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The KSP forum moderator's team presents the Threads of the Month January 2025 Edition "The better late than never" edition Well, now that the forum appears stable again, maybe it's time for me to return to doing the Threads of the Month again. Before I get into this month's highlights, I want to give a special shout-out to @CameronLeroux, @Mr. Kerbin, @Kevin_kerman, @Superfluous J, and others who commented with a near-"Scooby-Doo, where are you?" or similar well-wishes during my absence. As I shared with a few of my close forum friends and the moderation team, I've beta-tested KSP1 since 2014 and KSP2 since 2020. When KSP2's development stopped, although I was not part of the paid staff, it felt like a gut punch. I made a lot of friends with both development teams. Then, the forum instability added to it and worsened the situation. But now I am back, and so are the threads of the month - with the quality and love for them you've come to enjoy. 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 where you want to place it, and then paste the link. Press the <CONTROL> button when the image appears and right-click on your mouse. A menu will drop down and allow you to edit the picture. You can resize it - the first number can be changed as large or small as you want. Eventually, I will add 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 have kept some forum statistics to respond to those claiming the forum was dying or interest in the Kerbal Space Program was declining. There were 200 new forum accounts created in December (a decrease of 41 or down 17.01% from November). Out of the new forum members who joined last month, 17 transitioned from new accounts to being active and participating in the forum. This conversion means that 8.5% of the new users who registered their accounts last month are now contributing members of our community! (This is a decrease from November; 7.88% of the new members became active and contributing members). If you're interested in meeting the new members of our forum, click here! Now, without further delay, I present to you the threads of the month for January: Cinematic-based Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a video or other cinematic form of a Kerbal mission report using in-game video-recorded gameplay. Note: Instead of awarding this to a thread; this is a *post of the month* since most new cinematic works are 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, this change in the category to a Post of the Month (POTM) will highlight the great job done by these deserving content creators. Other threads containing cinematic posts will also be featured in this category. Many great content creators deserve this recognition since we knew the thread by @Halban: Post Your Cinematics Here! (Cinematic Enthusiasts) that serves as a repository for cinematic threads. The thread received the TOTM previously, but it was felt that it wasn't enough for those who shared your fabulous creations featuring our favorite Kerbalnauts. Instead of being a TOTM, I've changed it into a CPOTM - a Cinematic Post of the Month. In this cinematic, by @minerbat, a lot is going on in both the Kerbiverse created and introduced, the development of a storyline, and some nifty concepts of the use of stock parts in ways that many of us long-time KSP veterans can appreciate. The introduction to the thread is full of some of the vision for the story with @minerbat introducing the cinematic as: It's fun and compact at a little over ten minutes. You can find the cinematic here: Since it is not posted in the thread started by @Halban, there's no link to that thread. Sometimes, the forum can become a bit glitchy. So here's a direct link YouTube link to @minerbat's cinematic: If you 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 exact instructions to nominate a post containing a video as you would use to nominate a thread. Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features threads (or threads) that, while not directly related to the Kerbal Space Program, may be creative, fan fiction, or other presentations related to the game. Fan fic based on either Kerbal Space Program or Kerbal Space Program 2 is always something I enjoy reading. But that does not mean that all KSP-based fan fiction is worthy of being one of the threads nominated by the community or will make it to one of the month's featured threads. But this month, one did - a fan fic written by @Kerbalsaurus. This fan fic reimagines the history of human spaceflight through the peaceful nature of Kerbals. The introduction states: It's a neat fan fic full of reimagined spacecraft perfect for our favorite green spacefaring creatures! It is an excellent reimagining of the history of human spaceflight told from a "what if the machines and the imaginations of war" had never played a part in its development. Here's where you will find this thread: So, if you're interested in reading a mission report and seeing how others imagine their Kerbal-verse, why not visit this thread? 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 our go-to vehicles we like to use. Sometimes, a good challenge can cause us to think of another way to achieve our goals. This month's challenge comes to us from @Eclipse 32 and is a rather interesting one. The "mass driver challenge" is an interesting concept we've probably thought about a hundred times before. We may have even tried a dozen times before for giggles and grins, but we never shared the results with anyone. But @Eclipse 32 took the thoughts and made a thread out of it and created a nice, Kerbalized challenge from it. The OP states: This challenge offers a lot of flexibility - modded or unmodded, various levels of difficulty and mission goals! So, if you are looking for something to do differently in KSP and are interested in giving this challenge a try, you can find it here: If you are looking for something new and are bored of the same old routine in your game, why not try this challenge? Please post images or cinematics - we want to see your results! Game Support/Game Mod of the Month: This category features either help with the game (stock or modded) or mods