Can you picture this happening in KSP, once Career Mode sets in?

[rodion_herrera]

email convo...

KSP_player: Hi Fu Lang, have you done those Moho mining ops yet? I need them ASAP so I can buy three more LV-N's.

Fu Lang (based in Sichuan Province, China): Yessir, all done! Will email you the persistent.sfs file now.

KSP_player: Great, great, I'm on Paypal now, you're all set...

Fu_Lang: Thank you much!

[Commander Zoom]

Paying other people to play a game for you. Sad.

[rodion_herrera]

Paying other people to play a game for you. Sad.

I agree with you. However, I'm aware that there are some individuals out there who:

a) just don't have the time to do the "nitty-gritty" stuff, but do want to enjoy the game when the career has "evolved" to a point that you already have lots of in-game currency at your disposal. I just wonder, if there would actually be such "gold mining" operations in China I mean, will the average Chinese internet-cafe gamer actually invest in something like this, i.e. purchase KSP, actually learn it (that would be interesting!) enough so they can do "simple", "repetitive" money-making operations like mining, etc.

Just want to jump into a situation wherein they already have lots of cash to spend.

[OtherDalfite]

You could always cheat in career mode, rather than hiring someone to do it for you. Surely someone will make a plugin to allow you to have a near infinite budget, which is kind of dumb, because then you may as well be playing sandbox mode.

[Cryocasm]

cheat engine 6.1 or hyperedit...

[rodion_herrera]

Well you are all thinking that in career mode, that the persistent.sfs would still be in "text" format--what if, to discourage cheating (well there are the HEX editors but that's another story) that Squad changes it to some other proprietary binary save format (I mean specifically, the career data files)...and you can imagine the "average" or "casual" KSP player who doesn't have much time to really play KSP but wants to see "the good stuff" after skipping all through the mundane low-yield and repetitive mining operations...anyways I was just contemplating on it. Keep the opinions coming.

Wait, so you're basically saying that the only time people resort to Chinese-Gold-Mining is when the game has multiplayer, and that cheating in multiplayer is more difficult than cheating in single player...I guess you are right.

[OtherDalfite]

Well you are all thinking that in career mode, that the persistent.sfs would still be in "text" format--what if, to discourage cheating (well there are the HEX editors but that's another story) that Squad changes it to some other proprietary binary save format (I mean specifically, the career data files)...and you can imagine the "average" or "casual" KSP player who doesn't have much time to really play KSP but wants to see "the good stuff" after skipping all through the mundane low-yield and repetitive mining operations...anyways I was just contemplating on it. Keep the opinions coming.

Wait, so you're basically saying that the only time people resort to Chinese-Gold-Mining is when the game has multiplayer, and that cheating in multiplayer is more difficult than cheating in single player...I guess you are right.

Except there won't be multiplayer. The game will remain singleplayer for a VERY long time, and the chances of it ever becoming multiplayer are slim at best. Again, I'm sure someone will crack the code and make some sort of cheat that allows people to do anything they want. And if they don't have the "time" to play career mode, why do it? Sandbox would have everything available to them with no challenge.

[rodion_herrera]

So the scenario I detailed in the first post is unlikely. Got it.

[wbcundiff]

Except there won't be multiplayer. The game will remain singleplayer for a VERY long time, and the chances of it ever becoming multiplayer are slim at best. Again, I'm sure someone will crack the code and make some sort of cheat that allows people to do anything they want. And if they don't have the "time" to play career mode, why do it? Sandbox would have everything available to them with no challenge.

sandbox mode has no challenge? hmmmmm. not sure thats right.

[OtherDalfite]

sandbox mode has no challenge? hmmmmm. not sure thats right.

Sure, getting stuff into orbit can be a bit of a challenge sometimes.

Getting something into orbit on a BUDGET will be hard.

[Stazi]

I can't really see KSP getting "farmers" who sell persistence files. All it would take is one person to upload the file for free and everyone could get it without needing to pay someone else to farm for them. That and it's fairly simple to just edit a file or two and 'cheat' your way through things.

This actually makes me wonder how career mode is going to work with mods, since right now it would be extremely simple to just use mod parts to bypass any research or cost for parts.

[rodion_herrera]

This actually makes me wonder how career mode is going to work with mods, since right now it would be extremely simple to just use mod parts to bypass any research or cost for parts.

That's precisely what happened with the single player campaigns of the early Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games of the early 2000's--people downloaded new weapon mods that had better accuracy, better penetrating power and lots of ammo...thus, they went through campaign in a breeze...but yeah, whole thing becomes pointless.

[Pontiac]

For multiplayer, yeah, mod stuff sucks. However, for single player, it boils down to personal preference. Unless Squad encrypts the career persistence file, and only permits their own components in career mode (Which would, I'm sure, cause one hell of a ruckus) then it'd be just a matter of editing the save file, and that'd be on the players conscious.

[Stazi]

That's precisely what happened with the single player campaigns of the early Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games of the early 2000's--people downloaded new weapon mods that had better accuracy, better penetrating power and lots of ammo...thus, they went through campaign in a breeze...but yeah, whole thing becomes pointless.

Yeah that's pretty much how most games become if they get over-modded. I lost interest in New Vegas and Skyrim because I spent more time testing and creating mods for them than I did actually playing the game.

Since 0.20 was released for KSP I started over fresh and have been avoiding any mods that would make things feel like cheating, like ridiculously efficient engines or parts. I've been sticking with KSPX, KWRocketry, KOSMOS, and MechJeb for 'repeat' tasks like launches of the same module or to test things.

[jwenting]

I can't really see KSP getting "farmers" who sell persistence files. All it would take is one person to upload the file for free and everyone could get it without needing to pay someone else to farm for them. That and it's fairly simple to just edit a file or two and 'cheat' your way through things.

This actually makes me wonder how career mode is going to work with mods, since right now it would be extremely simple to just use mod parts to bypass any research or cost for parts.

there's a lot of people out there who would pay to be the first to achieve something and brag about it...

And they'd not put that save up for free because they don't want others to have the same advantage...