What does KSP mean to you?

[TheKosanianMethod]

What does KSP mean to you? What do you think the point of the game is?

For me:

This pretty much sums up KSP:

Failure.

That is the point of the game.

The fact that failing is learning, 
learning is fun, 
learning by failure is even more fun, 
and challenges can be overcome by failure, 
from a math problem, 
to a chemical equation, 
to an orbital transfer. 
 

[steuben]

the remake/expansion I've been waiting for of both "Project: Space Station" and "Earth Orbit Station."

[klgraham1013]

For me, KSP means Kerbal Space Program. 

[MedwedianPresident]

34 minutes ago, TheKosanianMethod said:

What does KSP mean to you? What do you think the point of the game is?

For me:

This pretty much sums up KSP:

Failure.

That is the point of the game.

The fact that failing is learning, 
learning is fun, 
learning by failure is even more fun, 
and challenges can be overcome by failure, 
from a math problem, 
to a chemical equation, 
to an orbital transfer. 
 

I agree with you. KSP is a game that teaches you to learn from your mistakes.

[pandaman]

For me it gives me a chance to be (in some small way) what I wanted to be when I watched the Apollo missions on TV as a child. 

And I just enjoy the 'doing stuff in space' thing.  Planning and executing missions gives me a good feeling when it works and an 'I can do better than that' feeling when I fail. 

[MaxwellsDemon]

To me, it means another way of experiencing something I'm interested in.  I've always taken a rather "multimedia" approach to my interests, instinctively; it's not enough to read about something, I want to draw it, play with it, sing about it, and whatever else I can do to increase my understanding...  to borrow a Heinleinism, to really grok it.  It's not good enough to merely read about space and space exploration; I want to watch films about it, look at art depicting it, go to museums and historic sites associated with it, and (ideally) meet people who are involved in it.  And 'playing' with it (or, simulating it, if you prefer) is another route to that sort of immersion.

[cubinator]

"Spaaaaace!"

[pandaman]

32 minutes ago, cubinator said:

"Spaaaaace!"

And cubes?

[cubinator]

17 minutes ago, pandaman said:

And cubes?

Mostly cylinders, but there's some cubes in there too.

[Corona688]

Rocketry is a weird combination of delicate finesse, plus brute force and ignorance.  For me KSP about finding my own way (no matter how stupid) to combine these principles and solve things in entertaining ways.

[James Kerman]

I fly by night and spend the days in the forums instead of doing my job.  Alt tab has saved me many times.

[Freshmeat]

 

I think a better word than failure is achievement. I do not recall the multitude of disaster as more than a passing blur, but the achievement of reaching a new goal after hours and days of planning, testing, and finally executing the mission is what I really play for.

[W. Kerman]

For me, KSP is an amazing space game I've been looking for forever. This was the keystone fitting between Spore and Spaceward Ho. 

[Vermil]

Uhm,.. sorry to say this, but:

Success.

I'm forced to think, try and test hard enough to succeed.
And I do. Of course I haven't tried and succeeded with everything yet. That's why there's still a point to play the game.

I don't do failures. When there's something going wrong in an unmanned test, it's a success. 

And it also means a strange family of 15 astronauts (I'm amazed they are so many when I count them, because I know each of them so well, everyone with their own personality, they don't seem so many) and two quirky engineers, and one aloof and half insane director.

They're a lot of fun.

 

 

Edited August 12, 2016 by Vermil

[MDZhB]

I guess I'm not the only one who doesn't like failure that much!

Personally, KSP is just a game to me. I like to think of myself as an "average player" who wandered on to the forums, so truth be told, I don't have any special definition for it. It's definitely a fun game, though! And, come to think of it, it does have a way of pulling you in, doesn't it?

[eddiew]

KSP means unleashing my inner 7 year old, before the world crushed him down and told him he couldn't be an astronaut. His bedroom walls were usually covered in pictures of spacemen and spaceships that he'd drawn, and any cardboard box that fit his head was an excuse for a helmet.

[MaxxQ]

Years ago, I used to build and fly model rockets.  Did that for roughly 30 years (started at the age of 8), minus the three years I was stationed in England.  Eventually, I got to the point where the basic Estes stuff wasn't enough, and I moved to high-power model rockets, eventually culminating in a 1/10 scale Little Joe II.  8.5 feet tall, 16 inches in diameter, and around 25-30 pounds at launch.  It also cost me a ton of money and time (over $750 and six months).  It had onboard electronics that would ignite the four E-class motors in the Launch Escape System when the main K-class motor burned out.  These would pull away the "capsule" just as the real Little Joe II did.  The Capsule and tower would recover on a single 4-foot parachute, while the booster section would recover on three 6-foot 'chutes.

It never flew.

