Mission time three years and counting...

[SiriusRocketry]

Yep, three years ago today I purchased KSP for the first time. But it was almost not to be...

I first played KSP in roughly late 2011, back when it was free, but I must've lost interest when it became a paid game (my only evidence is a poorly drawn KSP rocket with the caption 'Flying around the world' dated 17/11/11) because when I entered my first year of high-school I had no idea what KSP was. However, I had a crappy dual-core notebook for school, and while we were in maths class at some point in early 2017 (probably April, I remember it rained that day) I noticed that the guy a row in front of me to the left wasn't working after all, but playing a game where he was flying a plane manned by three screaming green aliens. I had a passing interest in spaceflight at the time, but was also socially nervous, and had never talked to half the people in my class. 
I mustered up my courage, leaned forward and tapped the guy on the back. He whipped around and tabbed out of the game. I asked him what he'd been playing, and, well, you all know the rest.
"Oh, this is Kerbal Space Program. You played it?"
I replied I hadn't, and went home that night curious.

I'd always played on a PlayStation at home; the idea of playing videogames on a PC beyond Space Cadet pinball, minesweeper and Flash games was as alien to me as KSP itself. Nevertheless, over the next month or so, I created a Steam account and installed it on my notebook,  found the outdated 1.0 demo, and created a forum account here on May 26, 2017. My first ever use of this forum was correspondence between myself and a fellow demo player, @The Flying Kerbal. I'd challenged myself that I'd buy the full game if I landed on the Mun or Minmus, not realising I had such inadequate parts for the job: TFK had landed Kerbals on Mun and Minmus in the demo, so I inquired as to how he'd done it. After refining one of his designs, I landed on Minmus in the demo on June 13th, 2017 according to this message:

I can't find any screenshots of landing on Minmus, or of the mission to the Mun I'd been planning (I don't remember landing on it in the demo, but I could be wrong) but this was enough for me to save my pocket money up, and buy KSP on July 3rd - today, three years ago. I've logged well over 1,000 hours by now, both on Steam and off, installed hundreds of mods, landed on nearly every planet and moon, travelled hundreds of millions of miles and set up a space empire. I keep coming back because this game is undoubtedly brilliant. Accessible yet technical, simple yet dedicated, fun yet complex, Kerbal Space Program is a shining example of what makes PC gaming great, and is why I'm a PC gamer today. To celebrate, I've dug around and found some old screenshots in Google Drive. Here are some of my first milestones in the full game:

First orbit (July 3, 2017)
 

Spoiler

 

 

First Munar landing (July 15, 2017)
 

Spoiler

 

First docking (August 9th, 2017)
 

Spoiler

 

 

First Duna landing (December 22nd, 2017)
 

Spoiler

 

On a final note, thank you to you guys, people of the KSP forum, subreddit and YouTube community. It's no surprise that KSP is the first word off my tongue when someone asks about nicest game fanbases, and I have no doubt that my time playing KSP would be much deprived without them. That being said, there's a few I'd like to thank personally:

@The Flying Kerbal, of course for his help at the very genesis of my KSP journey;

@The_Cat_In_Space and @Kerballing (Got Dunked On) for being a friendly voice for most of my early forum months;

@KSK, @steuben, @Just Jim and the rest of the wonderful chaps in the KSP Writers community: my favourite fiction section of the internet;

@DarkOwl57 for, well, being himself. It's been awesome writing with you.

 

Thank you everyone, and I cannot wait to see what the next three years has in store!

Edited July 3, 2020 by SiriusRocketry

[EchoLima]

It's really nice you have this documented so well! I started playing in 2013, bit on a long lost hard drive. I can only wish I still had my first screenshots...

Edited July 4, 2020 by EchoLima

[The Flying Kerbal]

So it's my fault you're now addicted to KSP, eh?

I do remember our communications and am so pleased they helped you take your first small steps into exploring the Kerbol system.  I agree with EchoLima, you've done a great job logging all your adventures in this amazing game, and I hope you'll post more of these as time goes on.

I really am chuffed to bits to learn I may have helped you in some small way, it was really good of you to post this.

[SiriusRocketry]

In my infinite wisdom, I forgot to tick 'Notify me of replies' (three years...some things never change) so thank you for your responses.

@EchoLima Yeah, I've always loved making up backstories and mission reports while documenting my adventures: pretty much the reason why I fell in love with the KSP writing community.
@The Flying Kerbal Yep, it was you  I still have that DM thread on my mailbox, and look at it every so often to remind me of two things.
a) how far I've come in KSP
b) how supportive this community is. That advice kickstarted the feeling of exploration that got me into the game, so indirectly you introduced me to the wonders of KSP. Thank you  I went from struggling to orbit Mun in the demo to attempting the Jool-V in the full game. How times have changed! Good to see you back and active on the forums lately too  


 

[steuben]

Reminds me of the time I introduced some friends of mine to a bridge building game, back at school. Should have been more careful about that. They were studying civil eng. I think one of their girlfriends is still mad at me.