What is the most sucessful mission you've ever done?

[Virdin]

So, ever had a mission where you never EVER had to hit the F9 button? Ever had a mission where you remembered every single part that you need to complete the trip? Ever had a mission that gave you so much gratification that you felt like you were going to pass out from too much dopamine surging through your brain? Post those missions here.

Note: None of my missions ever reached any of these criterion, because even though you can build a rocket, it doesn't mean you can fly it without a hitch.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Virdin

[FinalFan]

My first serious attempt at a spaceplane was a success by any measure.  It was my own design and not a copy of anything else, though I'm sure the things I absorbed by osmosis helped.  Everything just worked in a combination of design and serendipity.  The only serious problem I had was that the thing fishtailed like crazy on the runway (but settled down when it got airborne).  

The COM was sitting right on the COL but it moved forward as I spent fuel.  The controls were too strong but the airbreathing flight profile was practically a straight line so it didn't matter.  

I got lucky in the design phase by making it light enough that it bulldozed right through the transonic range without my even really noticing while still having the delta V to do the orbital crew transfers it was destined for.  (I was in for a nasty surprise on my next design!)  I needed a docking port to transfer tourists but did not include RCS; however, the docking port was far away from the center of mass so I just parked it close and swung around at the right angle.  

It partially refueled at the rendezvous, so even though the reentry was less than perfect the plane had plenty of fuel, and yet it was so light that it did suborbital hops with the greatest of ease to get home.  The landing was also less than perfect but close enough.  

This isn't the most perfect mission I've run, and not necessarily the most "successful" depending on the definition, but for a combination of entirely new technology (my planes were rocking Wheesleys until this), untested designs, and everything just coming up Milhouse, I can't think of anything that beats this.  

Mission report here. 

[maceemiller]

As for f9 I didnt press it once....as for remembering every part no, I cant, but the mission that still makes me goose-bump was my Cassini-Huygen trip to Saturn in the RSS mod.

  Hope you enjoy....I certainly did.....

https://m.imgur.com/a/cipTc

 

Edited May 30, 2018 by maceemiller

[General Apocalypse]

Definitely building a 200 ton fuel depot / relay /  science lab station launching it in one go to LKO . Then I built a 180 ton tugboat attached it via a large docking port and transported that to the orbit of the Mun.

[ARS]

See for yourself. From 99 science points to over 40k science points in a single mission

[KerikBalm]

No use of quickload at all? I'd guess it would have to be a deployment of a payload to LKO in an SSTO in a 3x rescale, then landing the ssto back on the runway.

All other missions? I don't know. Various parts of missions often go off without a hitch, but I switch between vessels in career so often (basically after each burn/maneuver), that I don't even know if I've had to use a quickload on something that is beyond LKO or not.

In sandbox/mission editor, I mostly just test various phases of a mission, not the whole thing, so.... I don't know for anything beyond a trip to LKO and back. SO whats the most impressive thing that can be done to LKO and back? an SSTO spaceplane on a scaled up system?

or maybe a 2 stage flyback booster... I got it back to the KSC grounds, but not on a place where I'd get 100% recovery:

Sorry its all at night:

There was no quick load on that return, my flyback trajectory was that accurate (I tried to do it again, and ended up in the water)

The upper stage in orbit... wasn't really a serious mission, just a recoverable rocket test for 3x to evaluate their use in lieu of a spaceplane

 

 

[purpleivan]

A mission that I often post about on the forums is that of the Eve Party Boat. A four kerbal Eve return mission I did back in the days of v0.24.

Usually the threads I post in focus on large things in the game (biggest ship or most ridiculous undertaking etc.) but in this case it's about the small.

Small as in the distance between Eve Party Boat lander and the unmanned rover that I'd used to scout a high plateau landing site, as well as a marker for my landing. It took a few used of F9 to get the monstrosity down on the plateau, but once the excitement and rocket exhaust had cleared, I was in for a little suprise.

This is how far I'd landed from the rover.

Jeb wanted to see if the gap between the two was big enough for him to squeeze through.

