Why the Hate Towards Mods

[Apollo13]

I'm not trying to start a flamewar here. I'm just curious.

Mods come in two basic flavors: Parts and Gameplay. As I read through the forum posts, some players have very definite opinions concerning the use of mods in the game.

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Gameplay. Some folks are concerned that a mod, such as MechJeb auto-pilot (kindling for a flame war), changes the fundamental game dynamics and should not be allowed to anybody. Others view these mods as helpmates which enhance or ease the player's experience. Mods, such as Kerbal Alarm Clock, don't change gameplay; it just helps in the same way that time warping helps.

Imagine how boring gameplay would be if there was no time warping. Yet, warping is built-in. If it were a mod, some folks complain that it changes the game play experience. I believe that if Squad hired more developers, they would eventually develop Kerbal Alarm Clock.

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Parts. "I just use stock parts." How often we've seen statements similar to this. Squad provides quite a nice inventory of stock parts. Yet, this inventory is limited by the number of developers at Squad. These same developers must devote time elsewhere as well, so they can't add more very often. If Squad suddenly expanded its modeling and texturing staff, then more stock parts would be forthcoming.

However, Squad must work within its budget. So, no new hires for new parts. However, Squad has at its disposal, a huge staff of modelers and texturers. And, they work for free. This volunteer staff are individuals who create the mod parts that many of us use. There parts mods cover the gamut from command pods to tanks to engines to...whatever. Other parts mods, like KAS, are unique and very helpful. KAS does change gameplay experience in a subtle way.

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We come now to the crux of the matter. To use mods or not to use mods.

Assume Player NoMod hates mods, won't use them, and doesn't want them available in the game to anybody. Player UseMod uses a variety of mods.

Why does it matter to Player NoMod if Player UseMod uses a mod, especially a Gameplay mod? If a mod enhances or eases Player UseMod's experience, then why does it matter to Player NoMod? For instance, MechJeb auto-docking helps new players who have trouble docking. (On this issue, we often read the smarmy, self-righteous "Learn to do it manually!" or "I docked my first time. It's not that hard." statements.)

If Player UseMod wants to use a mod part, why should Player NoMod care if Player UseMod uses that part? What is it that sanctifies a part if it is a stock part versus a mod part? Stock part, good. Mod part, bad. However, if Squad were to incorporate that mod part into the stock inventory, then it's OK according to Player NoMod.

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IMHO...there is no right way or wrong way to play KSP. Well, actually, there is a right way...YOUR way. Play it the way that makes it fun for you. If you want to use HyperEdit to put every vehicle in space and make perfect landings on Eve, then use it. If you don't want to use mods or a specific mod, then don't bloody use it. Just don't condemn those who do.

Full disclosure: I use mod parts. I use MechJeb to plan, but not execute some maneuvers. I use Maneuver Nodes extensively for planning as well. And...(donning my flame retardant suit now)...I use MechJeb auto-docking to help dock, though I do 90% of the work by toggling auto-dock off and on while using NavyFish's DPAI.

Discuss. Keep it civil.

[trvtannenberg]

Imagine how boring gameplay would be if there was no time warping.

I remember that times.

[Van Disaster]

Obey the rules of challenges. Outside that, there are no rules, only peer pressure. Who's going to let peer pressure get in the way of their fun?

[Simplicity]

To use a mod or not to use a mod.. That is upto the individual player, no-one has the right to tell you whether or not to use them, after all this is a game, some people want more immersion without having to figure out all the manual ways of doing things, others like the immersion of having to do everything by the book..

IT'S UPTO YOU!!!

Let's just all have fun with our Kerbals, whether we use mods or not...

[DerekL1963]

Obey the rules of challenges. Outside that, there are no rules, only peer pressure. Who's going to let peer pressure get in the way of their fun?

The problem isn't, and never has been, 'peer pressure' getting in the way of fun. It's folks intruding on forum threads to inform people that "it's more fun to do it *MY* way" or "if you're doing it that way you're doing it wrong".

