The time has come, the one and true calling for a developer to modernize and pull tight the one and only mod for creative dynamic content creation.

[Alexsys]

Gentlemen.

This is a calling not just for someone random, but a mythical developer that is capable of such task for its purpose.

Not because of its difficulty, but because of its weight, for us all the KSP Mod community, especially this bit, is part of history on a continuous level.
We write that history daily as we continue using this one and only mod that allows us to dynamically add so much content in such many creative levels.

Contract Configurator def offers such a perspective that is sunken deep in KSP history, SO MUCH CREATIVE CONTENT comes out of it, contracts are a whole new world.
both in the Contract packs people make for it, and both the Contract Configurator itself.
Alas since the configurator (i assume) carries so much outdated weight and bulk of errors and outdated bulk, that it likely too repels the Contract pack developers themselves.
Why make something for something that takes such a hit on KSP itself?
And so, part of history remains frozen

 

Sadly, the mod is so outdated that it makes KSP gain at least 300 pounds, both in loading times and in performance. It needs modernization to pull its excrements together.

At the moment, the mod is like an ultra creative junk food for KSP, but it needs not to be like this forever.

 

Mythical legendary passion for revival and even re-creation of many mods that are once in a lifetime in KSP does come around,
and its amazing to see it hit many legendary devs I know that are currently working on such projects,
such as KIS 2, KCT Revamp, DistantObjectEnhancements Revamped, and many more such golden creations in the cooking.

 

Question is, who will be the one to rebirth Contract Configurator and revive back to life an amazing creative tool for all KSP community?

Imagine all the new modernized contracts popping, with the modern KSP version we have and its features.

 

so much new content insane

[zer0Kerbal]

I am not that one. someday, maybe.

 

[Gotmachine]

CC works just fine. Yes, there are some quirks here and there.
And yes, it's definitely far from optimal from a performance standpoint, but this has very little to do with how "old" it is.
It's not very optimized because it's a huge codebase and maintainability / ease of programming was prioritized over performance. At this point point, "fixing" it would require a lot of work.

But I disagree with you. There are no contract packs because nobody is making them or actively developing the existing ones, not because of CC limitations. RP-1 has a huge and very refined career progression system based on CC.

The sad truth is that the KSP modding scene is slowly dying since a few years now.
At a few notable exceptions, most KSP plugins are just kept barely afloat and aren't under active sustained development.
I can count on my hands the names of the active plugin developers, and large proportion of them are from the RO/RP-1 community.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Gotmachine

[Alexsys]

21 minutes ago, Gotmachine said:

CC works just fine. Yes, there are some quirks here and there.
And yes, it's definitely far from optimal from a performance standpoint, but this has very little to do with how "old" it is.
It's not very optimized because it's a huge codebase and maintainability / ease of programming was prioritized over performance. At this point point, "fixing" it would require a lot of work.

But I disagree with you. There are no contract packs because nobody is making them or actively developing the existing ones, not because of CC limitations. RP-1 has a huge and very refined career progression system based on CC.

The sad truth is that the KSP modding scene is slowly dying since a few years now.
At a few notable exceptions, most KSP plugins are just kept barely afloat and aren't under active sustained development.
I can count on my hands the names of the active plugin developers, and large proportion of them are from the RO/RP-1 community.

Nothing is dying with passion my man.

I've spoken with several devs that build and work on HUGE mods right now, it all matters on whats within.

That's why I made this post, I know there is someone who has that within him for this specific mod

 

 

My personal word on the case with CC. It's massive bloat on the game. So if I think simply, and had the thought several times to eliminate this mod from my list (I will 100% once im done with the contracts.) since the load time increase is massive, at least adds about 10% if not more.
So why would anyone make a contract pack (which as we know, people make things out of passion and their personal likeness to it), if they cant like CC? It's like junkfood, but with the minus of extra extra unhealthy on the performance of KSP and not just grade 1 unhealthy for the fps.

If something is good and comfy, it's a good base for growth and creation.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Alexsys

[Caerfinon]

I've been on a bit of hiatus of late and have halted work on my current new contract pack projects, however I am still fully supporting all of my currently published Contract Packs and other Kerbal Konstructs mods.

