totm jan 2022 Threads of the Month: January 2022

[adsii1970]

The KSP forum moderator's team presents the
Threads of the Month
January 2022 Edition

Hello to all of you celebrating the arrival of another year!

It's hard to believe it is already the first day of 2022. But before I forget, I'd like to congratulate @The Aziz for authoring the thread, "Kerbal Space Program 2 Knowledge Repository" - the 2021 Thread of the year. If you haven't seen the 2021 Thread of the Year thread, you can click here.

And now, for something completely regular for the Thread of the Month:

It's already January, 2022.  It is hard to believe that another year is already here. We are now 22 years into the 21st century. And no, I did not make a mistake - and I know this as an historian. The Gregorian calendar does not consider a 0 year as the start of the cycle.   So, the 21st Century began with 2001! A lot happened, both good and bad, in 2021. But it is all in the past now. All we can do is to raise a glass, give a toast, and hope for the best for the opportunities that 2022 will bring!

For those out there who like the nerdy parts of the TOTM:

To continue a thing I started in May (2021) about the forum and new members as a way to answer the fears some folks had about the forum dying. In December, there were 332 new forum accounts created (an increase of 26 from November).  Of those, 136 have actively posted content (defined as having at least one post). This means that roughly 40.9% of the new user accounts are actively participating on the forum (while the number of new accounts is up, the number of active new accounts is down by 0.9% ). If you're interested in seeing the new members to our forum, you can click here!

Note: Next month, I will be changing the metric I use to measure the active account conversion. Currently, I consider an account as "actively posting" as long as a new user creates an account and makes one post. This month, I used both criteria. The older criteria, shown above will not be used in February's Thread of the Month. The new criteria will only consider a new forum member active once they have met the requirements to no longer be queued.  Expect the conversion from new account to active account to drop dramatically, as you will see below.

Using the new metric, we have 21 new forum members (defined as no longer having their comments queued) within the community. This means, out of the 332 new forum accounts created, 6.32% are actively participating in the forums.*

Now, without further delay, I present to you the threads of the month for January:

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 one nomination for this category.

Ever want to do more than just fly your laptop or computer desk into orbit? Would you prefer something more realistic, like sitting in a more stylized version of a command pod based on an Apollo command module? Then this thread is for you? Sure, it is an older thread, but a few of our forum members have brought it to our attention. @richfiles has done a great job of providing schematics, complete with a parts list, and some how-to images tossed in. It's great seeing how far many in our family of dedicated gamers will go for the ultimate KSP experience.

 

Game Support/Game Mod of the Month:

This category features either help with the game (stock or modded), or a mod (or mods) which adds to the quality of life game play of Kerbal Space Program. This month, we have two threads in this category:

One of the things that makes me proud to be a member of this gaming community is demonstrated in this thread. Since the mid-1990s, I've belonged to a variety of online gaming communities; some of them good and some of them not-so-good. One thing that continues to amaze me about our community is the helpfulness of both our older and younger members. In this thread, @Noobi asks for help with the game. But what earns this thread the thread of the month in this category is the community effort of the contributors - @Scarecrow71, @Lisias, @ColdJ, @Staticalliam7, @Kapitalizing Every Word, @Proxbi Kerman and, @AtomicTech for having the patience and knowledge to help @Noobi get the game working again. So, in all honesty, this thread of the month belongs to those who took the time who helped get the game working again!

The second thread in this category reworks the tech tree, something we all have grumbled and complained about at some point. In this version of the tech tree by @CessnaSkyhawk, the entire tech tree has been realigned and re-balanced to @CessnaSkyhawk's style of play (and many of you agree with the vision). The OP's introduction describes it perfectly:

Quote

I've been a KSP player for quite a while now, and have used a large amount of mods since I first started. There's been a lot of amazing tech trees released so far - CTT, Kiwi Tech Tree, Tetrix, and more, but for whatever reason none of them "clicked" for me. Part of this was due to the fact the Bluedog Design Bureau, one of my favorite mods, wasn't supported by most, and the rest was just due to differences in how I felt part unlocks should be balanced. For a while I just would fix this by writing custom patches for the already existing trees, but eventually, this past September, I decided it would be easier to just solve my concerns once and for all by creating my very own tree. Now, four months later, here we are! The Skyhawk Science System has been careful curated to support most of the current popular mods in a way which allows for a realistic, but still fun progression from sounding rockets to interstellar starships, and also, adds in a few mechanics to both increase realism and provide some interesting choices for players.

 

If you're looking on a fresh and exciting way to play a career or science play-through of Kerbal Space Program, then maybe give this mod a try! 

Forum Member Created Challenges and Missions:

For the past few years, we have seen a lot of really good missions and challenges threads created that expand our fun with the game and presses our skills, creativity, and sometimes, luck, beyond what we get accustomed to. Let's face it, we all have our go-to design basics, our go-to Kermen, and even our go-to vehicles we like to use. So sometimes a good challenge can cause us to think of another way to achieve our goals. This month, there were no nominations for this category.

Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Thread 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. For this month, we have two threads in this category. This month, there were no nominations for this category

Honorable mention:

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 mentions for this month is:

• Fun Fact Thread (previously fun fact for the day, not limited to 1 per day anymore) by @Hyperspace Industries

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

Congratulations to all the winners of the Thread of the Month for January! We'd like to thank @Lisias, @Chemp, @Superfluous J,   @Kuiper_Beltand the members of the moderation team and staff who nominated this month's contenders. Thank you so much for helping us identify noteworthy threads for this month!

And this month, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to @UomoCapra for allowing me to serve as a member of the KSP moderation team and for the other endeavors he has given me an opportunity to be involved. Oh, and since I was asked to ping the community manager in the TOTMs... (this began in October, @KSP Star, you've been pinged - again!) 

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 last month's threads of the month, you can click here.

If you haven't seen the 2021 Thread of the Year, you can click here.

*(Explanation coming soon)

[Venusian Explorer]

Congratulations for all those who winned!

[Just Jim]

Congrats everyone!   

[Hyperspace Industries]

Congratulations to the winners!

(Also: this is the second honorable mention I’ve gotten, perhaps I should try to get the record for most mentions without winning.  Anyways, thanks for the honorable mention!) 

[CessnaSkyhawk]

Wow. What an honor! 

Thanks to whoever nominated SSS and congrats to all the other winners as well!

 

[Scarecrow71]

Hot dog!  Although, I really didn't do much; I simply out my 2 cents out there.  The others in that thread deserve far more credit than I do!

[zer0Kerbal]

congrats! 

[Proxbi Kerman]

so im a contributer huh

[Lisias]

And the funny thingy about the @Noobi's problem is that, besides all our efforts, the problem just solved by itself (probably a Windows automatic update).  

This was one of the most Kerbal threads in the last few months!!

 

[dave1904]

On 1/3/2022 at 4:53 PM, Lisias said:

And the funny thingy about the @Noobi's problem is that, besides all our efforts, the problem just solved by itself (probably a Windows automatic update).  

This was one of the most Kerbal threads in the last few months!!

 

I found out about the post here and went to the thread. Read the whole thread and was looking forward to the conclusion only to get a fixed itself. That was the worst ending possible. I was so disappointed. It was really exciting because I was expecting some great hack. 

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, dave1904 said:

I found out about the post here and went to the thread. Read the whole thread and was looking forward to the conclusion only to get a fixed itself. That was the worst ending possible. I was so disappointed. It was really exciting because I was expecting some great hack. 

Kerbal proposes, Kraken disposes!  (You should see my face when I realised the problem had fixed itself!)

Apparently, it was something about a device driver conflict somewhere - or perhaps a mere configuration. I think a silent Windows Updated ended up fixing that somehow.

[richfiles]

LOL, I had no idea I'd gotten a TOTM till I edited my top post to update my progress chart, and saw this funny looking tag that I knew I hadn't put there! 
I've always tried to share how I do things, whenever I actually I do them. I think that's why it took me so long to actually make my own thread.
For the longest time, I hung out in the Simpit Repository, which I'd like to shout out, since that's where I learned this was even possible!
I know there have been long idle periods, but this is a project I've definitely not forgotten, and idle time has meant a lot of progress in the past 2 years!

I used to joke that the game would go 1.0 before I finished! Now I expect 2.0 to come out before I finish, LOL 
I do intend to finish though. Current progress of the instrument portion of the build is moving faster than ever!
I still need to build the synchro emulator boards, the Delta V carriage meter, and my rate meter boards.
The DSKY displays only need some LED drivers and decoders, the vertical velocity meter just needs a diffuser and scales printed.
Anything else that remains is mostly minor assembly work left on existing portions of the build or machining/3D printing.
After that, it's a matter of assembling all the bits into the front panel, wiring everything into a controller, and programming it.

 At that point, I'd have functioning instruments, and could in fact make them function stand alone with some hidden power switches.
The control panel already has a support structure made, and is mostly a matter of very carefully drilling and populating the control surface.
I'd need to mount switches, the T-Bar fader, the joysticks, and some annunciators and misc hardware. I have a relatively simple 3 layer plan...
A rigid aluminum plate to mount hardware to, an acrylic layer to provide illumination and annunciation, and the contoured surface.
The control panel portion is designed to be easily removed, for ease of transport, and would add functionality to the instrument panel when attached.

Anyway, I just wanna thank everyone who enjoys my build process, and those who have pitched in with advice, ideas, and aid! 
I also wanna say it's my pleasure sharing the actual methods I use to create what I've created

[Pthigrivi]

Whenever I see this thread I can only ever hear as sung by Bone Thugs.  10 points to any geezers who understand this reference.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

Congratulations to those who won and thank you to those who put content into these topics so there will always be something interesting to look at.

Spoiler

this emoji is scary...

 

On 1/19/2022 at 9:09 AM, Pthigrivi said:

Whenever I see this thread I can only ever hear as sung by Bone Thugs.  10 points to any geezers who understand this reference.

better luck next time man

Edited January 21, 2022 by DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE