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Your PROUDEST moment in KSP


imkrazy

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Probably my rocketjeep. I don't know why, but I decided one day that I wasn't going to bother with rovers and was instead going to make my final stage both a lander and a rover at the same time. 

 2.5m core, poodle as the motor with a double-long gray tank (the step down from the orange... I essentially built two different suspensions out of cubics and the larger frames and mounted sets of the big rover wheels to the metal framework.  Type A suspension went in the back, 12wheels total, type B went up front with 8 wheels. 

The not quite symmetric mass did wonderful things to my ability to not veer under power, but moar SAS helped with that. 

 And the landing?  Easy, come down like a lander and at the right moment, you cut power and crane it over and land on the wheels. Get out, fix any that popped, and off you go. Had 130 days of life support, a science lab, and both solar panels and batteries  for days.  Only limit to how much science you could pull was how much patience you had. 

 

 And returning to Kerbin?  Not a problem. No, we didn't just drive off a cliff and ignite.  Nope, I'd tuned the dV to where the jeep section wasn't coming back.  Instead, you drove somewhere near the equator, lined up west to east, and proceeded to the next page in the flight manual:

 Step 1: ensure all science is stowed upright in the locked position. We didn't come here to leave it all behind. 

Step 2: Give the rocketjeep a little reverse power to get it rolling. 

Step 3: Deploy the mortar legs.  Yes, Bob, I said mortar.  Why are you screeching?  Didn't you read the mission plan?  I assure you, this is perfectly safe. We did it in the lab a dozen times. 

Step 4: Immediately before the legs come in contact with the ground, hit the stage key.  This will separate the mortar from the jeep lower assembly.  The jeep's momentum will carry it away from the launch site, preventing it from interfering. Your rearward momentum will also ensure the mortar will cant upwards properly, secured by the two totally-not-repurposed lander legs previously perpendicular to the ground.

Step 5: Make sure nobody has to use the bathroom before proceeding to step 6.

Step 6: Throttle to full. 

Step 7: Engage final stage.  The ejection force should see you clear of the tube just fine.  Continue accelerating until low orbit is achieved. Jeb has figured out that part by now, right? Right. Let him do it. 

Step 8: Plan and execute optimal maneuver node to return to Kerbin. 

 

Honestly, I don't remember if I was more excited I stuck the landing the first time... Or the fact that all my precision guess work translated all the way to a successful return. 

 

All hail rocketjeep, first of its name. 

Edited by storm6436
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After having the game for maybe a few hours, deciding that I should built a space station

The lesson in this case being that if you're going to learn how to dock, you probably shouldn't start with massive truss sections

Still, the feeling once getting docking mentally sorted out and the station started coming together in LKO was amazing

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Tough call -- this game has had a LOT of moments.

Probably "proudest" would be the evening I realized I'd just built, launched, flew, orbited, and landed an SSTO back on the KSC runway -- from scratch, completely off-the-cuff, seat of the pants, first try, no testing, forgotten parts, or modifications required.

I felt like Howard Hughes.

(If I'd set out to do that, of course, there would have been untold tragedy, I'm sure...:D)

 

-Jn-

Edited by JoeNapalm
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On 4/23/2017 at 9:17 PM, cantab said:

Oh actually, I should have remembered earlier, I still like bragging about this thing:

https://flic.kr/p/yjiteS

Even though it lagged like heck and needed fuelhack to make orbit. Now that KSP runs faster and I have a faster PC, I should break it out again and improve the launch system to fly it legit.

Yeesh, what'd you call that thing, the StarScraper?

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9 hours ago, TopHeavy11 said:

When I finally got to my first orbit, which was an 75.005km by 180 km orbit.

Yup, my first orbit was a proud moment, I just sat there and looked at Kerbin for awhile. I think we only had like 10 parts at the time, so there where several failed attempts.

Then right after that they added the Mun, after smashing into the surface several times at a couple hundred meters per second I finally landed. I was so proud for about half a second, then the command pod popped off and rolled down a hill :D. That was a bug at the time.

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Also, I'll confess I did a real-life "YEAH!" complete with fist-pump the first time I hard-docked an orbital rendezvous.

I think of that every time someone tries to explain to me how hard some other games are...

"Did you have to learn orbital mechanics? Hohmann transfers? No? Well...then how hard could it really be?"

-Jn-

Edited by JoeNapalm
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So far my proudest moment? I once had a mun landing that went wrong, lander had the d/v to enter munar orbit, not enough to return to kerbin. I had my engineering team shoot up on their secret stash then put them to work. Within a few minutes I had a highly modified version of the first mun rocket (the one that went bad and left Jeb in munar orbit). I launched the modified rocket, sent it to enter munar orbit and rendezvous with the errant pod. My tech level was very low, didn't have any docking parts. I got the second rescue rocket within about 500 iirc of Jeb.

I ordered Jeb to pack up his science and grab is EVA pack, said goodbye to the faithful lifepod, then EVAed that 500 meters to the rescue ship. 

Collected jeb, re entered kerbin orbit and brought Jeb back home. It was awesome.

