KSP Skill Levels

[GRS]

Too lazy to find the old one, Moderators...if you find this uncomfortably placed...move it to a more comfortable place...

First of all :

Level One : Beginner

-You can at least make a working craft.

-Getting a Mun orbit is the limit of this Level.

-Anything with relative difficulty : Easy.

Level Two : Intermediate

-At least capable of landing on Mun.

-Limit of this level is to get Duna/Eve flyby.

-Relative difficulty : Medium.

Level Three : Skilled

-At least and on Duna (you don't have to return).

-At this rate, you're more skilled than most people.

-Capable of doing Orbital Rendezvous.

-Capable of doing Moho/Eve/Tylo/Laythe and back (at least one of those).

-Relative difficulty : Hard.

Level Four : Pro

-Capable of doing Complex Orbital Rendezvous.

-Get to Low Gravity bodies like Gilly and return (without overburning or hovering your ship).

-Landed on ALL of Jool's moons (Not have to be a Jool 5).

-SSTO landing and return to KSC.

-Exploitation of Gravity Assist.

-You're now feeling quite superior compared to your surroundings.

-Relative difficulty : Super.

Level Five : Madlad

-Did a direct ascent Eve and back or Jool 5 or both.

-Mastered K-E-K-K-J Transfer route or other complex assist routes.

-SSTO Interplanetary landing and return to KSC.

-Relative difficulty : Super 2.

Level Six : Super Madlad

-Did a Grand Tour with no ISRU, or 100% Reusable ISRU.

-Insane Gravity assist in a nearly indescribe-able scale.

-Made an Immense (10 000 Tons and beyond) vessel that can do more than just blow up. (Or at least pushing your PC or whatever to its Very Limit)

-You can't stop raising difficulty levels on certain Challenges.

-You understand what you're doing, even when the others start to worry about what you're doing.

-Relative difficulty : Super 3.

Level Seven : Hyper Madlad (AKA God)

-"How am i suppossed to even explain this when my lower jaw dropped and i haven't find it ?!?!?!"

-Relative difficulty : Nigh Impossible.

---

That's all, i guess, i'm out of ideas, i'm Level 5, soon Level 6 (i got a Grand Tour ship in LKO).

Those are just my criterias, show me yours, this is a Discussion Thread .

Anything with equal difficulty rating with those up there counts...

Edited March 8, 2019 by GRS
Hope it's more appropiate for y'all

[KerbolExplorer]

Im an intermidiate.I can beraly get a Duna encounter,thought i can go to Ike and back

[GRS]

Those are my judgements, some might say that you're a Pro, keep trying and you may be able to land on Duna and back.

[herbal space program]

I think I've done all of those things in one form or another except the Grand Tour, which I've started building for and abandoned several times, and and the 10,000-ton vessel, which would probably make my computer explode.  There are also some things that I've done and consider important milestones that are not on the list, like building a large station on orbit and flying it somewhere besides LKO, and (I think most importantly) learning how to use gravity assists to get around. I would definitely put "using a single gravity assist to reach an interplanetary destination for significantly less dV than the standard Hohman transfer burn"  under maybe level 4, and "using multiple gravity assists to get to one or more interplanetary destination(s) for much less dV than would otherwise be possible" under level 5. I think by far the hardest thing I ever did in the game was to do the Retro-solar Rescue challenge in a single stage, followed by getting to  Moho orbit for under 3 km/s, which is still far from the record of only ~1800 m/s, using multiple gravity assists. I think the fact that those things didn't even make your list speaks to the level of specialization that often comes with being an advanced player, which makes trying to construct a linear scale of proficiency for such individuals difficult.

Edited March 3, 2019 by herbal space program

[Curveball Anders]

Skilled+, not quite Pro

[Atkara]

I don't think I'd ever be a Super Madlad, as I deploy infrastructure which keeps my designs (mostly) on the sensible side -and I don't intend to change that. But I certainly place myself at the early Madlad stages, as far as Eve goes  

[Fraston]

2.5.

I say that because I have immense trouble with manuever nodes, but if there is a craft wth engines, I can land it.

simply put, I am terrible at getting to SOI of another body, but I am excellent at landing and returning to orbit.

[Superfluous J]

It's funny how different people rank different things. I'd put Gilly before anything on Jool, and complex rendezvous before anything interplanetary.

I'm bad with ship mass because I never pay attention, unless it's trying to keep it under 18 for the starter launchpad.

[Reinhart Mk.1]

Hopefully one day ill reach madlad status

[MythicalHeFF]

I’m a madlad, I’ve done several Jool 5 missions before and two Eve returns. 

However, I doubt I’ll ever achieve Super Madlad because of the amount of patience it takes which I just don’t have, unfortunately. Have you seen what those people can do, it’s a whole new dimension of insane. It’s kind of like how I am skiing in real life, I’ll get down double black diamonds no problem, but will never have the skill to ski off of cliffs and crazy crap like that. 

[GRS]

Well, i don't know how to make a good list, that's all i can think of (for now).

Those are my criterias, you can probably share your own criterias, so we can see how each of us describe our skills (hopefully), this is a discussion forum. (Also those guys like Stratz, Brad, Matt, Turbo Pumped and such, even Scott Manley exist in a Level 7 : Hyper Madlad (God)), i doubt i can reach this nor i can describe it, at least until i got my Bachelor (or master or higher) college degree .

Edited March 4, 2019 by GRS

[Xurkitree]

Heck yeah Super Madlad here. I’ve done all those things except that 10 kilo ton thing and I’ll be doing something of that scale for the sigma initiative anyways so I guess I fill in all the criteria.

[GRS]

6 minutes ago, Xurkitree said:

I’ll be doing something of that scale for the sigma initiative.

