How to Mod KSP the Easy Way with CKAN

Want to mod your copy of Kerbal Space Program, but are confused about where to go, how to start or how to manage the stuff you download off the KSP website? There's an easier way, and it's called the Comprehensive Kerbal Archive Network!

In this guide, arbayer2 teaches you how to download, install and use the CKAN, allowing you to organize, browse and update all of your installed mods in KSP.

Introduction

Hello! My name is arbayer2. This is my first published guide on the Steam Community, where I will teach you how to install mods easily in Kerbal Space Program with a little piece of software called CKAN, or the Comprehensive Kerbal Archive Network.

As great as Squad and the KSP community are when it comes to promoting mod support, resources and experimentation with Kerbal Space Program, I know from personal experience how tedious it can be installing mods for a game. CKAN's a fascinating program that I've recently encountered myself which should hopefully help you with this process immensely.

This guide assumes you are playing in Windows 7/8 as it is the OS I am currently using, although CKAN is available for every current PC platform available: Windows, Mac OS and certain Linux distributions like Fedora and Ubuntu.

This is an amateur guide to modding a video game. Everything in this guide should be considered unofficial. I have no relation to Kurtjmac, Scott Manley, Squad (the developers of KSP), or the developers of the Comprehensive Kerbal Archive Network software and am providing this guide for informational purposes only. I take no responsibility for any issues you may encounter when installing KSP, CKAN or other end-user modifications to your computer and by using my guide you're agreeing to take responsibility for your own actions.

This guide's provided as-is and is currently under construction, so check back later for updates!

Getting Started

The Comprehensive Kerbal Archive Network, or CKAN for short, is an open-source repository of metadata about mods for Kerbal Space Program, and associated tools, according to the CKAN website[github.com].

It allows you to combine all of your mods into an easy-to-navigate list where you can adjust numerous settings, update mods individually or all at once, automatically check for compatibility errors/out-of-date/dead mods, check installed versions, compare them to the latest versions in the database and otherwise streamline your modding experience.

Installing CKAN

I'd suggest you back up your saves from vanilla KSP, just in case anything should go wrong. It's a good habit to make when modding any game.

In order to run this program, you will need to first download it from the releases page[github.com] on the CKAN website at GitHub. It will arrive as a self-contained and portable .exe executable file for Windows.

I would suggest you copy this file to either the root directory of your KSP installation folder, found via KSP's Properties window (Properties > Local Files > Browse Local Files...) in Steam or to a designated folder where the .exe file will not get lost or deleted over time. This is effectively everything you need to do to install it onto your computer, but there is one more step you must go through before CKAN is set up to manage your mods. It'll be covered in the next section.

Uninstalling CKAN

If for whatever reason you are interested in uninstalling CKAN, I believe the process would be simple:

• First, uninstall all mods installed through CKAN. This may mess up saves which have mod dependencies, so keep this in mind.
  
  
• Go to your KSP directory and delete the CKAN folder contained within. This should wipe CKAN's download cache, settings and leave nothing except ckan.exe on your computer, which you can now delete without problems.

It is quite unlikely that problems should arise in your version of KSP after doing this since you've removed all traces of CKAN and basically returned your installation to its default state, but as with any program installation, backing up saves is probably a decent idea. If worse comes to worst, perform a Steam integrity check on your copy of KSP and then re-import your saves.

Initial Setup

In order to use CKAN it has to be configured to recognize your Kerbal Space Program installation folder(s).

When you first launch CKAN, a window will appear titled "Select KSP install". An example of the window is shown below. (I had already set up my own installation of KSP beforehand, you won't be seeing the entry I have in this window at first.)


You will need to add a list entry for your KSP installation here, by clicking the "Add new" button at the bottom of the window, then navigating to your KSP installation folder in the "Browse For Folder" window which appears.

You'll then have the option to rename this list entry to whatever you'd think makes sense (it's optional, only helps with organizing multiple installation folders), delete entries and set an entry as the default location CKAN will manage mods for.

When finished, highlight the version you want to manage and then click the "Select" button at the bottom-right corner of the "Select KSP install" window to continue into the mod management window for that entry.

A Brief Walkthrough

Okay, so the main CKAN window's pretty self-explanatory after you get used to it.

You can organize the repository list in a number of ways by clicking the column headers of each column in the list. These include:

- Mod name alphabetical/reverse alphabetical
- Latest updated first/first updated first
- Author's name alpha/reverse-alpha,
- Installed/not-installed, etc.

The Launch KSP and Refresh buttons are pretty much exactly what they sound like. Keep in mind that the modlist will not show anything on first install before you click Refresh.

Alongside this, you can also click the Filter button at the top of the window. A drop-down list will appear allowing you to navigate between all mods, all installed mods, the newest added, and so on.

Mod Installation/Uninstallation

In order to install a mod, first find it in the modlist, then check the "Installed" checkbox next to its entry in the list. You should see a "Changeset" tab appear. This tab serves as a sort of "checkout receipt" of the mods you wish to install at the moment. Click the "Apply" button on the bottom-right of the Changeset tab window to go ahead and install the mods you have selected, or click "Clear" to cancel mod installation. Uninstallation is the exact same process, only difference is that you must uncheck the "Installed" checkbox instead.

