Is it bad to use KSP mods?

[Tiron]

I've seen mods with parts that were overpowered compared to stock. I've seen mods with parts that were underpowered compared to stock. I've seen mods that had both in the same parts pack!

But then you consider that there are stock parts that are overpowered compared to other stock parts. The AV-T1 hasn't been useful for a very long time: It's heavy compared to the other winglets, has no control forces, and doesn't produce as much lift as other winglets. The AV-R8 similarly has been largely superceded by the canards and the Delta Deluxe winglets (Canards for Control force strength, Delta Deluxe for light weight controllability). The new Stratus-V Cylindrified monoprop tank holds half again as much monopropellant as the FL-R25 but has the same dry weight.

A friend of mine once pointed out that some of this will probably have other factors balancing it in career mode, like availability and price.

That being the case among stock parts, if you don't personally feel it's cheating, does it really matter if someone else does? Lots of people think Mechjeb's autopilots are 'cheating', but an equally large number of people think they're an indispensable way to alleviate boring repetition, increase precision, etc.

Nobody's forcing you to use or not use any of it, so do what you're comfortable with. And if you do think something's overpowered? You could always edit the part.cfg file to alter the parameters yourself.

Personally, I can't quite bring myself to use B9 aerospace, not because I think it's cheating or anything... but because there's no decouplers included that fit the new cockpits he's added. I like to include escape mechanisms for the crew on my craft. On rockets, sometimes only untested designs, but for spaceplanes all of them. For a spaceplane this takes the form of a 'cockpit ejection system', which uses a decoupler to get the cockpit(s) off the craft, and parachutes to bring it safely to ground. Can't do that with B9's new cockpits, because there's no decouplers for any of his new (or not so new, in the case of the Mk2 stuff) form factors.

Edited August 3, 2013 by Tiron

[Diche Bach]

Lot of good reasons why mods are not only not bad, but in fact exceptionally good already described above. Main thing is, you've got to be an informed player and make choices for yourself. For example, buying the game and _immediately_ installing mods might not be the wisest choice as you prevent yourself from learning the stock game. As another example, installing mods that you have no idea what they are or do and/or installing mods that you are skeptical you will like = probably bad ideas and a waste of your time and that of other users/modders when you go to ask questions.

I wanted to point out one other thing about mods though that doesn't have so much to do with game play, but rather as they relate to commerce, gamer culture, creativity or 'art,' and 'education' for lack of a better word. In my opinion mods, or more broadly modding communities, contribute immeasurably in positive ways to all of these areas of life, fairly narrow though they may be.

As far as commerce goes, it is pretty close to an 'ideal' system. You've got creative people on one hand (the design studio) who have released EULA's for an intellectual property. There are many such groups who would never, NEVER dream of allowing users to 'look under the hood' for various petty reasons that reflect traditional hierarchical and exploitative notions of consumer-producer relations. The irony is that, those overly protective design firms probably do more to harm their popularity and bottom-line than anything else. Then you've got firms like Squad who show some basic faith in their fellow gamers and realize the tremendous power of releasing a game that is moddable. They will, like all the other studios who have taken this bold leap (recall that it was not long ago that modding was quite the exception, though it is increasingly the rule I suppose), reap dividends I'm sure. The real beauty of this is not simply that the studio's benefit in a fiscal sense, but that really everyone involved benefits in terms specific to their reasonable expected needs. No one but the studio makes money, and that is precisely as it should be, but modders get experience and presitige if not visibility as potential professtional designers (I am aware of several 'famous' modders who have wound up landing jobs with studios despite being very young people). Presumably they also get some satisfaction from the simple fact of creating something they enjoy and seeing that others enjoy it too. The users get an unquestionable benefit too: if you don't like it, you turn it off, if you do like it, then the game is ever better.

Having elaborated on the issue of how mods benefit 'commerce' it is probably fairly evident what I'm getting at about the other issues of gamer culture, creativity or 'art,' and 'education.'

In sum, I think that mods for games, and the modder 'culture' is one of the most awe-inspiring and promising social trends I can think of. I have tremendous respect both for the studios who open their work up for modding and for the fellow gamers who provide us average users with such amazing works of creativity!

[alaskafish]

All comes down to personal preference.

