My thoughts on Breaking Ground

[Kleadron]

The devs just took the mod "Infernal Robotics" and made it a paid feature of KSP. I'm not happy about it.

Adding it to the base game for free? I would be perfectly fine with that.
But making it $15 for something i could have gotten for free in earlier versions? Not cool.

(I didn't intend for this thread to become a heated discussion but I want to see where it is going so don't lock it pls)

[Chibbity]

You can still get IR for free, nothing has changed.

Dock Rotate as well.

No one is forcing anything on you, if you don't feel the DLC is worth the money over the mod, then don't buy it. Simple as that.

People have been asking for stock moving parts since forever, so you can't really blame Squad for giving them what they want, just because "there is a mod for that" they might as well stop developing at all if that's the attitude.

[MechBFP]

Originally posted by Kleadron:

The devs just took the mod "Infernal Robotics" and made it a paid feature of KSP. I'm not happy about it.

Adding it to the base game for free? I would be perfectly fine with that.
But making it $15 for something i could have gotten for free in earlier versions? Not cool.

They didn’t take the mod. They developed their own features which does the same thing as the mod. Completely new code.

Honestly, spend a little more time educating yourself instead of ranting right off the bat.

[Toastie Buns]

Originally posted by MechBFP:

They didn’t take the mod. They developed their own features which does the same thing as the mod. Completely new code.

Even though I know this AND will be receiving the DLC for free, I still sighed heavily and watched as a game I loved turns into a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ modpack.

Originally posted by Chibbity:

there is a mod for that" they might as well stop developing at all if that's the attitude.

Development was meant to go into new planets. We were told to expect a new gas giant, a rearrangement of the system itself, a storyline, easter eggs. There was even that half-hearted 'maybe we'll do multiplayer' idea that nobody took seriously. All these things are canned, or in the case of easter eggs just left in there in a half baked state, never to be realised. Magic boulder had to be reintroduced, for christ's sake.

All I'm saying is there were threads to pick up and weave with before recoding what were perfectly good mods into the game. I know Squad hired modders and they probably dream of their work being stock, but come the ♥♥♥♥ on...

[Plague, M.D.]

i guess we are just going to pretend that the mission editor wasnt part of the dlc?

[Kleadron]

Originally posted by Plague, M.D.:

i guess we are just going to pretend that the mission editor wasnt part of the dlc?

Mission Editor is cool, turning previously free mods into paid DLC is not.
And, if I can just get Infernal Robotics, then why would I want the DLC if I don't need the Mission Editor?

[Plague, M.D.]

Originally posted by Kleadron:

Originally posted by Plague, M.D.:

i guess we are just going to pretend that the mission editor wasnt part of the dlc?

Mission Editor is cool, turning previously free mods into paid DLC is not.
And, if I can just get Infernal Robotics, then why would I want the DLC if I don't need the Mission Editor?

then download the mod and dont buy the dlc. whats the problem here?

[Kleadron]

Originally posted by Plague, M.D.:

Originally posted by Kleadron:

Mission Editor is cool, turning previously free mods into paid DLC is not.
And, if I can just get Infernal Robotics, then why would I want the DLC if I don't need the Mission Editor?

then download the mod and dont buy the dlc. whats the problem here?

The problem is they wasted development time and money on something that could easily be added to the game for free as a downloadable mod.

We all know that most of the people who want to buy the DLC most likely only want it for the joints, but this is in a free community mod already.

If the robotic joints were added to the base game as free content, then I wouldn't have as big of a problem with this. But you can just download the free mod.

I'm going to wait and see if the DLC is better than the free mod in any way, like stability, but I still do not agree with their decision.

[Plague, M.D.]

mods break with new versions. mods get abandoned and no longer updated. dev created dlc wont have that happen to it. that plus a mission editor seems worth $15 to most people. if you would rather not spend the money and take your chances with the mod potentially breaking your game at some point, then go for it.

And honestly who cares if they "wasted" money on developing it. for one, saying they wasted time and money is a subjective opinion, and two, its their money to "waste".

if they made modding extremely difficult and started releasing dlcs with previously modded content, then i'll grab my pitchfork and join u. until then, im ok with them adding parts to the stock game.

