There's a mod for that!

[darkmuminek]

First of all, there are many discussions here whether using mods is fine or not and I don't intend to start another one. Also, don't look at this as a rant or an attack on Squad. I'm just curious about one thing.

Let's say I just started a thread in the suggestions forum saying: "We already have visuals of reentry. It would be great to also have the effects on our vessels.". Let's also say it's the first suggestion of this, so we won't have people shouting: "OMG, USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION NOOB!".

I'm pretty sure one of the first replies would be: "Well you're in luck. There's a great mod called Deadly Reentry that does just what you ask for." And there's more. You want resource mining? There's Kethane and Karbonite. Flight information display? MechJeb, VOID or Kerbal Engineer. More parts? Try the amazing B9 and KW packs. The list goes on...

Now, I'm not against mods. Quite the contrary, I love them and if only a game supports it I download a ton of modifications. However that applies mostly to finished games. With early access we buy games that are still in development and adding features should be the developer's job. Making a game so easy to change by third parties, wouldn't it be treated as an excuse for the devs to postpone new functionalities? Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Squad is doing this, but probably most will agree some features should be made stock a long time ago.

So the main question is: Do you think excessive modding of early access games can slow down the process of development?

[Corw]

Squad has recruited several modders over time and we have seen integration of several mods into the core game, starting long long time ago with plane parts. So modding has improved and speeded up the development of core game. Mods had also provided very good info which features are viable and desirable. There is only hald a dozen of Squad devs and over time probably over hundred modders. So it is actually half a platoon vs army

Devs can only add so much features in given time so your statement "features should be made stock a long time ago" is rather subjective cause HarveseR had other priorities than you which features should be added first. If your list was priority we would be missing something that we have currently.

So no, excessive modding in this case has accelerated the development.

[Kobymaru]

The thing is: I don't think SQUAD themselves ever said "there's a mod for that".

What they did say, however, was "that would not be fun". That included Ressource Mining (they partially changed their mind I think), deadly reentry and even the KER readouts (because the dV numbers basically spoil the early game). Note that I disagree with most of that, but that's what they said.

Other stuff, like Atmosphere always has been on the list. The inclusion of Fine Print and Spaceplane Plus shows that they are in principle willing and able to include high quality mods. This is a great hope for me! I think with their ressources, they cant do everything themselves, but including proven concepts from mods seems like an amazing shortcut to a good game.

My biggest hope by far is FAR, though.

[r4pt0r]

I usually preface my suggestion threads with something along the lines of "this is a suggestion for the stock game, I do not care about your mods".

I find that helps immeasurably.

[Kar]

With that type of reasoning, Squad would never address issues in the game like, bugs, fixes, balance, glitches and so on. Developing the core base game is hard, even when the core base game adds the ability to create mods. Now, that mods may serve has inspiration for the devs is one thing, mods that should be stock along time ago is other. Like Corw said, Squad already recruited several talented modders, but even if KSP get to his final version and with the status of developed, there will always exist mods for this or that.

Also, thinking like that, imagine that Squad put into stock all the mods I use in the game, things like life support, remote tech, kas, etc, how do you feel of been forced of using something I do like and makes my game harder and more real, if you just want to play for fun while I want to play in the most real simulation I can get?

Not everyone likes to play like I do. Everyone "game's experience" is different and everyone notion of what should be real or not is different and if it's fun or not.

That's on thing cool about mods in a earlier development of the game, they can give inspiration and a fresh perspective in some feature the devs were already considering. FinePrint into stock was a great example, also, it was a mod that I always used, I am very happy that it was including in 0.90.

The more mods the "beta" be KSP finished or not.

Think about it, how many games have you bought that are finished products and then you see mods for them and think "how the hell the developers never thought about this simple thing?".

In case of KSP, I think we as "gamers and users of mods" are very lucky to have this amazing modding community that brings so much to the game and to it's development .

This kinda reminds me of Skyrim, a game I played and modded to exhaustion. Considering that was a game made for consoles, when the modding community started working on the PC version, many console gamers regret not having a decent PC to run the game. Skyrim was a hard game to put mods working, you could spend about 12 hours installing mods and testing to see if the game was stable.

We are lucky that here we just "copy contents of zip folder into game\data" and you done.

Skyrim with no mods, is just...well...empty if you do not exaggerate in the type of mods you use.

The same cannot be said about KSP, it's still in development, so mods, can really add a big value to the development of KSP.

Edit:

I have a lot respect for the modding community, they hard work to to make mods and give us things of so much value is incredible...and I'm not talking just about KSP modders which in my opinion should be paid their weight in gold for some of the gems they create, even so, they do it because they love the game and they do it because they want to improve their own game experience, that's when someone mods a certain game. I have played many games and used many mods, but I was amazed with the quality of many mods in KSP. I feel very lucky indeed.

Edited December 19, 2014 by Kar
Praise for KSP modders

[Linear]

The game has been here for a few years now, there's very little left that mods haven't done. As soon as a mod is released and has a few downloads it immediately shows Squad there's a demand for that feature; not to mention the suggestion forum has these features 10x over.

KSP isn't a triple a game with a triple a budget, these features take a long while to implement and test - that's why mod integration is a great way to do it. Unfortunately, this seems to take a while too (damn you legalities and bureaucracy!) so we just have to wait and hope they'll eventually be added to stock.

[Sirrobert]

You're right, but you are missing a few points.

First, the game isn't done yet, so there are features that probably will come, but aren't there yet. So when people say 'there's a mod for that', they usually mean 'yup, and until it's stock, here's how you can enjoy that effect anyway'.

The thing is, most of those extremely popular mods have already been suggested countles times, so another suggestion isn't going to have any effect on the development of that feature. The devs know people want it. So it's not really worth discussing again. So since most suggestions boil down to 'I want x effect', people point the suggesterer to the fastest way to get x effect.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I dont think that mods slow down the process of development but I think it is dangerous to implement them too fast to the core game.

As a developer you might lose control of the content or the game becomes unbalanced or even deformed.

[AcidSludge]

IMO a huge modding community is like a big "brainstorming pool" for a game still in development, and when some mods make it into the final game it's like a pool of additional developers aswell, which is a good thing for a project with a small budget compared to Triple-A's.

Personally I don't use that many mods, but the ones I use are crucial for my playstyle - I wouldn't play KSP anymore if I hadn't the readouts of KER, and I don't know if I ever learned docking without watching MJ doing the orbital maneuvering.

[annallia]

Honestly the only thing I want stock that mods offer (not saying it would be bad if they added them, I just don't care) is a proper AGL.

I am terrible at landing but give me mechjeb or kerbal flight data (needs to be updated sadly) and I can do it (without MechJeb assistance) just because I finally know what my real altitude is.