I would love to have an updated CC with some new features. My concerns would be with backwards compatibility for existing contract packs. If each had to be rewritten entirely  for the new program that would be... unfortunate.  

[Gotmachine]

24 minutes ago, Caerfinon said:

I would love to have an updated CC with some new features

CC is designed to be extensible. You can create whole new custom parameters, requirements, etc from your own plugin.

[HebaruSan]

6 hours ago, Alexsys said:

 

You make it sound like Contract Configurator is abandoned. But a pull request was merged in July of this year.

You make it sound like the current maintainers are not paying attention to performance. But the first line of the latest release's changelog is, "Major performance improvements to save loading time (thanks @siimav)."

You make it sound very dramatic. Performance improvements can be shockingly mundane:

1. Identify and communicate the slow use cases
   (that would probably mean submitting an issue that specifies the contract packs you're using and what you're doing when you notice it's slow so a developer can reproduce the problem)
2. Measure the code's performance with a profiler
   (dotTrace looks like it might work? I haven't tried it yet though)
3. Analyze the measurements to find code that's slower than it should be
   (flame graphs are my personal favorite visualization tool, and it looks like they were added to dotTrace in its 2019.3 version)
4. Determine and fix the cause of the slowness
   (details depend on the nature of each bottleneck)

For KSP modding in general, the hardest part is probably collecting performance measurements. Devising an easy method to profile mods would be a very helpful contribution, if that hasn't been done yet. Without that, developers fall back to rules of thumb and guessing, which can easily miss major unexpected bottlenecks.

[Alexsys]

15 hours ago, Caerfinon said:

I've been on a bit of hiatus of late and have halted work on my current new contract pack projects, however I am still fully supporting all of my currently published Contract Packs and other Kerbal Konstructs mods.

I would love to have an updated CC with some new features. My concerns would be with backwards compatibility for existing contract packs. If each had to be rewritten entirely  for the new program that would be... unfortunate.  

Oh man, i've seen some of your contract packs they're absolutely legendary. they definitely bring such a modernized vibe to something that is such past in KSP. definitely missing more contract packs of modernized taste.

Actually legendary seeing you comment on this subject, you're definitely the man I've had in mind regarding modern contract packs development.

 

My take, I'd personally sacrifice the past contract packs into a more modernized fresh and new contract configurator (if we leave aside the fact that backwards compatablity wont vanish since we humans can make anything happen if only we desire so ).
Most definitely sacrifice an old pack of contract packs, for a new tool that will be so much smoother and lighter and easier like a compact rifle, for rising contract pack creator of might like yourself man.
but again, that all depends on how it'll actually be modernized. who knows.

 

13 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

You make it sound like Contract Configurator is abandoned. But a pull request was merged in July of this year.

You make it sound like the current maintainers are not paying attention to performance. But the first line of the latest release's changelog is, "Major performance improvements to save loading time (thanks @siimav)."

You make it sound very dramatic. Performance improvements can be shockingly mundane:

1. Identify and communicate the slow use cases
   (that would probably mean submitting an issue that specifies the contract packs you're using and what you're doing when you notice it's slow so a developer can reproduce the problem)
2. Measure the code's performance with a profiler
   (dotTrace looks like it might work? I haven't tried it yet though)
3. Analyze the measurements to find code that's slower than it should be
   (flame graphs are my personal favorite visualization tool, and it looks like they were added to dotTrace in its 2019.3 version)
4. Determine and fix the cause of the slowness
   (details depend on the nature of each bottleneck)

For KSP modding in general, the hardest part is probably collecting performance measurements. Devising an easy method to profile mods would be a very helpful contribution, if that hasn't been done yet. Without that, developers fall back to rules of thumb and guessing, which can easily miss major unexpected bottlenecks.

 

 

Can't say whos definition of what is abandoned, but if you wanna feel my thought, on what is true passionate development, on what is truly breathing life into a mod of a game that is halted in development yet adding so much creation imagination into a game that never in life even thought about having these features... (which is also a mighty good time to rise in mod creations as well, since no more updates to ruin every old or already made code.)

take a look at the work of legendary creators like these: Lisias, Zer0Kerbal, IgorZ, Blackrack, Linuxgurugamer. and many more I have yet to meet that are in modern day ksp mod development.

