Where to find open challenges? (Also, hello!)

[Magzimum]

Hello!

Intro:

Not so new anymore with 90 posts, but I don't think I said hi here yet. Hi! Short intro: I play KSP since roughly 2 months - usually a few hours per day. I play the game as stock as possible (only KER), mostly career at the normal settings. My greatest feat is landing Jeb on Eve, and getting him back to Kerbin safely. Planning Jool missions now.

Actual question:

Ok, so my newbie question is where one can find the active challenges? I notice a lot of forum members with honorary badges in their signatures, but I only found a few active challenges, some with no active participants yet. Many nice challenges seem closed, or don't even have people maintaining them anymore. Is there a list of active challenges somewhere? Or do we just browse the Challenges & Mission Ideas subforum up to page 10 to search for all the active ones, and/or just wait until a nice challenge is created, and then start building?

(Note: I wouldn't mind to create a challenge, and I have a few ideas... but I'd prefer to first participate in one or two wash off the n00bishness before doing that).

 

[Starhawk]

Hello Magzimum and welcome!

We actually just browse the Challenges and Mission Ideas section for a cool and active challenge.  I used to spend a lot of time there myself.

Happy landings!

[Mikki]

Many people here have gained alot of badges, but the majority reduced it to save the screenspace for content.
I participated at least at ten major challenges and did one myself last year.
BTW, you could revive it for 1.2 if you like:
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/126937-seaplane-to-orbit-105/
You are free to remake it!

[Pecan]

12 hours ago, Magzimum said:

...I only found a few active challenges, some with no active participants yet. Many nice challenges seem closed, or don't even have people maintaining them anymore. Is there a list of active challenges somewhere? Or do we just browse the Challenges & Mission Ideas subforum up to page 10 to search for all the active ones, and/or just wait until a nice challenge is created, and then start building?

(Note: I wouldn't mind to create a challenge, and I have a few ideas... but I'd prefer to first participate in one or two wash off the n00bishness before doing that).

 

Well sheeeet!
a) If you're going to lay down a challenge, make sure you read and comply with the:

(especially the 'is it possible' rule, otherwise it just gets really annoying).

b) If you're just looking for - possibly guided - challenges, then I'd be really interested in hearing how we could, particularly, try to stretch newbies ('cause a tender rack of meat is so tasty) while staying fair.
What I mean is, that a lot of things that are good and worthy challenges for newbies are also things that some of us have dedicated months of real-time to and, to be brutally honest, you wouldn't stand a chance.  I'm thinking of "lightest Mun landing", "cheapest cost/tonne to orbit", "most science in one mission", etc.  Curmudgeons as us old gits are, the chances are that we'd be honest enough not to participate in a challenge for "under 1000 hours" or some such; but how could we tell if someone lied?  if you can think of anything you'd like to be challenged BY and a set of rules that would be fair, I'll help as much as I can.

PS:  A couple of years ago we had a really fun 'Advent calendar' challenge; a different mission every day during the run-up to christmas.  Earlier, there were similar attempts at a challenge-chain where one mission leads to another, possibly back-tracking and branching.  Those can be a really good source of variety and, who knows, maybe Santa will bring you one this year.  [Does that work for 'advent'?  Who the hell 'brings' advent?  Gabriel?]

[Magzimum]

@Starhawk, thanks for the clear answer. Now I know that there's no list. I'll just browse the pages and join a challenge that I like.

@Mikki, What in your opinion is the difference between a "major" challenge, and other challenges? Is it e.g. complexity, or popularity?

@Pecan, thanks for the tip. I had already read the Guide, and if I submit some challenge, then it should be a good one, tested, with good rules, an example and some badges. But I still maintain that I'd rather first participate to learn a little more about the forum and the game before submitting my own. There are enough crappy challenges already that nobody participates in. Frankly, if I can just participate without submitting one, I'd be happy too. The reason I may want to post a challenge of my own (eventually, after participating) is that in a good community people give and take: you enjoy the benefits, but you also invest time yourself.

I do not fully understand your other comments under b). Frankly, it comes across as if I stepped on your lawn, and you're telling me to get off it. All I want is to figure out where the good challenges are, so I can choose one and give it a shot. The game is mostly about having fun, and I am looking for something new and challenging, but I struggled a bit to figure out how the forum works in this regard.

[Pecan]

5 hours ago, Magzimum said:

...I do not fully understand your other comments under b). Frankly, it comes across as if I stepped on your lawn, and you're telling me to get off it...

Quite the opposite, I was asking if you had any suggestions that would make challenges fairer for newbies.

[Mikki]

@Magzimum

8 hours ago, Magzimum said:

 

@Mikki, What in your opinion is the difference between a "major" challenge, and other challenges? Is it e.g. complexity, or popularity?

well, for example the Jool-5, K-Prize and the Eve Rocks are some of the major challenges, but there are many others which fit in such a classification.

There are also lots of less popular but very funny ones, like mine once

Edited September 8, 2016 by Mikki
Witches yeah:D

[Magzimum]

On 9/8/2016 at 4:16 PM, Pecan said:

Quite the opposite, I was asking if you had any suggestions that would make challenges fairer for newbies.

Ok, good that we cleared that up.

I am not sure I understand what you mean by fair... I think that newbies should be held to the same standard as experienced players. If a challenge is hard, then it's gotta be hard for everyone. The challenges here on the forum are totally optional. We should not have a handicap for newbies, like in golf. 

What would be nice for newbies is to get an overview of some "classic challenges", like @Mikki mentioned above. Perhaps in a sticky post at the top of the challenges subforum.

Also, if there are a few challenges in which you can get some kind of result with little build time (even if it is really bad), such as a runway land speed record, then players can start on a positive note. I am not even sure if a land speed record challenge exists or is open at the moment... but in order to keep the workload manageable for the person maintaining such challenge, you could say that only record speeds of over 700 m/s make it onto the forum thread. At least new players get some kind of result. My first attempt got me no further than 300 m/s, but I was excited and regarded that as an achievement. Such challenges are more "accessible" for newbies than the challenges with for example interplanetary travel. 

Note, I do not suggest that such challenges need to be set up. All I suggest is to make it easier to find these somewhere, if they are open for submissions.

 

[Rath]

There was a land speed challenge a while back, but everyone just went to the poles and drove across them as like 1000 m/s.