What engine and tank mods are considered cheating?

[SSSPutnik]

I've expanded the core game with a number of mod addons.

The main parts additions I have added are KW Rocketry, B9 and LLL.

Are any of the parts contained therein, especially nuclear engines, considered cheating as I don't want to be doing that.

The nukes are more powerful sometimes, but they either use more fuel, or weigh more, or both.

Any views on this?

[palker]

Nothing is considered cheating as this is a singleplayer game and if you feel some parts make things to easy do no use them and especially do not let anyone tell you what you should or should not use. Of course if you are doing a challenge you have to abide by its rule. Other than that do whatever entertains you.

[Silverchain]

Most of them, but you're welcome to cheat.

[aeTIos]

The KW and B9 packs are generally considered balanced. The LLL parts, I don't know, maybe those are slightly to the "cheaty" side. Of course you could always build a saturn-v sized launch vehicle to launch your miniscule, 5-ton keostationary comms satellite. Is that also considered cheating? I reckon it's not. Play the game the way you like and have fun

[SSSPutnik]

Some challenges allow mod parts as long as they aren't "cheaty".

Its more those I'm worried about. KW and B9 seem OK, parts are big, but balanced.

LLL has some nice radial engines that most concern me.

[Xetalim]

The only cheaty parts of the game are

non-existant.

Play the game as you want it!

Don't want to pilot?

Use mechjeb!

Don't want to worry about fuel?

Turn infinite fuel on!

Want parts with 9999999999999Isp?

Do it!

[aeTIos]

Some challenges allow mod parts as long as they aren't "cheaty".

Its more those I'm worried about. KW and B9 seem OK, parts are big, but balanced.

LLL has some nice radial engines that most concern me.

LLL's parts are also a bit sci-fi and thus they might be supposed to be a bit on the OP side? I don't know.

[Richy teh space man]

Which parts are 'cheating' is highly subjective. It's down to a matter of personal preference.

[Seret]

Tbh, if you're worried that certain mods won't be allowed for challenges, just keep a stock copy of the game for doing them. That way nobody can say anything about how you did it.

[SSSPutnik]

OK, was more after an opinion such as, "these bits outperform stock parts by an alarming amount". Or, those mods generally scale in terms of stock parts.

[SSSPutnik]

LLL's parts are also a bit sci-fi and thus they might be supposed to be a bit on the OP side? I don't know.

Yes, but that's mostly in look?

[Lack]

I made sure the LLL parts were (mostly) balanced to stock values, a fair number are actually slightly under-powered (e.g. dry mass of fuel tanks). So things like ISP, thrust to weight and utility to weight (e.g. gimbling, heat capacity before overheating or rather lack of thereof) are in line with stock values. Or at least as far as can be, there isn't much standardisation in that department from the stock parts, so I had to go with averages and what felt right. A very boring afternoon spent with a calculator and a spreadsheets that.

There's the odd exception, there's an engine in LLL-Extra (Open-cycle nuclear engine if I remember correctly), that's based off a real-life concept for a nuclear engine (following the typical conversion of RL values to KSP values), but it hasn't been built. But it's an end-game part on the tech tree and weighs about 35 tonnes. Based mostly off the stats here: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php

Like the rest of the LLL-extra parts, that's there because I got bored and wanted to make something interesting.

[SSSPutnik]

Thanks ! This is what I was after, some of the Timberwind project engines look great.

[KhaosCorp]

From Websters:

cheat

verb \ˈchēt\

: to break a rule or law usually to gain an advantage at something

: to take something from (someone) by lying or breaking a rule

Seeing as how KSP is a sandbox game with no rules cheating is actually impossible by definition......

Starting threads like this is just begging to hear the elitist jackasses cry about mods..

[Guest]

Using mods makes you a terrible person and diminishes your achievements. Resist the urge, OP! How can you ever have a signature banner full of impressive accomplishments and call yourself a real player if you use mods?

[Superfluous J]

The only mods that are cheaty are those that are banned by whatever challenge you are doing at that time, and that's only because you're breaking a rule of the current challenge you are doing. Those modes are, in that case, just as cheaty as using stock SRBs if the challenge says "no SRBs." No more, no less.

I second the idea of a second stock game. I have about 5 installs of KSP lying around for various reasons. (The one I play, a stock install, one I use to test certain things, a 0.22 game, and a 0.21 game).

[Captain Sierra]

OK, was more after an opinion such as, "these bits outperform stock parts by an alarming amount". Or, those mods generally scale in terms of stock parts.

KW parts are extremely powerful, simply by nature of being big. That said, the weight of such huge stuff tends to balance out their power. They are balanced to stock standards. Most parts packs really are. As a general rule of thumb, 'cheaty' mods are something you either make yourself or really go digging for. Even still it's a relative term that, in the context of KSP, is a part or plugin that removes effectively all the challenge from the game. A good example would be if you modified a mainsail to give you 50,000 thust and an ISP of 999999. That would consume very little fuel and have enough thrust to break whatever you put it on.

