totm jan 2023 Threads of the month: January 2023

[adsii1970]

The KSP forum moderator's team presents the
Threads of the Month
January 2023 Edition

A new year brings a new TOTM image! And I'd like to introduce to you Margo, best described as one of the scientists you'll encounter in Kerbal Space Program 2 soon to be available as an early release. I'd like to thank @Ghostii_Space for allowing Margo Kerman to assist us in recognizing the members of the forum whose efforts make valuable contributions to our community. Last year, we saw a number of great threads earn the honor of threads of the month and a lot of great honorable mentions. In case you missed the post yesterday, we announced the thread, [1.12.x] Parallax - PBR Terrain and Surface Objects [2.0.2] as the 2022 Thread of the Year, authored by @Gameslinx.  If you've not seen the 2022 TOTY announcement thread yet, please visit it and congratulate @Gameslinx on this great honor!

Now that December is gone and January has just begun, its time to turn our attention to the threads nominated by you, the forum community, to be highlighted in our traditional Thread of the Month. We had a lot of good posts nominated for January. Over the years I've been doing the TOTMs, I've made a few changes, such as adding categories so that more threads receive the recognition deserved. And at times, there's been two threads per category until last year, when it was decided to reduce it to one per category. From that point, honorable mentions are always considered for future TOTMs.

I have received some direct messages/private messages/Facebook messages regarding how this thread of the month will be handled once (EA) KSP2 is released. This thread is flexible enough to accommodate your content from both games - it's not the games we highlight as much as it is your contributions to the KSP community! The only area where we might have to add KSP/KSP2 options might be mods and challenges - but until we begin seeing specific content in those areas for KSP2, it's too early to speculate. 

And as I do in each of these threads, I am asking a favor - if you see an interesting thread - NOMINATE IT! The instructions for nominating a thread are at the bottom of this post.

Instructions on using the TOTM images: If your thread has been selected as a TOTM, you can copy the image's link above, go to the area of the forum you want to place it, then paste the link. When the image appears, press the <CONTROL> button and right click on your mouse. A menu will drop down and offer you the option to edit the picture. You can resize it - the first number can be changed as large or small as you want it. Eventually I will be adding these images to the thread I've created as a repository.

For those out there who like the nerdy parts of the TOTM:

To continue what I started in May 2021, I began keeping some forum statistics to respond to those claiming the forum was dying. In December, there were 386 new forum accounts (a decrease of 59, or down 13.25% from November). Out of the new forum members that joined last month, there were 25 who were active and participating in the forum. This conversion means 6.48% of the new users who registered their accounts are now contributing members of our community! (This decreased from last month; 7.64% of the new members became active and contributing members). If you’re interested in seeing the new members of our forum, you can click here!

Now, without further delay, I present to you the threads of the month for January:

Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works:

This category features a thread (or threads) that, while not directly Kerbal Space Program related, may be a creative work, fan-fiction, or other presentation related to the game.

This month's thread in this category is by @Kerbal123_Furry , a member who joined our forum community in August 2022. In this mission report, @Kerbal123_Furry introduces us to this mission:

Quote

Once upon a time (read:2 years ago), When I am reading Moho article, i found a picture about a Red moho.This picture show me a totally different moho that is red, hot, and have an atmosphere. So i became interested about this version, determined to find this planet that ''vanished''.

But before reaching my ultimate goal（moho return）, I looked up Youtube to find some easier interplanetary returning mission to help me plan my moho return. Then I found a Laythe return mission trial, showing a successful laythe landing and orbit returning and a failed Kerbin returning. I tweaked his craft then started the exploration of 0.17 Ver.

We all know that some of the best mission ideas begin this way. So, if you feel nostalgic for the older versions of KSP (as I still play my 1.3.0 game regularly), then this thread is the one for you! It has a good story and a good number of screen shots.

Warning, this thread is image-heavy and may cause performance issues with your web browser depending on your Internet connection speed.

If you're new to Kerbal Space Program and you want to see what some of the older versions were like, or maybe you are looking for some inspiration for mission ideas, give this thread a visit. If you want to encourage a newer member of our forum in their creativity, then give the thread a visit and leave some words of encouragement!

Forum Member Created Challenges and Missions:

This category contains missions and challenges created by you, the members of our gaming community. Many excellent missions and challenges threads are created that expand our fun with the game and press our skills, creativity, and sometimes, luck beyond what we get accustomed to. Let’s face it, we all have our go-to design basics and even our go-to vehicles we like to use. So sometimes, a good challenge can cause us to think of another way to achieve our goals. 

