Clipping: is it cheating?

[r4pt0r]

i personally never let parts clip inside other parts. might explain why i've never been past Dres. i see people putting white tanks along the sides of orange tanks, allowing for an impossible volume, and view that as cheating. thoughts?

(this is of course assuming you can cheat in a single player, alpha, basically sandbox game.)

[DisarmingBaton5]

Clipping parts into impossible places I take as cheating, but using part clipping for aesthetic or proper functioning (as in attaching jet engines side by side or creating engine clusters) is fine by me. It really depends upon the circumstances.

[dudester28]

I suppose that part clipping can change the shape of the rocket but not the overall mass so it doesn't really give any advantages. I am going to say no. Anyways, I usually just enable it when I am unable to attach a part to a place I think I should be able to.

[PDCWolf]

If it's to avoid the game's own faults (like things that should attach but won't attach for a reason), or if it is for engine clusters I really don't mind. Now, seeing intakes clipped through wings or stacked into each other or intakes not going directly to an engine (as 5 intakes for a single engine with no air-path to be seen) makes me look the other way.

Edited November 10, 2013 by PDCWolf

[Hodo]

It depends on the clipping to me. If you are clipping to gain an advantage by abusing a bug then it is cheating. If it is purely for aesthetic reasons then it is fine.

I like, I personally find the 40+ RAM intake stock SSTO monsters that wouldn't come near working in a realistic environment to be absolutely hideous and pretty much cheats. But others find them to be completely fine and valid forms of gameplay. Others consider using any plugin what so ever a cheat, while others consider certain plugins cheats and others still who consider nothing out of bounds.

It honestly comes down to the person playing the game.

[astropapi1]

If you clip a tank into each other, you still get the mass, drag, etc. of the two tanks.

What would you prefer. Mulbin's Munbug, or somebody's ugly-as-hell asparagus monster? Remember, Mulbin still has to take up all that weight and drag from every single part he uses. It's all about rearranging the parts for aesthetics.

[r4pt0r]

does drag affect parts under parts? then nosecones dont help i assume? i notice my air intakes dont work if the airflow is blocked by something

Edited November 9, 2013 by r4pt0r

[Specialist290]

Under stock aerodynamics, drag is applied to each part regardless of whether it's actually exposed to airflow.

[astropapi1]

does drag effect parts under parts? then nosecones dont help i assume? i notice my air intakes dont work if the airflow is blocked by something

They help keep your rocket pointed in the general right direction because of their low drag, but their mass just doesn't make up for it. I use them for aesthetics.

Anything that makes stuff like this possible doesn't deserve to be called cheating.

[jordanjay29]

(this is of course assuming you can cheat in a single player, alpha, basically sandbox game.)

Eh, that's pretty much what I think. If someone wants to do that and feels it's legitimate for their game, more power to them. For me, I'd rather mod my game to get the parts I need, and that's another view of cheating. Honestly, unless you're trying to share these designs, I don't even think it's an item for discussion. There is no right or wrong way to play KSP (assuming you understand the mechanics of gameplay), you just play how you want.

[Whatshtisthis]

I mostly use it for aesthetics and putting parts where the game thinks shouldn't be able to be attached to, but in actual fact it should attach.

[Jarin]

I'm of the opinion that it's not really cheating for anything but air intakes. You want that much air? Stack 'em out sideways and figure out a proper framework. Everything else doesn't affect actual mechanics to matter much. Like others have said, you're still carrying all that weight.

Granted, "cheating" leads to some really damn pretty SSTO planes, so it's not a huge negative.

[RocketPilot573]

I'm fine with using clipping for aesthetics, but using it in impossible ways (such as putting tanks completely inside each-other) is cheating.

[LtHeckard]

Honestly, in my opinion, no.

[LeFudge]

I dont think it really matters if you put fuel tanks inside each other, no different than putting them side by side, also it causes fuel flow problems sometimes so it can be a bigger pain than help if you dont know what youre doing

[Brotoro]

Sometimes the VAB lets me clip parts together in amazing ways, so I don't see anything wrong with a little extra clipping...especially if it's to make things look cool and get around limitations of the stock parts.

[Commander Zoom]

Along the lines of what others have said:

When it's for aesthetics, no. When you start putting fuel tanks inside of others, saving volume if not mass, then... you're on shakier ground, IMO.

Recently I was tempted to solve a problem (a craft's center of mass shifting as fuel is burned) by clipping nuke engines up into the fuel tanks supplying them. It looked good and worked great... but it meant that I was getting the occupied volume for "free", and I knew it wasn't supposed to be like that.

[OrbitusII]

I generally don't use clipping unless necessary (i.e. a part won't attach when it should) because I don't need to clip parts to get my designs to work.

[CalculusWarrior]

I generally think of part clipping as the staff in the VAB breaking out their trusty hacksaw and cutting apart the various pieces. It seems like that's something my space program would do, so I'm fine with it.

[AlternNocturn]

If it is, then call me a dirty stinkin' cheater. It's fun and it makes the normally ugly rockets in this game look about 100x better.

[rpayne88]

I'm not going to answer because you don't have a third option. I would say that clipping fuel tanks or engines into others is cheating. But clipping parts that you could put there IRL is not. Think of it this way, if you were designing a space craft, would you leave batteries, autopilots, life support, communications, and what not hanging on the outside. I wouldn't. But part clipping to get twice the fuel capacity for the same volume, is, in my opinion, cheating.

[boxman]

i personally never let parts clip inside other parts. might explain why i've never been past Dres. i see people putting white tanks along the sides of orange tanks, allowing for an impossible volume, and view that as cheating. thoughts?

(this is of course assuming you can cheat in a single player, alpha, basically sandbox game.)

Personally I dont see it as cheating as long as it is done aesthetical reasons.

If it makes the gameplay easier then i personally would define it as cheating.

But even if people do it for "cheating" reasons I dont really mind it as long as that is what makes the game more enjoyable for them.

[ttnarg]

Yes. But that dose not keen its a bad thing. It's like using an over powered mod. It changes the game but as it is single player it your call on how you want to play it.

[SkyRender]

I personally don't do part clipping, as for my own play-style it is cheating. That said, I don't begrudge others for their choices in single-player games and encourage them to do whatever it takes to make a game enjoyable for them; if that means part clipping, more power to them. So my answer is both yes AND no, depending on which viewpoint you're asking about.

[Torham234]

Yup, I consider it exploit in pretty much any situation, except in very obvious cases, like trying to attach that bloody Tail. Its not as bad as Mechjeb though!

What?! I just got out of bed and I am cold! I think this thread needs a bit more heat....