Dumb Question about Ribbons.

[capi3101]

Hey all.

I've been using the ribbon generator for a while now and I do my best to follow the rules listed here. My question for y'all is simple: since you can only have one craft device on a ribbon, what do y'all consider to be the list of "priorities" for them? By which I mean do y'all think a station is more impressive than a rover, or is a multi-part ship more impressive than a station. I have my own opinions on this; I want to know about yours.

[BaneOfPilots]

Just opinion. People would probably think stations are more impressive than rovers though.

[PeteMcCartney]

Great question, I've often wondered this!

I give more weight to actually landing on a body, so a lander is number 1 for me. Thinking about it though, I guess it would depend on the individual body and the particular difficulties that come with it.

[SecondGuessing]

I'd put planes highest, but then I take the most pleasure in getting a space-plane to the planets. That or a base; precise landings are much harder than docking is.

[Sof]

Landers

Getting a Kerbal onto a planet or moon, and bring them back to Kerbin is the ultimate achievement. Stations, Rovers and multipart ships are just there to facilitate the journey of the brave Kerbanaut.

[Unistrut]

The official order is, or at least was, can't remember if it made it back after the site nuking, "choosing the mission that was the most AWESOME or your FAVORITE".

Although generally most people go unmanned probe - lander - rover, manned capsule - lander - rover and then go to the above rules when trying to pick between station, base or multi-part ship. I personally display the station device for Kerbin and not the multi-part ship since of course it's been in orbit around Kerbin, that's where it was built. In my mind, big ships like that are only really impressive when you manage to fly them somewhere. Technically one of my big MPS has been to the Mun as well, but I like my epic Munar rover journeys much more, so I keep the rover device.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I decided to only include things I've done since about version 0.18, so everything before that has been erased. So, I'm only up to orbiting probes now, need to finish the system then work on rovers and landers. Since I'm terrible at docking, that will probably never happen. But I expect I'll remove the probe icons when a planet/moon gets a rover, then remove that once it gets a lander.

[Xeldrak]

I think in term of impressiveness I'd go with:

Impactor < Probe < Capsule < Probe Lander < Lander < Robotic Rover < Manned Rover < Aircraft < Multipart Ship < Station < Base

However, it depends - a well constructed airplane, that can land and take of again is probably more awesome than two pieces of equipment, docked in orbit that I pronounce "spacestation"

[Noticeably FAT]

It's your ribbon going in your sig, so the real question here is what do you find more impressive? I start with whatever I've done, and if I've done multiple things I go with whatever I'm happiest with.

[Jarod645]

The others would go by how difficult and/or impressive the trip was, but I know that for me, building a space station would replace any of the other ones, except for a land base, which I think is one of the most impressive feats.

[Spatzimaus]

Order of awesomeness is very subjective, but in general I'd follow three trends:

1> Things that land get priority over things that just orbit. Stations might be big, but they're just not difficult to place.

2> Manned vessels over unmanned, as long as this doesn't violate rule 1. Besides just the bragging rights, a manned vessel has a certain minimum size, while unmanned stuff can be tiny (my mapping probes are less than a ton) or huge (my orbital fuel refineries are 500 tons).

3> Rovers get priority over static structures, as long as this doesn't violate rules 1 or 2. (Given that all of my "bases" are designed to be mobile, that's not as problematic as it might sound.)

That said, I've used a multi-part icon for Eve and a station for Kerbin, because each of those represented a specific, memorable mission for me. My own ribbons need a bit of updating, but I'm waiting until I land my big moon base first.

[Promii]

I was mostly interested in where I sent what so I used the same iconography as the ribbon generator but in my own format.