 There was no submission this month for this category.

Game Support/Game Mod of the Month:

This category features either help with the game (stock or modded) or mods that add quality-of-life gameplay improvements to Kerbal Space Program.

In this month's highlighted thread for this category, @smushanoob provides something that solves for what most of us have said more than once... "it would be nice to start the game and have something different to do." This is exactly how this mod is introduced:

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The idea is simple. A wacky change to the Kerbol system.

Some of the planets are based off of real life planets, but modified. This is intentional.

@smushanoob has done something that's not easy - making a mod that rearranges and gives the stock planets a fresh look. As we anticipate the  early release of KSP2 in a little over a month and a half, mods like this continue to breathe life into KSP - and will continue to do so for many players even after the newest title in the KSP franchise is out.

If you're looking for a new take on the stock system, then this is the mod for you!

General community threads of the month:

This category features a thread that adds to the community and doesn’t fit the game support/game mod categories.

This month's post for this category doesn't relate directly to Kerbal Space Program but does direct to what most of us have in common - our love of astronomy! And in this thread by @cubinator, backyard astronomy takes center stage! As introduced by @cubinator:

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Hello all,

Want to do some science?

On the night of Wednesday, December 7th/Morning of Thursday December 8th, Earth's Moon will pass directly in front of Mars for observers in the highlighted areas of this graph. The event coincides with the opposition of Mars, when it should (theoretically!) be at its closest point to Earth.

About 30 minutes later, the Moon will pass in front of the star k Tauri, which has an apparent magnitude of approximately 5.75. This is a fairly dim star, and I'm not sure if it will be easily visible through a telescope when it's right next to the full Moon. But if it is, then I believe that we can use the amount of time between the Mars occultation and the k Tauri occultation to calculate the distance between Earth and Mars. 

The only equipment necessary is a telescope powerful enough to see the disk of Mars and the background star, an accurate clock, and a watchful eye. The other helpful thing would be if you live as far away from Minneapolis, USA as possible while still being able to observe the event! If you live in the general vicinity of France, Britain, or Germany and own a telescope you are in the perfect place to help me out! 

If you're interested in how the amateur astronomy experiment worked out, here's the thread:

There are times when the community actually does real science and this thread is a great example of it. We always welcome threads like this and maybe, if you know of a school science project early enough, you can enlist the help of the forum community to assist you in your project - as you can tell from the thread, there were a lot of eager people wanting to provide assistance. And the good thing? As @cubinator and others discovered, there are backyard scientists - and in this case - astronomers - eager to participate in projects such as this all over the world!

Video-based Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works:

This category features a video or other form of cinematography of a Kerbal mission report using in-game video recorded game play.  Note: This has changed. Instead of awarding this to a thread, this is a *post of the month* since most new cinematic works are being posted in a single thread. We have a lot of great content creators but because they've been posting their mission reports as videos in a single thread, most of their work goes unnoticed by the general forum audience. Hopefully, with this change in the category to a Post of the Month (POTM), this will highlight the great work done by these deserving content creators. Other threads that contain cinematic posts will also be featured in this category, too.

Yes, folks, that's right. A new image just for the cinematic posts! There's a lot of great content creators who are deserving of this recognition since we were made aware of the thread, Post Your Cinematics Here! (Cinematic Enthusiasts) by @HatBat. Although the thread did receive TOTM earlier in 2022, it was felt that it wasn't enough for those of you who have shared your great creations featuring our favorite Kerbalnauts.

For the first CPOTM, we'd like to recognize the efforts of @cxg2827 in this amazing cinematic found here:

Sometimes the forum software will get a little glitchy and an exact post may be a little hard to find, especially when it is buried in a longer thread. In case this happens, here's @cxg2827's cinematic presentation:

If you've never seen this one, or any of the countless others on the thread, visit the thread! If you need some inspiration for your own cinematographic series, this post is sure to give you some. Be sure and leave some encouragement to @cxg2827 and let them know you appreciate the efforts made!

If you happen to encounter other cinematics you feel are worthy of being recognized as this category's post of the month, please nominate them! You can use the same instructions to nominate a post containing a video as you would use to nominate a thread.

