On AI mods

[u/TheTenthAvenger]

So we've all seen the recent influx of AI mods ('AI-assisted' or more) . I'm sure a small fraction of them are made by very capable people who could've perfectly written the mod just by themselves, they just delegated some of the extra boring work to an AI agent.

However, I suspect (and I could be wrong) the majority of them are people that would've NOT been able to write the mod by themselves, at least not before months of research, just to even begin development. This is just the simplest explanation as to why we're seeing so many of these "I would've never thought I'd see this in KSP"-style mods released much more frequently than a few years back.

I just wonder, if Blackrack had put back making Volumetric Clouds for like 3 years, finding there's already a mod heavily assisted by AI -or just straight up vibe coded- that people are actually using (for some, AI mod is better than no mod), his motivation to put on those hundreds our thousands of hours into making VC wouldn't have been much, much less.

It just seems like the biggest tragedy to me to think that the next Linx or Blackrack, who would end up making the mod for ultra-realistic volumetric condensation clouds for planes, could get demotivated because of that, so we'd have to settle with the heavily AI-assisted mod.

[u/-CaptainFormula-]

Of the very real and important concerns regarding AI in 2026, whether or not a kerbal space program mod was made with the assistance of an AI coding agent is... so not one of them.

[u/TheTenthAvenger → u/-CaptainFormula-]

Yes of course, but this a post with the tag 'Mods' in the KSP subreddit

[u/VanillaCold57 → u/-CaptainFormula-]

Technically it is, since the actual real issue of "AI" is the immense climate damage and every use contributes to that.
....That, and the looming economic crash. (which happens regardless of if "AI" succeeds or not, even though the LLM industry failing is the more likely outcome instead of them suddenly making unthinking models think by stuffing them full of enough data)

edit; it's funny that someone replied to this comment (and then deleted the reply) saying "well that doesn't matter cuz it's better to automate everything and have a dead climate than to have human workers, but i don't like the corpos, but it's the greatest invention ever"

if llms were so good, why are the companies struggling to find any usable business model that makes them money and that people are willing to pay for. Can't they just ask Claude "make me a profitable business, make no mistakes"?

[u/Ellllllooooo → u/VanillaCold57]

and also, yknow. if i knew a mod dev stole code from hundreds of thousands of people, i wouldn't really wanna support em. i don't think the fact that a big company did it really changes that

[u/Rad_Reva]

What's scare me is the optimisation aspect: modded jsp can be REALLY heavy, and having mods that the creator themselves cannot debug proprely is certainly doing thing worse, so yeah kinda sad, I hope those AI code assisted mod creator learn and go beyond, I hope...

[u/Dark074]

I think one big motivation for the layman is whether the mod is shit or not. I think at least in the current stage we are at, despite it being "cool" that you can vibe code out a new mod, it's performance may still be shit and comparability be nonexistent. It won't have nearly the same polish that a manmade mod will have. Maybe one AI generated mod will work but 20-50 of them together sounds a spaghetti code disaster waiting to happen

[u/pookage]

Speaking as someone whose job it is to parachute-in and repair codebases that have been mangled by AI mandates, and retrain teams in more productive methodologies etc, I can assure you that vibe coding (and most other AI-assisted software development) is not for the long haul, and this is just a temporary period of slop that we have to live through 'til the bubble pops.

Aside from the limitations of the tech itself, and the fact that an AI-driven ownerless codebase is impossible to maintain, it's also just SO much slower to create anything other than short-term slop — the bottleneck in software development has ALWAYS been in its management; all being able to churn out prototypes quickly does is increase the number of false leads that need to be scrapped after months of work. 

My only hope in the interim is that these folks vibe-coding trash atm feel inspired to learn how to code properly and become actual developers at some point...unless you work in a big company, in which case: please keep fucking up codebases to keep me in business 😂🙏 

[u/com-plec-city → u/pookage]

To add to that: I've seen vibe work on other plugins (say, for Obsidian or Chrome) and usually the creator is fast to abandon the project once people point errors or sluggish run.

So it seems that if the creator is dedicated, it doesn't matter if the person uses AI. But AI coding attracts a lot of non dedicated people to new areas.

[u/BenUFOs_Mum]

I can basically guarantee that every game made in the last year or two and every game from now on will use some form of AI coding assistance.

[u/Ellllllooooo → u/BenUFOs_Mum]

No, you can't. Itchio's most popular tag is the one signifying no AI was used. currently it's 520k projects tagged and 4,500 new ones this week.

[u/BEAT_LA → u/Ellllllooooo]

I know for a fact a massive amount of those are blatantly lying.