All that time and money... gone during a house move.  I hadn't secured a box of books and it fell on the model, trashing it.  Sure, I could have rebuilt it, but it would have taken another few months and another couple hundred dollars, and at the time, money was becoming tight.  The money situation was getting to the point that I couldn't support my hobby anymore, and that combined with the loss of the LJII disheartened me enough that I eventually gave up model rocketry.  Most of what I have left of my collection is collecting dust and slowly falling apart.  There are photos here on the forums in a couple different places of me and the model.  Those and the "capsule" and tower are all I have left of it.

That was over ten years ago.

KSP gives me back some of the feeling I had back then of building something from scratch, then watching it fly (or fail, in some cases).  Trying a new idea and seeing if it worked or not.  For example, I designed a 1/24 scale Delta II (pics are also here somewhere, but the model is unpainted) complete with functional separating boosters.  It also had angled motors in the boosters, just as on the real one, and they functioned just as the real one did by thrusting through the center of mass of the model.  The idea was that if any motors DIDN'T ignite, I wouldn't experience the expected yawing in flight you would expect from offset boosters thrusting along the axis of flight.  As it turns out, it worked very well, as on one of the test launches, four of the nine motors in the boosters, on one side, didn't light up.  The model still flew, pointed straight up, with just a small bit of "crabbing".  Anyway, as I was saying, KSP gives me back a bit of that feeling.  I can build and test, and crash, and rebuild, and retest, and crash, etc., and it only costs me the $25 I spent when I first bought the game.  

Sure, I lose out on the enjoyment of actually creating something physical, the smell of balsa dust and epoxy, the hands-of-many-colors after a spray-painting session, and so on, but at this point in my life, I just don't have time for that anymore.  I'm a bench jeweler at a jewelry production studio, and business has been picking up so much lately that I just don't have the time.  Also, I used to live in Ohio, and there are many places there that are suitable for flying that were fairly close (an hour or less drive) to where I lived.  I'm now in South Carolina, and from what I can see, there's no place closer than a few hours drive that's suitable for big stuff.

So, KSP for me is a reminder of what I used to do, without the worry of going broke (high-power rocketry is expensive!  Especially when you start adding in the cost of tools - laser cutters, lathes, sanders for smothing after fiberglassing, table saws, etc.), without the sunburn, without wondering where the porta-potty is (if there even IS one), without trying to stuff big models into a little car such that they don't get damaged in transport (which is the cause of more damage to model rockets than flying them), and without needing to contact the FAA and local airport(s) for flight waivers and NOTAMs (required for rockets over 3.3 pounds, and/or using more than four ounces of propellant).

[Epicdreamer]

Nice thread! Thanks TheKosanianMethod for opening this one.

To me KSP is a lot more than "just" a game. Quite alike MaxwellsDemon wrote I like a more multimedian approach to deepen my understanding of the things I'm interested in. As a kid I absolutely loved playing with Lego's, especially the space-themed Lego's. Later on, understanding (or wanting to understand) more and more about the physical world we're living in astronomy and spacetravelling naturally came into view. From the extremely small to the unimaginable big I like to try and understand how things work. Just and only reading about it is (very) interesting, but keeps my interests on more of a theoretical level.

Playing videogames has allways been a way of relaxing to me. And here came KSP, combining Lego's, relaxation and learning :-).

The combination of planning, designing, executing, failing, reading up on things I don't understand (yet), redesigning and repating the above untill a self-stated goal is met has a magical attraction to me. And with the excelent modding community (and ofcourse Squad providing this very axcessible possibility to modders) I can slowly but surely turn KSP into a very realistic learning centre to understand more one of my greatest interests.

And having a ton of fun while doing this also counts ;-)

Ps: excuse me for my grammar. English is not my first language.

Edited August 23, 2016 by Epicdreamer

[JakeSparkleChicken]

If someone had told me a year and a half ago that at the age of forty I'd find a video game that had me seriously looking into going back to school and tying to change careers from network monkey to aerospace engineer, I would have laughed and asked you to share whatever drugs you must obviously be smoking.  Yet, here I am, with a whole mess of edx.org courses bookmarked, thinking that it may be time to finally get a degree.

For me, KSP has been a reminder that it is not too late to follow childhood dreams, no matter how long ago they were given up on.

[Curveball Anders]

13 hours ago, JakeSparkleChicken said:

For me, KSP has been a reminder that it is not too late to follow childhood dreams, no matter how long ago they were given up on.

So much this, and having fun failing

[Just Jim]

Where do I even begin?  I'm on disability... it's not terrible, and I know a lot have it much worse than I do, but in a nutshell my back is a pretzel, and it's hard to walk most days. And I had some depression problems for a while because of it. One of my biggest problems is just sitting around day after day, not being able to go back to work, and dealing with massive boredom in general, which didn't help the depression, let me tell ya!

