Your Best KSP Story

[The Jedi Master]

There is no thread for this? Really? Now, that is what I call a SHAMEFUL DISPLAY!

Basically, tell your favorite story from KSP. It could be your first Mun landing, a crazy idea that worked against all expectations, a last-minute maneuver that saved the crew or anything else. There is only one rule: It must be YOUR story--that is, you have to have actually done it yourself. With that little piece of common sense out of the way, shall we begin?

As for me, it was in 0.18.2. I was coming in on the Mun. Of course, I had never successfully landed on the Mun before, so this was a big deal. Then, my lander ran out of fuel. For many kerbals, this would be the end. But I was determined. I ejected from the cockpit and used my jetpack to slow down. Guess what? It worked. I have never seen anyone else do something like this.

[95tiger59]

off topic: I hope that was a total war reference

on topic: I was doing an Apollo style landing on eeloo everything had gone perfectly I was landing back down on kerbin and literally the second I touched the ground BOOM hell kraken, lets just say I was a bit sour after that

[Zaryulenko]

One day a friend told me that he wanted me to get a photo of the kerbal temple, so i accepted the challenge and started my wait home (I was in School that moment) Once arrived i started KSP and then got directly to the SPH, I need a plane capable of sending 2 kerbals there but i had no plane for that, I took 1 hour to develope a plane capable of doing the task then i started the flight During this my plane almost crashed into the mountains behind the KSC i lost total control of it for a few seconds after leaving the continent (There was an specific angle of inclination that could cause it to become a flying stone) But when i finally got into the Desertic continent (Im going to call it Tungstenistan because i had always set that nation there ) It was starting to be night so i decided to land but i had no lights to see were i could land, but that didn't stop me from landing there... then i waited for the day.

At the morning plane engines started again and i gained all the speed i coudl! i nearly completed a full suborbital flight (I got up to 1100 m/s) above the mountains of the desert looking for the temple!

It took me about 30mins of flight to realise that was NOT the mountain i was looking for, Then i started to look for the mountains of the desert AGAIN.

25min Later i was almost going to give up then i move the camera down and i say WHAT?!!! (I was passing just above the temple) instantly i changed my course to a descent there and after a few moments i was there whit Bill and Jeb ready to take a photo!

It was fun to say that i found it by accident!

[Jas1126]

I had made my first trip to Eve (that was to be returned from) because everyone was making a big deal out of it. The lander was doing alright until it skipped onto the terrain just a little too hard. This destroyed one of the engines (out of four on that stage) but the tank remained. I spent a good hour testing fuel levels and the removal of side RCS tanks. Eventually I made it balanced enough to get off of the surface. Docked with my orbiter and limped home.

Thankfully, I was able to pull it off but only due to perseverance. I could have easily reloaded but I really wouldn't have had as much fun.

I strongly suggest that people use the Autosave less frequently. You'd be surprised just how much the game changes.

Edited April 24, 2014 by Jas1126

[The Jedi Master]

off topic: I hope that was a total war reference

Why, yes it was!

[timsfitz]

I had a hard landing on Vall. One of the engines was destroyed as well as a fuel tank. Managed to get back into space but could not reach orbit. Kerbal got out, collected the science from the doomed lander and used his jetpack to achieve a low orbit. I then picked him up with the ship and headed home.

[SpenSpaceCorp]

This is a recent story:

I set up a new (stock) career save right after the ARM patch, and after many fruitful science trips managed to set up a refueling station with a mobile processing lab with 2 landers in Munar orbit. I needed to acquire moar science from "low space" over various Mun biomes, so I undocked my lander form the station and set it in a polar orbit around the Mun. As I came around the other side of the Mun, (I was in map mode at the time searching for biomes), I experienced physics range lag. So I switched back out of map mode just in time to see my lander collide with my station at more than a few hundred m/s ! Seeing the debris cloud spreading out I searched for my 3000 or so science I had previously stored in a module, with no luck. On the bright side, I learned that "docking" at "very very fast" speeds is not good.

[Tex]

I actually have two contenders for the throne of "Best Story" in my books, so I'll go ahead and tell 'em both!

One day as I was playing in Career mode, I sent a Kerbal (I forget his name) to a Minmus science mission. I had planned to land on the surface, but as I entered the SOI and warped to the periapse to do my insertion burn, a staging error removed the entire lander assembly from the craft. Violently. The worst part was that I didn't manage to do the insertion burn, so my little brave Kosmonaut was speeding out of Minmus's SOI and would imminently be placed in a hugely eccentric Kerbin orbit. Luckily, it was one of my newer models of space capsules, so it had a docking port on it (which was a new feature to my designs in this particular save). I quickly sent a rescue mission after it, and it was as I was trying to match orbits with the stranded capsule that I realized that this was almost identical to the orbital path I had seen an asteroid take earlier. The thing that spurred me to go after the capsule was the possibility that the stranded Kerbal would be thrown out of Kerbin's SOI by Minmus returning. After about 10 minutes of trial-and-error burns and frustration, I managed to dock with the capsule and scored some practice for when I'm ready to go for the asteroids!