[BostLabs]

The problem isn't, and never has been, 'peer pressure' getting in the way of fun. It's folks intruding on forum threads to inform people that "it's more fun to do it *MY* way" or "if you're doing it that way you're doing it wrong".

Last time I checked (I admit it has been a while) that is peer pressure. That has little ability to influence me as I'm an old foggy, but for some of the younger crowd...

Play as you want, mods or no mods, it impacts no one except yourself. Anyone that is saying differently is giving you their unsolicited opinion.

And like any opinion you can either accept it or dismiss it.

Anyone that tries telling me that I'm cheating for using mods is being dismissed. No hard feelings but your opinion isn't any more important than mine.

And, for me, my opinion counts.

Edited September 10, 2013 by BostLabs
Cleaned up formatting with IE.

[Zeblote]

"I just use stock parts."

This. Coming from another game where it's "I'm using only default bricks!"

It's absolutely nonsense. It's like saying "I'm too stupid to enhance my gameplay with those awesome mods and think it's something special to use only boring default things."

[Superfluous J]

More challenge = more respect. If someone tells me they got to Eve and back without MechJeb and using stock parts, I'm more impressed. If they tell me they used Deadly Reentry though, I'm MORE impressed.

So for me (and for many, I think) it's not if you use mods or not, it's what mods you use.

That said, I have a plethora of mods installed including Docking Port Indicator (but not MechJeb) and feel no shame in it. I want to fly my ships myself but I refuse to dock using the default camera and information options. Like an animal would.

I have no problem with others using any mods they choose. But don't expect me to be impressed if you hex edited your base onto the surface of Mun because it wasn't "fun" to figure out how to lift it off Kerbin.

Edited September 9, 2013 by 5thHorseman

[pxi]

I think at the end of the day whether someone uses mods is down to personal preference. The more important issue to me is that people enjoy the game. If that means playing the game vanilla, that's fine, if that means using mod x y and z, that's fine too.

The important question to me is 'did you have fun?' As long as the answer is yes, that's all that matters imho.

The dev's would not have made this game as easy to mod if they did not intend for mods to be created, it's as simple as that.

Of course, then we get to the point of challenges. This is the one place where I think any sense of 'how the game should be played' is valid.

[Van Disaster]

Community respect is just peer pressure in a new label ( obviously unless you're an idiot & attempting to wreck the community ). I couldn't give a monkeys what you think of what I do; if someone likes any idea I have & they go away and have fun with it, that's the satisfaction I get out of sharing.

Terrible english and a nonfunctional hand is not letting me express that properly, but whatever.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Van Disaster

[regex]

Eh, I don't get people who's panties get all bunched up over MechJeb. It's really not any better than doing it yourself and, in fact, is pretty wasteful for many things.

It has a terrible time landing on Duna, when auto-docking it wastes tons of RCS fuel, it can't plot a planetary intercept outside of optimal windows, some of its planned maneuvers are questionable... About the only thing it's good for is performing a long burn and launching, neither of which take a lot of skill to begin with and are both tedious activities. Well, it's also pretty good at landing precisely on a body without an atmosphere, but whatever.

Anyway, when someone tells you that you're not playing the game correctly or that they're more "skilled" than you, or whatever, related to whatever mod you're using, they're trolling.

[KerbMav]

Community respect is just peer pressure in a new label ( obviously unless you're an idiot & attempting to wreck the community ). I couldn't give a monkeys what you think of what I do; if someone likes any idea I have & they go away and have fun with it, that's the satisfaction I get out of sharing.

Terrible english and a nonfunctional hand is not letting me express that properly, but whatever.

Youre point came through.

If someone builds an impressively designed space station and hexes it up into orbit, it still is an impressively designed space station. He wont receive credits in the rocketry department, but he will receive credits at being a skillful architect.

If someone assembles a big interplanetary ship with different landers, probes, satellites ... all well balanced and packed into a sound and functional vessel with cute little gizmos and all, and then lets an autopilot fly it from planet to planet and land the pods etc.: points for engineering ingenuity, though none for piloting.