The answer... no, not without going eau naturel.

[CrashyMcCrashFace]

For a long time I didn't know F5/F9 was a thing. Not so much a mission but just messing around and accidentally discovered gravity assists. I knew it was a thing but didn't really know how to exploit them or which side of a planet/moon to pass by. Turns out I visited both inner planets, Duna, some moons and back home on 1 trip. Yes, burns in between too. I'm not Superman. I couldn't stop and crashed into the planet but learned a lot.

Edited June 1, 2018 by CrashyMcCrashFace

[CobaltShock]

On 5/30/2018 at 3:55 PM, maceemiller said:

As for f9 I didnt press it once....as for remembering every part no, I cant, but the mission that still makes me goose-bump was my Cassini-Huygen trip to Saturn in the RSS mod.

  Hope you enjoy....I certainly did.....

https://m.imgur.com/a/cipTc

 

I really like that comment about someone asking what game it was. Really made you realize how fun & immersive KSP can really be without having to spend a penny other than buying the game itself!

[General Apocalypse]

I should mention that on high risk missions it's always worth doing extensive tests for your ships. I often test the Kerbin reentry stage or even upper stages of a craft by slapping it on a bed of SRBs getting it to suborbital trajectory of 20k+ and then landing it. The chutes are always a massive worry and so is the landing gear. Plus you don't want to launch a complex ship and see it being helpless in LKO or after a long flight to another planet.

[Athen]

My first successful duna mission. I had failed 3 times, and just started over with a different rocket each time, so, I guess they count as different missions, but when it finally worked, I don't think I had to reload a single save. I mean, I made a boatload of them, and I probably loaded one and just don't remember it. Other than that, I don't think there's much else. My space program would probably be killing hundreds of kerbals a day if it weren't for f9.

[MR L A]

On 5/30/2018 at 6:40 PM, Virdin said:

So, ever had a mission where you never EVER had to hit the F9 button? Ever had a mission where you remembered every single part that you need to complete the trip?

I play with no reloads, no reverts, no respawns etc... sometimes its fun. Sometimes it is frustrating as all heck. Deffo give it a go though, makes the LES actually useful... though only if you add a mod that causes part failures.

[JoeNapalm]

On 1/14/2016 at 5:22 PM, JoeNapalm said:

 

Late one night I hopped on, threw together an SSTO from scratch, launched it, deployed a mapping satellite in polar orbit, de-orbited and landed on the Space Center runway...

 

...when I realized that I'd eyeballed the entire design and had done the whole thing, from the ground up, on the first try. No test flights, no aborts, no reloads, everything just worked perfectly, I hadn't forgotten any parts, and nothing fell off.

 

(Can you believe the LUCK?! )

 

-Jn-

 

I've done this a few times, since.

Not saying it's the norm, by any means...usually there's a lot more screaming and flames and falling debris and gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair and stuff...

 

...but when it does happen, I feel pretty good.

 

-Jn-

[Ultimate Steve]

Well, there certainly was more than a bit F9... But I was doing a KSP speedrun a few weeks ago and it came time for my Jool-5 mission. I had tested none of this beforehand, and the launch vehicle ended up having no fairing with the Laythe lander just strapped to the side, causing instability, but it made it to orbit, and all of the landers did their job perfectly. The only real hiccup was running out of EVA fuel over Pol, necessitating several quickloads, but other than that... Vall was no loads, Bop might have been no loads, Tylo was way fewer loads than Tylo has any right to be, and Laythe only used one load, and even then it was not actually necessary.

And the entire mission, from construction to landing on Kerbin, took less than two hours.

Edited June 27, 2018 by Ultimate Steve

[FlyingPete]

I built a colony on Eve back before the aerodynamics overhaul. It made sense to go there and stay. I had a base, planes, a rover and fuel depot on the surface. Some other crew stayed in orbit to explore Gilly and eventually return to Kerbin.