[Plague, M.D.]

ha ive been talking about Making History this whole time... so nevermind on the mission editor part, but i still feel the same about having more stock parts without having to rely on mods.

[Toastie Buns]

Originally posted by Plague, M.D.:

i guess we are just going to pretend that the mission editor wasnt part of the dlc?

You can pretend the mission editor doesn't exist, because the KSP forums still do challenges the exact same way they've been doing them since they started, lol.
The mission editor was meant to give people the ability to create scenarios and as such, properly define the sandbox for challenges. It doesn't do this, because it's not as flexible as you'd think. (Well, certainly not flexible enough for the KSP forums to switch to it)

There's even this: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/108704-14x-16x-dmagics-modlets-flexible-docking-v70-restock-support-3-12-2019/&tab=comments#comment-1911515

Making Less History, that's how important it is to KSP players.

The problem is that when we get mods as stock, they get dumbed down like crazy. CommNet is a great example of this; the satellites don't even need to point the right way.

[Razamanaz]

I expect that when mod features are added to stock they are "dumbed down" to keep the resource footprint of the game as low as possible. A lot of mods can have a terrible effect on framerate and loading times. Many players that never use mods would be irate if they, all of a sudden, couldn't run the game anymore.
Modders should be happy when their mods are converted to stock. What greater compliiment could there be than that?

[Toastie Buns]

I'm fine with modded content working its way into a game, but I'm not fine with back to back mod content. Until Making History, there were no other landing strips and you had to roleplay your own passenger service. Even WITH another runway, there are no passenger missions. Why?
There are now multiple launch sites, but yet KSC2, the original place we launched from, isn't usable.
There are no parts made specifically for water, despite Squad being very aware that we use the water to play around in. I have to make a pontoon out of empty fuel tanks if I want a floatplane, for instance.
Wheels are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ joke, to the point of a slight offset causing massive veering.
The craft still leap into the air, despite it being fixed...10 times? Probably more.
Science labs are basically redundant, so much so they had to add levelling up without returning to Kerbin... I could go on, but I'm sure you get the drift by now.

There's so many simple QoL features and little additions this game badly needs, but instead of that the mission objective seems to be "Refine the game by removing 'placeholder' features and making parts look classy...then add most the wanted mods"

For instance, I now have to be EXTREMELY lucky to be able to skydive and jump into a cockpit/command pod due to having to grab a ladder. Sure, that's a niche situation, but I liked the fact you could just board near a hatch (especially considering that on planes I tend to forget and cover the ladder with a wing).

I used to defend this game like a lost lover, but now that love is fading fast. It's getting worse by the update.

[Chibbity]

KSP is old, like way past it's prime.

Arguing that anything should be free at this point is silly, the dev's can't eat cardboard. They have to produce new stuff and sell it to keep the game alive, or just let it die. Those are your two options.

Stock robotics is and has been a very frequent request from the community. You can't exactly blame them for giving their customers what they are asking for. Squad is a business, not a charity, they exist to make money; if people want to buy it, then they want to sell it. If modding was such an amazing alternative, why are so many people still asking for stock robotics? I mean, by the logic of "but, mods!" ...if you can just wait for the rain to clean your car for free, how do so many car washes stay open?

[Manwith Noname]

Originally posted by Toastie Buns:

"Refine the game by removing 'placeholder' features and making parts look classy..."

Thanks for the laugh.

[PolecatEZ]

Originally posted by Razamanaz:

I expect that when mod features are added to stock they are "dumbed down" to keep the resource footprint of the game as low as possible. A lot of mods can have a terrible effect on framerate and loading times. Many players that never use mods would be irate if they, all of a sudden, couldn't run the game anymore.
Modders should be happy when their mods are converted to stock. What greater compliiment could there be than that?

They have in the past hired quite a few modders as either full time or consultants. There's at least 3 that I know about.

Besides, nobody complained when mining became a thing in KSP despite there having been a mod for that already.

I personally found the robotics mod to be clumsy and a bit heavy for my game, so I used it just once or twice to tinker and then took it back out. I'm looking forward to a better integrated stock implementation.

Add this to a few more things on the planets to go find and see and some new parts, and this small expansion works just fine.