totm feb 2023 The Last Hurrah Challenge!!!!!

[Klapaucius]

KSP2 comes out in just over 6 weeks.  This may be, for many of us, the last time we spend serious time in the original Kerbal Space Program, so let's go out with a bang.

 

This challenge is very simple. To celebrate the end of an era and the beginning of a new one:

 

Do something big, epic, c  r a  z  y, WILD, unprecendented in KSP1 or just accomplish something you have never done in KSP before.   (EDIT) This should be something new, not something you have already done.

 

There are no rules (other than what you impose on yourself--and the bit about it being new for this challenge). 

 

You may use mods, cheats, summon the Kracken, break the game and/or thumb your nose at physics.  

 

You could (for example):

* Make your first landing on Tylo or first ascent from Eve.

* Put a space station in orbit around every body in the system.

* Create a mod.

* Build a massive ferris wheel.

* Build a bridge linking the rooftops of the VAB and the SPH (something I have contemplated for ages).

* Create a giant flying broccoli.

* Find an old challenge that strikes your fancy and bring it back to life.

* See how many Kerbals you can strand on Minmus in three launches.

* Make a short movie.

* Write a KSP story.

* Build a  a functional split-level house for a growing family using only Goliath engines.

* Build a sculpture garden out of captured asteroids.

 

You get the idea....  

In the words of the great Weird Al:  Dare to be stupid!

 

GO NUTS!!!!

Edited January 12, 2023 by Klapaucius

[Flying dutchman]

i absolutely love it! 

[jyf921]

I do a single staged grand tour for my last major KSP1 mission. It includes Eve and Tylo.

[Klapaucius]

3 hours ago, jyf921 said:

I do a single staged grand tour for my last major KSP1 mission. It includes Eve and Tylo.

I was going to say it needs to be something new for this challenge, but seeing as you spent the whole year and just posted, I think that is okay. That is certainly epic.  Most impressive!  

[kspnerd122]

Im colonizing an entire planet mod, then working on releasing my planet mod, will continue to play KSP1 after tho

[Entropian]

Just realized that I forgot to hit Submit Reply 9 hours ago , here's a cinematic montage I made as a sort of finale cinematic for KSP 1:

 

[Klapaucius]

2 hours ago, Entropian said:

Just realized that I forgot to hit Submit Reply 9 hours ago , here's a cinematic montage I made as a sort of finale cinematic for KSP 1:

 

I watched that on the big TV.  That was lovely, especially what you wrote at the end.

[Sp1f]

I definitely have been thinking about my KSP1 bucket list since KSP2 was first announced. A lot of the items have already been checked off, even years ago at this point. Others, I feel like they are just going to be more awesome if I just do them in KSP2. One little thing in the back of my mind was that I had never tried to fly under a Mun arch at orbital speeds. Since I'm not sure if there are even going to be Mun arches in KSP2, I figured I should get it done. When we got the last update with the addition to one of the arches, I felt compelled. It's a small thing for a last hurrah, but I'm glad I did it.

 

[swjr-swis]

I made a plane flap its wings...

 

(it may not have been entirely intentional...)

[Klapaucius]

3 hours ago, Sp1f said:

I definitely have been thinking about my KSP1 bucket list since KSP2 was first announced. A lot of the items have already been checked off, even years ago at this point. Others, I feel like they are just going to be more awesome if I just do them in KSP2. One little thing in the back of my mind was that I had never tried to fly under a Mun arch at orbital speeds. Since I'm not sure if there are even going to be Mun arches in KSP2, I figured I should get it done. When we got the last update with the addition to one of the arches, I felt compelled. It's a small thing for a last hurrah, but I'm glad I did it.

 

That was awesome!

 

2 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

I made a plane flap its wings...

 

(it may not have been entirely intentional...)

That cracked me up.  I'm not sure if you were modeling bird or disco dancer behavior however.

[The Aziz]

Oh perfect timing. About 12 hours after this was posted, I:

Landed safely my first Kerbals on Tylo, with no intention of returning (actually, I had intentions but my fuel situation was terrible and the logistics of making/bringing more were just too much, didn't want to warp for another 4 years);

Almost exactly 24 hours later I landed my first winged craft on a planet other than Kerbin, which also marked my first crewed landing on Laythe. Also not returning, same as above.

But! Later on I did a rendezvous in solar orbit - catching a debut Eeloo ship that ran out of fuel on return, unable to reach Kerbin (here's my big thanks to author of KSPTOT, without his tool I wouldn't be able to do this), and send them in new ship back home within days from meeting. No footage of that unfortunately.

Also more no footage of a crew returning from Dres, also first timers.

And with that I can finally say that I conquered the entire system, planting a flag on every alien surface I could, and returning from every place I could (except mentioned Tylo, Laythe and Eve). That was on 31st.