I think mods can be considered cheating, just because of the things you can do. It changes gameplay, and I call that "cheating". For example, kethane; in vanilla KSP you need to brign the amount of fuel you need to go to a planet. Whereas with kerthane, you can stop on your way, get more fuel ect.

Or B9 pack, gives you more ways to make a SSTO easier, or even kspx lets you have radial fuel tanks that let you have smaller but more efficient rockets.

[esinohio]

My only reply to this would be you are playing with "Mods" right now. More than a few parts in your so called stock install were all mod parts in 0.20. This pattern is a repeating one since the game was released. I believe some devs were lifted from the mod crowd?? When you really think about it we can't call the game "stock" until its official release since it's a constantly developing and moving target.

As many have stated some of the mods actually bring your game closer to real life than the so called stock installs. Alaskafish mentions Kethane. That mod mimics modern plans to get us back from Mars and is pseudo based in real science (ok the kerbal killing machine for kethane is a bit over the top lol). Not sure how that is considered cheating though since it's based on real life mission plans. And lets not forget the devs are adding in this sort of system to the game anyway so the whole argument is really null and void anyway and we circle back to my original paragraph, Your playing with mods right now.

Are all the mods balanced? Hell no. Is it fairly easy to figure out what mods are based on outlandish and overpowered parts/equipment? Yep. One peek through the addon forums and you can quickly figure out what mods are shooting for a more realistic game and those that are more based in SciFi. Comments left by the community are usually spot on in calling out the obviously unbalanced parts.

[Baconluver25]

Games are meant for entertainment, so go ahead and use mods to entertain you even further.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

No, not at all, you install the ones you like and don't install it.

[Guest]

KSP is a game. It's a game the developers have wisely opened up for modding. That said, is the use of mods bad? OF COURSE! You might actually have fun, build a robust and amazing space programme, and enjoy the investment you made in the game as it becomes richer and richer. Therefore, since fun is involved, we'll have none of that!

[Motokid600]

If I can get a 100 ton payload into orbit with 1/8th the part count it would take a stock game then yes I use mods and no its not cheating.

[Flixxbeatz]

If someone says that it's bad to use mods and tells to play stock instead, take time to read my signature.

[Rocketscience101]

There are some mods that help you fly the spacecraft, but add no other flight abilities, some make more interesting craft, or add to the difficulty of the game, some make interesting new parts. The only time I consider it cheating, is when you get a mod, that has an engine that doesn't use fuel, and has super power, you are cheating. So no and yes.

[firerider521]

KSP is a game. It's a game the developers have wisely opened up for modding. That said, is the use of mods bad? OF COURSE! You might actually have fun, build a robust and amazing space programme, and enjoy the investment you made in the game as it becomes richer and richer. Therefore, since fun is involved, we'll have none of that!

DANGIT Jack! You just have to screw up the fun again!

[fatfluffycat]

They make the game better, if it wasn't for mods I wouldn't even be playing this game anymore.

[DChurchill]

Can we make one of these threads a sticky so we don't have to have the same argument every week?

[regex]

If you install mods you are clearly a Bad Person and should be ashamed of yourself.

I'm off to launch my Jool Express into orbit using MechJeb.

[SkyRender]

Mods are, in any game, at the player's discretion. For some games they are considered "verboten" under certain circumstances (such as tournaments). Relatedly, about the only way mods can be "cheating" in KSP is if you're doing a challenge that has specified "no mods" or forbids certain mods and you disregard that. And that is the only way that mods can be cheating, because as a sandbox game, KSP lacks any rules outside of the physics under which the game engine operates.

[Tiron]

Well after looking up the stats on a J-2X the other day, I declared that I wanted one...and the friend I was talking to suggested modding it into the game.

Just to illustrate, it produces 1307 KN of thrust (a tad over twice a Skipper's thrust, 193 KN less than a Mainsail), has a vacuum Isp of 448 seconds (Higher than the LV-909's 400 seconds), and weighs 2.47 metric tons (just a tad less than the Poodle's 2.5 tons), giving it a TWR of 55.04 (The mainsail's is 25.5, and an EMPTY RT-10 SRB's is still only 51). It has a diameter of 3 meters, but I'm pretty sure that's the diameter of the bell, and you could probably easily mount it on our "2.5 m" size 2 nodes. Oh and it's gimbled, too.

