Most magical moments in your KSP

[juvilado]

Im pretty sure there will be a similar post, but couldn't find it and as i feel nostalgic tonight, id want to know your most positive memorable moment(s) playing this program.

For me it will ever be the first manned Mun landing. I felt like all the NASA and Neil Armstrong itself!

Also with the first interplanetary missions, specifically manned Duna landing (and returning! I also remember before checking forums the catastrophic rocket design miscalculation for Eve return, that granted my first stranded Jeb).

Regards!

[RoadRunnerAerospace]

My first steps on bop (tracks actually)

[bobcook]

First time I managed a orbital rendezvous and docking in Kerbin orbit. It took me a long time to figure out how to do it, but when it happened it was definitely magical. First of many delightful accomplishments in this game.

[regex]

All of my missions to Callisto. Orbital ballet in the Jovian system is fun.

[Ultimate Steve]

Any time there is a sunrise at the same time as another celestial body rise.

I would say my first manned landing on another moon, but my Minmus landing was tense (I almost kicked my lander over) rather than awesome. The Mun was slightly better...

But I'd have to say watching sunset from Eve orbit shortly after completing my first ever Eve Ascent. That will forever remain one of the most amazing moments in KSP history for me.

[JK_Kerbineer]

I know I sound crazy, but I think the best moment in KSP i've had was the loading screen...  I had so much hype built up to that point, I had waited years until I was finally allowed to get it since it was $40, and I was such a space nerd. I could've forked over 40 bucks just for that moment, and still be happy. 

24 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Any time there is a sunrise at the same time as another celestial body rise.

I would say my first manned landing on another moon, but my Minmus landing was tense (I almost kicked my lander over) rather than awesome. The Mun was slightly better...

But I'd have to say watching sunset from Eve orbit shortly after completing my first ever Eve Ascent. That will forever remain one of the most amazing moments in KSP history for me.

/\ /\ This

[Ten Key]

[Kerbalstar]

My first Minimus landing. 

[MoarBoostersRUS]

The fist time I landed on the mun, the first time I landed duna and the first time I landed on the moon in RP-0. These are the things that gave me the most satisfaction and sense of accomplishment in ksp.

[septemberWaves]

Honestly I think my first crewed missions to places are probably what's best described as the most magical, but not exactly the moment of landing on a new planet/moon. Instead, I only feel completely satisfied when the crew get back home after a successful mission; my technology worked exactly as planned (or close enough to "as planned" that the mission was complete and no one died) and I've brought kerbals back from somewhere kerbals have never been before (though I get the same sense of accomplishment going somewhere I have been before if it's in a planet mod which moves that place somewhere else).

[RoadRunnerAerospace]

A new one! First rss orbit! The big hulk of earth flying by under you, but its soo serene 

You could say its very Atmospheric 

Edited October 21, 2017 by RoadRunnerAerospace
Pic!

[NSEP]

When i send Kerbals to the MOON with RSS. That was pretty magical.

[Andrey.gr]

Docking - First time it's like a magic, but then it's become routine

Spoiler

 

[purpleivan]

Can't pick a single one, but these come to mind.

1st Mun landing, which was preceded by Apollo 8 and 9 type missions to test my vehicles.

1st orbital rendezvous in RSS.

1st asteroid capture.

[CommanderSmith]

I remember when I played the old demo so many years ago. Limited to only a handful of parts, and lacking basically any knowledge of orbital mechanics, I created a monstrous beast of a rocket. I tried time and time again to get to the Mün and back as I added more and more boosters. When I finally landed on the Mün, I was quite ecstatic (one could even say that I was over the Mün). I had, completely unwittingly, managed to land about three kilometres away from a Mün Arch, which was incredible. Of course, my little spacecraft couldn't make it home (or at least, not with my horrendous flying). So I spent weeks redesigning, adding more boosters, and doing all of that, until I finally managed to land a Kerbal on the Mün, and return him safely to Kerbin.

