What was ksp like when it first came out

[Javster]

I miss the simplicity of the old versions, thanks for bringing back memories guys, awsomejwags, you've been stickied

Not to be rude, but I don't really think this needs to be stickied.

[1D-1()T]

Not to be rude, but I don't really think this needs to be stickied.

Oh, but it's good for the younglings to know of their roots (I may have been dying to use the word younglings for the past few years, for some reason)

Me, I started a bit after .20 was released. Joined the forum at pretty much the same time as .21 was released. The game has progressed a lot in such a short time, wish I'd been around earlier, though. Also, for the sake of being slightly more to the point, I still get shivers when I see the new big parts. Just imagine the possibilities...

[Red Iron Crown]

It's stickied because it's a Thread of the Month.

[Jon144]

I have been around since .18-.20

Things since then that are more recent than even older versions, are totally different than the way things are now. Sometimes I play using an old KSP backup I still have on my computer. The first thing I notice is not being able to choose your astronauts, the second is the dreaded old end flight UI where you could accidentally terminate flight instead of reverting. Then you notice how lower-res and less detailed Kerbin and the Mun is.

All in all, I am happy where KSP has gone and how it's SRBs have became taller.

[Thomas988]

I joined the amazing KSP community in 0.20 when the old space center was still here. It was about two weeks before 0.21 came out. The reason I joined is because of two events: A- NerdCubed played KSP and introduced me to the game and B- I discovered HOCgaming on YouTube and discovered just how amazing KSP was. Docking? Rovers? Artificial gravity?! It wasn't long after that when I bought KSP. I have been in love with it ever since.

[Barklight]

I remember the Launch Tower of Doom - I don't know how many fins and fuel tanks have gotten caught on that dang thing between my launches...

Creating space stations by jamming things together and getting them stuck on structural pieces so they'd stay together before we had docking ports.

I still forget to deploy my solar panels on 3/4 of my launches. Screwed if it's automated, fortunately my last one was crewed. Darn newfangled technologies.

[malkuth]

How can we forget that launch tower, the destroyer, of destroyers.

[Greenfire32]

I remember when the launch pad clamps first came out and I'd use them to set my rocket up past the launch tower.

That terrible beast never again ate another ship.

[L3GO]

I got it in 0.18 and my computer kept crashing and i did not know how to play. Now i am better at it i can go places and my computer can run it now!

[Red Iron Crown]

I got it in 0.18 and my computer kept crashing and i did not know how to play. Now i am better at it i can go places and my computer can run it now!

Did you change computers or did it just start performing better?

[L3GO]

Did you change computers or did it just start performing better?

The game would crash each time i went out onto the launch pad after being in the VAB/SPH after a previous flight. Then it stopped and the game did not crash. So my pc can handle KSP quite well with ships over 500 parts.

[Barklight]

-snip- So my pc can handle KSP quite well with ships over 500 parts.

I remember when there weren't even enough mods to get to 500 unique / variant parts in the game Nowadays you have stuff like KW, BAC9, and Interstellar bloating up your parts tabs in the VAB. Gotta love the variety though!

[roosterr]

.... been playin since .15, and yes, there was a great sense of ingenuity when you cobbled toghether rocket part to make a bullet train, or whatever. BUT all of the new gear, interface, planets, and the realism mods are awesome. So far, the evolution of KSP is nearly perfect. Although the career mode doesnt light my fire but otherwise, A+

[Wiiplay123]

SEE? Incomplete game = more challenge = more fun. Clearly.

I think the next version of KSP should remove all engines entirely, so we can only get to space with huge controlled explosions.

So basically, the stack decouplers?

[tasteofepic]

All this crap we have now, making the game easier. Like manoeuvre nodes! Who asked for those?

*slowly raises his hand*

[bigyihsuan]

SEE? Incomplete game = more challenge = more fun. Clearly.

But remember the rules of Dwarf Fortress: Failure is Fun.

Especially with explosions.

[undercoveryankee]

I started in 0.23. So I missed most of the glory days, but someday I'll be able to show off my screenshots of rockets going banana-shaped with the old joints and nobody will believe we actually put up with that.

[Astronaut]

I started playing in early 2012 (never joined the forum till December and then my account died in the great forum massacre of april 2013) One of the things i remember is getting to the Mun but not being able to do anything there because EVA and rovers weren't in the game yet. So instead of going to the boring Mun i decided to stay on Kerbin and build the most ridiculous rockets that the engine could hold at the time. I built the biggest rocket that was possible to build and maybe if it wasn't for that stupid launch tower i could've gotten it off the ground. That launch tower was the #1 cause for all my crashes.