It looks more or less like an LV-T30 or T45, so you could easily scale one of those up to size 2 and just give it the stats with just a .cfg file edit. With notepad. I'm pretty sure that WOULD be cheating, though...

[Kinglet]

No it's not bad. I use mech Jeb because I'm a terrible rocket pilot but an excellent builder and aircarft pilot?. It's ok to use mods because they are pert of the game. We even have an modding API.

[alacrity]

Kerbal Space prorgram is unique in that the mods play almost as big a part as the core game. Especially during this early alpha stage, they add a tonne of content that the Dev's can pick over for inclusion in the final full release.

From a player side they are piles of new things to play with. Kathane for mining, OrbCon and Extraplanetary for remote building and launches, Nova/B9/KW for new parts, TT for more wheels, Nuke for for smaller parts. And to start the flame war, MechJeb, ORDA, and hyperedit to aid launches, finding orbits, and some gratuitous shortcutting.

I say use the ones you like, but keep an eye on the memory usage of kerbal during load up... too many mods can kill your load, destabilize you game, or crash your mission.

Alacrity

[Captain Sierra]

Oh I sense the hyperedit and mechjeb haters are already on their way. Gotta love MJ. If you've done it once, you've done it a thousand times so why not let mechjeb to the tedious work for ya?

Also, don't forget KSPX. Adds a bunch of parts that are slowly becoming stock. You gotta love a 2.5m NERVA.

[Captain Sierra]

Well after looking up the stats on a J-2X the other day, I declared that I wanted one...and the friend I was talking to suggested modding it into the game.

Just to illustrate, it produces 1307 KN of thrust (a tad over twice a Skipper's thrust, 193 KN less than a Mainsail), has a vacuum Isp of 448 seconds (Higher than the LV-909's 400 seconds), and weighs 2.47 metric tons (just a tad less than the Poodle's 2.5 tons), giving it a TWR of 55.04 (The mainsail's is 25.5, and an EMPTY RT-10 SRB's is still only 51). It has a diameter of 3 meters, but I'm pretty sure that's the diameter of the bell, and you could probably easily mount it on our "2.5 m" size 2 nodes. Oh and it's gimbled, too.

It looks more or less like an LV-T30 or T45, so you could easily scale one of those up to size 2 and just give it the stats with just a .cfg file edit. With notepad. I'm pretty sure that WOULD be cheating, though...

Hmmmm. Do it! That sounds like a great engine to have. All the power, higher efficiency. I'm sure the LV-T30 could serve as a placeholder until someone can model a proper one. I dunno about you but I'm making that part. Sounds like an awesome thing to have.

[Helix935]

it isn't because this is a single player game and not only that but Squad even supports modding so have at it because i use lots of mods especially mech jeb which i use not because i am a crappy pilot but i suck at docking and coincidentally landing

[HeadHunter67]

Everyone should have the right to play the game however they see fit. It's not a competitive multiplayer game, it's a single player sandbox.

[MacJeb]

this game needs to be more rewarding, there should be something more to do than just launch things into orbits and say {yey cool it's in orbit!}, and some mods add things like resource management, upgradeable parts, etc, you get the point

[Monkeh]

I would say that some mods could be considered bad if they diminish the gaming experience. When I landed on the Mun for the first time it was exhilarating as I got a HUGE sense of aachievement out of it. I was so proud. If mechjeb did it for me I would have been all...ok...well that was easy?

Best bet I feel is to play without mods, achieve a few things and then if you get bored add whatever you like to your experience. You can always delete any mods after all.

[Hannu]

Of course it is OK to mod Mainsail to J2's performance values, if you feel that game is more fun then. But you should notice that Kerbol's solar system is much smaller than our and delta-v requirements are much smaller. Therefore ISP values are smaller and there are also other modifications to real physics. It would not be very challenging to visit any celestial bodies if you increase performance so much. In my opinion KSP have excellent balance in difficulty. There are suitable bodies for beginners (Mün, Minmus), mediums (Duna, 3 smallest Jool's moons etc.) and very skilled players which push their ships to limits of available parts and game's physics engine (Eve).