The second story actually took place earlier on a different save: I was testing lander technology for a long series of missions involving the Mun, so I built my rocket and capsule/lander and decided to test it by sending it to Duna. (I saw via Kerbal Engineer that I had enough Delta-V to do it, so why not?) I launched the whole kerjigger to Duna, planning to orbit and come back.

Then I saw that I had nearly all of my fuel remaining in the lander. Hey... Why not try a landing? I burned and got myself a nice angle to do some parachute-assisted aerobraking, slowed down, and completely nailed the landing. As a matter of fact, it was my first EVER Duna landing. I was so pleased... but THEN I found out that I still had half of my remaining fuel left. Hey... Why not come back home?

I lifted off, did some creative burning, and landed my guy back home. It is probably one of my greatest triumphs so far.

[DirtyHarry]

I, too, bailed out over the Mun after running out of fuel... my Kerbal bounced around a bit, but amazingly survived. I mounted a rescue mission and retrieved him.... but that's NOT my most memorable mission!

Just this past week, working through a new save game for 23.5, I decided to go to Duna sort of before I had the tech tree opened enough to really do it "well". I built a "command module" and "lander" and put it up into orbit... then realized it was really a Mun/Minmus sort of lander, and not at all suited for Duna. So, I built a Duna lander, and figured the other could go to Ike.

I flew this cobbled-together mistake out there, and wound up using all my fuel in all three ships just to get into orbit around the Duna system.

Now what? Well, I guess I could build a tanker... two full orange tanks, off to Duna. Once again, ran out of fuel just getting into a -very eccentric- orbit on the bleeding edge of the SOI.

Built a second, larger tanker - flew it into Kerbin orbit empty, then did the tedious process of running up fuel ferries to load it up, then off to Duna. Finally; fueled up all three ships and tugged them out - first stop, Ike.

I suck at landings, so I was being very careful while trying to get high/low/surface science. Was in low orbit... and was too low. Almost smashed it into a mountain, but made a save at the last second. I decided to cut my losses at that point and bring all the science and all three Kerbals home.

I didn't think I'd make it, but they got home safe, and even without landing I got almost 1600 science out of it. But I was sweating for three days getting them out of there. MET readout at spashdown: FIFTEEN YEARS!!!!

[pauix]

My best story would be the day I tried to fly a plane to get science near the mountains. I had a dumb moment and tried to collect science mid-flight, loosing control over my plane. Things got a bit hairy, but Jebediah managed to recover the spaceplane and land it safely on the runway after getting a bit too close to the mountains:

[xcorps]

I spent the better part of 8 hours one day assembling a space station at 75k LKO. 25 Orange fuel tanks with a big monoprop tank each, solar panels out the buttocks, the cupola, the whole 9 yards.

Spent the next 3 hours topping all the tanks off with fueling flights.

Then I decided that I would be better served having it at a few million meters of altitude than at 75k..after all it's only 4900 Dv.

So I built a tug. Lots of Dv in the RCS tanks , lots of battery juice for the 20+ ion engines. Lots of fuel for the...Mainsail.

Hooked up, centered, got a bit of thrust going, got centered, and hit the Mainsail. It took 4.3 seconds to destroy the entire station.

F9 took me to a magical place; the surface of the Mun where I was doing bungee jumps the day before.

Edited April 25, 2014 by xcorps

[r4pt0r]

landed a mun lander, 1 man capsule with x6 radial tanks and lvt45 engines. on landing i knocked one off. so i carfully retracted my gear opposite the lost engine, and did a quick hop to knock off the other engine to regain symetry. burned up and away as soon as it broke off and got home safe

[Heagar]

There are three storys witch had an educational outcome for me:

1. The mun-landing

I had build an apollo alike rocket. And for the first time i wanted a two-stage two man lander. But it have to be only to be as tall as the one man lander before. Because the VAB wasn't so tall in that version of the game as now, the rocket nearly scratched the ceiling with the LES-tower already. Additional this lander should have two attached sience packages witch have to be deployed and a small rover as well, witch makes it even heavier.

When i finished the contruction guess what: A new version of KSP was released with a mutch taller VAB!

When i reached the mun in a 25 km circulerized orbit i undocked the MEM from the CM and set a burn for 6 km altitude shortly before the landing zone. When i reached this point i burned to loose orbital speed - and realized in 3 km altitude that i may be short on fuel in the landing stage.

Normally i slow down gently and have a touchdown at 0.3 m/s vertical speed and enough fuel to correct things (lateral speed e.g.). But this time i had to spare fuel so i decided to cut the engine and let me fall down to 700 meters with an velocity of 150 m/s (and slightly off the targeted landing zone) before i engaged the engine for it's last time. When i was nearing the ground i run out of fuel about 20 m altitude. The lander fell to the ground with at least 13 m/s vertical velocity. And damm, i was lucky when it's survived the impact and stands on the ground. As for the acend stage, it wents well using nearly all of the fuel for it.

