What is the craziest mission you have EVER done?

[The Minmus Derp]

So, I came across a thread today, and It was pretty  interesting. Unfortunately, It was very old. 

 

There it is. Here is the new one! So, I had an eve mission that was in transit. During Orbit insertion, My engine unexpectedly blew up. It had RCS. But not enough for a complete orbit insertion and still have enough for actual docking. So, I used the rcs fuel to get a kerbin flyby. (this actually took less fuel than rendezvous and docking would have taken. So, With the heat shield i had for some reason, I got back into orbit around Kerbin, and returned the faithful kerbals home to Kerbin. 

[purpleivan]

Craziest mission eh?

Usually I relate the tale of the Eve Party Boat, but that's forgetting the journey of the KSS Points Pirate. This was an entry for a challenge a few years ago (Mun Landing Endeavour), which gave points for the number kerbals transported to the Mun, satellites put into Kerbin orbit and number of rovers for the little critters to play with. Oh yeah... there was a lowest weight element as well, so no filling Mk3 passenger modules and shipping hundreds of kerbals up there.

This was back in the lawless days before vehicles needing to be at least vaguely aerodynamic and kerbals could be toasted in re-entry like marshmallows.

I flew a couple of reasonable vehicles as entries, then thought I'd go all out in an attempt to grab points, and so was born the KSS Points Pirate.

The fine vessel is seen here dropping it's jets off and going to rocket power.

With 32 mini satellites on board, bound for Kerbin orbit, it was more of a frag cannon than a launcher.

Soon the Mun beckoned.

Then once on the surface, the rover based entertainment was let loose.

Will those rovers conveniently stop here... not a chance.

Then there was much rounding up of the mini-rovers, as they raced off towards the horizon (many tipping over on the way) propelled by that fiend, gravity.

The mini-rovers were not the most stable of vehicles, necessitating the crew to use their head (literally) when coming up with a solution to righting them.

With all the rovers rounded up, the crew headed back to the ship.

Whereupon an impromtu race ensued.... winner was the one with the helmet with red stripes.

Their activities on the Mun surface complete, the brave crew headed home.

For celebratory toasted marshmallows.

Edited August 22, 2018 by purpleivan

[Eriksonn]

I dont know if it was crazy, but it sure was hard. A long time ago i made my first interplanetary ssto, and it was going for laythe… Everything went quite well until i was about to exit laythes soi. I cant remember exactly but i think i had about 600 dv i laythe orbit or something like that, way to Little at least. So i had to gravity assist like crazy to get home. I think it became Laythe->Vall->Tylo->kerbin->eve->eve-kerbin. and when i entered kerbins atmosphere i had 15 dv left. It was 3 full orbits between the last eve encounter and kerbin.

It was very tight.

[steuben]

My cra~~aziest  mission. Sweet cuppin' cakes. Let me tell you about it...

<long rambling explanation that gets increasingly weird>

and then Jeb says "Eh! Steve"

[Mahnarch]

I'm gonna git you, Eh! Steve, if it's the last thing I doooo!

[Not Sure]

My craziest and most stressful mission I have done is an Apollo style Mun mission in a no-reverts no-quicksaves career.

Failure was not an option. The amount of testing I had to do in LKO was immense, I developed a kOS program to eliminate all human error from the landing. Testing that script on kerbin was difficult too. In the end the mission was an outstanding success, my heart rate was very high on the rendezvous and docking. 

(I was playing with monthly budgets and life support too, if a kerbal crashed or was left stranded my career program and the hours I put into it would be over. Oh and there was also that “random launch failure mod” that would add a chance of failure so that escape systems were mandatory. )

Its also kinda crazy how that testing helped a bunch, I found a lot of problems that would otherwise have ended the mission in disaster while doing LKO tests. Those LKO tests had to use the same budget and cost a lot of money, but not as much as the lives would cost.

Edited August 23, 2018 by Not Sure

[Sharpy]

I can't decide between my two.

Restoration of Kerbaikonur, using Extraplanetary Launchpads and all the backing infrastructure for building and refueling spacecraft and planes.

Including later delivering a runway larger than the original from KSP, all the way across Kerbin.

https://imgur.com/a/teOtK

Or was it docking two class E asteroids together. Involving installing a complete RCS (controlled through action groups) on one of them; 20 aerospike engines mounted on 4 "thruster blocks", switched through action groups, to provide a full set of RCS controls to the asteroid. The thruster blocks were so big that they needed their own RCS to guide them to the right places of the asteroid... essentially my RCS had RCS.

 

Edited August 24, 2018 by Sharpy

[sturmhauke]

Before I started coming here I spent most of my time in the KSP subreddit, doing their challenges and other shenanigans. Their challenges have a normal mode, hard mode and super mode. I usually only do a challenge if I think I can do it on super mode and it's still interesting in some way. But sometimes that means I don't finish by the end of the week.

After Elon Musk put his Tesla Roadster on a Falcon rocket and accidentally overshot Mars, a challenge came out to recover a Roadster from orbit around another body. I didn't finish the rover in time because I couldn't get it looking the way I wanted. Next week was a Single Stage Seaplane To Orbit (SSSTO) challenge - the craft was not allowed to have wheels, except for the purpose of getting it into the water initially. So I rolled the two together and did a single multichallenge. I edited the Roadster into orbit around Laythe (allowed by the rules) and then sent my Trident SSSTO to go get it.

full album

[The Minmus Derp]

ERMAGERD! Ernterersterng! (means interesting)

[Pickelhaube808]

Craziest? For planes, probably a few years ago when I had BDarmory and made a bunch of paratrooper Kerbals strapped w/ C4 that got launched out of a 5m plane to blow up tanks and anti aircraft on the ground...

[The Minmus Derp]

Kool!