Other Information

You can even make your own filters! This is pretty helpful for cutting down on the list's size, I imagine, although I'd still have a web browser open to the Curse modpage for KSP in order to do window-shopping as there's no screenshot support yet in CKAN.

On the Settings menu, a couple of interesting things: you can clear your CKAN cache in the CKAN settings menu if need be, change metadata repository/install folder location and so on.



You can also apparently install plugins. I have yet to look into this so I have no suggestions for plugins yet... perhaps in a future guide update I'll have come across something.

Useful Links

As user-friendly as CKAN is, it is more designed for people who know what they want already in terms of mod selection, so if you're looking for good mods in the first place I would definitely suggest a couple of sites to you right off the bat:

• http://www.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal

This website is the new official source of mods for Kerbal Space Program. As a result it's a definite go-to list for new mods. They've got a pretty cool standalone client for mod updates for certain games called the Curse Client.

However, this client does not currently support KSP. Without CKAN, you will have to manually download, extract and copy mod asset folders into your KSP directory as indicated by the mod's installation instructions and troubleshoot any dependency/conflict/obsolescence issues yourself. Hopefully the author's got a version of the mod on CKAN's repository already so you can help avoid that. If not, you might suggest it to them!

• https://www.youtube.com/user/szyzyg

Scott Manley is an amazing guy. He is a die-hard fan and student of astronomy, science, and explosions. He delves deep into modding with KSP on his YouTube channel, and I cannot recommend him enough to those who want good ideas on what to add to their game. He is extremely active in his LPs of KSP, both vanilla and modded, so you have a ton of material and advice to absorb from his channel.

• https://www.youtube.com/user/kurtjmac

Likewise, Kurt (kurtjmac) is another invaluable resource and a wonderful person. His channel is actually the first in which I originally found out about Kerbal Space Program, if I recall correctly. Unfortunately, his Let's Plays of Kerbal Space Program, either with or without mods, has not been updated in quite a while, although I believe he once mentioned he might get back into it once KSP basically reaches its release version, which, as of May 2015, has just arrived! Either way, most of his playthroughs of KSP are still relatively up to date and should help you quite a bit with using KSP
itself.

Epilogue

Well, ladies and gentlemen, future Kerbalnauts and actual astronauts alike, I sincerely hope this helps you as a player of Kerbal Space Program. CKAN's a really great, straightforward solution to organizing your mods for KSP. It does have its problems, but there's no better modloader I've seen yet for the game and it accomplishes what it sets out to do fairly well.

Well, that's about it. I hope I've helped you with what I've provided quite lazily here.

I want to thank the developers of CKAN for making such an awesome tool for modders, the folks at Squad for making an amazing game, Scott and Kurt for helping get me into the game itself and PC gamers everywhere for creating the demand necessary to make a game like Kerbal Space Program not only marketable, but successful.

More guides from myself on various other games are slated for somewhere probably in the near future. I appreciate all your feedback! Thank you for reading! If you have further comments or questions please get in touch and I'll do all I can to help you.




-arbayer2

[arbayer2]

jfromtheplanet, thanks for bringing that to my attention. I’m currently active military but I’ll take care of it when I get the chance.

[Justin The Protogen]

you really need to update the guide. especially because your guide sets CKAN up in a way where you can't open it at all. and to make matters worse, my antivirus blocks it no matter what i do. i can't get any further after having downloaded the .exe file.

[arbayer2]

<3 I hope the guide helps!

[Vul]

I fucking love you right now

[arbayer2]

ReZiiN, I'll do all I can to help as someone unaffiliated with CKAN, its developers and support staff. That said, it's been a while since I've been modding with CKAN, IRL responsibilities mostly prevent me from spending too much time on that.

What I would do in your case is repeat the exact same message you posted on the latest CKAN forum thread on the KSP forums. Include any and all information you have about what's happening, the exact steps you take and any screenshots you can capture of the process (I suggest PrtScr or Greenshot on Windows as fantastic screenshot software), and mention their availability for anyone willing to help. There is also a handy and detailed troubleshooting guide on the same forum thread, which I'll link for you here [forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com].

This should, hopefully, find you the best support possible. Best of luck!

[ReZiiN]

So I have been using CKAN for some time now and am having a unique issue, I was checking my KSP install directory in CKAN and accidentally clicked forget and exited the window. Now I cannot re-link CKAN with KSP no matter what I do. I have deleted the CKAN folder, reinstalled the latest CKAN, wiped my Gamedata folder in root (and verified my steam files OFcourse) and still CKAN gets hung up and I get an "unhandled exception...can't find KSP in readme.txt" when I click 'Select KSP Install'.

I am out of ideas.

[Sîn]

For some reason this program keeps deleting itself when I click a link to the forum page of a mod.
Anyone else having this issue?

[arbayer2]

Trapbuilder 2, yes, I think it's fairly easy to do that.

Just uncheck every mod's "Installed" checkbox on the "Manage mods" tab you want to uninstall, click "Apply Changes", and finally click "Apply" on the "Changeset" tab when it appears and shows you what you've chosen to uninstall. The mods will be automatically uninstalled.

I hope that helps!

[trapbuilder2]

Is there a way to delete all the mods at once? i have 123 mods, but i don't want them anymore

[arbayer2]

lauritha: Yes, it does work for Steam. It's a standalone application that gets put in the game's installation folder, regardless of whether your copy's on Steam or obtained from Squad's website.