When do you consider quick save editing acceptable (as in, when is it not cheating)?

[Inchoately]

I only considered/done it after discovering the various docking bugs (cannot undock after docking to "debris" with no probe/pod attached and then docking it to my space station, or no magnetism of the docking ports at the first docking). Then I learned how to prevent these bugs (magnetism bug -> no quicksave/quickload right before docking; undocking bug -> decoupling my spacecraft 1 second before docking the module to the other part).

My habit right now is to quicksave every few minutes before docking, but after some practice with manual docking by "eye-balling" (not setting the target at the docking port and not using the navball) I start to consider it also as cheating for myself...the reward of docking a perfectly aligned module to my space station (every module exactly 90 degrees to the core and so on) is just too big I guess.

[PTNLemay]

Folks, read the thread title. This is about manually editing your quicksave.sfs or persistence.sfs file.

I feel I should have put the edit part in bold all caps or something, lol. It's too easy for people to jump to the assumption that I just mean quick-saving in general.

[The Jedi Master]

I would only do it if the game destroyed my save. Even then, I fear that I might mess it up and make things worse...

[Levelord]

I find these sorts of threads dubious because it asks a trick/loaded question. Even when there's a legitimate reason to edit a savegame file, the thread basically implies that if you do, you are admitting "yes I'm a dirty cheater" when it isn't the case. The wording alone in the poll affects the amount of votes certain categories get simply by guilting people into voting one thing or another.

[Hannu]

In my opinion unacceptable cheating is something in which you try to get wrong benefit from another people. So, if you do not have some kind of competition with defined rules, you can make what you want. I have edited save files some times after bugs in game have destroyed my crafts. For example in version 18 orbits flipped sometimes 180 degrees and spacecraft was suddenly on retrograde orbit. I could fix it. But sometimes I have had bugs on surface, which I could not have fixed even I tried. My most common editing is such, that I make a copy of save file before I start for example landing to planet. Then I use quicksave, but can revert to previous time if I need by just copying old file back.

But it is just my personal way to play. If someone else wants to create something by editing files or using hyperedit -mod or whatever, it is not stealing from me and I do not say that it is not acceptable. Or if someone think that I am cheater because I play with my way, I do not care about that. After all, KSP is just a game, harmless fun without side-effects.

[PTNLemay]

I find these sorts of threads dubious because it asks a trick/loaded question.

I tried to make as clear as possible this was about personal opinions, and not as a debate to set up semi-official rules. It's not meant to be in the sense of "Everyone who does this is a cheat in my book!" but more "I personally don't play that way because I'd feel like I would be cheating".

Plus, there's nothing wrong with a bit of controversy and healthy argumenting.

[DChurchill]

The only time it's possible to cheat in this game is when you are in some sort of competition with clearly defined rules, such as a challenge. Anything else is opinion.

That being said, I voted for the last one: Whenever I want, it's just a game! The only time I've ever edited a persistence file was to change the names and plaques on a couple flags and once to remove an unwanted part for a station I didn't feel like reconstructing, but if I ever felt the need to change it for something else, I would in a heartbeat. Like I said: competitions are an entirely different matter. You need to respect the rules of the challenge, or stay out.

[SuperWeegee4000]

The only time I ever edited the persistence file was when I accidentally cut off the electric flow to my rover's probe core. What does that count as?

[Geschosskopf]

NOTE: I use quicksave and revert all the time so ain't criticizing. But this poll makes me chuckle to myself.

I mean, you can't have a saved file to edit without using the quicksave feature in the 1st place and that feature can, in a nit-picking, pedantic way, be considered a form of cheating in and of itself, because it's not available in real life (I wish it was). So if you're already a "cheater", why not go whole hog and edit the file, too?

I also find it funny seeing people say they'd use revert or F9, or tweak a file, or use whatever mod, in some situations but not others, and then try to explain why doing so isn't "cheating" in those cases but is "cheating" in others. Come on, people. We all know that all such things are various ways to get around playing the hand that Fate dealt you, whether the problem was a buggy base game, a buggy mod, operator error, or just the game's lack of built-in flight instrumentation forcing you into pure trial-and-error for some of the most critical of maneuvers. There's no moral difference in any of this. So just accept the fact that we all "cheat" on a routine basis and get on with enjoying the game however you want to play it, and don't judge others .