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First, landing on Mun, On the second attempt to land (watch a lot of times a video about landing on mun though)

Then a cuadruple tie between:

1. First docking of two vessels. Docking ports where not implemented yet, but have a mod that had parts that acted like docking ports. A month later, 0.18 came out.

2. Assemble on orbit a Mir replica with all its modules using Buran (all thanks by marvelous mods made by Bobcat). Laggy as hell because my old computer, but really proud of it.

3. Make a Duna base out of Bobcats modules. After several attempts without reloading I aknowledged that only using chutes to land on duna was not a good idea.

4. Drive for like two hours from where I landed to the duna face with a Lionhead curiosity rover. (~10 m/s top speed) I didn't planned it, but saw my landing coordinates and thought, "that shouldn't be too far from here". More like a relieve, but really excited to see the duna face for first time anyway.

Also, Im really proud each time a see a video or a pic of KSP from someone and see that said someone is using my little mod :)

Edited by lttito
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Landing for the first time on the Mun. With 12 units of fuel left. I had had the game for nearly 3 years at this point, and never gone beyond a Kerbin orbit, just spent all my time building stock combat ground vehicles. I didn't even  intend to land on the Mun on launch, my lander was just a nonfuctional SSTO I had got frustrated with and strapped a massive booster to. I then realised I had about half my fuel left and said to my friend who was watching, "screw it. Let's go to the Mun."

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I'm still in denial about successfully having a spacecraft fly past every single planet and moon in the stock system (for a contract) without using nuclear or ion engines-to some, this would seem fairly mundane but this was back when I only had a few hundred hours of experience. Add to that forgetting to visit the Mun and Minmus on the way out and managing to intercept both their SOIs on the finishing Kerbin flyby and then get into orbit with 0.23 units of LF to spare, and I don't think I can ever top it.

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  • 1 year later...

(I think there may be a newer incarnation of this topic but I can't find it -- it's timeless, anyway.)

My son gave me KSP Xmas 2014.

On March 9, 2015, the following occurred, which I now recount as the HAPPIEST moment (of very many) in my KSP career:

Quote

I still most vividly recall my very first encounter with Duna!!

I achieved it setting my apoapsis way higher than that of Duna.  As a result, my very heavy ship was speeding past sight of Duna at a totally unstoppable differential.

I was thrilled to catch my very first sight of another planet but so disappointed to be sailing by.

I loaded as much fuel as I could into a "lifeboat" and cast off, hoping to get closer to Duna with a much lighter ship.

Miraculously, I was able to enter Duna's Sphere of Influence!  Yet, thus undeservingly rewarded by the Gods, I thirsted for more: hoping to capture the Holy Duna and enter orbit!!

Miraculously again, this next wish was granted using almost all of my precious fuel remaining; and I took reel after reel of photos from a stable Duna orbit!

Out of film and mission presumably concluded, I still had just enough fuel to enter the atmosphere to crash and burn.  So, suicidally, now hopelessly in love with the Fatal Duna, I executed the de-orbit: I thought I should at least bury myself on sacred ground...  the red soil looming, I used the remaining fuel to slow the impending crash.

Then, in the last 30 seconds, I realized two more heaven-sent items:

  1. Duna has 20% atmosphere!!
  2. and my lifeboat had chutes!!!!

And so, with my final few liters of fuel and under chutes, I cushioned those last meters, extending the landing struts, to land, whole, on Duna!! -- rescuing the mission from the most tantalizing failure in the absolutely most unexpected manner.  If I wasn't already in love with KSP, I became so in those final moments of the first landing of Kerbals on Duna!!  :)

 

Here are the pics, a very happy and unexpected turn of events:

zERqv3I.pngH1sQOlw.pngYnWednG.png

Superb!

Edited by Hotel26
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  • 2 weeks later...

back in .90 i created a remotetech network around all planetary bodies.  if you were within 5Mm from any moon or planet(except jool), and you had a 2.5Mm range omni antenna or better, you could communicate with any other body.  it was in sandbox and it still took me 4 months, but every satellite was set up by an orange suited kerbal personally.   

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  • 2 weeks later...

My greatest accomplishment so far is landing on the mun, flying by the mun and minmus, and landing back on kerbin saftely… with a 0.4 ton satellite!

czILB2A.jpg

https://kerbalx.com/JohnsterSpaceProgram/Smallest-Satellite-wEngine

Edited by Johnster_Space_Program
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I have a small single launch space station attached to a D-class asteroid. Why is this a great achievement? Because the asteroid has a period of roughly 80 years, and it was already about twice as far out as Eeloo when the station rendezvoused with it. When it launched the largest engine in game was the Mammoth and I had not yet discovered the trick of clustering the smaller area Vector engines. It was the largest, heaviest, most expensive, and most powerful rocket I'd built up to that point; and was the first rocket I ever built with more thrust at liftoff than the Sea Dragon (350 meganewtons).

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On 1/25/2019 at 2:12 PM, Johnster_Space_Program said:

Yeah, that was my old account.

It's all one account now. 

Also, we've got quite a few threads like this now, so this one has been consolidated into one of the existing ones. 

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