A statement on part clipping

[Killerdude8]

I readily abuse Part clipping on a Regular basis, I get to build the rockets I TRULY want and I enjoy the game more because so.

It's not even Cheating either, Cheating would be clipping the parts and making them weightless, but you still have to lift their mass of the pad!

[Jouni]

I'm afraid that you can't really do the maths like that. Kerbal uses non-linear scaling for it's components and lines of components in real life have no direct relation to the lines of components in KSP.

TL;DR: LFB got nothing to deal with Mainsail, nor KS-25x4 got to deal with Skippers.

The point was that the Mainsail is pretty much what the Kerbal equivalent of the F-1 engine would be, and the Skipper is close to the Space Shuttle Main engine scaled down to KSP scale. Maybe the Skipper should be a bit more efficient, and the Mainsail a bit less efficient, but they obviously perform the same roles. Now, if we have something that's essentially a cluster of two Mainsails or a cluster of four Skippers, it won't make any sense to make them too different from the individual engines. Maybe the engines in the clusters should have a bit higher TWR and Isp to account for further developments, but they should still be essentially the same engines.

Another point was that the SLS is going to be a similar design as the Space Shuttle: big powerful boosters and weak efficient main engines. The LFB and the KS-25x4 are supposed to be SLS engines, but they don't feel like that.

[Umlüx]

CLIP ALL THE THINGS!!

no, seriously. clip them!

it's a game and if a certain aesthetic which is only possible through the means of clipping floats your boat, then do it. i know i do it.

[RoboRay]

The ARM parts are based off of NASA's SLS (Space Launch System) which, in reality, is going to be the worlds MOST POWERFUL ROCKET EVER BUILT.

...

if anything, STOCK is underpowered compared to what NASA gave Squad to give us with 0.23.5. its apples to oranges honestly

The most powerful rocket in the real world. KSP isn't real world, and rockets designed around the real world are overpowered for the compact, extraordinarily dense world of KSP (as previous mod examples like Bobcat's Jool V have so clearly demonstrated). If you put an oranges rocket in an apple world (like the SLS parts do), they are imbalanced.

[Voculus]

After the game loads, and I can see the space center, the very first thing I do is turn on clipping before I ever click on the VAB or SPH. I'm proud to be a part of the glorious part-clipping master race, and not one of the dirty 100% stock/never clip and suffer for it peasants!

[MR4Y]

Part clipping serve asthetics, when it's not a paliative for the broken system of part tree attachment, like it happens with KSP.

[smart013]

Honestly, WHERE in the world ARE these people that accuse others of cheating? Here in the forums? Reddit? At home, at school? Ok, the occasional everyone-posts-the-same-"i never use mechjeb"-story happens, but thats about it. Where are these competitive, strictly stock, everything else is satanic people that shout "i accuse you of cheating"? Never happened to me, so is this a question of age or social surroundings?

Thanks, i needed that

[jmiki8]

Why would be clipping a cheat? All of us DO use it, even if it's not turned on, as a bug still allows it in some ways. Then why not turn it on and be happy?

[WillHop]

Part clipping is a great thing. 99% of the magnificent designs found on the forum have been made using part clipping and aesthetically speaking it really brightens up the game.

[r4pt0r]

Honestly, WHERE in the world ARE these people that accuse others of cheating? Here in the forums? Reddit? At home, at school? Ok, the occasional everyone-posts-the-same-"i never use mechjeb"-story happens, but thats about it. Where are these competitive, strictly stock, everything else is satanic people that shout "i accuse you of cheating"? Never happened to me, so is this a question of age or social surroundings?

Thanks, i needed that

just to clarify a few things, mechjeb is cheating, and if you can make an ssto because you have 10 orange tanks hidden inside 1 orange tank, thats cheating too. yes you still have to lift its mass, but you should need to worry about size. something like that should be as long as a train but you compact it like that and it changes the handling of the craft. any craft i see that abuse clipping like that i immediately disregard. ive never used the debug menu and i never plan on it.

[RoboRay]

Cheating!

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But seriously... you just cannot build things like this without some minor part clipping.

Edited July 9, 2014 by RoboRay

[Master Tao]

Why would be clipping a cheat? All of us DO use it, even if it's not turned on, as a bug still allows it in some ways. Then why not turn it on and be happy?

I actively avoid even non-debug clipping. You lose one massive space-station to phantom forces because the solar panels clipped together...

There is no cheating. There are only things you allow or forbid in your own game.

[Lilleman]

My rockets just tend to explode on launchpad when I use part clipping, so I don't consider it an effective cheat...

[Rus-Evo]

I make RTGs flip inside large SAS pieces, but I consider these to be hollow.

[Superfluous J]

Honestly, WHERE in the world ARE these people that accuse others of cheating? Here in the forums? Reddit? At home, at school? Ok, the occasional everyone-posts-the-same-"i never use mechjeb"-story happens, but thats about it. Where are these competitive, strictly stock, everything else is satanic people that shout "i accuse you of cheating"?

just to clarify a few things, mechjeb is cheating, and if you can make an ssto because you have 10 orange tanks hidden inside 1 orange tank, thats cheating too. yes you still have to lift its mass, but you should need to worry about size. something like that should be as long as a train but you compact it like that and it changes the handling of the craft. any craft i see that abuse clipping like that i immediately disregard. ive never used the debug menu and i never plan on it.

Found one!

[Blind Dead McJones]

If you're gonna cheat to put 30 fuel tanks in the space of one, you might as well just enable infinite fuel.