[Pascovian]

A Jool lander probe and a Kerbol-Diver probe

And some few kerbals on the surface of Jool

[The Minmus Derp]

Cool, Tell me about it! 

[Bogen]

This was more a crazy maneuver, not a mission, but I once docked two spacecraft without being in control of either.

I was pretty new to KSP and I was assembling a station in Minmus orbit. I had very few mods, no KIS/KAS, no MechJeb. The assembly involved a handful modules and RCS tugs to move them into place. I realized that my solar panel beam (a structural beam with some 1x6 solar panels) was missing a docking port. It had a docking port on one end, but that was docked to the tug, and the other end had no docking port so I couldn't dock the solar panel beam to the station using the tug. The station itself had no RCS, so I couldn't dock the station to the solar panel beam either.

It should have meant another launch to get power to the station, but I had another idea. I carefully lined up the tug exactly with the docking port on the station, solar panel beam trailing behind. Distance was 20-30 meters. I fired the RCS to put the tug on a collision course with the docking port, quickly undocked the solar panel beam and held down "I" to go clear of the station. The solar panel beam, now with zero control, continued on its course, hit the docking port almost dead on, wobbled... wobbled... wobbled... and docked.

While the result was fairly trivial, it is still one of my proudest KSP moments.

[The Minmus Derp]

uh..... WOW! 

[IncongruousGoat]

Craziest? No-ISRU single-launch Jool 5-compliant grand tour. Not much else to say about that, really. If you want to read the report, there's an Imgur album linked somewhere in the old Ultimate Challenge thread. It took months of planning and way too many hours of flying to pull off, and I'm definitely never doing it again. It was big, it was beautiful, and it ate my life when I was doing it.

Either that, or my caveman Duna/Ike expedition. Using a completely Tier 1 space center (so that's no patched conics, no maneuver nodes, no EVAs, 18-ton 30-part limit, no communications beyond Kerbin, and no tech nodes worth more than 90 science), I used way too much orbital assembly and flying via the Mk. 1 Eyeball to send Valentina all the way to the Duna/Ike system, landing on both bodies, gathering every experiment I had access to in every situation I could find, and bringing it all back for recovery on Kerbin. I was limited to just under 2.5 tons payload mass per launch, and I had to overbuild everything because of the lack of accurate navigation. It took 18 (successful) launches in all to assemble the ship, and a lot of testing to figure out how to fly an interplanetary mission without patched conics, but in the end I pulled it off. The landers were particularly fun, since each one had to carry 3 Science Jr.s, which meant I had to assemble each one over the course of 2 launches to make everything fit in the fairings I had, as well as in the part limit. Oh, and I did it without a single quicksave or revert in the main save.

 

Some days, I think I try too hard at this game...

[Ultimate Steve]

5 hours ago, Bogen said:

This was more a crazy maneuver, not a mission, but I once docked two spacecraft without being in control of either.

I was pretty new to KSP and I was assembling a station in Minmus orbit. I had very few mods, no KIS/KAS, no MechJeb. The assembly involved a handful modules and RCS tugs to move them into place. I realized that my solar panel beam (a structural beam with some 1x6 solar panels) was missing a docking port. It had a docking port on one end, but that was docked to the tug, and the other end had no docking port so I couldn't dock the solar panel beam to the station using the tug. The station itself had no RCS, so I couldn't dock the station to the solar panel beam either.

It should have meant another launch to get power to the station, but I had another idea. I carefully lined up the tug exactly with the docking port on the station, solar panel beam trailing behind. Distance was 20-30 meters. I fired the RCS to put the tug on a collision course with the docking port, quickly undocked the solar panel beam and held down "I" to go clear of the station. The solar panel beam, now with zero control, continued on its course, hit the docking port almost dead on, wobbled... wobbled... wobbled... and docked.

While the result was fairly trivial, it is still one of my proudest KSP moments.

I remember having to do this once! I might have even had to do this in RO/RP-0 once!

As far as my craziest mission, hmm... I made the first or second ever functional ion plane in the new atmosphere, but that was more groundbreaking than crazy.

I started an SRB grand tour but it's sort of semi-permanently on hiatus due to the agony of sending enough refueling boosters to get to Moho, but I got Eve out of the way so I have gone to Eve and back to orbit with SRB's (and the EVA pack because some of my upper stage exploded on the way down). I then "refueled" and went to Gilly. And I tried twice to get enough fuel to get to Moho but it didn't work and I got burned out. With everything else that's going on I sort of abandoned it.

I've also did a career mode and landed on all of the planets and moons in 6 hours, 40 minutes, and 1 second after starting. I did a 7:54 run and that's the current world record but I haven't uploaded the 6:40 one yet.

 

[The Minmus Derp]

Wow. Just... Wow. Everyone

[aleis]

I had a lot fun with this mission. Just had to do a mission report. 

 

 

Edited August 28, 2018 by aleis

[Laie]

The BigGemini Marslander probably qualifies.

And yes, it actually went there. Some eight to ten people, on an extended surface stay. Together with a Spacelab for interplanetary accommodations, and a large nuclear transfer vessel. But that was just big. The crazy part was landing a 100-ton vessel on Mars using a combination of spoilers, parachutes and engines.

[Triop]

Doing it right now...

EDIT: MADE IT !

Edited August 28, 2018 by Triop

[DBowman]

This HAVOC is a crazy NASA idea...

[The Minmus Derp]

Cool! I've read about it!

[Bill Phil]

I generally don't do crazy things. But it used to be Standard Operating Procedure to take Kerbals home in early career by going EVA. This was before reentry heat.

Beyond that, there's the occasional flip on ascent.

[JustinJack]

Actually, I am newbie for this game and I didn't know how this game is looks awesome. Such an awesome game. I should play and then tell you about the craziest mission