Is there interest in a compatibility chart/matrix?

[linuxgurugamer]

Being a newcomer to this game, the number of mods is rather overwhelming.

Being a logical sort of person, I started to make a small matrix of various mods. This because some mods are apparently incompatible with each other.

However, before I get too far, I'm wondering if there is interest in creating an overall matrix, showing what mods are compatible with each other. I'd be asking for input from people as to which mods they have installed with each other.

Initially, to keep it simple, I would be doing it for two installed mods at a time only. I do realize that some mods require others, so those would be counted as a single mod for the purpose of this matrix.

So, if you could answer the poll below, I'd appreciate it.

The information I would be asking for (initially) would be something like:

1. Level (beginner, intermediate, advanced)

2. First mod name

3. Second mod name

And along with that, a comment as to whether you would like your userid included in the list of contributers or not.

From looking at Curse, it appears that most of the other information I would want to include in this is available there.

If this has already been done, please let me know so I don't duplicate anyone else's work.

[RoverDude]

Can you provide examples of mods that are incompatible? Because in my experience incompatibilities are extremely thin on the ground.

[linuxgurugamer]

I don't have them, but I read about a few.

If there aren't any, then great, and I won't have to do this.

[linuxgurugamer]

I was looking at your Umbra Space Industries mods.

very nice, but is there a reason you aren't uploading to Curse?

[RoverDude]

I was looking at your Umbra Space Industries mods.

very nice, but is there a reason you aren't uploading to Curse?

[linuxgurugamer]

Well, one of the things I was reading was from the "Better Than Starting Manned", which he specifically says:

"BTSM is intended to be played alone.Thus, I do not offer support for playing it alongside other mods, nor can I vouch for the overall gameplay experience should you decide to install other mods alongside it. Overall, BTSM is intended to provide a tight, balanced, focused gameplay experience, not a broad one, or one that is open to a large number of player options."

So, I assumed (maybe incorrectly) that not all mods were compatible with each other.

[Ippo]

This is never going to work. There are easily 500 mods, so your matrix would have 250000 entries. The only way to do it is by limiting the entries, and at that point it's not very useful anymore.

[godarklight]

I should probably mention that CKAN should take care of this, their metadata format has a conflicts entry: https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/blob/master/CKAN.schema#L103-L106

Of course that only works for mods that support CKAN

[Xaiier]

Well, one of the things I was reading was from the "Better Than Starting Manned", which he specifically says:

"BTSM is intended to be played alone.Thus, I do not offer support for playing it alongside other mods, nor can I vouch for the overall gameplay experience should you decide to install other mods alongside it. Overall, BTSM is intended to provide a tight, balanced, focused gameplay experience, not a broad one, or one that is open to a large number of player options."

So, I assumed (maybe incorrectly) that not all mods were compatible with each other.

You assumed wrong. Almost every mod is compatible with every other mod, the few exclusions being two mods which might do the same thing or change something another mod relies on. What is meant by BTSM is that it is not balanced to work with other mods, and that you can do so at your own risk of making the game very imbalanced. It's just a general warning to let people know so they don't post stuff like "This mod and x mod make it super easy to do y you should fix that"

[kerbiloid]

I have ~1200 mods in my downloads. And ~200 of them are still relevant now.

It would be enough large matrix.

In most cases as I can see, there are five main kinds of incompatibity:

1) Several mods eat too much RAM together  and no matter which mods exactly, you can just throw out any of them which you prefer.

2) An old mode uses an old version of a shared dll, but you can't have two dll versions at once.

3) An origin and a fork of some mod are used at once and interfere each other. A rare situation, as usually forks are a kind of old mod reborn.

4) Novice modder gives the same name to a part as in another mod or stock. Enough rare and enough hard to be located.

5) Different mods use the same resource name with different resource definitions.

Mostly incompatibilities are between a mod and KSP version, but that's another tale.

Edited November 27, 2014 by kerbiloid

[Diazo]

Note that there are two definitions of incompatible in play here.

In the OP, I think he's talking about mods that are compatible code wise but try to do the same thing.

For instance, my vertical velocity mode and mechjeb are "incompatible" in that they both give you landing control for your skycranes. They run perfectly fine and throw no errors if they are both installed, but they are incompatible from a gameplay perspective as if they are both engaged they will fight each other for control. (I'm not sure exactly what would happen, but it would be very Kerbal.)

Most of the rest of the thread is talking about code compatibility. Under that standard my vertical velocity mod and mechjeb are compatible as they run perfectly fine installed side by side.

Having said that, I don't think the matrix the OP talks about will be very useful. Due to how modding in KSP works, pretty much everything will load when installed together (until you hit the memory limit), so it is really a gameplay question that each player will have to ask himself.

"Does this specific mod make KSP funner?"

D.

[linuxgurugamer]

Well, since all the comments are essentially to NOT do this, and the poll results are overwhelmingly against, I'm not going to do it.

Thank you for your inputs