What is your biggest KSP success?

[ToukieToucan]

Kind of in response to this thread, what is your biggest accomplishment/success in KSP?

[Dire_Squid]

Currently, having a to do a Touring Contract, and two stranded rescue contracts ALL IN ONE LAUNCH (I love fulfilling multiple contracts with one ship)!

[Francois424]

My first Jool-5 mission (no ISRU, no resupplying of any kind).  Was around 0.25.

I still re-use some of the design I worked on back then when planning other long missions. I remade one of my landers (Successfully) in 1.0.2 (The Laythe Ascender) and the design was so foolproof that even with Aero changes and Jet engine nerfs, it was *Still* able to complete and landing/takeoff of Laythe.  When you try re-inventing your design and keep failing to improve them and end-up with worse performer, it just means you've achieved quite a lot the first time around.  To this day the thing I am most proud of...

In second position would be my Solar cruiser of version 0.23... I try to upgrade it, and I can never seem to improve it.  For a Jool-5 fly-by probe made with only 50% the tech tree unlocked at the time, I still wonder how I managed something like that as a newb back then. 

And third position, my first two Mün landers.

 

Very memorable, and quite the accomplishment at the time.

[Superfluous J]

Other than the obvious *looks down at signature* I'd say my proudest moment was when my 1.0.x Eve lifter got into orbit. My Jool 5 was quite an achievement but it took 2 (or was it 3?) refuels so I'm not quite so proud of it.

I'd be proud of my Grand Tour (of which the aforementoined Eve lifter was the first part) but that's still in orbit of Jool waiting for - can you guess? - refueling.

As far as full careers go, I'm most proud of my "Kerpollo" save where I went to each planet and moon one time - and only one time - with an Apollo-style mission. Except Kerbin (which I just got to by starting the game), Mun and Minmus (which I got to before unlocking docking ports, so no Apollo-style possible), and Jool et al (which I did as the aforementioned ill-fated-but-eventually-successful Jool 5 mission). It's one of the few times in the game where I started a career with a clearly defined goal and worked through until achieving it.

[Sharpy]

[Richy teh space man]

My biggest success is having a reasonable understanding of how orbital mechanics actually work.

[ToukieToucan]

2 hours ago, Sharpy said:

How did you get it to land?

[Sharpy]

2 hours ago, ToukieToucan said:

How did you get it to land?

A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S.

First, a huge tug.

Then a launch that contained six Kickbacks (you know, the huge SRBs) used as structural elements - five rings of four airbrakes each, on each of the six boosters, for a total of 120 airbrakes. Each Kickback docked to the asteroid with a separate Klaw.

Then a very slow, very long airbraking, many loops, periapsis dropping very slowly.

When the asteroid finally went below the orbital velocity, and began losing altitude for real, these airbraking attachments got shredded to pieces - they didn't overheat, it was the drag that ripped them apart. They literally, exploded into sparks not leaving any solid residue behind. But they did their job, slowing the asteroid down enough, that while it did approach overheating really close, it survived it. It slammed into the ground well above 200m/s and rolled through the deserts for a long, long time, only coming to rest a hat's throw from the ocean.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Sharpy

[Guest]

Building a station for the first time with a flotilla of four ships all headed to Minmus about 20 minutes apart. I only had to relaunch one of them.

This was in 1.0, meant as a fuel depot for large outgoing ships. I made an equivalent station in 1.1 but have yet to expand enough to actually make use of it. Note that it's devoid of resources; nowadays I can get fully-fueled tanks into orbit. In that respect my continued development of a standardised lifter and its variants has been a major success in my space program too.

 

 

I'd like to do a grand tour with a ship like this, but it's a long way off for me; I'd prefer to explore the system more 'naturally' at first.

 

Edited August 9, 2016 by Guest

[MaxwellsDemon]

I'd have to say there are three proudest moments... so far.

Number one was a successful Munar landing in my first (1.0.4) campaign.  (Despite all the advice about going to Minmus first, the pull of the Mun was simply unavoidable.)

Number two was successfully putting a rover on Duna in my second (1.0.5) campaign.

Number three is a work-in-progress in my 1.1.3 campaign, the construction of an ISS-analogue station in low Kerbin orbit.

I hope my number-four will be mastering a good landing-strip landing.   We will see how that goes!

[soulsource]

My biggest failure and my biggest success have one and the same name: Eve.

In my current save I did two crewed missions to the purple planet. The first mission failed, as the lander wasn't aerodynamically stable (I'm playing with FAR), and could not keep the heat shield prograde during entry. Also, the lander was huuuuge (that's why it's literally the biggest failure). Matrix (or was it Martrix - I got Kerbals of both names in my program and keep mixing them up...) Kerman was lost in that tragic accident.

Recently I decided to give Eve another try, and this time the mission was a success. I did have to reload a few times though, as with Eve's dense atmosphere even a small change in ascent profile can cause a huge difference in fuel consumption. The lander was much smaller than on the first try as I planned to use the Kerbal's jetpack dV in addition to the fuel in the lander, and as I now had the 10m heatshield, it was much easier to have it aerodynamically stable during entry. Also, the decision to land in the mountains (at 4500m iirc) helped quite a bit.