that improve the Kerbal Space Program's quality-of-life gameplay. I enjoy mods that add more places to explore for our brave Kerbonauts, and this month's featured mod does just that. This mod, by @smushanoob, adds three gas giants and a host of new satellites to the Kerbin system. The amount of detail given to the planets and their satellites is fantastic. But I will warn you, if you have an older system, already have a lot of mods, or you already have a lot of mods that expand the Kerbol system, you might have some issues with this mod. You can find the mod here: We want to thank our family of mod contributors who continue to develop new and exciting mods that support our KSP1 and KSP2 community! So, if you're looking for something that will cause you to take your shuttle fleet to the next level, 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 or game mod categories. Once in a while, we receive a nomination for a thread that does not fit our usual categories but is still worthy of being recognized as a thread of the month. This month, we have such a thread. In the thread "The Fallen One - MS-06 El Diablo" by @InterstellarKev, a vision of combining the best of construction techniques in Kerbal Space Program with some of the sci-fi futuristic mech suits one sees in some of the other PC games and movies are combined. The OP is similar to a mission report with @InterstellarKev introducing the fruits of labor and imagination: This thread was not considered a mission report because buried within it are links to KerbalX, where you can download this file and enjoy terrorizing Duna, the KSC, or any other locality that needs to be stomped upon by Jebediah, Val, or any other Kerbal you plan to unleash in it! You can find the thread and link to KerbalX here: Even if you're just curious as to what a Kerbalized mech suit looks like, take a look and leave an encouraging comment! General space flight and space science threads of the month: This category features a thread that adds to our forum community's STEM knowledge (science, space flight, and related fields) and doesn't fit the game support/game mod categories. In this thread, started by @farmerben, the question was asked, "What is the optimal size for domes and similar structures on Mars or the Moon?" Our forum community, made of professional and armchair engineers, astronauts, and space explorers, and I, a professional historian, have enjoyed weighing in and giving our opinions. While I have not commented on this particular thread (yet), I have read the comments with great interest. It's always fun when we, as a community, can converse with differing opinions without getting out of hand, as is often the case on Discord and other social media platforms. I want to thank you, the community, for this. I'll award this thread three Jebediahs for the effort! If you want to take a look at the thread or are interested in taking part in the conversation, you can find it here: The Science and Spaceflight section of the forum has many topics to feed the curiosity of most of our forum members. So, if you're interested in some intellectual discussion that might chase away afternoon boredom, why not visit this portion of the forum and find something of interest? Honorable Mentions: Sometimes, choosing which threads will be selected as the Thread of the Month for our five categories is challenging. We get many good nominations each month but 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: KSA | The KSP Replacement from RocketWerkz | Seamless Movement and Terrain by @Saturn1234 The Mean Space by @Darknote Although this month's honorable mention may not have made the Thread of The Month, if you think it might be worth another opportunity, please renominate it! Congratulations to all the winners of the Thread of the Month! We want to thank our forum members, specifically @AlamoVampire, @modus, @Mr. Kerbin, the moderation team members, and the 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. 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, use the "Report a comment" feature (the three dots on the upper right corner of the comment box) to report the thread. Please put in the text field of the port post "Nomination for the thread of the month," and we will do the rest! You can always nominate more than one thread, too. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOES INTO THE DECISION WHEN CONSIDERING THE TOTM: Wonder no more! This helpful guide is to help you understand what we use to help determine what makes a thread a really good thread and one that becomes a thread of the month/cinematic post of the month. It's everything you did or didn't want to know and includes helpful tips. And the last word for this month's post: I'd like to thank a few people who trust me enough to continue supporting and allowing me to contribute to the forum. I want to thank the Lead Moderator, @Vanamonde, for bringing me on as a moderator. It was a decision, and I'm sure he has had moments where he often wonders why he did it. I have no idea who else to thank since we do not currently have an active contact at Private Division or their new owners - but whoever you are, thanks anyway for letting me continue to do the threads of the month. If you missed the last edition of The Thread of the Month (September 2024), click here.

This is the pilot episode for a KSP series i am thinking of making. This series will follow kerbalkind from the very beginning all the way to being an interstellar empire. Along the way there will be stories of adventure and exploration, but also of war and destruction. There will also be humor, snacks and explosions from time to time, it is still KSP after all. The story is inspired by the expanse, VAOS's solar nation series, and Matt Lowne's KSP movies. The story will start out with the 4 starter kerbals, but the amount of characters will expand and change as the series goes on. Episodes will likely have a lot of time between them, since i do not have much time to make them because i am busy with university. Because of that, the series will take years to finish and may not finish at all if KSP loses its popularity now that no version of KSP is in development anymore...