What makes you feel like a pro at KSP?

[impyre]

Being able to get Mun and Minmus intercepts without nodes.

Knowing how to calculate dV on your own.

Being able to pick a spot, and land within a few meters of it easily.

Going to Minmus without a plane change.

Designing a plane that actually gets to space, flies well, and does something useful. (This one was hard for me because of FAR, so I felt pretty pro when I was able to do it... it's a good feeling)

How about you? It's not really a contest or anything, just share those moments where you feel especially triumphant.

[Camaron]

Developing a Kethane lander the size of some people's Interplanetary ships.

Launching a fuel station that weighs more than a Class E asteroid in orbit, full stock.

I also hit planets without plane shifts.

Building spaceplanes that have the same weight to lift positioning balance throughout the flight.

Docking just about anything with great ease because Ive done it a thousand times, while some people can't seem to pull it off at all.

...and by extension, building landers without additional monoprop tanks because the built-in 15 will be far more than enough.

Wondering why people need mechjeb for just about anything besides autopiloting a three hour burn or pulling off an octo-docking.

[stupid_chris]

Wondering why people need mechjeb for just about anything besides autopiloting a three hour burn or pulling off an octo-docking.

Because some people's fun (e.g. me) is not to pilot, but to build and explore. Not that I really play anymore, and not that I couldn't pilot, but when I played regularly, I realized I didn't have much fun piloting, so I'd leave MechJeb to do it.

When I used to play a lot I thought it was pretty chill I was about to launch about anything I need without really needing more than three core boosters. Never been a big fan of asparagus staging.

Edited March 16, 2015 by stupid_chris

[InterCity]

When I go interplanetary with a SSTO (albeit with orbital refuel), or when saving kerbals with FAR, DRE, TAC Life support and chatterer installed. No one left behind.

[MaverickSawyer]

Two words: Design Optimization. My goal is always to make the smallest, lightest, most capable craft I can to perform the mission.

That said, the occasional badass moments where I managed to save my crewmembers from almost certain doom makes me feel like a pro.

[AbacusWizard]

Planning some extravagantly complicated project and then making it happen.

Calculating available ∆v, carefully budgeting a few maneuvers, and reaching my destination just as I use almost the last bit of fuel.

Quickly and easily docking a lander to a space station.

Dropping down from orbit and landing within a few meters of my destination.

Taking a spaceplane from the runway to orbit to the surface of Minmus and all the way back to... well, near the runway, at least... without losing a single part.

[eddiew]

Making SSTOs that can take a crew of 2-4, plus a rover, to Mun and back, without refuelling, and without going much above 100 parts

Because some people's fun (e.g. me) is not to pilot, but to build and explore. Not that I really play anymore, and not that I couldn't pilot, but when I played regularly, I realized I didn't have much fun piloting, so I'd leave MechJeb to do it.

I quite agree. Docking is tedious, and while I can perform it (often more efficiently than MechJeb) I frequently don't because I'd rather autopilot and 4x timewarp.

[Deutherius]

Being able to get to Jool with less than 1300 m/s dV from LKO. Or in general - doing flybys and hitting the target trajectory perfectly.

Perfectly docking to a station (not much, I know, but it always feels so good). I gotta try docking at 5 km over Mun's (or Tylo's... Or Eeloo's) surface one day.

Landing things that shouldn't be landable perfectly on the runway.

[Yukon0009]

......when in a band of school KSP players, you're the only one who has ever gotten past high suborbital....

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

1. Recovering a totally out of control spaceplane at 30 km and leveling off less than 100 m over the sea. Then landing at the KSC.

2. A perfect docking. no stopping, no second tries, just rendezvous, straight approach and connect.

3. Docking 2 rovers on the ground (very tough)

4. Docking 2 seaplanes AT SEA!

[Pixel of Life]

A perfect two-burn rendezvous - when my target is orbiting higher or lower than me, and I burn once to get the closest approach to within a few hundred meters, and then burn again at the closest approach point to match orbits and cancel relative velocity.

Feels good man.

[Yukon0009]

oh yeah, flying a plane, 180 m/s at sea level- so low it shows on the altimeter as 0 m

[Johno]

I'm a man of simple tastes and dreadful piloting skill. Simply docking in Munar orbit is the sweetest feeling in the world.