[paleorob]

I would think that we can look at modern IRL space programs to rank things. We have landed static landers and rovers on Mars. No manned capsule has been there. So manned lander with no rover>robotic rover. We have landed manned capsules on the moon, but people seem to think the later landings with rovers are the coolest. Therefore manned rover>manned lander. We have had several space stations in LEO. No one has built a multi-part ship in orbit yet, so I think MPS>station in real life. In KSP it is a bit easier to build a MPS than reality. I think building a station in Jool orbit is probably more impressive than a MPS built in LKO that flew to Jool.

One thing I see missing from the ribbons is a solar escape ribbon/device. I mean, who here doesn't think the Voyager probes (among a few others) aren't cool? And it takes more dV to leave the sun's SOI than getting to Jool or Eeloo. Just a thought.

[Dictator Dan]

I say impactors are the lowest, for sure, the exception being for the sun, because that means you actually got to the sun, as opposed to just leaving Kerbins sphere of influence. After that, unmanned probes in orbit, because most of the time if you have landed, you probably entered orbit first. Then unmanned lander, with unmanned rover right above it.

Moving on to manned things, the capsule is the lowest, while impressive, you have stranded people on a one way trip, above that I would put lander, as something designed to get your Kerbals to and from the surface of an alien planet is a large achievement. Then manned rover, a rover, specially a manned one, you can delivery both Kerbals and a payload to the surface of a planet safely. After that, Id say plane, because it means you hauled a lot of dead weight with you, and your design was still capable of preforming the mission of other vehicles, while having the advantage/disadvantage of atmospheric flight.

Now for the big ones, multipart ship, station and base. I say multipart ship is the lowest of these, as both a station and a base require many launches and dockings, in addition to doing more, the exception being if you are doing a grand tour, which can raise this ones prestige. Above multipart ship, Id say is station, as a station requires sustained flights, and dockings, as well as giving you a large, permanent presence around another body. The base is like the station, only you add in the fact you have to land it, probably land rovers as well, maybe even a satellite network, and it gives you a permanent presence on surface of the alien planet, something incredibly hard to achieve in real life.

TL;DR, impactor < probe < probe lander < probe rover < capsule < lander < manned rover < aircraft < multipart ship < station < base.

[Spatzimaus]

I have to disagree with a couple things here:

Moving on to manned things, the capsule is the lowest, while impressive, you have stranded people on a one way trip

A capsule doesn't mean you stranded anyone, it just means you traveled there without landing. We had a few Apollo missions travel to the moon, circle it, and come home; no one was stranded, but those'd qualify for the "capsule" icon. A lander that didn't come home would still use the lander icon, just without the return chevron.

I say multipart ship is the lowest of these, as both a station and a base require many launches and dockings

No, they don't. None of my stations or bases required multiple launches or dockings; I use an extremely heavy booster (4000 tons) to lift 500-ton payloads in a single shot, so things that are intended to end up a single entity are generally built from the start that way. Stations and bases don't need to be very large, either, so multiple parts aren't necessary even if you don't use ultra-heavy designs. And even if your stations were assembled from multiple pieces, it'd still be less impressive than a multipart ship; both are assembled in orbit, but the multipart ship has to then also be capable of MOVING as a single unit without tearing itself apart; many of the space stations people have posted here couldn't handle even a tiny amount of thrust. Bases are often the easiest of the three, as docking something on a surface is trivial (since you'll have built it from the start to dock at a specific height), although the challenge is landing in the first place, which'll depend heavily on which planet/moon you're talking about. (Landing a base on Eve is trivial, for instance.)

The multipart ship I use for my Eve ribbon was an unusual case. I was doing a Grand Tour with a single 55-ton reusable vessel, and had landed it everywhere but Eve. Instead of just sending an Eve-specific vessel out and EVAing Jeb over, I instead sent a lower stage that could attach to my reusable vessel to act as a specialized booster stage. That way, my single Grand Tour vessel really did land on every planet (except Jool) itself. So, for Eve I could use the MultiPart, Lander, Rover, or Airplane icons; given the difficulty of getting that lower stage to Eve and docking it with my main vessel, I chose the MP icon.

