Essential Mods?

[Robotengineer]

I was wondering what people thought of as essential mods? I currently am running a Large amount of mods, and need to narrow them down. Here is the list

.

Toolbar, ATM, AviationLights, BurnTogether, CrewManifest, CustomBiomes, DRE, DistantObjectEnhancement, FAR, Firespitter, Fustek(planning to get rid of), HabitatPack, HGR, HGRTest, RPM w/ MFD, KAS, KSO(and associated plugins), ProceduralDynamics, RealChute, RLAStockalike, Stock rebalance. (did have EVE running BA v4)

So as you can seek have a lot of mods, and have already gotten rid of a lot. Please post your ideas for essential mods. In the poll I will include some of the better known ones for voting. Thank you for your input.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Robotengineer

[CaptainKipard]

I'm not sure why you "need to narrow them down". I'm running about 4 times as many mods as this, although most of them are game-play mods. Why are you doing it?

[Dust]

Including others: Kerbal Alarm Clock (KAC), Kerbal Engineer Redux, Enhanced Navball, Docking Port Alignment Indicator, Editor Part Highlighter, SelectRoot, Environmental Visual Enhancements, and Targetron.

If you need to make room in RAM make sure you're using Active-Memory-Reduction-Mod (TextureCompressor).

[Robotengineer]

Because every other time I revert/Launch/change game menu it crashes, My computer is fast enough, though I think the combo of to many parts mods and to many aesthetics mods is killing the game. I think it was getting Better atmospheres that tipped the scale and caused it to crash a ton more. In the KSP.log it says things like "instantiating 'clouds'" and then just stops and gives me the spinning pinwheel. So I thought that people would have sme good ideas about mods.

[Voculus]

Kethane, B9, and either KW Rocketry or Novapunch. Or both!

[m4v]

It would be best if you didn't use acronyms. I know the first 3 as they are fairly known but the other 3 I don't know them.

[Jas0n]

I use realchutes, procedural parts, B9, Toolbar, Kerbal joint reinforcement, deadly reentry continued, far, kw rocketry, kerbal engineer, kas, alarm clock, intersteller, tac life support, remote tech 2, and steam gauges on a laptop with 2GB of ram. ( yes, I'm trying kill my pc)

[Rassa Farlander]

KW Rocketry

[Robotengineer]

Thanks, as for the acronyms, HGR is Home Grown Rocket parts. KSO is Kerbin shuttle orbiter. RPM is Raster Prop Monitor. Thank you for the input, as it is that I am going to make a new game folder for my regrouped mods, I will try some of these out.

[JokingHinge]

Infernal Robotics

[neamerjell]

Because every other time I revert/Launch/change game menu it crashes, My computer is fast enough, though I think the combo of to many parts mods and to many aesthetics mods is killing the game. I think it was getting Better atmospheres that tipped the scale and caused it to crash a ton more. In the KSP.log it says things like "instantiating 'clouds'" and then just stops and gives me the spinning pinwheel. So I thought that people would have sme good ideas about mods.

You may want to check for an update to the mod that "instantiates clouds" or remove that mod altogether and try again to see if it is the culprit. I've had corrupted and outdated part files do it too. It kind of reminds me of Firefox updates; a new version of Firefox is incompatible with about half of my addons almost every time. It is the same with KSP: mod developers can only react to the version changes after the new version is available, and sometimes the mods are okay, other times they are broken by the new version. Its not the developers' fault, and its not the modders' fault, its just the nature of the beast.

What I'm saying is that it may not even be the fault of your computer. I have a quad core Intel 3.4 GHz CPU and 8 GB of memory and I run 16 mods without any problems. You may try downloading the latest versions of all your installed mods, backup your current game, reinstall the game fresh, then test it stock several times (to rule out your PC), then start adding mods one at a time and testing until it breaks (to rule out the individual mods). Or the fresh install and updated versions of your mods could solve your problem (would mean you had outdated or incompatible mods before).

Hope this gives you some insight on your problem.

[luizopiloto]

Enhanced Navball, Navball Docking, Rasterpropmonitor, Kerbal Engineer...

[CaptainKipard]

OK. Install Active Texture Management, abandon this thread, and go nuts with more mods.

[Vaporized Steel]

How can any mod (not to mention the spare selection that are given in the poll) be essential gameplay wise when the game works fine without them? Please define your meaning of 'essential'

If you find some mods essential to feed your joy and playstyle it will vary completely for everyone. And my idea about modders anyway (selfreflection) is that they would classify several mods similar 'essential' and would be ridiculous to name just one from the list.

My point is, why make a poll about this.

If you want to do something similar make something like a Piping Q&A on a blog of yours or through other means. And redirect us towards it.

[Justin Kerbice]

Mods are only essential to someone according to what he/she wants to achieve and the stock game is not offering this feature (yet).

Someone who like math/physics and orbits, may say Protractor is essential, in the other way, someone who just want to do some "simple" things like switching from one orbit to another in either an efficient way or not, may say Mechjeb is essential.

Someone who is desperate to have some/more accuracy will say TAC/RSS/Realchute/a few more are essentials.

No mods are essential by their very own nature, some will may be merged with stock game as C7 aerospace (not sure of the name, I should just call it "plane parts").

And I just hope some mods will not be made stock (so we'll be forced in one way or another to use them) because just some people (a noisy majority) want's them stock.

(I see I agree with Vaporized Steel on this point)

[FlamingPotatoes]

None, all stock is (Surprisingly) playable.

[Robotengineer]

How can any mod (not to mention the spare selection that are given in the poll) be essential gameplay wise when the game works fine without them? Please define your meaning of 'essential'

If you find some mods essential to feed your joy and playstyle it will vary completely for everyone. And my idea about modders anyway (selfreflection) is that they would classify several mods similar 'essential' and would be ridiculous to name just one from the list.

My point is, why make a poll about this.

If you want to do something similar make something like a Piping Q&A on a blog of yours or through other means. And redirect us towards it.

By essential, I mean extend and enhance the game to make it more fun and add more things to do, i.e what is the point of making a base on another planet with out Kethane except just to do it?

Perhaps I should rephrase it as game-enhancing mods? This thread is meant to be a discussion of what mods enhance the game the most, rather than the term essential.

I apologize for the poor selection in the poll, though since I don't have a blog I figured this would be a simple way to do it.

[Liowen]

Chatterer

No seriously best mod ever!

[neamerjell]

My favorite mods are:

Mechjeb + MechJebAndRemoteTechForAll.cfg

B9 Aerospace

Editor Extensions

KWRocketry

NavBall Texture Export (allows custom navball skins that I can actually read)

Part Catalog

Simple Part Organizer

Procedural Dynamics (wings any size, any shape you want!)

TAC Fuel Balancer

[cooptimo]

This is going to be completely up to the tastes of the end user of course. Flamewars have gone on for some time over various mods as well. But since you asked....

1) MechJeb: Yep I know... leave it be, I like it and make no claim to have the skills others have so please just let it be.

2) Kerbal Attachment System + Kethane: The two of these in unison are way fun. Multiple launches to get refineries and storage tanks in place. EVAs that are all about getting stuff together.. Just a great deal of fun for me.

[SargeRho]

Procedural Fairings, Kethane, Visual Enhancer, Kerbal Attachment System.