By that definition, who would use that part save for very very lazy trolls? Moral of this pot, you really really gotta go digging to find a genuinely cheaty mod. Beyond that, its purely subjective as some people would consider some of the Novapunch engines to be overpowered, but even still, that's almost more of a situational thing depending on how you build the lifter.

2 more things. LLL is amazingly balanced and is a beautiful pack. Rarely will it be claimed as OP by anyone.

Also, feel free to do multiple installs. I still have my two old ones from .21 and .22 (my .22 was my old .21 stockalike install, the .21 is my old mod heavy install) as well as a pure stock install with KMP (because KMP breaks stuff) that has no additional parts, but many of my dependent plugins, a .23 stockalike install (my main one), and a .23 heavily modded Alternis Kerbol install.

Edited January 18, 2014 by Captain Sierra

[Klingon Admiral]

Most of the KW 1.25m engines are clearly better than the stock ones, the only one I still use is the 909 because of it's low profile. and only then for landers.

[Captain Sierra]

Most of the KW 1.25m engines are clearly better than the stock ones, the only one I still use is the 909 because of it's low profile. and only then for landers.

Which is probably why they make such good Falcon 9 replicas

[m4v]

Most of the KW 1.25m engines are clearly better than the stock ones, the only one I still use is the 909 because of it's low profile. and only then for landers.

If that's what you think then you really didn't do the math, for example in small crafts (1 man pods) you can get more dV with a 909 than with a Vesta because the 909 has less mass. Same thing between the Wildcat and LV-T30, KW parts while usually have higher thrust and sometimes isp are also heavier so which one is best depends of the type of vessel you're building, they are not "clearly better than stock".

Edited January 18, 2014 by m4v

[aeTIos]

Yes, but that's mostly in look?

I made sure the LLL parts were (mostly) balanced to stock values, a fair number are actually slightly under-powered (e.g. dry mass of fuel tanks). So things like ISP, thrust to weight and utility to weight (e.g. gimbling, heat capacity before overheating or rather lack of thereof) are in line with stock values. Or at least as far as can be, there isn't much standardisation in that department from the stock parts, so I had to go with averages and what felt right. A very boring afternoon spent with a calculator and a spreadsheets that.

There's the odd exception, there's an engine in LLL-Extra (Open-cycle nuclear engine if I remember correctly), that's based off a real-life concept for a nuclear engine (following the typical conversion of RL values to KSP values), but it hasn't been built. But it's an end-game part on the tech tree and weighs about 35 tonnes. Based mostly off the stats here: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php

Like the rest of the LLL-extra parts, that's there because I got bored and wanted to make something interesting.

Okay. I was clearly wrong in that case It was just a gut feeling I had, hadn't done any research on the subject, having only used LLL for making futuristic designs that need infinifuel and hyperedit to fly around. You can make some interesting ships with LLL.

[Klingon Admiral]

If that's what you think then you really didn't do the math, for example in small crafts (1 man pods) you can get more dV with a 909 than with a Vesta because the 909 has less mass. Same thing between the Wildcat and LV-T30, KW parts while usually have higher thrust and sometimes isp are also heavier so which one is best depends of the type of vessel you're building, they are not "clearly better than stock".

Well, pretty much to only times when I still use 1.25 engines other than the 909 (I'm not really far in my KW career save, so no nukes just now) are side-mounted liquid boosters. But a different example, the Service Propulsion System beats the Poodle in weight, ISP and TWR (albeit barely in that case). But that might be a problem of the Poodle in all honesty.

[Captain Sierra]

Well, pretty much to only times when I still use 1.25 engines other than the 909 (I'm not really far in my KW career save, so no nukes just now) are side-mounted liquid boosters. But a different example, the Service Propulsion System beats the Poodle in weight, ISP and TWR (albeit barely in that case). But that might be a problem of the Poodle in all honesty.

Let's tell the full story shall we? While the SPS is lighter, it has lower overall thrust and a longer profile, making it good as an SPS, whereas the poodle can be used as a landing engine as opposed to just a CSM motor. The poodle still remains the best in the department of 2.5m landing engines unless you get B9 involved.

[m4v]

Well, pretty much to only times when I still use 1.25 engines other than the 909 (I'm not really far in my KW career save, so no nukes just now) are side-mounted liquid boosters. But a different example, the Service Propulsion System beats the Poodle in weight, ISP and TWR (albeit barely in that case). But that might be a problem of the Poodle in all honesty.

And the Poodle has 20kN more of thrust than the SFS, so unless your payload has less than 0.25t mass, the Poodle will net you more TWR.

[Aghanim]

Using mods makes you a terrible person and diminishes your achievements. Resist the urge, OP! How can you ever have a signature banner full of impressive accomplishments and call yourself a real player if you use mods?

Well that's is ironic considering you make a mod yourself, do you mean part mods?

Of course, the most OP mod ever invented is Impossible Innovations pack