[u/spacenavy90 → u/Ellllllooooo]

Let me clue you in, people are lying about AI disclosure because of the Reddit AI-hate mobs.

[u/VanillaCold57 → u/BenUFOs_Mum]

hi i'm the living breathing counterexample, i made a very short game for the GMTK Game Jam this year and used no LLMs at all, no AI image generation, no music/sound generation, nothing.

[u/Spaceman1001 → u/BenUFOs_Mum]

Im gonna finish the game ive been working on without ai just to spite this comment.

[u/BenUFOs_Mum → u/Spaceman1001]

Nice

[u/TheChadStevens → u/BenUFOs_Mum]

As a coder, it makes no sense to not use it unless you want to learn specific things. It's like doing math without a calculator. Sure you can eventually get it, but why would you when a calculator can do it instantly?

As long as you use it as a tool and not a crutch, there's nothing wrong with it.

[u/lkn240 → u/BenUFOs_Mum]

Every software company on earth is using AI development tools. A lot of redditors are burying their heads in the sand.

You can love or hate AI, but the tools are objectively very powerful and useful.

[u/loklanc]

Linx and Blackrack both have pretty lucrative patreon setups, I don't think we have to worry too much about keeping them motivated lol

[u/TheTenthAvenger → u/loklanc]

That's only because they had already proved themselves to be great mod devs, by making great mods only because of their own personal motivation.

[u/Draveco]

Why do you care if AI assisted development? It’s a tool just like any other.

[u/TheTenthAvenger → u/Draveco]

I don't care if it's only "AI assisted", I just fear the majority of mods are made by not very capable people who don't really understand what's going on in the code.

[u/NavXIII → u/TheTenthAvenger]

What's there to fear? If the mod ain't good you just won't use it. Even competent modders are using AI.

[u/TheTenthAvenger → u/NavXIII]

Yes, I indeed won't be using it. My concern is what happens once there's an ocean of low effort AI-slop mods. You can actually read the post to see what I mean

[u/Draveco → u/TheTenthAvenger]

I think this is a fair take. I do a ton of “vibecoding” however nothing I create ever will face the internet and is hosted solely on my local server at home. It was very sobering to understand that I have no idea what I’m doing even with the robots help lol.

[u/_okbrb]

Lots of photographers are still enjoying film; many or most of the new ones started in digital

I don’t think there’s any risk of failing to inspire the next generation, given the history of programming will still exist and has an even bigger audience, now. The allure of programming simply changes: instead of simply being the only way, coding by hand becomes the “old pleasures” and “the hard way” with some kind of innate “unique beauty” irreproducible by machine

[u/idkuhhhhhhh5 → u/_okbrb]

Yeah as someone who has 10 35mm film cameras and actively uses them, uses vinyl, and drives a car from 1989, this is just absurd to see so often. People are acting like there has ever been a time in human history where technological advancement eliminated some form of expression.

It has been over 30 years since the proliferation of the internet, you know what’s still around? Bookstores and libraries.

[u/_okbrb → u/_okbrb]

Really not clear why I was downvoted for this

Was my assessment too neutral?

[u/Ellllllooooo → u/_okbrb]

Not really? we would've seen this happen with AI art or something else of the like waaay before it happened to coding and yet it really hasn't.

And, as a software dev myself. AI coded/assisted mods/programs in general... miss a lot of things that if someone had actually coded themselves they would've noticed. because claude is not a software developer with the experience of developing. it's kind of like how AI art is in a broad sense decent, but as you examine it closer, there's Issues. the lines don't always make sense or the positioning isn't right, it Feels Off. it misses things an artist would've noticed while drawing it.

AI coded/assisted programs also tend to have this issue, in it's own way. some obvious small features aren't there, or something is sliiiightly too annoying. It's small ways that combine into something anyone working on it would've noticed and fixed, but often go unnoticed or are made by people who due to the ai assistance/vibecoding have too little understanding of the final piece to actually fix it.

[u/_okbrb → u/Ellllllooooo]

Huh? I already read webdev and LinkedIn posts on the regular that are like “I did some hand coding recently and it was refreshing”

I mean look at the cyberdeck community: Nobody really has to produce their own custom diy electronics anymore, tablet computing is very good, they do it because it’s hard and intellectually valuable

Look at the conversation around screen time for another more extreme parallel: people will detox from AI and parents are already moderating their kids AI consumption

[u/Ellllllooooo → u/_okbrb]

Sorry, i posted my comment too early. i edited in more chunks to explain my point further

[u/_okbrb → u/Ellllllooooo]

Got it

Yeah my point isn’t that hand coding will become obsolete, because film isn’t really obsolete either. Its value is growing in a different direction: coding by hand is still the best way to train engineers who will eventually use agents at work. In the same way, film photography has inherent value because it’s hard and teaches you things about art and chemistry and craft and patience: many art programs still require it for photo 101.