Honorable mentions:

Sometimes it’s a challenge to choose which threads are going to receive the honor of being selected as the Thread of the Month for our five categories. We get so many good nominations each month to choose from, but we limit it to one for each type. Threads nominated but not selected as a thread of the month become honorable mentions. The honorable mentions for this month are:

• Buffalo 2 Modular Space Exploration Vehicle by @Angel-125
• Calvinball by @Deddly
• Community Space Program: Control a Space Program Through Text! by @Kerbalsaurus
• On the nth day of Christmas, Jebediah gave to me... by @wpetula
• v1.0.1 "Central Fire." Planet Jam 2: Armstrong's Limit Homeworld in The Ilio-Pyri Planetary System by @GregroxMun

 

The honorable mentions for this month may not have made the Thread of The Month, but if you think they might be worthy of another opportunity, please renominate it!

Congratulations to all the winners of the Thread of the Month! We want to thank our forum members, @AlamoVampire, @Interplanet Janet, @Mangu, @Mrpasta44, @Nazalassa, @Rutabaga22, @Tangle, @Triston, @Zozaf Kerman, and the members of the moderation team and staff who nominated this month’s contenders. Thank you so much for helping us identify noteworthy threads and bringing their awareness to our forum community. We’d appreciate your continued help in the future.

The odds and ends:

TO NOMINATE  A THREAD FOR CONSIDERATION: If you find a thread you feel should be considered for next month’s thread of the month, then use the “report comment” feature (the three dots on the upper right corner of the comment box) to report the comment. Please put in the text field of the report post “Nomination for thread of the month,” and we will do the rest! You can always nominate more than one thread, too.

And the last word this post: I'd like to thank a few people who continue to trust me enough to continue to support and allow me to contribute to the forum. I'd like to thank the Lead Moderator, @Vanamonde for bringing me on as a moderator, a decision that I'm sure has had moments where he often wonders why he did it. I'd also like to thank @Ghostii_Space, our community manager and @Nerdy_Mike, the KSP Franchise Community Lead, for allowing me to continue to serve our Kerbal Space Program forum community through the monthly Threads of the Month post.  

In case you missed last month’s threads of the month, you can click here.

[AlamoVampire]

Congratulations to the winners and honorable mentions!!

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Edited January 3, 2023 by AlamoVampire

[Caerfinon]

Well done all! 

[Rutabaga22]

Congrats all!

[Kerbalsaurus]

Thank you so much for the honorable mention! And thank you to everyone on that thread who helped make the thread an honorable mention!

Edited January 4, 2023 by Kerbalsaurus

[cubinator]

Thanks for selecting my thread! I've been working on it on and off during my end-of-year travels. There's a couple things I'm still stumped on but I'm confident that the determination is possible, and I may even get more information than I anticipated.

[Kerbal123_Furry]

WOOOOOOOO！！！！

Thanks for choosing my topic!!

(plus. doing these missions is a great torture to my eyes)

And congrats to everyone!! 

3 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Congratulations to the winners and honorable mentions!!

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What's that？

[Minmus Taster]

Congratulations

[Zozaf Kerman]

Congrats! 

[Just Jim]

Congrats everyone!    

[AlamoVampire]

@Kerbal123_Furry

its a timestamp that is set to the time zone im in in 24hr format that i put into every post i make. Its a more accurate way to track when my posts are posted. As more time passes the default time stamp the forum uses becomes less accurate. Ive done this since at least 2016.  

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[Nazalassa]

Congrats everyone!

[tajwo]

Congrats to whoever won. CSP thread is pretty cool. I like cenematics too

 

[Entropian]

Congrats to the winners!  I'm really, really hyped to see a cinematic-specific category, as there's quite a large community around them that just doesn't seem to gain the same traction on the forums as it does on Youtube and other platforms.

[adsii1970]

2 hours ago, Entropian said:

Congrats to the winners!  I'm really, really hyped to see a cinematic-specific category, as there's quite a large community around them that just doesn't seem to gain the same traction on the forums as it does on Youtube and other platforms.

As you can see, we are trying to fix this problem! And you're right, they should have the same traction, if not more. So, if you see some really great ones and they have a forum page or are featured on the thread mentioned above, please nominate it. We'll see what we can do to feature it next month!

[smushanoob]

Thank you very much for of all mods choosing mine to be selected for TOTM! Congratulations to other winners.  

[zer0Kerbal]