When you desire to breathe life into something, you put yourself into it. and the mods these gents make are certainly a proof of imaginative creation.

 

thats my take on it my man
 

[zer0Kerbal]

3 hours ago, Alexsys said:

zer0Kerbal

am honored

[Caerfinon]

11 hours ago, Alexsys said:

My take, I'd personally sacrifice the past contract packs into a more modernized fresh and new contract configurator

New and improved is always a good thing. I hope if it comes it will accommodate the past efforts of pack creators, but if it does not then I think mod creators will adapt in time.   

[linuxgurugamer]

The subject sounds lie you are looking for a zealot, understandable for such a game.  However, CC is such a complicated mod, it really would need some one to work on it full time, and, given that modders don’t get paid, is somewhat unrealistic.

CC itself works ok, I’d like  it to not generate exceptions, but that isn’t the issue.  The first step would be to define what this replacement mod would do, in other words, the contract language would need to be defined.  That is probably a  big job, once defined, then a language parser would need to be written.  Alternatively just rewrite the mod using the current language specs.  Still a big job.

sorry to say, nothing I am interested in at this time.

@nightingale did an amazing job with it, 

[Lisias]

People are getting fed up with the constant KSP and Add'Ons bugs and regressions, and this is perfectly understandable - because I too have my moments of fury about the matter.

Spoiler

 

Some problems related to CC came to my attention due my experience on 3rd parties borks affecting TweakScale, that so ends up with me handling the mess, and my diggings suggest that there's something else borking somewhere else, breaking the chain of execution of initialisation code that, so, leaves a some data uninitialised - that so leads to 3rd parties to bork, potentially leaving yet more data uninitialised - and so on.

We removed CC from the affected KSP installment only to see the same problems blowing up with someone else.

I'm trying to help to pinpoint what's exactly going on on the matter on github with @Alexsys and another fellow add'on Author.

As soon as we manage to tackle it down, I'm pretty sure things will going to be better after a Pull Request to the add'on's repository that triggered the NRE Fest. Assuming it's a 3rd party Add'On, this can be related to something on KSP itself (as usually happens to TweakScale, by the way).

[Alexsys]

8 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

The subject sounds lie you are looking for a zealot, understandable for such a game.  However, CC is such a complicated mod, it really would need some one to work on it full time, and, given that modders don’t get paid, is somewhat unrealistic.

CC itself works ok, I’d like  it to not generate exceptions, but that isn’t the issue.  The first step would be to define what this replacement mod would do, in other words, the contract language would need to be defined.  That is probably a  big job, once defined, then a language parser would need to be written.  Alternatively just rewrite the mod using the current language specs.  Still a big job.

sorry to say, nothing I am interested in at this time.

@nightingale did an amazing job with it, 

Honestly, it would be such a good business investment for Squad from the firstplace, to establish an employment system for actual pro devs like yourself and others, those that put their soul into it.

It would benefit both the creator and the created, and make a game so much more alive and keep it alive longer.

If the game wasn't corporate owned, I bet such system could be employed easily and would be the next big thing.
A perfect business model, since the game is ALREADY ''open source'', in a way, allowing mods and stuff, but putting people of creation into a comfort and security of putting their passion and imagination that they do as a hobby, into a stable thing in our world of cesar where money is a ticking must, that would be insanely good business model for a game with a dedicated audience that caught a certain lifelong vibe.
Maybe with KSP 2 they'll consider it, who knows

 

 

Also as to creators such as yourselves, you gents got way too much on your plate with insane amazing mods that are so heavy on development, that I most definitely don't even want any of you considering it.
More workload doesn't mean goodload.
Each got their own thing and thats what makes amazing things, reaching too far for too many is just useless.

There might be some specific one that flows with the idea of a new CC, and thats then a fit for them, whoever that may be,
but I am certain that one exists!