Awesome...

Remember, that's all about how i see people from their skills, relative to my own, with my criterias, your criterias might be different, such as i'm Madlad as my own judgement, probably Super Madlad, but i might be just a "mere Pro" in your judgements, soo...i bet you have your very own criterias.

[Dark Lion]

These criteria are hard to be fair about. Being completely biased myself, I dove straight in with building airplanes... and I feel my prowess in that field is beyond a great deal of other players who don't really bother with anything below the vacuum of space... yet those same folks who couldn't circumnav Kerbin could probably outshine me in some other field of engineering, such as it is.

Like trying to place myself in this ranking, I should be at "Super Mad Lad" status because I've had a few successes in interplanetary SSTOs, yet I've never returned from Eve or a successful Jool-5. Because I haven't yet tried them doesn't mean one of those SSTOs couldn't accomplish it. Basically what I'm getting at: I'd score folks quite a bit differently. Not based on mission parameters nearly as much. Pardon me humor here:

-What's a KSP? - Yeah, you asked it once, but you couldn't pass up the game when you finally checked it out.
-Builder Bob - Please stop launching your crafts with kerbals in them!!!
-Pensive Pauser - I'm too busy thinking about what to do next, but if you're patient, you'll see something that works.
-OP is me - We've all got that friend that knows squat about efficiency. (Or you're just as guilty as I am LOL) But definitely pumping out those high-performance vessels.
-Extra Extra - Is there a limit to one's stupidity? No... No, it's GENIIUUSS!!! Must go FASTER!!!
-Extra-Efficient Entrepenuer - Just keep to your hushed expression and watch as the magic unfolds before your eyes into a thing you still can't understand after the feat
     is explained to you in dummy terms...

There's only one place to go after that...: Infamy.  

[IncongruousGoat]

I guess I'm somewhere between 6 and 7 because of the whole NCD Caveman thingamadoodle, plus the grand tour and 5, I think, (I lost count) Jool 5's. Oh, and that 4.5 ton Moho mission I did a while back, that was pretty nifty too. On the other hand, I'm not very good with aircraft. Or rather, I'm good by most people' standards, but not unusually good, and I hardly every build them since I just don't enjoy it, so...

Though, I'm with those that say that it's difficult to put skill in KSP on a scale, since there are so few limits on what you can do. I'm pretty good at single-launch, non-ISRU mega-missions (request use of ISRU and my planning falls apart faster than a rocket without struts), and at hardcore career stuff. But I'm only decent with aircraft, SSTOs, and rovers, I have little patience for infrastructure-building (I don't do surface bases or space stations), and I know nothing about the more interesting abuses of the KSP physics engine (stock joints, propellers, etc.). Oh, and as I mentioned, I couldn't plan a mission around ISRU if I tried. Which means that, by some standards, I'm pretty good, but by others I'm either average or incompetent. And that's okay. Pigeonholing is unhelpful, and I'm generally not huge about trying to "rank" KSP players on some kind of scale. We tend to specialize too much for such things.

[GRS]

Umm...well...okay, maybe try suggesting some criterias and i'll write them, i know it might be stupid...well...i often do stupid KSP stuff, like a vertical re-entry, or ZX-ing all the way down even in Tylo, moreover, this is a discussion thread...

[PHO3NIX_F1RE]

I think I'd fit well into 'upper' Intermediate, a level 2.5, if you like. I've visited Mun and Minmus extensively, and extremely comfortable with orbital rendezvous, which is a level 3 criteria. I'd almost definitely have done Duna/Eve/Jool by now if I didn't restart my career every time the game gets an update. However, I'm working on a Jool 5 for my upcoming transfer window, as well as a pretty large scale (for me, anyway) mission to Duna when that transfer window approaches.

[GRS]

Ok guys, if you have criterias to suggest, tell me, i'm just a human, we're all humans here, we're full of flaws, so...i think it's best to use our advantages to cover others flaws and vice versa...seriously...i know you guys have different criterias from me (relatively).

[radonek]

Well, I don't give much about Grand Tour or Big Tonnage because those feel like "how many parts can your rig handle". Proper use of gravity assists is definite mark of a Pro in my book. 

[Chel]

Even though I've been playing KSP for 4 years, I haven't actually done a proper Duna landing (without using HyperEdit). I completely rely on the cheats menu, too. It's just how I play, but I would like to actually attempt a proper landing. Maybe I'll start up a new Career mode this afternoon

[herbal space program]

10 minutes ago, The_Cat_In_Space said:

Even though I've been playing KSP for 4 years, I haven't actually done a proper Duna landing (without using HyperEdit). I completely rely on the cheats menu, too. It's just how I play, but I would like to actually attempt a proper landing. Maybe I'll start up a new Career mode this afternoon

Do you play with a game controller or joystick/throttle setup? It really makes all that flying stuff a lot easier. 

[Chel]

2 minutes ago, herbal space program said:

Do you play with a game controller or joystick/throttle setup? It really makes all that flying stuff a lot easier. 

Keyboard and Mouse, planning to go back and play some Enhanced Edition when the new update comes out

[herbal space program]

1 minute ago, The_Cat_In_Space said:

Keyboard and Mouse, planning to go back and play some Enhanced Edition when the new update comes out

Yeah, I could never fly all the stuff I do with just the keyboard and mouse. It's a whole different game with console-type inputs available. I find that a basic, totally cheap Nintendo-style game controller is the best for me.

[Chel]

Flying with K&M is pretty easy tbh

[herbal space program]

1 minute ago, The_Cat_In_Space said:

Flying with K&M is pretty easy tbh

If you really believe that, then you are not serious about flying.