[cpast]

If you're gonna cheat to put 30 fuel tanks in the space of one, you might as well just enable infinite fuel.

Not even close. 30 fuel tanks weigh as much as 30 fuel tanks. Infinite fuel weighs as much as 1 fuel tank.

[r4pt0r]

Not even close. 30 fuel tanks weigh as much as 30 fuel tanks. Infinite fuel weighs as much as 1 fuel tank.

and 30 fuel tanks should be as long as a train, and have the design considerations therein.

[cpast]

and 30 fuel tanks should be as long as a train, and have the design considerations therein.

But that's a huge difference from infinite fuel - the hard part is the mass, not the structure.

Furthermore, the notion that "if you do this, you may as well do that" implies there's some sort of objective set of rules, where breaking one is equivalent to breaking any other. Since there is no objective notion of cheating in KSP, and the only rules to follow are those you set down for yourself, it's pointless to say "if you do this, you may as well do that" -- since you only decide for yourself, you may as well go straight to "do neither this nor that" or "do both this and that", without telling others that two different things are logically equivalent.

Edited July 10, 2014 by cpast

[r4pt0r]

But that's a huge difference from infinite fuel - the hard part is the mass, not the structure.

fair point, but again, you should end up with a much longer rocket. cliping to make it shorter makes it much easier to launch and control. it changes your CG

lol seriously, its nice we can carry on this discussion, these things normaly get locked.

[Twreed87]

I'm not really a fan of part-clipping. If the editor allows me to do something, I usually will, unless it looks seriously off, but I never turn it on in the debug menu. There's so much challenge in getting things to fit together properly, turning on some cheat-code that allows me to put things inside of other things seems to just defeat the purpose of it all. That only goes for career though. I have sandbox saves where I do whatever the hell I want. I still don't use part-clipping much, cuz I'm not a fan of the aesthetic really, but I turn on infinite fuel and do crazy stuff all the time.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. KSP is the game you want it to be. Cheating is only a thing if there are rules, which KSP doesn't have. If someone posts a challenge on the forums that requires no part-clipping and no MechJeb, then yes, those things are cheating while competing in that challenge. But in your own game, no, they aren't. I also think they're asterisks on certain accomplishments, when it comes to bragging rights. If someone brags about landing and returning from Tylo, whether they used anything outside of pure, no-debug stock is fairly important. But really, I can HyperEdit my way to Tylo and drive around on it in a rover and I'm not hurting anyone.

[General Rarity]

I'm not really a fan of part-clipping. If the editor allows me to do something, I usually will, unless it looks seriously off, but I never turn it on in the debug menu. There's so much challenge in getting things to fit together properly, turning on some cheat-code that allows me to put things inside of other things seems to just defeat the purpose of it all. That only goes for career though. I have sandbox saves where I do whatever the hell I want. I still don't use part-clipping much, cuz I'm not a fan of the aesthetic really, but I turn on infinite fuel and do crazy stuff all the time.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. KSP is the game you want it to be. Cheating is only a thing if there are rules, which KSP doesn't have. If someone posts a challenge on the forums that requires no part-clipping and no MechJeb, then yes, those things are cheating while competing in that challenge. But in your own game, no, they aren't. I also think they're asterisks on certain accomplishments, when it comes to bragging rights. If someone brags about landing and returning from Tylo, whether they used anything outside of pure, no-debug stock is fairly important. But really, I can HyperEdit my way to Tylo and drive around on it in a rover and I'm not hurting anyone.

^ That's perfect. I think the only cheating is when someone breaks the rules in a challenge, like above. I use mechjeb for delta V calculations, planning maneuver nodes, and rendezvousing (when I'm lazy), and that is 'cheating' to some people. But its not cheating for me, or many people. Personally, I LIKE to know how much delta V I have, and I LIKE having to know where my rendezvous burn is perfect to get a good intercept. Sometimes I'm just too lazy to maneuver this heavy ship into a rendezvous so I let mechjeb do it. That's not 'cheating', that how I LIKE to play the game. As for part-clipping, I use it. I use it because it is one of the many tools I have. I use part clipping to get NERVA's in a nice place, I use it to place stuff inside of 2.5m SAS modules, I use it for many things. I LIKE using it to make my game experience feel better knowing my ship works as good as it looks good.

Now, people say I'm 'cheating' for using tools at my disposal? 'Cheating' because I part clip? 'Cheating' for using a mod anyone can install? It feels like some of the people in this thread don't like people playing the game the way they LIKE.

[Reicht]

I personally don't do it, but I really don't care what someone else does in their game, on the list of things that matter in this universe, the method someone else achieved digital simulated success doesn't even appear. Cheating and hacking are primarily concerns in competitive multi-player games, so if multi-player includes a "capture the flag" mode where each person has a base on an asteroid and you have to be first to get someone else's back to yours I might care, but I still doubt it!

Addendum regarding MechJeb and the like; if real space programs had to fly with a keyboard and mouse alone, and the meters we have available... they'd have a lot more disasters on record.

Edited July 10, 2014 by Reicht

[Whackjob]

I use part clipping often. I don't use mods or debug, but instead kinda "shimmy" them into place, to where the ghost part goes green when it shouldn't. I've made fun stuff that way..

Who hasn't wanted 48,000 thrust in one 'can?

[Dedjal]

Start KSP, load save, open debug menu, enable clipping and then start playing.

I do not use it to stack fuel tanks inside eachother.

I use it to hide RTG's and battery packs mostly.

Purely for astetics.

Never saw any of the shuttles carrying their batteries outside the hull

and when removing parts.