properties... For example, super efficient as well as super powerful engines that use tiny amounts of fuel.

3. Using the cheat menu...

and

4. HyperEdit (when used in career... my opinion)

Edited September 22, 2017 by TheKurgan

[Col. Kernel]

As several people already said, it's tough to define cheating in a single player game that has mods.  Do you cheat at solitaire (assuming you play with real cards).  You can, simply because it has rules.

The rules I want to play KSP by are simple, no mods that change physics, add extra components, or automate decision making for me.  I'm currently running 2 mods, KerbalX so I can upload my own ships, and The Kaptain's Log so I can document my adventures.

Edit:  No mods per above ... the first time around.  After that I'll look and see what makes the game better or different (OPM)

Edited September 23, 2017 by Col. Kernel

[RobertJPowell]

In my humblest of opinions, the only time someone can really cheat in KSP is breaking rule sets laid out out in any sort of challenge as laid out by the OP in said challenge.

 

For example if a challenge says fastest trip to the Mun and back using only stock parts and does not implicitly state without using the cheat menu, then it is OK to use the cheat menu as long as you remember to only use stock parts.

 

At any other time, it is down to the player to set their own boundaries.

Edited September 24, 2017 by RobertJPowell
minor correcions