So really that whole savefile was me focusing on that one aim. And it lasted nearly 3 years from day 1 to finish at year 18 day 72 (which also marks my longest save in Kerbal time)

Other "firsts" in the save that don't count in the challenge but I'd like to share

Spoiler

-first crewed landing on Moho and return
-first crewed return from surface of Gilly and Eve orbit
-first crewed landings on Dres, Vall, Bop, Pol and Eeloo
-first uncrewed landing on Dres, Vall and Tylo
-first orbital stations around Moho, Eve, Duna, Dres, Tylo, Eeloo
-first mining rigs on Moho and Pol
-first rapid rescue of interplanetary craft - I forgot an antenna on a scanning probe already on its way to Jool, got a fast ship with mini Klaw
-first crew rescue from another planet - brought 3 Kerbals to Duna but return craft had only two seats, oops
-first (and second, and third) rocket that didn't fit in the VAB, too tall
-also I think first Ingenuity-style craft in airspace of another planet
and probably plenty of other firsts I forgot

 

[SkyFall2489]

I've begun designing the ships for a Grand Tour. This will be my first mission to Dres, Moho, and Eve, as well as my first grand tour. Also it will hopefully be my first Ike mission that does not require, nor is, a rescue mission.

 

[Ultimate Steve]

This seems like a really awesome thing to do. I don't have that much time left (University, work, cubesat stuff, and enough free time to stay sane), but I'd love to do something for this... One problem, though. How do I top this? I got done with this a bit too early for me to consider it a true sendoff mission, but I guess it is a sendoff in spirit...

I mean I suppose I could try to finish Voyage. That would be a decent sendoff, probably ~5 years of storytelling coming to an end. I probably don't have the time to do a more impressive mission than what is above.

Worth noting that I have a mostly finished design that can theoretically complete a grand tour in under 9 tons, but I got there by stripping all user friendliness out of the above design. You would have to pay me to fly it, lol, but it would top that.

Any ideas on what I can do that I haven't done before, with a very tight schedule?

Actually come to think of it I've never done Jool ascent... I built a craft that could do it waaaaay back in the Project Intrepid days but Project Intrepid died before it arrived at Jool... That's one option.

[wefightforpeace]

For my personal UNPRECENDENTED ACHIEVEMENT, I'm going to finally leave Kerbin's SOI. 

[MythicalHeFF]

For my Last Hurrah (and my YouTube 100 subscriber special), I decided to go all out and send 100 kerbals to Tylo, which is way more kerbals than I've ever had on any mission, let alone a mission to Tylo.  The craft shown here, when combined with the 100 ton rover I added onto it, has almost 900 parts, and has a mass approaching 1,000 tons when it is fully fueled. Because of how many parts it has, combined with the fact that adding dozens of Kerbals to a craft seems to really lower framerates, I decided to launch it in three separate parts:

- The crew module and landing system.

- The "Odyssey Evolved" rover, a callback to my magnum opus of KSP 1.

- The "AtomTug" transfer stage, which will haul this beast all the way to Jool.

I could refuel the lander using its ISRU systems and return the crew to Kerbin if I really wanted to, but this mission has already taken so long to put together, and even longer to edit, so I decided to just end the video on Tylo.

[Klapaucius]

@Jack Joseph Kerman That was truly epic!

[RealKerbal3x]

Late last year, while part-way through planning a Jool 5 mission, I realised I could reuse a lot of the designs to finally tick off the last worlds I've never visited with Kerbals. Just this evening, that culminated in this:

This is the United Kerbin Ship Wolfie, intended to conduct a mission to Eve, Gilly, Moho and Dres. With the Eve descent/ascent vehicle docked to its forward port, the vehicle is more than 60m long, carrying a crew of six as well as a smaller vacuum lander and compact ISRU unit in its aft cargo bays. Propulsion is via a pair of large nuclear tugs, equipped with inflatable heatshields to enable aerobraking in planetary atmospheres. The ship is more than 400 parts and doesn't agree with my potato at all - my new PC can't come soon enough!

However, Wolfie is not the first ship in its class. Already on its way to Jool is the UKS Farlander, a vessel of near-identical design carrying a spaceplane for Laythe on its forward port. Its cargo bays contain a Tylo lander and a reusable vehicle to be used for Vall, Bop and Pol. The ship is depicted during its final departure burn from Kerbin.

I got so deep into planning these missions that I even came up with a patch for what became known as Last Worlds or Bust:

With a little over a week until KSP2 releases, I'm not sure I'll be able to get both missions complete in time, but whenever I do I believe it will make a fitting sendoff for my time spent in this game.

(If you can tell me what my inspiration for the mission and ship names was, you get an imaginary gold star)