To invalidate an accomplishment as a whole just for not doing EVERYTHING ELSE the same way as Mr Stock ... those are the people I dearly hope to never have children.

[Guest]

Anyway, when someone tells you that you're not playing the game correctly or that they're more "skilled" than you, or whatever, related to whatever mod you're using, they're trolling.

This sums it all up perfectly.

[lajoswinkler]

I have some mods installed, but whenever I'm doing something serious, I refrain from using them. It adds more challenge.

There are times when I just want to have fun so I use whatever I want. I never save such "missions", though.

[Van Disaster]

I was unaware that the actual, points-scoring game was played by submitting your accomplishments to being judged by an arbitrary unelected mass of random people. I was also unaware that you could have fun or be serious in a game.

This is quality stuff! keep it coming!

Edited September 10, 2013 by Van Disaster

[Kerbart]

The fun of KSP is for a large part overcoming obstacles and meeting (self chosen) mission goals.

Some set those goals tougher than others and will probably think that their achievement of, say, landing on the Mün is not considered that big of a deal because everyone else uses decouplers, or something along those lines.

This is not limited to KSP. In photography you'll see people lament that "back in their day, they had to learn to focus and expose manually" (as long as you're not brewing your own chemicals and grinding your own glass I will not be impressed). And "building a computer from scratch" is also open for discussion ("if you're not etching your own PCB's it's not really home-made").

It shouldn't really be a big deal. As Regex pointed out who cares, and besides that the only things Mech Jeb does better than players with even moderate skills are those things nobody thinks are that hard in the first place. And if you can't Rendez-vous, Dock or Land even if your life were at stake, isn't it nice that MJ can do that for you so you can keep enjoying the game instead of getting frustrated?

For contests it's a different story, lest somebody uses a homemade rocket engine with an ISP of 1,000,000 (both in and outside the atmosphere), 25 MN of trust and weighs less than a ton.

[pxi]

I was also unaware that you could have fun or be serious in a game.

Well I don't know about being serious, but I play every game I play for fun. If it wasn't fun I probably wouldn't label it as a game, I'd probably have to come up with some other term entirely to describe the activity.

[regex]

For contests it's a different story, lest somebody uses a homemade rocket engine with an ISP of 1,000,000 (both in and outside the atmosphere), 25 MN of trust and weighs less than a ton.

I thought that was a requirement of any sort of forum challenge...

[lajoswinkler]

I was unaware that the actual, points-scoring game was played by submitting your accomplishments to being judged by an arbitrary unelected mass of random people. I was also unaware that you could have fun or be serious in a game.

This is quality stuff! keep it coming!

By fun I meant goofing around, trying out new stuff and ideas, and by serious I meant actually trying to make a progress in the game universe.

I resent your tone. Sophisms won't lead you nowhere.

[Haze-Zero]

This is a sandbox.

No mods is basically akin to playing in your sandbox without a plastic shovel or a bucket and that your building your sand-castle all by hand.

With Mods is akin to having that plastic shovel and bucket to build your sand-castle.

If the 6year old kid builds a cute one-story castle without bucket and shovel and does well at it I am impressed.

If the 6year old kid with bucket and sand castle builds a 2 story castle with perfectly shaped towers because he had the bucket to do that with, I am impressed.

The debate over weather having the plastic shovel and bucket is 'fair' is as mature as the two 6 year old's arguing about it.

If I am standing infront of Luxor pyramid in Las Vegas, I am impressed.

If I am standing infront of the Great Pyramid of Giza, I am impressed.

Which one is better? Luxor was made with modern engineering. the Great Pyramid of Giza was made with ancient engineering. Both are marvels of engineering.

If someone in KSP makes a stock shuttle that can launch from launchpad and carry an orange tank to lko, deliver it to a space-station and land back on the runway, I am impressed.