I will close with a couple of real life examples where I bet everybody involved wished they'd had a quicksave file to edit or even a "revert flight" button. Both fails were caused by simple, easy-to-fix errors, along the lines of KSP's "Oh crap, I forgot the fuel lines!" .

Mars Climate Orbiter

The Gimli Glider

[Levelord]

I tried to make as clear as possible this was about personal opinions, and not as a debate to set up semi-official rules. It's not meant to be in the sense of "Everyone who does this is a cheat in my book!" but more "I personally don't play that way because I'd feel like I would be cheating".

Plus, there's nothing wrong with a bit of controversy and healthy argumenting.

This 'controversy', ( like the request for multiplayer) has been discussed to death and already has been answered countless times. So unless the thread brings something new to the table it is just another pointless attempt at peer pressuring people to play the game in a certain way by trying to compare people against one another.

Rules are determined by the player playing the singleplayer game so there are a multitude of reasons for changing the save file, but the wording on your poll doesn't reflect that. When you place (when it's not cheating) you're already inserting your own opinion on what 'cheating' is, which none of us know where you set the bar at. How in the world will you know if the poll is accurate when you don't set a baseline on what you consider 'cheating' in order to get reliable results? It's a biased spectrum starting with the 'saintly purist' to the "I know I'm 'cheating' and I'll continue to do it because I don't care about my game" routine, which affects the voting behavior, which means some of the responses are not genuine and purely made to satisfy your vague definition of 'cheating' and which in turn makes the discussion pointless.

[PTNLemay]

So unless the thread brings something new to the table it is just another pointless attempt at peer pressuring people to play the game in a certain way by trying to compare people against one another.

Really I just wanted to know the ratios (hence the poll). If the people who play the game (or at least the people who play the game and visit the forum) are more purists or more casual.

[Guest]

Really I just wanted to know the ratios (hence the poll). If the people who play the game (or at least the people who play the game and visit the forum) are more purists or more casual.

It's a valid question for sure and evidence suggests there's room for opinion topics on the KSP forums.

Edited August 28, 2013 by regex

[magnemoe]

has never thought about editing an savegame, yes it might be nice if you discover an serious fault like put the decopler the wrong way so it block the lander engine then you arrive at Eeloo, however I would probably used hyperedit to put it in Eeloo orbit.

Use hyperedit a lot for testing, has dropped more than 50 landers on Eve the last week, ended on an 13 ton design, still some more runs to check that it works all the time.

Then its Tylo landers.

[katateochi]

I first misinterpreted this thread as asking when do you consider quicksaving acceptable, my brain missed the quicksave editing point!

I used to do more quicksave editing in the past, as a remedy for game issues, but I've not had to do that in a while now. Does the OP consider hyper-edit as being a quicksave edit, or is this about manually hacking on your .sfs? (which in itself requires a modicum of skill).

The one time I have needed to do manual QS edits while on an actual mission was during my Grand Tour. I really wanted to keep the mission time for the entire mission, but my GT craft had a lander and an orbital section and docking and undocking would result in the mission time being reset. When I undocked the lander from the orbital section the mission time would get reset on the lander and then depending on fuel levels when I returned it would sometimes inherit the original time from the orbital section, sometimes not. So after redocking I would save and then put back the original start time from when I launched. I certainly didn't consider that to be a cheat.

[DChurchill]

Really I just wanted to know the ratios (hence the poll). If the people who play the game (or at least the people who play the game and visit the forum) are more purists or more casual.

It's just that there seems to be a thread or poll every week about "Is X cheating?" and it almost always devolves into name-calling and bad feelings.

[Guest]

It's just that there seems to be a thread or poll every week about "Is X cheating?" and it almost always devolves into name-calling and bad feelings.

