Parts clipping - is it immoral?

[Starwhip]

Depends. I don't do anything like 18 fuel tanks clipped into the capsule, but I do clip things like batteries and antennas and wheels and sometimes engines (Bells or small tidbits, not two LV-T45's on top of one another)

And I never, ever use the debug menu.

[Sli 41]

I'm the kind of guy who would go to excessive lengths in order to avoid this just because it feels wrong to have parts clipping.

BUT I learned to live with it, I try to avoid clipping as much as I can just because it looks silly but some clipping will happen. The way I went about it is, you only have a few all purpose parts to work with, and sometimes the arrangement will make it so clipping can't be avoided without significant modification, so it's just a matter of balancing the time you're willing to spend vs how bad it looks. Kerbals don't have the luxury of ordering custom made parts so there's that.

[The Yellow Dart]

I'm the kind of guy who would go to excessive lengths in order to avoid this just because it feels wrong to have parts clipping.

BUT I learned to live with it, I try to avoid clipping as much as I can just because it looks silly but some clipping will happen. The way I went about it is, you only have a few all purpose parts to work with, and sometimes the arrangement will make it so clipping can't be avoided without significant modification, so it's just a matter of balancing the time you're willing to spend vs how bad it looks. Kerbals don't have the luxury of ordering custom made parts so there's that.

That is just about exactly how I feel about it. I'm only engage in light part clipping if I decide that I "ought" to be able to do something, as in the whole custom parts idea. I feel the same way about airhogging, I only place intakes in reasonable places where it looks like it could feed into a jet engine. I also try to place RCS thrusters in places where none of the exhaust nozzles would be blocked by other parts, which can be pretty difficult sometimes when I have a ship literally covered in various gadgets and landing gear and radiators, etc.

[gamowin]

I only consider it cheating if it is used for "cheaty" purposes like air-hogging or stacking fuel tanks inside of each other, I mostly use it for aesthetics so that I don't have random shards of metal jutting out of my craft.

[HarvesteR]

I voted 'Dinosaurs', because I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.

Anyhow, this will soon no longer be an issue. With the offset and rotate gizmos added, plus the longstanding issues with parts that don't attach properly becuase they are just-oh-so-slightly in contact with others, part clipping grew into such a bother that I decided to simply remove it by default. All attachments, as long as you are attaching a part to another part of the ship, are valid. If the ship explodes into a million when you detach, that's a design fault on your end.

Mind though, that allowing attachments isn't the same as enabling the debug cheat. The cheat also allows you to place multiple parts on the same attach nodes. This is still not allowed because it actually adds a good risk of running into big bugs later.

But really, with the new gizmos and construction modes coming, having the game deny a part from being placed just because it's clipping into another was being too much of a restriction to design. What with costs, size, part count and mass limits to deal with, there are quite enough limitations already to contend with.

Cheers

[zarakon]

I do it when it seems reasonable, but I usually just trick the editor and rarely use the debug menu

I like the sound of that Harv

[SpacedCowboy]

"To clip, or not to clip" is no longer the question. But yeah, what does 'Dinosaurs' mean?

[Superfluous J]

Dinosaurs never invented toenail clippers. Duh.

[MarvinKitFox]

I think it is cheating when it defies the laws of real-world physics.

Then the whole of KSP is cheating.

Planetary density 12 time that of lead?

Space capsules that can safely re-enter atmosphere at 80g?

Kerbals that can ride in these capsules, and not turn to goo?

Time-travel loops, called F5 and F9, thereby assuring omniscience and immortality to all?

Kerbals that can ride all the way to Eeloo in a command chair, and not need food,drink or air? Or even a toilet?

In the light of these fundamental violations of real-world physics, what does a bit of matter-matter interpenetration(clipping) matter?

[_Augustus_]

Then the whole of KSP is cheating.

Planetary density 12 time that of lead?

Space capsules that can safely re-enter atmosphere at 80g?

Kerbals that can ride in these capsules, and not turn to goo?

Time-travel loops, called F5 and F9, thereby assuring omniscience and immortality to all?

Kerbals that can ride all the way to Eeloo in a command chair, and not need food,drink or air? Or even a toilet?

In the light of these fundamental violations of real-world physics, what does a bit of matter-matter interpenetration(clipping) matter?

Yes.

I agree.

[dci]

Align RTG unit with fuselage, which means half of RTG is clipped through? Yes, no problem.

Clipping one strut into another to make angled connection? Again, no problem.

Clipping fuel tank into wing? Occassionally no problem, depends of entire spaceplane design.

Clipping smaller tanks into larger ones in stock atmosphere? No, thanks.