If someone in KSP uses B9 to make a shuttle that can fly from the runway, deliver an orange tank to lko, and deliver it to a space-station and land back on the runway, I am impressed.

Incase you haven't caught my point yet or TLDR, Mods are tools and to view them as anything different is simply immature posturing. Tools fundamentally change the way things are done.

Its what is accomplished with or without those tools that you should be focusing your judgement on, not the fact that its right or wrong to use them.

[Skyrunner27]

"I just use stock parts."

This. Coming from another game where it's "I'm using only default bricks!"

It's absolutely nonsense. It's like saying "I'm too stupid to enhance my gameplay with those awesome mods and think it's something special to use only boring default things."

You're being as bad as those who you are putting down. If you use stupid to describe those who use stock parts you are forcing your game play style on me. Am I an idiot for using stock parts.

[thescientist]

This is a sandbox.

No mods is basically akin to playing in your sandbox without a plastic shovel or a bucket and that your building your sand-castle all by hand.

With Mods is akin to having that plastic shovel and bucket to build your sand-castle.

If the 6year old kid builds a cute one-story castle without bucket and shovel and does well at it I am impressed.

If the 6year old kid with bucket and sand castle builds a 2 story castle with perfectly shaped towers because he had the bucket to do that with, I am impressed.

The debate over weather having the plastic shovel and bucket is 'fair' is as mature as the two 6 year old's arguing about it.

If I am standing infront of Luxor pyramid in Las Vegas, I am impressed.

If I am standing infront of the Great Pyramid of Giza, I am impressed.

Which one is better? Luxor was made with modern engineering. the Great Pyramid of Giza was made with ancient engineering. Both are marvels of engineering.

If someone in KSP makes a stock shuttle that can launch from launchpad and carry an orange tank to lko, deliver it to a space-station and land back on the runway, I am impressed.

If someone in KSP uses B9 to make a shuttle that can fly from the runway, deliver an orange tank to lko, and deliver it to a space-station and land back on the runway, I am impressed.

Incase you haven't caught my point yet or TLDR, Mods are tools and to view them as anything different is simply immature posturing. Tools fundamentally change the way things are done.

Its what is accomplished with or without those tools that you should be focusing your judgement on, not the fact that its right or wrong to use them.

I agree! I also think that mods doesn't change the REAL aim of every decent games: having fun!

[Dunbaratu]

There are some mods that alter game balance and therefore make things harder or easier and are not merely making things more interesting but are in fact altering the difficulty.

This doesn't matter as long as everyone is just playing their own little single player games and not talking to each other.

Where it starts to matter is when people start posting, bragging online about how awesome their accomplishments are. That's when it starts to matter that some of those people are doing it using different levels of difficulty. That's why it matters for challenge threads. But outside of challenge threads and bragging rights, it doesn't matter.

[AlamoVampire]

I love mechjeb and romfarers lazor docking cam, both of which I find ultra useful, and since it seems they (squad) have no intention of adding autopilot, I find mechjeb an absolute necessity. Source: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Planned_features

Bottom of page in red. Real shame if this stays this way but that's why mods are GOOD!!!!

[PotatoOverdose]

Stock parts provide a common frame of reference.

Take an Eve return mission as an example.

One of the most challenging things to do in stock KSP. But it becomes significantly easier with the kethane mod (due to kethane jets), or FAR (reduces global dV requirements for Eve's extremely thick atmosphere), or the hooligan airship mod (which can take you up many tens of kilometers, massively reducing dV requirements).

Those mods (kethane, FAR, airship) are popular, and reasonably well balanced. But they also take much of the challenge out of an Eve ascent, and as such do not have a common frame of reference for comparison with stock eve ascent missions.

Individuals specify that they use stock craft so that there vehicle is compared to other stock vehicles and any suggestions/critiques fall within that envelope. A stock vehicle, a stock solution to a given mission, is usable by everyone regardless of their personal preferences or their PC's specs. Some people have computers and ksp setups that just don't handle running a plethora of mods all that well.