That's because people don't read. OP has clearly asked "When do you consider X cheating?"; a much different question than "Is X cheating?". It's the difference between "What is your opinion on the subject?" and "Are you butthurt about how other people play the game or perceive how you playing the game?"

[SuperWeegee4000]

The only time I ever edited the persistence file was when I accidentally cut off the electric flow to my rover's probe core. What does that count as?

I was just wondering. ;n;

[leax256]

reason 1 for quick save editing, renaming kerbals without mods.

[SaturnVee]

I recently started using quick-saving to test altitudes for aerobraking in certain atmospheres. I also use it sometimes when landing things at my Mun base, I'm a bit of a perfectionist with the positioning of units, and it's boring as hell after making hundreds of trips to the Mun. I don't think it's cheating no matter how much you use it, but there is a special feeling you get after completing a mission in one smooth go as opposed to a quick-save or two.

[Aragosnat]

When ever I feel like there is a need to do so. Mainly for places like Moho or Eeloo. Those hard to plan for places or when I'm trying something new.

[iStickyDuck]

I would like to play without ever having to quicksave but my skills are somewhat lacking so I find that if I don't then whatever I'm doing ends rather quickly...

[DChurchill]

That's because people don't read. OP has clearly asked "When do you consider X cheating?"; a much different question than "Is X cheating?". It's the difference between "What is your opinion on the subject?" and "Are you butthurt about how other people play the game or perceive how you playing the game?"

Honestly, I don't see much difference with regard to the whole subject of cheating. Regardless of the intent of the post, it still involves opinions and generally goes south. There's no real difference between "When is . . .?" and "Is . . .?" There may be shades of grey between "Never" and "Anytime I want" but essentially it's the same thing. Even if the poll is an "Is" or "Isn't" trying to be a black and white question there are always shades of grey. "I use Mechjeb to X. Anything else is cheating." How is that different than "When is using MechJeb (or whatever we happen to be arguing about) cheating?"

And I did not have sexual relations with that woman: Miss Lewinsky.

Edited August 29, 2013 by DChurchill

[Guest]

Honestly, I don't see much difference with regard to the whole subject of cheating. Regardless of the intent of the post, it still involves opinions and generally goes south. There's no real difference between "When is . . .?" and "Is . . .?"

You don't see the difference between asking for an opinion and asking whether something is true? All those years staring at code must have literally made me ... literal

Also, it's not "when is..." but "When do you consider..."

And I did not have sexual relations with that woman: Miss Lewinsky.

I, too, am not a crook.

[DChurchill]

Also, it's not "when is..." but "When do you consider..."

What's the difference? The answer to either question is somewhere between always and never and require the opinion of the answerer. The only difference I see is semantic.

But we digress from the topic.

[Dunbaratu]

It's not cheating if the problem that caused the crash in the first place was a game bug rather than player error. The only time I used file editing to avoid a crash is when the crash was caused by the first iteration of the Cupola modules being buggy. (The bug, as I understand it, is that the velocity information for Cupola command modules didn't always load into memory in quite the right way when you switched to a vessel from the tracking station. The physics engine incorrectly believed the cupola's velocity differed from the parts it was attached to by thousands of meters per second, causing an instant fatal "collision" between them.)

Using file editing to undo the program's incorrect behavior is not cheating because in a sense, the player is trying to correct the fact that the PROGRAM cheated. Every sport in the world has some sort of a mechanism for the referee to declare that when one side broke the rules in order to score a point, the point is null and void and didn't officially happen.

One thing I'm a bit worried about for the upcoming Career Mode is that while the ability to quicksave and file edit are currently justified by the argument "it's just sandbox so it's okay", that's not the only reason it's okay. It's also okay because you can lose your work due to a bug that's not your fault. If such bugs still exist when Career Mode is ready, and the ability to quicksave and restore goes away and is replaced with pure permadeath techniques, there will be no recourse when the space kraken ruins your entire campaign by bankrupting your space program unfairly. This will cause players to be a lot MORE pissed off by Kraken-like bugs than they currently are.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Steven Mading