Eve to Stay

Edited June 29, 2018 by FlyingPete

[Freshmeat]

I use quicksaves extensively, but I have a mission I regard as so far successful beyond its scope that I do not think I will be able to to it.

I had done a manned mission to Vall, using two identical space tugs and a miner/refueler. One carried crew, the other a lander. Safe return to Vall orbit, the crew embarks home. The lander itself was slightly overbuilt, with a dV capability of some 2500 and good TWR after the base had been unloaded. And I still had the massive tug and the refuel craft. So a crazy idea pops up: Why not see if I can land the lander on Tylo? Unfortunately, the lander has ejected its rear docking port, so it cannot dock to the front of the tug, as it did on the way out. So I need to dock at a side port, for a rather asymmetric mass distribution:

This was the absolute maximum thrust the plentiful reaction wheels could handle. We are talking TWR 0.1, but it managed to get from Vall to Tylo, in a something like 30 km circular orbit. Lander decouples, and after several tries:

Touchdown. 22 m/s left.

It might not be obvious from above picture, but the lander carries ISRU as well. So after a while:

Return to orbit. I could probably have made a rendezvous with the tug and refueled from Vall orbit, but Vall is a serious pain to land on so I decided that success was success, and I had made an unplanned Tylo return mission that would have been crew capable.

[Cazzojake]

Honestly, my first 100 percent successful mission was a while back when I was REALLY into KSP. I probably logged over 1000 hours into KSP at that time but it was an Apollo Style Mun landing. Put a Kerbal version of the Saturn V together and everything went perfect, staging, docking, landing, and returning. I don't think a video game has ever given me that much satisfaction before. I tried to recreate it about a month ago and failed horribly. I guess it was just luck.

[FinalFan]

On 7/1/2018 at 7:24 AM, Cazzojake said:

Honestly, my first 100 percent successful mission was a while back when I was REALLY into KSP. I probably logged over 1000 hours into KSP at that time but it was an Apollo Style Mun landing. Put a Kerbal version of the Saturn V together and everything went perfect, staging, docking, landing, and returning. I don't think a video game has ever given me that much satisfaction before. I tried to recreate it about a month ago and failed horribly. I guess it was just luck.

Probably out of practice.  I was crazy about Call of Duty back in the first two Modern Warfare games, and I was doing things I definitely would not do as well today. 

[A Soviet Tank]

Once I finally grasped KSP properly, I wanted to try landing on the Mun again. I'd done it before but it was a horribly horrible method and I'm pretty sure the rocket fell over on the Mun and I had to use cheats to right it. So, I used all my newfound knowledge and managed to get to the Mun and back perfectly. I knew what was going on the whole time, knew when to burn, in what direction, etc. and it was very satisfying. I'd say that was my most successful mission as it was sort of my moment of KSP enlightenment where it all just clicked and I finally understood orbital mechanics. From then on I learnt the rest of the standard orbital manouvers with relative ease and also with a feeling of pride as it was the first time I really ever tought myself something. (Of course good ol' Scott Manley helped... A lot.)

[linuxgurugamer]

I rescued Burberry Kerman from a retro solar orbit. Made  my largest vessel ever, with about 60,000 dV. Needed 2 launches, 2 do kings and refueling in orbit.  Ships are available on KerbalX

[Ho Lam Kerman]

Today, I ended a mission.

It was a Hayabusa-style asteroid sample return.

The launch went off without a hitch.

The orbit couldn't've been better.

When I had to rendezvous with the asteroid in deep space, I pulled off the perfect rendezvous- 1.6km separation, with only one burn and no orbit tweaking.

The rendezvous was stunning. 

When I had to return to Kerbin, I burned only once, then had a perfect 69km periapsis.

I had no worries about pulling off a KSC landing.

The return capsule separated.

Then.....

THE DARN CAPSULE BURNED UP!

Yup, all that to culminate in a total mission loss.

I also forgot to quicksave. I was probably a bit too overconfident.

 <- this emoji ain't enough.

 

Mars Climate Orbiter engineers, I finally understand.

Edited July 14, 2018 by Ho Lam Kerman