I don't have any pictures of that first rocket, but it was a beast. 30 Hammer SRBs on the first stage, another 24 (I think) on the second stage, then I think it was two huge liquid stages, and then the lander with an enormous fuel tank. Needless to say, my current designs are a lot more refined.

[Epicdreamer]

I had a massive grin on my face and my hands in the air the first time I landed Jeb on Mun...after about 2 weeks of playing.

And an equally large grin when the parachutes opened in Kerbin atmosphere after returning three brave Kerbals from Duna for the first time. Brave because I was piloting their ship 

 

[Atkara]

The first time I landed on the Mun. Main engine flamed out on the way back (no crossfeed back then and no fuel ducts installed on the craft) and I had to rely on four Ant engines I had attached on the peripheral tanks. It was at that moment when I realized that once in orbit, it's not about thrust to weight ratio, but available DV. As long as you have enough of this, even the most minuscule amount of thrust will do.

The first rescue mission I did around the Mun (the very first I've ever done actually). Up to that point, I wouldn't take rescue contracts, as all my previous attempts on the tutorial scenario, hadn't ended well. Until one of my Kerbals didn't have enough fuel to get back from the Mun. Either I'd launch a rescue, or it'd be stuck there. I suppose doing this around the Mun, which is a lot more forgiving than Kerbin when it comes to relative velocities between craft, helped a lot and gave me enough confidence to do orbital rendezvous around Kerbin and later on, pretty much anywhere.

The first time I got into solar orbit, while en route to Eve. I kept thinking "This isn't like going from Kerbin to the Mun or Minmus. This is interplanetary space and either you'll do this right, or this crew is lost." I also remember the circularization burn around Eve. Watching the NERVAs burning, with the purple planet on the background... "we're here. We're finally here."

My first attempts at docking with an actual station, instead of vessel to vessel. Shaky and sweaty hands, the vessel wouldn't initially line up properly, but after 5-6 tries I -finally- got it done. Later on and as I understood better what I was doing, day by day, I became quite decent at it. I had to. My whole expansion plan depended on it.

The first Class E asteroid I got into tow. No autostrut back then so, the craft would wobble like you wouldn't believe, when lining up for a correction burn. The solution: turn SAS off, go inertial and do the lineup yourself, before enabling SAS again for the burn. Later on, I put one of them around Gilly and shot another one out of the solar system -both of them contracts. The latter had also happened to be on a collision course with Kerbin.

Driving an ATV on Eve. Watched dawns, noons, sunsets and evenings, en route to each and any biome, a car could roll on.  Those little lakes you see from orbit? They're there, trust me. Eve's gravity and mountain regions made driving down a much tougher challenge than driving up -had to get creative with brake and motor settings. Moho was also exciting -I can't remember how many times I had the engineer EVA and fix the wheels, with the car flying above the surface, at about 40-45 m/s. I've driven elsewhere too but by that time, there was no element of surprise -I knew what to expect.

[Pand5461]

Pretty much anything done with kOS.

Watching a rocket lift off, go into inclined orbit and finally get a satellite into a perfect orbit for a contract - and the satisfaction because you told it to do so, not a MechJeb developer... This is better than magic, it's rocket science!

[Urses]

My personal...

First entry at VAB in my first sandbox try.

I goes in and was absolutely overhelmed by my options to build a "real" rocket. To be honest the first try was way to heavy for the launchpad....

Do i hear happy Kabooms?

Urses

[maceemiller]

14 hours ago, RoadRunnerAerospace said:

A new one! First rss orbit! The big hulk of earth flying by under you, but its soo serene 

You could say its very Atmospheric 

My first orbit in rss felt like a huge acheivement.....as did my first orbit around Kerbin.

Orbiting was my magic moment/memory....I can still remember shouting out and punching the air multiple times, walking away from my laptop only to look at the screen with wonder....then punch the air again shouting "YES"!!!