8 hours ago, Lisias said:

People are getting fed up with the constant KSP and Add'Ons bugs and regressions, and this is perfectly understandable - because I too have my moments of fury about the matter.

  Hide contents

 

Some problems related to CC came to my attention due my experience on 3rd parties borks affecting TweakScale, that so ends up with me handling the mess, and my diggings suggest that there's something else borking somewhere else, breaking the chain of execution of initialisation code that, so, leaves a some data uninitialised - that so leads to 3rd parties to bork, potentially leaving yet more data uninitialised - and so on.

We removed CC from the affected KSP installment only to see the same problems blowing up with someone else.

I'm trying to help to pinpoint what's exactly going on on the matter on github with @Alexsys and another fellow add'on Author.

As soon as we manage to tackle it down, I'm pretty sure things will going to be better after a Pull Request to the add'on's repository that triggered the NRE Fest. Assuming it's a 3rd party Add'On, this can be related to something on KSP itself (as usually happens to TweakScale, by the way).

lmao, the clip def fits the frustration even mod devs experience with the mods in their own experience,

now thats a perfect way to describe it, perfect clip for the situation

[linuxgurugamer]

1 hour ago, Alexsys said:

Honestly, it would be such a good business investment for Squad from the firstplace, to establish an employment system for actual pro devs like yourself and others, those that put their soul into it.

Take-2 is already developing KSP-2, why would they want to continue development of the original, and possibly take sales away from the new game when it is released?

1 hour ago, Alexsys said:

If the game wasn't corporate owned, I bet such system could be employed easily and would be the next big thing.
A perfect business model, since the game is ALREADY ''open source'', in a way, allowing mods and stuff, but putting people of creation into a comfort and security of putting their passion and imagination that they do as a hobby, into a stable thing in our world of cesar where money is a ticking must, that would be insanely good business model for a game with a dedicated audience that caught a certain lifelong vibe.
Maybe with KSP 2 they'll consider it, who knows

Do you have any idea of what it costs to develop a game?  What a developer costs, both in salary, benefits, etc?  

There are already lots of games that are open-source, and in public development that way, but the developers aren't getting paid, there just isn't the money in it

[Alexsys]

9 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Do you have any idea of what it costs to develop a game?  What a developer costs, both in salary, benefits, etc?  

There are already lots of games that are open-source, and in public development that way, but the developers aren't getting paid, there just isn't the money in it

Money wise, look at BF2042

Such a good business money maker, but its absolute trash sadly for the common player, like diarrhea trash. Made alotta money though, sitting in the company's bank.

so theres a bit beyond materialism in the whole industry that is gaming, and especially passion projects like KSP is and was. Everything is passion, everything began from passion. Money making is passion too for some people.

 

This business model I threw out is just an idea out there, but ideas seeded eventually grow. This one was referred to KSP 2 though, ksp is already close to sleeping indeed.

 

Imagine if they gathered all you pro mod devs in KSP 2 and said, look, i saw your work, I saw your community, I saw your length, we need such thinkers such developers, and boom they have an environment and they have their passion being watered by those that have resources,

I WOULD LOVE to hear that one day all of you actually got an opportunity from Take2 into KSP2 development, even if its a whole different code a whole different experience,
because ALL of you, THINK kerbal. That's all what matters. That's what I as a developer and owner of the KSP brand would want from those that create the KSP games.
And its true, because in actuality, all of you at least created for me, a much better Kerbal space program experience with all the mods you made, enriched, and maintained. Without you gents, I'd not have this amazing game space experience with so many extra features.
This is worth beyond dollars my man.

and thats a perfect way to use someone's resources and powers (aka a corporation that has wealth and network) to enrich those that are more richer in the creation. Because money means excrements compared to creative creation, and that is so far from common these days.

Again look at 2042 business model wise, its hot garbage but makes good money. Pays the rent for all the workers involved, got all their family likely set for life, its beautiful business. Who cares about some angry kids online going on reddit and crying?
Its a game that people buy to complain about bugs on youtube, rather than like we all did with BFBC2 be stunned by the amazing features and destruction and create videos on that, thats what made that game's publicity, but BF2042's publicity is the shameful funny thing that is apparently an AAA game worked on for decades lmao.