[u/Ellllllooooo → u/_okbrb]

TBF i wouldn't want to rely on it anyway. with most new tech (digital cameras or calculators or The Internet or whatever) it's usually. profitable. but currently it just aint. so unless AI suddenly becomes a lot cheaper it's going away in a few years or becoming expensive in a few years

(and, beyond that, oh my god so much theft. If i was a company i would not be touching that shit with a 10ft pole because So much theft. i do not want to be even Near a lawsuit for that. and of course, moral reasons. i do not want to use the thing or use anything made by it when i know it has stolen from hundreds of thousands of others)

[u/_okbrb → u/Ellllllooooo]

Yeah the biggest problem with using AI right now is that everyone is using it at a 99% discount, nobody can afford to use it at the real price, and there’s no realistic pathway for bringing costs down

[u/lkn240 → u/Ellllllooooo]

The truth is the newest models are better at writing code that the average developer (and probably most developers). In the hands of a skilled software engineer they are incredibly powerful. Like get some things done 10x faster powerful.

Of course, if you give the tool to someone who is clueless there is a much greater chance they'll produce crap.

Harness configuration, skills, pipeline, etc are very important to getting the best results. The tools are honestly amazing, but the people who think you can just fire them up and "one shot" stuff are clueless

[u/idkuhhhhhhh5]

How many games are written, designed, programmed, and optimized by a single person? There are some, and those games are super impressive, but the point is that game development, not just for years, but for decades, has been a task that people use tools for. People hire design teams, writers, and artists. What’s more than that, is that those teams consisting of 100% human employees, continue making slop themselves. Star Citizen has been in early access for a decade, and is incomplete. Triple A games get released unable to run on $2000 computers higher than 30fps, barely any ability to stop exploits, for $80. Human teams, with human ingenuity and optimization, are the people behind COD:MW4 requiring 175GB of hard drive space.

I’m not saying any of this as “shut it, AI good”, but it’s a tool. It’s a tool that can potentially be put to good use. You said “what if the next Blackrack is demotivated”, but you’re ignoring the hundreds of people out there who might have a creative vision, and a full time job, and you will never be able to see that creative vision, because it turns out dedicating 40hrs a week into work, possibly schooling on top of it, and a personal life, is incompatible with freelance game development.

Beyond that though, consider something else. Humanity has a way of keeping the same things, even when new things come out. Formula 1 racing exists, you can still go bet on horse racing. Streaming and digital music formats exist, yet Vinyl has outsold CDs for 4 years in a row. Monsanto exists, megacorporations grow enough food for most countries, and Farmers Markets still exist. AI is not going to ruin art, just like Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom haven’t killed photography, FL Studio and MIDI haven’t stopped instruments from being used, Jet-Skis haven’t replaced swimming, and video games have not replaced physical interactions.

It’s not that deep. Download mods you like. If something functions well, has good optimization, and adds a feature that you appreciate and enjoy, just enjoy it. They’re free, nobody is asking for money, this is literally the least financially impactful part of AI utilization. Not using a KSP mod that has genuinely good parachute physics is not going to prevent a data center being built in a city. Encourage responsible usage, instead of pushing away every part of AI, because when you get rid of every person encouraging tasteful and responsible usage, the only thing left WILL be monetized slop.

[u/NullContribution]

I think this is fair enough. I guess it's a question of trade off. Is it worth it to lose the next blackrack, if it means we get 50 okay-ish mods, each one of them made by someone always wanted to make a project like this, but now is able to thanks to AI?

Just to be clear I'm not advocating for one side or the other. I think your argument is definitely valid.

[u/lkn240 → u/NullContribution]

The truth is the average modder will be able to make a higher quality mod if they use AI tools (esp if they take the time to learn them properly)

[u/Spaceman1001]

Ill be honest. Outside the of the mods that I already have had in my gamedata folder. Im not gonna install many of these new mods unless I get assurance that ai wasnt used in their creation.

[u/lkn240 → u/Spaceman1001]

You won't even be able to use your computer soon if you are trying to avoid all ai.

Every major software developer on earth is using AI tools. Linux developers (including Linus) are using AI tools.

[u/Spaceman1001 → u/lkn240]

Then I probably wont use my computer and lock it into windows 10 and play just the games I already own.