[KerikBalm]

It was probably more luck than pro but...

- when you launch (no mechjeb) for an orbital rendevous in LKO, start to do your circularization burn and realize that the target is coming pretty close, and switch to target mode, burn to cancel out relative velocity while finishing orbital insertion, before planning the rendevous.... and then look over and see your target 300m away.

It was really just a matter of timing the launch really well, and ok piloting of the ascent - but it really made me feel pro to do a manually piloted launch direct to rendevous.... none of this BS of waiting around for several orbits for a good intercept.

Then I also felt "pro" for a bit with making SSTOs to lift very large payloads, even with FAR... until I realized just how absurd it is after playing with RSS

[worir4]

When my external boosters stage and don't explode on the first time... Yeah, that feeling tho...

[goldenpeach]

doing a manned Moho mission without refueling. With only 300m/s(or so) to spare.

yeah, I'm a bit stressed at the end: I can't be sure if my fellow kerbals return safely,without finishing on a elliptic orbit around the sun, where a rescue mission would be difficult because the said orbit will be heavily inclined

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

It was probably more luck than pro but...

- when you launch (no mechjeb) for an orbital rendevous in LKO, start to do your circularization burn and realize that the target is coming pretty close, and switch to target mode, burn to cancel out relative velocity while finishing orbital insertion, before planning the rendevous.... and then look over and see your target 300m away.

It was really just a matter of timing the launch really well, and ok piloting of the ascent - but it really made me feel pro to do a manually piloted launch direct to rendevous.... none of this BS of waiting around for several orbits for a good intercept.

I did something similar on purpose!

was sending a payload up to doc with a tug already in LKO. didn't give the payload enough of a final stage. so it ends up sub-orbital with an Ap of 74km.

I did get the timing right though, was just a few km away so I was able to switch over to the tug, DECELERATE the tug to suborbital (!), so now I had about 3 minutes to dock before they would both reenter. execute the dock and accelerate back to orbit speed!

whew!

(wasn't skill so much as highly maneuverable tug!)

Edited March 16, 2015 by Brainlord Mesomorph

[Xavven]

Nailing an Eve return mission or a Tylo landing.

Dropping multiple parachuting probes on Laythe or Eve to experimentally determine where to put your periapsis to land exactly where you want, then nailing the "real" lander exactly where you want.

[Deutherius]

oh yeah, flying a plane, 180 m/s at sea level- so low it shows on the altimeter as 0 m

I did something like that once while trying the Low Flyer Elite challenge... It was a highly unstable kraken powered infiniglider at 510 m/s. It didn't feel badass though, more like absolutely terrifying.

Actually landing the craft, that felt pretty satisfying

[Guest]

When you meet another KSP player at a competition, and he´s a total noob and cheats all the time. I thought: "Hm, compared to him, I´m not THAT bad."

[loch.ness]

Picked the game back up recently after a long hiatus, I've had a few moments that made me feel "like a pro" since:

Early career - no patched conic orbits or maneuver nodes - managed a rescue contract eyeballing it the whole way.

Opened sandbox for fun - built an Apollo style Mun mission with off center lander. Launched - orbited - transferred and orbited again on the first attempt and everything still good to go. Landing in the morning and taking the rover for a spin if the mission continues error free.

Built a Moho mission and got it on its way. Manually set my maneuvers for Moho encounter. ~ 3.6 k m/s total. Last time I planned a Moho mission I was using mechjeb and still didn't have enough Delta V. This mission still has ~1/5 an orange tank with left in the mainsail ejection stage. First of two burns completed ~2.6 k m/s on the second burn in 35 days and not a drop of the ~8000 d/v main ship's tanks used. Don't know if I'll make it back from Moho, but I'll make it there for the first time.

Now if I could only get my planes to fly in my early tech career with NEAR installed.

[jman508]

landing my ssto on the runway. everytime

just feels so good.

[technicalfool]

Hard to pick a single example. Though, without even going into space, you know you're getting good when you can do this without TCA:

Or, maybe this:

[maccollo]

Designing a mission and then flying said mission with next to no margin of error, with each stage having just enough deltaV to perform it's function, and doing it on the very first try.

That feels pretty neat.

[DerpenWolf]

Asteroid on roof of VAB