 

So since when gaming is about making efficient money? and I can think about so many ''efficient'' money ways that are normal, people thought that slave labour was normal back in the day, got the job done.We humans think in diverse ways, and its absolutely cool, some suit the rest some don't,
But I legit believe that this business model is THE THING to grow and populate a game like KSP.              ESPECIALLY with its sequel being made.

Not everything has to be so official and stingy in this world, and corporations will get it some day.

 

Money is legit a piece of paper I can draw a appendix vermicularis on, it has nothing but an imaginary value. Hoarding it like mr krabs and avoiding any use of this imaginary value to enrich and grow another seed of ''lesser economic value'' is such a waste of what could be enriched by it. But who am I to prevent people's fetishes to be enjoyed?

But those that are able to create magnificent things due to their way of thinking and work are worth beyond it,
thats what people with money should do, invest in those -creators-,
but those that hoard the piece of tree bark made into cash called modern money,

Hopefully some giant gaming corporate will think different some day, straight into that business model, I know I would

i'd definitely employ that amazing business model were I a corporate that grew from passion game developers that had nothing but a desire at the beginning. They all had vision.

 

 

And thats my point, I believe in it that much that I even wrote a govno online essay for this 
it will come to pass one day.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Alexsys

[linuxgurugamer]

48 minutes ago, Alexsys said:

so theres a bit beyond materialism in the whole industry that is gaming, and especially passion projects like KSP is and was. Everything is passion, everything began from passion. Money making is passion too for some people.

Forget passion for a  moment.  People need to earn a living, pay bills, save for retirement, save for kids college, etc.  Passion doesn't do that by itself

 

51 minutes ago, Alexsys said:

I WOULD LOVE to hear that one day all of you actually got an opportunity from Take2 into KSP2 development, even if its a whole different code a whole different experience,
because ALL of you, THINK kerbal. That's all what matters. That's what I as a developer and owner of the KSP brand would want from those that create the KSP games.
And its true, because in actuality, all of you at least created for me, a much better Kerbal space program experience with all the mods you made, enriched, and maintained. Without you gents, I'd not have this amazing game space experience with so many extra features.

So would I, but they didn't want me, sadly.

51 minutes ago, Alexsys said:

This is worth beyond dollars my man.

I still need to pay my bills.  Not going to say what I'm earning, but you can look at this chart to get an idea: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Game-Developer-Salary

You need essentially double a salary to get an idea of what a person actually costs a company in total.

If someone were to give me a certain amount of money, I'd work for them for free

56 minutes ago, Alexsys said:

Again look at 2042 business model wise, its hot garbage but makes good money. Pays the rent for all the workers involved, got all their family likely set for life, its beautiful business. Who cares about some angry kids online going on reddit and crying?
Its a game that people buy to complain about bugs on youtube, rather than like we all did with BFBC2 be stunned by the amazing features and destruction and create videos on that, thats what made that game's publicity, but BF2042's publicity is the shameful funny thing that is apparently an AAA game worked on for decades lmao.

I don't play those games, so am not too familiar with it, other than all the complaints.

What I've seen is that in many cases, the quality of a game has very little to do with how much it makes.  

But, what I'm saying is that if a developer can't make a decent living, he/she won't be able to work full-time on his/her passion.  

I'd love to be working for Squad/Take-2/Intercept on KSP.  While I am not a professional developer, there is a lot I can bring to the table, they just don't think they need me at this time.  But if I was able to say to them that I'd work for free, I'm sure they would find a use for me.

(joke follows): So, anyone who wants to pay my salary + benefits for the next 2 years, contact me to arrange the details

My point is, that no matter how passionate I am about KSP, I still need to earn a living.  The whole idea of jobs is to earn money, one way or another, to pay bills, etc.  Money is just a way of representing labor/material/worth, which was developed because barter wasn't good enough for even moderately complicated transactions.  However you look at it, at the end of the day, the developer needs money, from some source.  And the company is investing money into something that it has no guarantee will pay off.  There are thousands of games that were started, partially developed and then dropped.  All the money spent on those games were a total loss to the company financing it, in many cases the companies went out of business.