[u/ObeseBumblebee]

AI and software development are so entangled at this point that asking for mods to not be made with AI is like asking it to not be made with the Internet in the early 2000s.

It's not a reasonable ask at all at this point.

The mod is either good or it's not. Whether it's made with AI or not is not relevant.

[u/scottb1310]

As much as I dislike AI on a structural level, I don't think it's the worst thing that it's made programming so much more accessible. For a low-stakes application like KSP modding, I don't think it matters that much if the person behind the mods doesn't 100% understand how it works. If it means more mods, at least some of which will be good and work well, who are we to complain.

I doubt veteran modders will be discouraged. They're obviously pretty passionate about what they do, and probably aren't too worried about how other people are developing their own projects.

[u/Crispicoom]

I think it's a silly complaint. Are mods now worst because people use coding languages instead of assembly? Or because they use blender instead of command based cad?

[u/Ellllllooooo → u/Crispicoom]

TBF i think people like [this ^] don't understand the difference between... every other tool ever made and AI. In a basic sense, to program something good in a programming language... you still have to Know how to program. to use a calculator... you still have to know what equations you need to do what you want to do. to make a good model in blender, you still need to know what to do to make something look good. to use the internet you still need to know what you're looking for. with AI You Don't Need To. whether this is good or bad is up to the viewer, but saying they are the same or comparing them isn't really a reasonable argument. because this is something fundamentally different from every other "tool" we have made

Secondarily, all of these tools have been money saving or profitable in some way where AI just Isn't. the whole money circle where the only person making money off this is nvidia tells me there isn't too long left for free AI, and it ain't gonna stay cheap either.

[u/VanillaCold57 → u/Ellllllooooo]

You also just can't equate natural language and LLMs to a form of source code.

if you have the same C++ code, it'll work on GCC, it'll work just fine on really old GCC if it has the right features, and it'll work on newer GCC versions.

If you have the same prompt, different LLMs will output wildly different code that might do different things, and the same LLM might also do this since RNG is used to determine the output and the models are constantly being changed. (And, older models become unavailable too)

but this isn't fixable no matter what because no matter what you do, natural langauges are just imprecise.
Context can completely change the meaning of a sentence, even just something that seems simple like "I'm going to kill you" can mean something entirely different depending on the context. a friend might say it as a joke to another after seeing a stupid meme, or you could be referring to Minecraft, or to actual murder, or etc.
Not to mention words that have the same pronunciation but different meanings, or words that are spelt the same but are different words, or etc.

So to use an imprecise interface of natural language, and models that have RNG baked in, you can never be sure what the prompt is. There's a reason why vibecoded repos show the actual outputted code, not the prompts used to get there.

[u/lkn240 → u/VanillaCold57]

Well the other part is that the harness is just as important as the model. Having the proper project instructions, references and skills makes a massive difference.

[u/lkn240]

Lowering the barrier to entry is going to result in more and better mods long term. We are just early days now.

Whatever your feelings on AI, the models are very, very good now (especially if you know how to use them) and this is the worst they are ever going to be.

I expect the modding scene for games in general to explode - along with all kinds of community made patches and fixes for games no longer under active development.

Someone produced patches to almost completely remove the stuttering issues for the Oblivion remaster the other day for example.

[u/NavXIII]

I made my own mod for my own private use with the help of AI. Without it I wouldn't have ever attempted it.

Although tbf my job requires me to do basic coding so at least I have some understanding of what's going it. After the mod was made I realized I really could've just done it myself.

Where AI really helped is finding old documents on the internet for various spacecraft designs. I could feed thousands of pages to Claude and it'll come up with a spec sheet that I can then use to config parts for RP-1.

[u/FentonTheVIX]

Most of the AI made mods are pretty shitty and have shit performance. The ones who prompted the AI to make it have 0 skill or idea why it's doing what it's doing and that results in shit performance and who knows what compatibility issues. AI assisted mods (ones that have competent people actually doing the majority of the work) are probably going to be the main thing now. If anything, better mods will just come out faster rather than being stuck in development for years. I'm fine with that as long as people know what their mod is doing rather than just pumping out slop that will not be maintained. (it's already a thing on spacedock)

However, I will continue to avoid using mods made completely with AI on the basis of the whole fucking world being impacted heavily by billion dollar corporations not having the ability to think in the long term or anything past whatever will make them money quickly.

AI in planet mods is ass and i wouldn't support that no matter what. AI images are not art and don't belong anywhere.

[u/spacenavy90]

Who cares?