Later on - when i used that lander - i went down to a 20 km circulerized orbit - to be on the safe side with 10% fuel remaining at touchdown.

2. The cirumnavigation

Bevore the forum crash i constructed a six-engined plane with droptanks witch makes it barely around Kerbin at a certain speed i wanted to archieve. During the site was offline i build my first STTO realizing that far less engines could be sufficent.

When this thread was be renewed after the forum wipe i thought, why not going single engined? I build a plane 1/3 of the size from before. On a weekend i tryed it out. It tooks 2/3 of the runway for takeoff, but i could climb faster to cruising-altitude, because i reduced the wingarea only slightly. Well, two times around and - what the heck - maybe enough fuel for a third time? I decided to land that first successful flight and try it again. And really, i made three circumnavigations in a row, with a plane i thought it could barely do that twice.

3. The minmus landig - mun flyby

@ maximus97: Mishaps in an flight early in the career-mode with an follow-on rescue mission happens to me too, but:

I had landed on minmus and tryed to get home. When i used up my fuel it leaves the craft (Min_1 i call it for now) in an orbit around kerbin and an AP over the orbit of the mun (i forgot to use radial decouplers). I immeadeatly launched a nearly identical craft (Min_2, but with two capsules instead of one) with an AP below mun's orbit, so i had only to accelerate towards kerbin to save the poor guy from Min_1 in a near docking maneouver. When i was nearly reaching the AP with Min_2 i had to recognize that the flightpath of Min_1 was diverted by mun - on an trajectory directly strait into kerbin. Luckily SQAD haven't implemented an "damage-model" for a kerbalnout experiencing high accelerations during reentry yet. So i could lean back watching both crafts to land safely on kerbin.

[nli2work]

Little fun cooked up as an excuse to decommission an old space station

Part 1: Unauthorized Takeoff at KSC

Part 2: Space Station Resupply Mission

Part 3: SABOTAGE!

Part 4: Orbital Rescue

Part 5: Three Space Kowboys

[Deadpangod3]

My best ksp story?

Ah... I have quite a ****ton of interesting stories I could tell, but this one stands out.

So back when I was doing my Laythe 11 mission I was aerobraking one of the three ships into Jool orbit, this one was the main ship with all the rovers, sats, etc.

So I'm screaming through Jools atmosphere, physics ain't giving no ****s about deadly reentry, when I realize that since earlier in the mission one of the rovers docking port connection would bend more then the other one's when I fired the engines.

Except now from the massive drag (I'm going through a gas giant at 13 kilometers per second!) it was bent ALOT more then everything else, looking like it was going to snap off at any moment!

I was only just entering the atmosphere, and periapsis was 27 seconds away, and then probably another 13 or so to exit the atmosphere.

In sheer desperation, since I had come this far and was NOT going to let this giant ball of kethane eat the rover and then much down the rest as it tumbled from off center com,

I EVA'd one of my Kerbals and used his jet pack to push the rover forwards so it wouldn't snap off,

So the poor Kerbal was left pushing on a rover with all his might until the ship left the Joolian atmosphere.

[Pecan]

Last night a few of my friends were visiting and wanted to have "a quick look, for 5 minutes" at this 'KSP' thing I talked about. So ...

Launch tiny rocket to prove the point, orbit. Oooohs and Aaahs. They ask if it'll go to the moon, I tell them no, but "here's one I prepared earlier" or we can just switch to the spacestation I have in orbit there. They really liked that and asked if we could land. Not in the spacestation, of course, but it has landers. Might as well do some proper sightseeing at [an anomaly/easter egg- name removed to protect the innocent]. To keep things quick - we were already over half an hour into their '5 minutes' - I typed the co-ordinates into MJ's landing guidance and auto-warped.

LOTS of ooohs and aaahs as Mun's surface approached, more as the [anomaly] came into view, gasps as MJ landed ON it!

And then it all got 'interesting' - as some of you will know the [anomaly] is rounded so, with MJ 'done' and the engines cut the lander promptly rolled and fell off it, "N-o-o-o-!" in slow-motion Mun-gravity. Hit smart A.S.S 'radial +' fast, lander flipped upright, burn engines - soft landing, applause from the audience! EVA, plant flag, take picture, etc. Takeoff to re-dock with space-station, retract gear. Two legs don't retract, establish low orbit, retry, stuck (presumably damaged hitting the [anomaly] as it fell). This design can't dock with the gear extended. EVA again, jet-pack next to each leg in turn and 'repair'. Re-board lander, legs retract, rendezvous, dock. Breath.

Then they wanted a go. Total fail, of course, but that just meant they appreciated what they'd just seen even more. Their '5 minutes' took over 2 hours and they're awestruck - if I had planned it it just wouldn't have worked!

Edited April 25, 2014 by Pecan