And if you ask for my literally biggest success: That's also Eve, back in 0.23.5 (without FAR). A monstrous rocket, which was perfectly capable to reach Eve orbit from sea level...

[regex]

Probably my third attempt at landing on Callisto.  Unfortunately I got a lot of phantom forces from landing gear clipping (I think...) and it had to be scrubbed before landing.  Here it is during the landing attempt with the "Fregat"-alike bus performing the initial braking burn.

There was a lot of orbital ballet involved, quite fun.

And a shot of the upper stage:

Once 1.2 hits and RO is updated I'll give it another go, I think.

Edited August 9, 2016 by regex

[James Kerman]

I think making orbit the first time was probably my greatest moment.

I knew nothing of orbital mechanics when I first got the game and I have no internet at home so I pulled my hair out for three days trying (killing many kerbals - sometimes in accidents....sometimes as revenge).  This is when I found the forums and my work life has suffered ever since.

[W. Kerman]

Getting into Kerbin orbit after coming in at 4 kilometers per second. 

Boy Duna-Kerbin transfer burn took 1900 delta V.

Barely got into orbit.

[Kyrt Malthorn]

Looking back, it was probably the probe I sent to Jool back in 1.0.4 (the version I started with).  It aerobraked in Jool's atmosphere and visited each of the moons (orbit only).  Honestly it was a kinda sad design - ion engines running on just three gigantors, a fuel cell that ran out very quickly, and an RTG.  I spent a lot of time with it - between the design and the looooooong burns.  It was just satisfying that I'd gotten there to see the moons of Jool 'in person'.

 

I'm looking forward, though.  I shall return! 

[NSEP]

My first rendezvous was amazing, but the first time I wanted to dock, my game bugged out and I couldn't dock. I was really disappointed. But i could dock afterwards.

And another cringey and sad one: When I first went to Jool, i ended up in a retrograde orbit, so if i could barely manouver my spacecraft.

Edited August 11, 2016 by NSEP

[KerikBalm]

Well, it used to be the heavy lift SSTO that is my avatar... but I haven't used it in a while, and I'm now focused on making more modest payloads that fit into a mk3 cargobay, or just large ssto rockets

Now, I'm quite happy with the success of my modular mobile mk3 surface base design, that I can move around (to/from orbit/anywhere on the surface), with mk3 based cargocraft specific to destination bodies (one cargocraft for Mun/low grav airless bodies, one for duna, one for tekto, one for laythe).

... other than that...

I've done moho, done eve, done a tylo ssto lander...

I recently downloaded OPM, and was quite happy with a "grand tour" probe with a course taking it from kerbin to a sarnus flybye, urlum flyby, and then a nedion flybye with the option to capture or go to plock... I'm doing a capture, and send a much faster probe to plock.

[Corona688]

A friend once teased me that my designs weren't more efficient, I just didn't have the talent to build anything larger.  So I set out to build a larger, unmodded superlifter than the best he could build with his mechjebs and bells and whistles and very OP mod packs.  My Jaekelopterous 3 superlifter won:

Six full orange tanks to orbit!  Yes, yes, a stupid number of mainsails...  KSP didn't have vectors, mammoths, or kickbacks yet...

Edited August 11, 2016 by Corona688

[N_Danger]

 

  Two weeks ago, after 800+ hours of play, I had a game where I had landed on every planet and moon possible in the stock game. And then I planted a flag.

And then I brought the Kerbal(s) back home alive.

 

[Hydrothermalventclam]

My duna mission,

Which I never finished, but still was awesome, or my minimus base

[Xyphos]

in Kerbal Space Program, you don't get to succeed, only get better each time you play.

[Gamax19]

My second mun landing program.

Two kerbals and a mun buggy a flag and absolutely no life support.

Yep the norm for a Kerbol.

[Superfluous J]

On 8/11/2016 at 5:01 PM, Corona688 said:

Six full orange tanks to orbit!  Yes, yes, a stupid number of mainsails...  KSP didn't have vectors, mammoths, or kickbacks yet.

Now that you mention it, I'm pretty proud of my Why God Why ship. It lifts 7 14.4 tanks (the largest in the stock game) to LKO, though one of then is only half full so it's more like 6.5 tanks. Still, it's quite an achievement IMO.

[GoSlash27]

My greatest achievement would probably be achieving orbit purely on ions without using control surfaces back in .25.

The most difficult thing I've ever done in KSP.

Best,
-Slashy

[StrandedonEarth]

Completing the construction of LAGS (Legalized Alcohol and Gambling Station), a "Bases & Stations" contract requiring an orbital casino that can hold 100 kerbals, oodles of EC, many lights, and has 4 asteroids. The "Indicator Lights" mod really helps it sparkle.

Edited August 14, 2016 by StrandedonEarth
typo