I remember the game being something i would hop on just to play around with building and crashing and once planets, spaceplanes and EVA were added to the game i started concentrating on serious missions instead of messing around because finally, going into space wasn't so boring. I still remember my giant rockets falling into the ocean while Bill and Bob were screaming but Jeb had a giant grin on his face as they all splashed down and KIA would appear where they used to be.

Do I miss it? No way. Back then the game was boring and i only ever played it when i felt like messing around. It felt more like a casual fun game than the game we have right now. I still have that version on my computer, before i switched to Steam i saved every version so i could return to them later. I return to it a few times just to relive those moments but i quickly get bored and start playing 0.23 again.

Edited June 24, 2014 by Astronaut

[Jatwaa]

A guy at work told me about it. I downloaded the demo and gave it a shot. So many explosions and so much glee across my face as things flew, arced and crashed. I spent the first day watching things fly and then blow up before realizing "Hey there is a parachute!" From there I started crazier experiments. After a day or so of the demo I bought the game. The hours of happiness and dismay cycled through attempt after attempt started to slowly snowball. Soon I was making music as a tribute to the game and waking and thinking about the game and working...while thinking about the game. I spent much of my time with the game. Obsessed? Yes...yes I was...and yes I still am.

This game has now second only to WoW in time spent in game, only because I have not have KSP for more than a few years. In that time, I chocked up 900+ hours in game and only have done half the things I (currently) have planned. I did the 64 bit rigging and now am going bigger and better designs with more mods and insanity. I actually play other games to drag my attention away from another X (or XX) hours of game play. (Side note, shadowplay\FRAPS does not like the 64 bit tweaking...at least on my system) But I digress. I still feel as much glee as the first hour of game play. Power on Squad. Well done and Power On.

[Apollo91]

I started playing back in version 13, it was the demo at the time. My brother had told me about the game and I was skeptical (X-Plane user since 2001) but I wanted a spaceflight simulator badly. X-Plane kind of simulates space travel, but with some serious, serious caveats. It's coordinates aren't truly polar, so when your on orbit, you go straight, and then when you leave the map edge and it loads terrain the whole flight engine grinds to a halt, forces you down onto the new horizontal vector, and continues on. This results in orbits naturally degrading in random directions over time as floating-point errors build up in translation. All that was needed for me to give KSP a shot was Harvester talking about rebuilding Unity into a polar system so that orbital dynamics could run in their native equations - I was hooked before the download bar was done.

Back in 2013 I had a map view, but when I bought the game and made rendezvous for the first time, all the calculations were by hand (no maneuver nodes.) When those two spaceships floated up next to each other, that was a marvelous moment, unequaled since in the thrill of discovery and the amount of effort I had put into it. So many things followed - landing on the moon, reenacting the Apollo missions at least a dozen times and so much more.

I love the latest version of KSP, especially career mode and am very excited for .24 but I miss the old tanks. They were much more interesting, visually. The new ones are more realistic, but most real rockets are just painted white with a logo on the side, so I'm not sure I want this game to aspire to that...

[khyron42]

I started playing with the first public release (0.7.3?) At the time I was a minecraft addict, and tired of building stationary things. Finding out about KSP, with the ability to build ridiculous things and then try to make them fly, was exactly what I wanted! I've been having fun with it every version since, and still start from scratch every new update.

I've built SSTO spaceplanes, orbital stations, landed ships on every planet and moon in the game, Rescued kerbals drifting in solar orbit, and damn near everything else (except return trips from Eve, yet.) I've played through everything with no mods, and played with every popular mod.

But, the best fun is still what worked in 0.7.3. Building something - whether crazy, huge, tiny, pretty, monstrous, whatever - and then getting to pilot it & see how it does.

[SuperSquirrel51]

I still have the old demo in my folders, that was the first version I played and back then I thought the goal was strap boosters on and then see how high up you go then put more boosters.

[awsomejwags]

Thank you all!

[EvilotionCR2]

I found about KSP from a Czech show about videogames (Slovaks and czechs understand each other, kinda lika australians and Americans), called GamePage. Anybody remember it? I could probably even find the episode if some czech or slovak wanted. As I loved astronomy at the time, I immediately looked at it. Played the demo, and shortly after 0.16 was released I bought KSP, and oh boy, I remember the hype for 0.17...

[syfyguy64]

Well, Kerbol looked a lot better, more blinding, less ball like.

But performance was horrible, and I had a toaster, so the launch vehicle for this was very resource intensive (For me, at least).

Also, struts where pretty much a requirement, with a 50% safety rating.