I'm not going to get into the economics of the business, nor will I address the profits, etc.  At the end of the day, a worker produces something, the company pays the worker (in advance of making money) and then sells the product, thereby making money.  However it plays out, that's essentially what happens, no matter what business model  you look at.  Of course there will be differences, but the basics are always there.  Work is done, a product is made and then sold.

[Lisias]

12 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Take-2 is already developing KSP-2, why would they want to continue development of the original, and possibly take sales away from the new game when it is released?

Because they need to fund KSP2 development somehow, and there's a good chance that the current Status Quo on GPU is limiting their potential market with a significant impact on the projected revenues for the next 2 or 3 years.

So having KSP1 around for more time is a way to milky this cow a bit more until the GPU pricing comes back to a reasonable levels, when then the (potential) graphical shinning features of KSP2 will be affordable again for the most players and so they can sell the new cow for more people.

[Alexsys]

  

7 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Forget passion for a  moment.  People need to earn a living, pay bills, save for retirement, save for kids college, etc.  Passion doesn't do that by itself

 

So would I, but they didn't want me, sadly.

I still need to pay my bills.  Not going to say what I'm earning, but you can look at this chart to get an idea: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Game-Developer-Salary

You need essentially double a salary to get an idea of what a person actually costs a company in total.

If someone were to give me a certain amount of money, I'd work for them for free

I don't play those games, so am not too familiar with it, other than all the complaints.

What I've seen is that in many cases, the quality of a game has very little to do with how much it makes.  

But, what I'm saying is that if a developer can't make a decent living, he/she won't be able to work full-time on his/her passion.  

I'd love to be working for Squad/Take-2/Intercept on KSP.  While I am not a professional developer, there is a lot I can bring to the table, they just don't think they need me at this time.  But if I was able to say to them that I'd work for free, I'm sure they would find a use for me.

(joke follows): So, anyone who wants to pay my salary + benefits for the next 2 years, contact me to arrange the details

My point is, that no matter how passionate I am about KSP, I still need to earn a living.  The whole idea of jobs is to earn money, one way or another, to pay bills, etc.  Money is just a way of representing labor/material/worth, which was developed because barter wasn't good enough for even moderately complicated transactions.  However you look at it, at the end of the day, the developer needs money, from some source.  And the company is investing money into something that it has no guarantee will pay off.  There are thousands of games that were started, partially developed and then dropped.  All the money spent on those games were a total loss to the company financing it, in many cases the companies went out of business.

I'm not going to get into the economics of the business, nor will I address the profits, etc.  At the end of the day, a worker produces something, the company pays the worker (in advance of making money) and then sells the product, thereby making money.  However it plays out, that's essentially what happens, no matter what business model  you look at.  Of course there will be differences, but the basics are always there.  Work is done, a product is made and then sold.

I get what you're saying, but you take this a bit too far.
Also my argument was more directed to the general corporate crowd, rather than the citizen that pays taxes and gotta chase a stable dollar.

I didn't discard the fact that we as people need money to live normal ''stable'' life (but thats again just a personal perspective imaginary concept of what is stable), I mentioned how in our ''world of cesar'' we definitely all got taxes and our financial duties that we all gotta pay, each their own, thats undiscardable for sure

But do not forget that there is taking this to the extreme, and this is what companies like Take2 do lately, they monopolize certain developer teams and squeeze junk out of them, aiming for mininal work and maximum gain. (Rockstar a good example).
Aren't games made FROM passion? That's where it all is rooted in.

 

In my theoretical examples, I pull the line a bit towards a company's "financial sacrifice" or rather "brave investment of money they are scared to lose" towards passion, humanity, and human creativity, rather than pure "We must earn, and not lose a penny! How may we maximize profits for little most results?"
That's why EA and Dice of BF2042 are a perfect example of recent events (which are way too many for way too long by now). That's where modern gaming companies at least pull towards, they do not use their wealth to enrich others so they can enrich themselves, they go full stingy mode and then wonder why they bring out junk to the market.

There are way too many modern day examples of such products.

