what mods are/ aren't allowed
8 years ago
Super moderatorJazzEnsemble
She/Her, They/Them
8 years ago

I'm considering making a list of allowed mods, since many mods exist that do not change gameplay in any way that would give anyone a time advantage. The basic rules about which mods aren't allowed are as follows.

  1. any mod that adds an autopilot is not allowed (example: mechjeb, kOS)
  2. any mod that adds a new functional part that changes a ships attributes is not allowed.
  3. any mod that changes anything about the game's physics is not allowed (example: FAR, NEAR, hyper edit)
  4. any mods that affect time warp

Mods that are allowed:

  1. Mods that only change your HUD in ways that do not affect any aspect of flight (if the mod is just telling you information/ changing the appearance of something on the HUD, fine. If the mod adds a button or something that affects your ships flight in any way, bad,. Also, if the mod gives you extra information during EVA, bad.)
  2. Mods that change audio files are allowed.
  3. Mods that retexture things are allowed.

If you would like to suggest any sort of change to this list, feel free to post here, I am by no means the ultimate authority on this subject.

France

I believe that the general rule is : Any mods that changes gameplay (and not only esthetic parts of the game) are forbidden.

Super moderatorJazzEnsemble
She/Her, They/Them
8 years ago

I don't know if kerbal engineer should be allowed or not. I'm really on the fence on that one. On one hand, it doesn't effect gameplay in any serious way. on the other hand, it gives you extra information that you wouldn't normally have. I think I'll leave Scott Manley's run up, but just have it say that it used kerbal engineer.

France

If it displays a useful information that normally you can't access, this is a game gameplay modification, you shouldn't have access to these informations :/

Super moderatorJazzEnsemble
She/Her, They/Them
8 years ago

I personally agree, but I'm still leaving Scott's time up because the leaderboards would be so empty without his run, and it is a good example of a mun and back run.

What is the current position on using Kerbal Engineer? Are runs using it still valid? Don't think I'd be interested in running without any tools. Thinking of it this way, would mechjeb and kerbal engineer count as tool assisted speedruns?

Texas, USA

MechJeb is definitely out of the picture, as it has autopilot features and whatnot. I personally feel that Kerbal Engineer should also be disallowed. I wouldn't consider runs using them as TASes, though, just different categories.

Super moderatorJazzEnsemble
She/Her, They/Them
6 years ago

I also currently think kerbal engineer shouldn't be allowed and I'm considering removing Scott's time from the LB. The thing is, it just gives you way too much useful information you otherwise wouldn't have. I'm also at the point where I think if you are going to be taking this game seriously as a speedrun, you should just keep it fully stock.

Iowa, USA

Okay, I'm thinking of going for the all planets RTA sometime, maybe tomorrow. I have a few questions.

  1. The final verdict on KER - this is probably a no, it's considered too much information. What about a mod that adds just a delta-v readout, is that fine or no?

  2. Transfer Window Planner. It's a mod that, as the name suggests, allows you to plan transfers better, and is basically an in game version of this: https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/, the only major difference being that it will show the ejection angle on screen (you have to make the maneuver node yourself). It's really nice to have, but if that's too much I understand, I'd just have to go with the online version and the old protractor-on-screen method.

  3. Kerbal Alarm Clock - I'd imagine this one is fine, but I want to make sure. It can approximate transfer windows-ish.

  4. The necessity of a recording - this is my first time doing this, and as it is likely going to be a multi-hour run, a recording on my side would be pretty impractical, at current resolution I'm estimating a 50gb file size which is rather large, and with my lousy internet it would take approximately ten days to upload the video (I could lower the resolution, though). I will still have plenty of screenshots and maybe a video of the highlights (recording at the highlights only) but I realize that in the speedrunning community this much lack of proof is not taken very well.

Super moderatorJazzEnsemble
She/Her, They/Them
5 years ago

If you want your time on the boards, you need a recording, That's final. As for the rest of the mods, You can run whatever mods you want if you think people will compete in it, but for simplicity's sake, if you want a run on the SRcom leaderboards, you should keep it vanilla. I'm not opposed to the idea of creating a category that allows certain mods, but all of the categories currently listed are vanilla. This game isn't super active for speedrunning, and I want to foster some good competition here. I also don't want to have the ultimate opinion on this just because I set up the boards, if the community wants a change I will help with that.

If you want to do practice runs and such that don't go on the boards, obviously everything is fair game. Whatever you think will ease the process of learning the run.

Iowa, USA

Okay, run has been submitted. Took a long time to edit/upload (mostly due to procrastination). Full Vanilla. In the form of 4 30 minute videos sped up by 4x, verifiable by looking at the ingame timer when it is green. The final time was 7:50:39, although I forgot that the timer only stops after recovery, not landing, so the actual time was probably up to but not more than 7:54:00, as I stopped the recording before recovery.

Early game could have been way more optimized, but I made up for it midgame, but I lost at least 30 minutes to an hour in failed Eve attempts.

Iowa, USA

Hmm, it appears the link didn't work. I'll try again.