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Threads of the month: June 2021

adsii1970

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adsii1970

adsii1970

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The KSP forum moderator's team presents the
Threads of the Month
June 2021 Edition

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Greetings to all of you who dare to push the boundaries of game physics, to the desk chair Kerbalnauts, and the dreamers of spaceflight and exploration dreams...

It's hard to believe May is already gone and June is here! Yes, I know I am a day late on sharing the nominees and honorable mentions for the Thread of the Month.  But look on the bright side - I'm still doing the threads of the month posting and @Vanamonde didn't fire me yet! This month's nominations are similar to those who waited until the toilet paper shortage in the United States and parts of Canada was mentioned on the news last year to go to the store and buy toilet paper- there were not many rolls of toilet paper to be found anywhere!  Just like in May, I'm not surprised nor worried about it. There are times I will find a thread I think might be worthy of consideration for TOTM but without realizing it, I click away from the thread before reporting it. :blush:

Here lately, I have been sent a few PMs about the health of the forum - and let me just share with you now, the forum continues to grow since it's debut! In May, we had 498 new member accounts created and of those, 184 have actively posted content (defined as having at least one post). If you're interested in seeing the new members to our forum, you can click here!

So, before I get into the threads of the month for June, I ask that as you visit the forum this month, you help make it easier for me to do the July Thread of the Month and nominate worthy threads by using the handy instructions at the bottom of this post. Now, without further delay, I present to you the threads of the month for June:

General community threads of the month:
This category features a thread that adds to the community and doesn't fit in the game support/game mod categories. This month, we have two threads who are recognized for this category:

For this month, we had a nomination of a thread which began as @ColdJ sharing an idea he had to abuse to have out-of-the-box-fun with Kerbal Space Program! Within this thread, you will find how to make your Kermen sink in water, walk up walls (can anyone say SpiderKerman!) and even drive rovers up the side of the VAB. Sure, you may not want to edit your persistent file or play around with writing your own config file, but at least the information is here on how to do it.

Game Support/Game Mod of the Month:
This category features a mod (or mods) which adds to the quality of life game play of Kerbal Space Program. For June, we have three mods that tied for the top honor in this category:

One of the most common areas of improvement many forum members desire is how the surface features of the various bodies within Kerbal Space Program appear and how wheels and landing gear interact with them. This mod, created by @Gameslinx, adds an element of realism in surface appearance and textures while solving the issues of various landing gear and wheels sinking below the surface. An added bonus with this mod is it uses "load on demand" and only loads what is needed within the range of where your Kerbalnauts are at that moment. As you may/may not know, this reduces the memory used by the mod. If you like visually beautiful and breathtaking terrain, this is the mod for you.

We have a second winner for this category for June - and it's the mod featured on this thread by @Cyne. There are many reasons forum members begin to work on mods. For some, it is the idea of providing something which isn't already offered in the vanilla game or by another mod. For others, it is the desire to give back to the forum community and all the noble stuff that goes along with it.  There are even others who mod because they desire to improve on things that already exist in the game - again, either in the vanilla game or mods. For whatever the reason, we are thankful we have such an active modding community. Their hard work, as @Cyne demonstrates here, really highlights the vision by many of our forum members. If you are looking for a new set of rocket motors to power your contraptions of galactic exploration, then give this mod a try.

And the final winner for this category this month - and it began as a project by two of the older members of the forum and game developers (@Nessus_ and @Porkjet)  and more fully developed user interface provided by @Nertea.  One of the areas we've all had complaints about is how plumes of flames and smoke appear in Kerbal Space Program. In the early editions of the game (before .90 "Beta than Ever!"), the engine effects appeared very cartoonish and for many, a distraction from the game. As more forum members began modding engines of all types running on all types of fuels, the need for additional and more realistic engine effects became a part of the equation. The best way to describe this project is what Nertea says here:

Quote

I make a lot of engine effects, particularly for vacuum engines, which are really poorly handled by a traditional particle system, much less the gnarly butchered version of that system that KSP provides. Smokescreen helps, but when we're talking about really large, fast moving plumes, the number of particles you need to create high fidelity effects is really high. Performance gets low. To that end, I and some others (primarily @Nessus_ and some porcine aviator dude who shall not be named) have created a cool new way to create and drive engine effects.

So, if you are looking for engine effects that have a better appearance, this is a mod worth checking out. 

Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired creative threads of the month:
This category features a thread (or threads) which while is not directly Kerbal Space Program related, may be a creative work, fan-fiction, or other presentation which is related to the game.

With some private space exploration companies such as Blue Origin, SpaceX, and newcomer, Rocket Lab, the ideas of reusing the booster stage of launch vehicles is becoming more of a reality. Many credit NASA's attempt to incorporate reusable booster rockets into the Space Transportation System (the Space Shuttle) as being the first step of the goal. In this thread by @Kerbal Productions, there's an entire thread - a missions report - based on this concept. If you want an opportunity to see how others are trying to mimic real-world space programs or are just wanting a way to spend a few minutes surfing the forum for some inspiration, give this thread a look!

Honorable mentions:

Each month we get so many good nominations to choose from. Sometimes it's a challenge to choose which threads are going to receive the honor of being the Thread of the Month. But because not every thread nominated each month can be selected, there are always those that become honorable mentions. The honorable mention for June 2021 is:

Honorable mentions for June may not have made the Thread of The Month this month, but if you think they might be worthy of another opportunity, please renominate it!

Congratulations to all the winners of the Thread of the Month for June! We'd like to thank @Kerminator K-100, @Tsar_bomba, @Poodmund, @Kerbal Productions, @Spaceman.Spiff , @Just Jim, and the members of the moderation team who nominated this month's contenders. Thank you so much for helping us identify noteworthy threads for this month!

TO NOMINATE  A THREAD FOR CONSIDERATION: If you find a thread you feel should be considered for next month's thread of the month, then use the "report comment" feature (the three dots on the upper right corner of the comment box) to report the comment. Please put in the text field of the report post "Nomination for thread of the month" and we will do the rest! You can always nominate more than one thread, too.

In case you missed May's threads of the month, you can click here.

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Spaceman.Spiff

Spaceman.Spiff

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32 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

post). If you're interested in seeing the new members to our forum, you can click here!

Thanks for that!!! 

32 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

beautiful and breathtaking terrain,

Go Parallax!

32 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

realistic engine effects

Go Waterfall!

Spoiler

I think I nominated at least one of these…

 

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ColdJ

ColdJ

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Thank you very much for this honour.

I never expected anything like this when I joined to ask questions.

It has been quite the rollercoaster ride since I came here.

Still finding lots of amazing things to do in this great sand box of tools that is KSP.

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