totm april 2021 What was your favorite first in KSP?

[Pie Guy]

First Mun landing, of course!

[Delta dart]

First successful space station. First attempt was a complete failure as I couldn't figure out how to circularize so I put it into a highly elliptical orbit (think 100km pe and 1000km ap) so I could never dock anything to it plus I didn't even know how to rendezvous with anything. Second attempt I built a space station so large none of my existing super heavy rocket designs could lift it (not even the Kraken which was a rocket so big and expensive that I only launched it once during my career save file and it crashed because I didn't add enough struts) so I just built a rocket around it since I still couldn't rendezvous so a multi launch was out of the question. It actually made it to orbit somehow and I got it pretty circular. My first attempt to dock a probe to it was the last since I spent almost all my fuel getting a close encounter I didn't have enough to slow down when the time came and I crashed into it at 300 m/s and ruined it.  My first fully successful one was a Salyut 1 replica that I successfully got into LKO and actually docked with it. I sent up a few more modules after that like another Salyut 1 that had everything on it swapped for monoprop tanks as a refueling station. Now I have like 10 stations that I interchange between being my primary and one Lunar Gateway recreation.

 

[Just Jim]

They say a picture is worth a thousand words:

[Tsar_bomba]

My first orbit would have been my favorite if I hadn’t goten there on accident. I launched the comsat Lx and somehow got to orbit. But it was overshadowed by my first surviving manned orbit return.

[ZinkBot]

I was teaching my friend how to get to orbit, then he asked: "Do we have enough fuel to get to the Mun?" 

We did.

Edited March 14, 2021 by ZinkBot

[Kerbernicus]

Definitely first docking.  So many times Jeb ran out of fuel as he went round and round trying to dock the lander to the capsule, only to have to don the helmet and EVA over.  Now it's so easy I don't know why it took so long.

[Dan Kerman]

Definitely my first successful Mun landing. Whoohoo!!!

[carppc]

First Mun Rover. I played with it for a while, until it flipped over and is now stuck on the surface of the mun. I have no plans to recover it.

[Wizard Kerbal]

     After failing some direct-descent missions, I decided to do an apollo-style mission. I undocked the lander, and realized, S&($! I don't know how to dock.I went back to LKO, launched a space station and then launched a crew module. The station was symmetric, and I didn't care to do it the proper way, so I pointed the docking ports at each other, and accelerated with the rcs. Of course, I thought the prograde/retrograde icons were relative to orbit, so didn't pay attention. When I did dock, we were both spinning wildly like in a scene from WALL-E. My first docking was successful. 8 more missions were launched, until a year later, 5 kerbal years, I retired my save, de-orbiting everything I could,  because fire is pretty, Including the Olympus Station. It had a viking's funeral, and one hitchhiker storage module survived only to crash into the oceans East of the space station. That marked the real beginning of me learning the game. I did interplanetary missions, (almost) escaped the solar system, sent Jeb to the Sun, crashed Bob into Jool, oh it was fun.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Wizard Kerbal
I want to make it clear, I was using cheats. In my science mode, I have just sent probe missions to Jool in preparation to land on Vall and Laythe.

[Cydonian Monk]

First orbital rendezvous and docking, definitely. 

First orbit being a close second. Both of those events unlocked a different part of my brain, forcing it to go from mostly two/three-dimensional Cartesian thinking to multi-dimensional spherical thinking (because rendezvous requires an understanding of _when_ and _how fast_ in addition to _where_). 

[Orc]

Hi all,

I think the most emotional, and physically taxing first for me was docking two space craft. I had been at for literal days before I got it right, and when it happened, well, I was kind of stunned, almost in shock. Since then docking has become a sort of relaxation therapy. Set up right it becomes ballet and your dancers gradually get closer together.

 

A close second would be my first Mun landing. I did it back with the Version 1 Demo, so just the FT-2 fuel tanks, no Terrier engine, no vectoring engines, no big SRBs, no mono-prop using devices, no real reaction rings, no aerodynamic parts, and no third level upgrade for the launch pad or the VAB. The launch vehicle that got Val to the Mun and back was a pretty monsterous collection of short LF stages and SRBs, using almost every last part allowed for by the VAB, and every last gram allowed by the Launch pad. IT probably wasted 20% of its deltaV getting out of the atmosphere through just sheer instability.  What landed on the Mun looked like something I'd use to get my first kerbal into space these days. Oddly enough when I've made similar vehicles or loaded the old vehicle files in the new versions I can't fly them.

Once Kerbals got parachutes landing on  every single building at KSP was kind of fun, and comes in at a close third. 

Has anyone ever managed to land on the 'bridge' between the two section of the upgrade R&D building? That is one spot I haven't managed. I usually miss and the Kerbal leave a face-impression on the walls as they slide down.

 

Anyway, have fun.

 

Regards

Orc

 

 

 

[B.Riches2500]

Getting into Duna or Eve orbit. It was amazing to finally see these two with my own eyes on my own game. While at all being legit too, in a science mode save. Hopefully soon I’ll be doing it all again in my career save (just need the next antenna).

[joacobanfield]

First spaghettification, and of course the first lithobreaking!

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

My first favorite first? Getting into space with like six parts. Previously, I made huge, inefficient rocket towers that could barely get to space lol.

well... how that first happened was when I just put another flea booster on the bottom lol.

[wpetula]

My favorite first moment in KSP is when I encountered the Kraken and sent Jebediah on a one-way trip into the Sun.

[Guest]

Boy, I've got quite a few  -

• Doing my first orbital rendezvous correctly, in stock and in RSS/RO
• Landing on Eeloo for first time ever
• Getting into orbit in RSS/RO for first time
• Landing on the Moon in RSS/RO for first time

Edited April 3, 2021 by SpaceX_Boi
Added an emoji.

[Lisias]

The first time I trashed the runway.

This is all what remained from the craft after I... landed it, Spaceship style. (hey, at least the crater is on the right place!!!!)  

[JB182]

 (almost) Mun landing. the vessel crash when landing but everyone is safe and i could explore the Mun but i need to terminate the Vessel and kill everyone 

[Admiral Fluffy]

Saving everyone that I had stranded on the Mun and Minimis

[IsuckatKSP]

Gotta be my first Mun return mission. Before I got the game, I decided to try out the demo version. There were only a few parts which I could work with and it was extremely difficult for me to carry this out because of the tight delta v budget. Eventually I made it to the moon but midway through the return burn I ended up running out of fuel. So I needed Jeb to get out and push the rocket. Thankfully, I made it home but the re-entry was a bit rough because there were no heatshields available.

[Rambow_Ninja94]

"landing" a kerbal on the "surface" of the sun
(btw I did have to enable no heat damage)

[Dr. Kerbal]

My favorite first was going first time to the Mun using solid fuel rockets. (for some reason I didint use liqiud fuel...)

[peridoot]

uhhhhhh i guess my first mun encounter. didnt even mean to do it during a space high mission and ended up with a fly by (i think. it might have been a orbit but i dont really rember)

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

My other favorite first was refueling at a station in a 1000km orbit around Kerbin with a giant asteroid, and then bringing that giant ship to Ike to refuel a smaller ship, then landing it on top of another ship on Gilly and refueling lol

Edited April 12, 2021 by JcoolTheShipbuilder

[Pthigrivi]

This big Duna Mothership mission was pretty fun. First time doing Duna with LS.