Edited October 21, 2017 by maceemiller

[Ultimate Steve]

11 minutes ago, maceemiller said:

My first orbit in rss felt like a huge acheivement.....as did my first orbit around Kerbin.

Yeah... I cannot for the life of me remember my first Kerbin orbit. It was probably somewhere along the lines of a pod, a fl-t400, a terrier, an orange tank, a mainsailor skipper, and three RT-10's.

But my first RO/RP-0 orbit...

Spoiler

Sorry for the insanely huge image. The forum is breaking it if I shrink it.

That is Mu 0, also known as Skybound V, which finally made orbit after several attempts.

Looking back on it I'm like "WOAH, too many stages dude! Taking that middle stage out might even increase Delta-V!"

But the feeling when I reached orbit and the camera view switched was just simply amazing.

[OhioBob]

I'd say my most exciting moment was the first time I successful landed a unmanned probe on Mun.  By accomplishing that feat I felt like I was really starting to figure the game out (the steep part of the learning curve was behind me).  I was excited for not only achieving that particular milestone, but also for the future possibilities that it represented.

[[insert_name_here]]

I haven't played much KSP and I'm sure there will be better moments later on, but so far my most magical moment is probably the first time I got into orbit. It took me ages of trial and error and several failed designs - but eventually I did it and I was so happy (even if my first successful orbiter design was four times more expensive than it needed to be). Just the feeling that a ship that you made completely from scratch without any assistance actually made it to space...

 

Another might be when I saw Kerbin almost perfectly eclipsing Kerbol while I was on an escape trajectory from the Mun, heading back to Kerbin. That was kind of awe-inspiring.

 

EDIT:

3 hours ago, Atkara said:

The first rescue mission I did around the Mun (the very first I've ever done actually). Up to that point, I wouldn't take rescue contracts, as all my previous attempts on the tutorial scenario, hadn't ended well. Until one of my Kerbals didn't have enough fuel to get back from the Mun. Either I'd launch a rescue, or it'd be stuck there. I suppose doing this around the Mun, which is a lot more forgiving than Kerbin when it comes to relative velocities between craft, helped a lot and gave me enough confidence to do orbital rendezvous around Kerbin and later on, pretty much anywhere.

Now that you mention it, I was very happy when I completed my very first rescue mission (which was on the surface of the Mun). It wasn't a contract though - I was rescuing my own kerbonaut Valentina, who I had stranded on the Mun after one of many failed Mun missions. I think that's what made it even more special. I've still got Jeb stranded in a very tricky inclined orbit around the Mun with an almost 45 degree inclination :P

Edited October 21, 2017 by [insert_name_here]

[Atkara]

1 hour ago, [insert_name_here] said:

Now that you mention it, I was very happy when I completed my very first rescue mission (which was on the surface of the Mun). It wasn't a contract though - I was rescuing my own kerbonaut Valentina, who I had stranded on the Mun after one of many failed Mun missions. I think that's what made it even more special. I've still got Jeb stranded in a very tricky inclined orbit around the Mun with an almost 45 degree inclination

Mine wasn't a contract either -it was one my own kerbals. As for the inclined orbit you mentioned, at some point you'll become familiar enough with injection maneuvers and you'll be setting up inclined orbits at will. Besides rescuing Jeb, the view from either of the Mun's poles is something to look at. Just be careful on the north pole, as often there isn't enough flat surface -you'll have to either do a pinpoint landing, or carry extra fuel. 

Edited October 21, 2017 by Atkara

[bigcalm]

I have so many magical moments.  The first moon landing.  The first time heading into orbit of Eve - it's so huge, purple and pretty!  The first time I built a really good plane.  Building a working MKS base on Laythe.  Ascending from Eve with Fontella Bass blaring out of the speakers.   The crazy craft that actually did the job that they were made for.  I absolutely adore this game.