The true rich man, desires to enrich others with his wealth, that's a man that has richness to use its rich abilities, and not to hoard more and more paper.

 

And what I see in people such as yourself and other dedicated KSP mod devs, is potential for such companies, thus my suggestion.

 

Mr krabs syndrom is a very prominent modern issue apparently, from the biggest company to the tiny man that thinks about saving a few dollars on something that may potentially enrich his life even if just for a few moments, just to keep those few imaginary value paper things in his belonging, to lose it to something else he is less aware of.

We live in the world of cesar where taxes and duties to pay is our lives for sure, we all got things to pay and money to be earned, but when this is the MAIN aim of life, look what it turns into.

Taking a good peek at modern gaming, transitioning from pure money making from pure passion, you'll see what I mean.

 

When man sacrifices any possibility for growth due to the fear or rather the obsesstion with not losing his imaginary value bill, that becomes something else.
It's hard to understand for some, honestly. In modern day society where they push fear and capital.

 

But again, those that got the capital mustn't fear investing it in those that got something else other than imaginary valued paper, they got creation. A beyond human thing.
And thats where you gents come into the picture, and where companies gotta open their minds a bit and remember that not all is material, but man.

Take a good look at modern day gaming, and industry. From the manufacturer, to the developer. Mr krabs syndrome couldn't have been a more modern candy for ''business'' living than depression for teenagers.

 

At the end of the day man. We are still people. And money is an imaginary bull that people legit burn their entire purpose of life for.
While we all know deeply that the passion is truly what is for a man, as to what he is. Money is just a piece of wood bark grinded.
And those that got way too much of that grinded condensed bark, definitely can enrich both the other than possess incredible creativity and passion, something that is more prominent in that specific person of target,
and thus also enrich themselves as well, since they legit only gain by boosting a person of vision that is only benefitted and boosted even more if invested in financially and taken in officially.

It's actually the best most perfect business practice, but since it depends on externals outside of corporate predictable safety net, not many want to gamble,
because their corporate passion is the condensed bark of imaginary value, rather than what their company was meant to represent, which is gaming, and gaming is pure passion.

I play KSP because I love the game, Devs first opened KSP to the public because they had passion for what they were doing, they were legit horny for what they created, that is passion, horniness for creation that is your own.
That's what ALL games started as, cant name one franchise or title that did not began its roots from that kind of passion,
but they weave and rot when they lose that passion and all their new passion is direct to a piece of paper I can draw a appendix vermicularis on. Worthless.

There isn't anything but passion in this life, you are born from passion and you die in passion. All what everything are distracted by as they take their life for granted, is legit forgotten so quickly once you see it for what it is.

There is nothing more worthy in life than man's imagination. That, leads to creation. That leads to the game I play, and we all do, hence why we're on this forum,
that, leads to the amazing dev work you gents produced and yet still produce.

 

One day corporations will awaken and will see the true value there.
Maybe not today though

But only imagine... If every video game, that had incredible people that had such insane dedication and love to the work that you began to do and went on doing all this time into those so many modified creations,
only imagine if every game company funded at least a portion of their budget into growing or even providing basic financial ''life support'' to those that contribute so much and infact do actual official development, even if its just in the form of ''unofficial'' mods.
Imagine if every game company invested in its mini creator devs that stemed up from pure passion and creativity, imagine what games could have been, so rich, dynamic, filled with content to the brim, endless like endless humans on this planet with their endless ideas.
With such financial "life support" to those creators, those creators can fully dedicate themselves to their passion, and it becoming common... games become incredible legendary things.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Alexsys

[Lisias]

9 hours ago, Alexsys said:

 That's where modern gaming companies at least pull towards, they do not use their wealth to enrich others so they can enrich themselves, they go full stingy mode and then wonder why they bring out junk to the market.

There's a "more technical" way of saying that: zero sum games.

A Zero Sum game is a game where you only earn something at the expenses of others. There're a lot of valid situations on life where you need to play a Zero Sum Game in order to survive. However, not every game needs to be a Zero Sum Game. In fact, nowadays there're a lot of situations where the Zero Sum Game is the worst approach to the problem!