[Dakitess]

There is also the possibility to adjust fuel quantity into tanks when they come to penetrate another part. Easy, fair, usefull

But yeah Spam Intake or Fuel Tank duplication are kinda cheat to me. Anyway, it allows some cool stuffs sometimes, when coherence no longer matter ^^

Edited December 3, 2014 by Dakitess

[InterCity]

IMHO, It's not immoral unless you're clipping fuel tanks into fuel tanks into fuel tanks into fuel tanks. After all, in the real world, you can always spare some cash to make that VAB higher (my current biggest problem).

Besides, there is still the weight problem. So it's definitely not cheating. Just making your life easier and your engineering less eyesore.

[Majorjim!]

But really, with the new gizmos and construction modes coming, having the game deny a part from being placed just because it's clipping into another was being too much of a restriction to design. What with costs, size, part count and mass limits to deal with, there are quite enough limitations already to contend with.

Cheers

Thank you so much. I will still turn on the 'mode' (It's clearly not a cheat) that allows two parts to that same node. As this is the last line of defense for restrictions to design. I use it at my own risk.

Edited December 3, 2014 by Majorjim

[djnattyd]

Calling anything a 'cheat' in a single player game is like calling dating 'an affair' when you're not in a relationship.

I part clip all the time, sometimes for aesthetic reasons, sometimes as an exploit. I also use Mechjeb and occasionally infinite fuel... because I can as this is my version of KSP.

[VR_Dev]

I guess my understanding of part clipping is fundamentally flawed. From my understanding I part clip all the time, but I've never toggled the option to allow it. I just use various building tricks to do what I want.

What does turning on "allow part clipping" allow me to do that I can't do already?

Edit: I also have to do a lot of rotate & click before the part turns red. It's a fun mini game I play. Thats how I accomplish a lot of things

Edited December 3, 2014 by clown_baby

[Majorjim!]

Calling anything a 'cheat' in a single player game is like calling dating 'an affair' when you're not in a relationship.

Totally! A cheat is defined as to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage.

Building a complex craft with full clipping on is harder than not using it.

[goldenpeach]

You can't cheat in single player.

though, you can cheat while doing a challenge(or in multiplayer) by going against the rules, but in single player, there is no rules at all.

[Jouni]

You can't cheat in single player.

Of course you can cheat in a single-player game. Even if you cheat only yourself, you're still cheating. Gamers have been talking about cheating in computer games far longer than online multiplayer games have been popular.

[michaelsteele3]

I think you should remove "Dinosaurs" from the poll because more than 1/3 of the voters voted for it.

[zeel]

Anything I can manage without enabling the clipping cheat is fine, using the cheat to put previously working designs back together is fine. Using the cheat in the pursuit of creativity is fine. Starting a game and saying "I will part clip on this one" is like giving yourself super maxed out funds and such on the difficulty screen.

It's only an issue if you are playing with the intent to beat the designated difficulty level, or have not predetermined that it's okay for that particular game.

[Beetlecat]

I think you should remove "Dinosaurs" from the poll because more than 1/3 of the voters voted for it.

But think about why we are voting for it? Because neither of the other two options suits our response.

[Red Iron Crown]

Actually, it's about ethics in part clipping.

[cantab]

I guess my understanding of part clipping is fundamentally flawed. From my understanding I part clip all the time, but I've never toggled the option to allow it. What does turning on "allow part clipping" allow me to do that I can't do already?

It makes part placement consistent. With the debug menu option on a part will either place in any orientation or not place at all, the latter in cases where the part being attached or being attached to does not support radial attachment. With the debug menu off, whether the part can or can't be placed seems utterly arbitrary, as I think everyone here has experienced.

As Harvester has said, .90 will remove this arbitrary behaviour.

[JDCollie]

Of course you can cheat in a single-player game. Even if you cheat only yourself, you're still cheating. Gamers have been talking about cheating in computer games far longer than online multiplayer games have been popular.

No, you can't cheat in a truly single player game.

Consider the context in which "cheating" occurs. The old Interplay game Descent (which is awesome by the way, and available on Steam ) would set your score to zero and display "Cheater" every time you scored points if you entered a cheat code. Think about it: the means by which players could compare their performance was the part of the game 'compromised' by the cheating. I.E., the competitive, non-singleplayer part of the singleplayer game. Cheating existed as a conversation topic long before multiplayer games were popular because comparing yourself competitively with other players has existed long before multiplayer games were popular.

In the context of an entertainment experience with zero competitive relation to other players, tailoring said experience to meet your entertainment goals cannot be considered cheating because, far from harming your enjoyment, it is being enhanced. To claim that tailoring said experience to meet your own needs is "cheating" arbitrarily assigns the developers ethical authority.

We may still call the process of tailoring our experience "cheating" for lack of better vocabulary, but the event holds none of the inherent "wrongness" your usage denotes. Personally, I prefer to call it "having fun."

TLDR: "Cheating" in a single player context falls in exactly the same ethical place as modding.

Edited December 3, 2014 by JDCollie