[Moustachauve]

I usually place the mission I had the most fun while doing it, instead of the most awesome

[Dictator Dan]

A capsule doesn't mean you stranded anyone, it just means you traveled there without landing. We had a few Apollo missions travel to the moon, circle it, and come home; no one was stranded, but those'd qualify for the "capsule" icon. A lander that didn't come home would still use the lander icon, just without the return chevron.

Youre right, my derp.

No, they don't. None of my stations or bases required multiple launches or dockings; I use an extremely heavy booster (4000 tons) to lift 500-ton payloads in a single shot, so things that are intended to end up a single entity are generally built from the start that way. Stations and bases don't need to be very large, either, so multiple parts aren't necessary even if you don't use ultra-heavy designs. And even if your stations were assembled from multiple pieces, it'd still be less impressive than a multipart ship; both are assembled in orbit, but the multipart ship has to then also be capable of MOVING as a single unit without tearing itself apart; many of the space stations people have posted here couldn't handle even a tiny amount of thrust. Bases are often the easiest of the three, as docking something on a surface is trivial (since you'll have built it from the start to dock at a specific height), although the challenge is landing in the first place, which'll depend heavily on which planet/moon you're talking about. (Landing a base on Eve is trivial, for instance.)

I guess we just approach these differently, I usually send a station core, with docking ports, and probes attached to the ports, get where I want, deploy the probes, then send follow up missions as multipart ships to build the station, hence my view on it.

The multipart ship I use for my Eve ribbon was an unusual case. I was doing a Grand Tour with a single 55-ton reusable vessel, and had landed it everywhere but Eve. Instead of just sending an Eve-specific vessel out and EVAing Jeb over, I instead sent a lower stage that could attach to my reusable vessel to act as a specialized booster stage. That way, my single Grand Tour vessel really did land on every planet (except Jool) itself. So, for Eve I could use the MultiPart, Lander, Rover, or Airplane icons; given the difficulty of getting that lower stage to Eve and docking it with my main vessel, I chose the MP icon.

Holy crap, that sounds awesome. Got any pictures/a mission report of that ship?

EDIT: Also, forgot from my original post, Extreme EVA I rank the highest, simply because its only achievable on a handful of places.

[DerekL1963]

I usually place the mission I had the most fun while doing it, instead of the most awesome

Isn't the mission you had the most fun on the most awesome by definition?

[Moustachauve]

Well, as example, on of my station around duna could be looking very beautiful and be impressive and all, but I had a lot more fun rolling with my little probe-rover on the surface, which isn't really impressive, but I would still place the rover on my ribbon

[Unistrut]

However, it depends - a well constructed airplane, that can land and take of again is probably more awesome than two pieces of equipment, docked in orbit that I pronounce "spacestation"

Ah, I see you've visited JOE'S FUEL STOP. It looks like a discarded booster stage with a hab block bolted on one side ... because it is!

[Temstar]

Kerbol is a hard one. A low Kerbolar orbit probe is actually much more impressive than an impactor because the delta-V to reach very low Kerbolar orbit and circularise is more than 30,000m/s from LKO, where as an impactor only needs about 9,000m/s. The problem is that if you put a probe device for Kerbol most people would assume that meant you had a probe in roughly Kerbin's orbit around the sun rather than low orbit.

[capi3101]

I appreciate hearing all y'all's opinions. I do realize the answers are subjective; what's awesome to one person might be lame to another (take me and my wife: I think KSP is awesome and she thinks it's boring, though she does find detonation of stack separators for no apparent reason interesting). So far with me it's the multi-part ship missions to Duna and Eve, though putting a satellite in geosynch orbit around Kerbin with an ion thruster was fun.

One more dumb subjective question: do y'all only count craft you have built yourself, or do you still count accomplishments done with pre-built stock craft? For example, I have my flight wings for Kerbin, but that was done with one of the planes that came with the game; would you count that or not?