Then this game comes along... and unlike other games, gives me the perfect escape into something I really love... science and space!  And best part... there's no end to it!  I can spend literally weeks designing, building and flying just one mission if I wish... and keep my brain happily occupied the whole time!

And then I joined this forum, get hooked on some of the great fan-fiction works, and discovered I like to write stories, too!!!  I never even thought to try writing something before KSP and this forum came along.  Now my world is filled with Emiko, and I have something to look forward to everyday!  

This game means so much to me... I just wish I could give more back to the Devs.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Just Jim

[adsii1970]

Since the early 1970s and my fascination with Skylab, I've always wanted to go into space. I also wanted to see Earth from a different point of view, such as from the Moon, Mars, or heck - even out of the window of a capsule or space station!

Life happened on the way to that adventure. I never made it to space, and like @Just Jim's story, ended up with a few bumps, bruises, and scrapes along the way. With this game, I've been able to explore space from the comfort of my dining room table. I've been able to live out the experience through these little green guys. Yes, I play sandbox mode because I don't want to worry about budgets, I just want to get into SPACE!

I've also come to know some great people here on the forum; and one thing in common - we truly appreciate this game. So yes, I take it personally when people rant about Squad or even the moderators... Without the vision of Harvester, there would not have been a game. Without the work of Squad, that vision would not have become a reality. Without the game, then there's really no need for the forum.

There is a saying my grandfather passed on to me that I share often: if you think you can do it better yourself, then do it. If you can't do it better, at least help to make what you have better. And if you cannot do that, keep your mouth shut!

[The solid fuel chemist]

I live  out side of a tiny town in northern Oregon. I had been fantasizing about space since I was 5 years old. When I got back from a two year experience in Europe, I found that the social structure at school had not only formed, but now ruled with a iron grip. I was literally the only nerd in my school, let alone space nerd. For two whole years I lived as a social outcast, I had no friends and I became depressed and silent. I found small consolation in books and legend of Zelda games. Then. On a normal school day, I came home and plopped down in front of the computer and stumbled across a website named kerbal space program...

 

 as I explored the website more, my eyes got wider and wider. When I was done with the last word on the whole website. I asked myself how I could not have noticed it earlier. A few days later when my parents said they would let me buy the game, I knew the line had stopped going down on the depression graph. The scale models of imaginary missions, the endless scetches in my spare composition book, the huge brainstormed stations, one by one they all came to life. And then it only got even better. One day when I tiped in KSP into the search bar and I was about to hit enter when I saw in the suggestions list "forums" intrigued, I pushed a button and the awesomeness of the game instantly doubled. When I discovered forgotten space program and the saga of Emiko station the awesomeness tripled. All of a sudden I went from a regected nerd living in the middle of nowhere to part of a community. I had friends. I had people like me. I had people to look up to and admire, and I had equals that I could have a good, scientific conversation with. This game is one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me. I can't say thank you enough to the wonderful devs of this game and to every person on this forum.

[Overland]

KSP for me became the ultimate simulator of what I wanted..

 

I own many train simulators..played them since the good old EN57 Mechanik dos based train simulator..

Followed the rail simulator scene for over a decade...theres a trend that came with it that seemed to me like the more advanced they got the more soul they lost

Ive driven real trains...I love it...

But each dedicated simulator just seemed progressively sterile

It had been my life long dream to have a good train simulator...yet..it feels so empty

 

The charm and soul stays with trains in rigs of rods, gmod..and yes KSP..sandboxes free to grow

A dedicated detailed simulator is a tightly bound box which you cant escape..a kind of jail for the feelings and enjoyment 

 

Many years ago a fateful plane crash would irreversably join the two in kerbal space program..

A downed plane crashed on hostile terrain...one crash became two...then 5.. Maybe it would have been easy to land a rocket.. But i never thought of it

A train came to mind...one built out of sam halls KN2 cockpit and mini jets..the jets propelled a train to break the silence of no wheelsounds

They never got near that downed plane... Because it didnt matter anymore..

 

The landliner was born

Ugly and with a face akin to a cylindrical pug.. These trains soon grew thier own legend.. Far outwaying any simulator..a wheel was purchased and so became KSP my goto rail simulator..without rails..

The evolved quickly..yet death was an everpresent force .each new generation having to rescue..recover or bury thier dead

From jet propelled screamers to EMD engined proper diesel electrics running on KSPs stock power/torque/speed physics.. To detriot engined growling machines .. Rails were a thought of the past... As was space

It broadened my rail hobby to include trackless trains..dotto trains and cold war land trains..even discovering a hidden history of land trains in my native australia way before the modern road train

 

KSP.. What does it mean to me....progress..beauty...a real true culture of its own..and trains..many trains.. Im not sure why its called kerbal space program actually...

 

It means happy

 

 

[The Optimist]

Propeller planes and weird contraptions

 

Also space I guess