One of the these cases is SOFTWARE. Lots and lots of competing companies funds directly and indirectly the Linux Kernel, besides knowing that their competition will enjoy the same benefits once the features they are exponsoring is ready to reach the mainstream.

So, why they do it? Because by not doing it, the competition that are exponsoring the Kernel will have a better product and so will eat your cheese. Simple like that.

The KSP Add'On scene is littered with Zero Sum Gamers, and this is the sad true. Not exactly fault of the Scene, as I think the Add'On Scene we have is a direct reflection of the KSP Development Model itself, where Zero Sum Game solutions are applied even when they are the worst solution for the problem at hands.

 

9 hours ago, Alexsys said:

I play KSP because I love the game, Devs first opened KSP to the public because they had passion for what they were doing, they were legit horny for what they created, that is passion, horniness for creation that is your own.

And this is the point some people don't get - most people around here help each other not due a masochistic desire of being enslaved, but because they share a common goal: enhance a game they love.

But yet, some other people see on this a "business opportunity" to seek power/money/fame/whatever, and the way of achieving this is by directing this "work force" into Zero Sum Games. Some even get to the point of "weaponize" the Scene to force their hand on the rest of us, and you can easily find such events looking on the forum's history (as well some github issues).

On this environment, we have a break on the Trust Chain - and this is chain pretty hard to rebuild.

I recommend everybody to spend some 30 minutes of their lifes on this "game": https://ncase.me/trust/

 

9 hours ago, Alexsys said:

 At the end of the day man. We are still people. And money is an imaginary bull that people legit burn their entire purpose of life for.
While we all know deeply that the passion is truly what is for a man, as to what he is. Money is just a piece of wood bark grinded.

That's the thing: we are people, but we don't understand people.

There's a thingy called Pyramid of Maslow, or Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

You usually need to fulfil (some how) the most basic needs in order to achieve satisfaction on the more complex ones (the upper ones on the pyramid), but there's a catch: the motivation for the "lower levels" decreases as the need is fulfilled (unless the dude have some psychological issue, as a trauma or something). Once your belly is full, you stop thinking on food, for example.

But there's one "need" that it's different - the self-actualization one. The most you achieve, most motivated you are to achieve more. And this can be both a bless and a curse, because people on this stage are more prone to be exploited by people still trying to fulfil their basic needs - and this is where such people think it's a good idea to change a Positive Sum Game (a game where everybody earns a bit) into a Zero Sum Game (while trying to be the ones that are earning, usually substantially).

 

9 hours ago, Alexsys said:

 One day corporations will awaken and will see the true value there.

I'm not that optimistic. Corporations are headless "monsters" with psychopath behaviours - you just can't trust a corporation. But you can trust people inside the corporation, people are the ones doing things (good or bad). You get good people enough on a Corporation, you will see such Corporation doing "nice" things - but once Zero Sum Game people reaches some power inside the Corporation (and usually they reach power more often than Positive Sum Gamers, see the webpage I linked above), that people you used to trust are replaced, and God knowns what the new people on power are willing to do now.

Forget about corporations. Any change will come from people like you and me.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Lisias
tyops as usulla...

[AtomicTech]

On 11/26/2021 at 4:47 AM, Gotmachine said:

The sad truth is that the KSP modding scene is slowly dying since a few years now.
At a few notable exceptions, most KSP plugins are just kept barely afloat and aren't under active sustained development.
I can count on my hands the names of the active plugin developers, and large proportion of them are from the RO/RP-1 community.

What about me? 

I'm a new "dev"!

[Lisias]

7 hours ago, AtomicTech said:

What about me? 

I'm a new "dev"!

What he is meaning is that, currently, some authors are not being able to keep development on a pace that would please the users.

Lots and lots of very used add'ons are piling up bugs and/or change requests, with the author sometimes clearly stating he/she is not interested on implementing them - not too different from what's happening with a famous game where we try to kick green critters into space without killing them (too much).

This stagnation, on the long run, tends to lead the Scene to an entropic end: no new features, no bugs fixed => no users around.

Unless we manage to have new blood like you around.