Your Absolute BADASS Moment in KSP

[Mitchz95]

Outlined here.

[Greenfire32]

I do a lot of Apollo-Style Mun landings.

One time, before I got the hang of it, I had my command pod in orbit and had my lander safely touched down on the surface. Once it came time to launch the upper stage of the lander and rendezvous with the command pod I came to a startling realization: due to how I had my fuel flow set up, I had 60 units of fuel left in my upper stage.

Not enough to make orbit, but enough to get close to the command pod.

So, putting myself on a ballistic trajectory I headed for the longest sub-orbital path that would intersect the command pod and prayed to the Kraken that my plan would work. The computer said I had roughly 4 minutes of sub-orbital flight.

Once within about 5km of the command pod (3 mins left), I ditched the upper stage and started burning EVA fuel (Jeb of course) in an attempt to slow myself relative to the command pod. Once under 2km I realized that I was still going way to fast. I let Jeb get 800m away from the pod and switched vessels (1 min 30 secs about). From the pod, I turned around and burned retro-grade. Slowing myself enough to not make green paste. Unfortunately, now Jeb, the upper stage of the lander and the command pod are now all on a sub-orbital curve (estimated 45 seconds).

In the end, I was able to get Jeb back in the pod and return to stable orbit (estimated 6,000m above munar surface). Unfortunately, the upper stage of the lander (with all my science equipment) had to be sacrificed to the Mun. I was so close to the surface when it impacted, that I could see the explosion from the command pod.

But Bill, Bob & Jebediah safely returned to Kerbin & I made it a point to always double check fuel lines from then on.

[Daffs]

Early on in the contracts I tested a Mk16 Parachute on the way up (easier to meet the speed requirements), test and cut it, then realised it was the only parachute I had. Jeb had to EVA near the AP and repack it.

[Kryxal]

Definitely getting THIS craft home after Jeb's little accident:

[tekzilla]

I have no idea if its realy badass, but when I first took a single turbojet plane into LKO with only crazy altitude controll, I felt like a GOD!

[evildroid101]

Edgun Kerman lands a direct fall on the ground as his craft explodes behind him.

Hell yes.

[Jovus]

Of course that's Jeb in the cockpit. He snuck in right before launch. Good thing, too.

Yes, I'm still a KSP newbie.

[Camelotking524]

Docking at less then 250m

[Demon_82]

When I got to land by hand 5 different vessels in the Mun, in less tan 2'5Km. I'm pretty bad at that xD

[Landge]

Being attacked by the Kraken aeroBREAKING at Jool and live to tell about it:

Pretty much lost the orbital stage. All hands were able to abandon ship and survive.

[L3GO]

Landing the trophy in the KSP Cup in the first challenge. I landed on Bop with it and the Mün.

[HafCoJoe]

My first mun rescue mission (and second ever mission after buying )... I ended up using the buggy as a ramp back into orbit. I wrote a story of it here. Needless to say it worked as if it was planned xD. Enory and Gerbles where the crew of that mission and many other equally insane endeavors. They live in my sig forevermore.

[Blind Dead McJones]

I wanted to try using spaceplanes because I like the concept of an SSTO (even before First Contract). I never had good luck with the ones I made myself, so I decided to use the Aeris 4A not knowing how poorly it was designed. Amazingly, with Jebediah as my pilot I managed to barely achieve orbit with it, as well as have enough to deorbit. But once I did, the problems started to surface.

I was low on electricity and not generating any more, and slowly using it up. I could generate electricity with the jets, but the fuel was super low as well. I had to alternate between firing the engines and gliding down towards the ground. Oh, and I was coming down on the night side of the planet, out of range of KSC.

So I was gliding slowly down, constantly watching my electrical power, begging the Kerbal gods not to let me crash into a mountain. Of course, I saw a mountain coming up in the gear lights, and by the time I could see the ground it was too late to pull out of the dive. So I crashed into a hillside somewhere in the grasslands and destroyed every part... except the indestructible cockpit. Jebediah was alive! I didn't even care that I destroyed a plane and learned I couldn't fly one either.

My other successful failure was my Apollo 13. What was supposed to be a Duna landing didn't happen, because in the upper atmosphere I accidentally jettisoned the landing gear. I got back into orbit but now had nothing to do but wait for the next transfer window. I was also afraid I wouldn't have enough dV to get back. But I did, and James, Chuck, and Jack were my first Kerbals to fly in another atmosphere at least (to make it up to them, they will be the first Kerbals on Dres).

[1of6Billion]

I did this 'Rescue Kerbal Mission from orbit' and sent up an empty pod. Or so, I thought. Jeb sneaked on board just before launch. So, when the pod reached the unfortunate Kerbal, he couldn't enter because the pod was full. I sent Jeb on EVA and boarded the other Kerbal. With Jeb on the ladder, I did the deorbit burn. The landerpod had 2 radial parachutes, but also enough power to land motorised. So I strapped the chute on Jeb. He landed within 500m of the VAB.

[KingPhantom]

for you it's probably nothing badass. but i startet a science carrer (like in pre 0.24) and after 1h jeb puts a foot on the mun. i only used 2 mun-flybys (free return) for the science i needed to land on the mun. i think it's the 5th carrer i started and after go thorugh a tons of contracts i need a science carrer

[juanml82]

I'm currently tossing Kerbals from one of Minmus cliffs in an attempt to use KAS (after extending the pipe's maximum length) to make a 6 km long pipeline. They are landing fine so far. The problems include landing on the edge of the cliff to work on the ground pylon there and in the inclined slopes at the cliff. We'll see how that works.

And my early Mun landings, before I got the gist of it and my landers tended to fall on their sides and I had to try to turn them upside down or use a slope to fire them upwards (which never worked).

Aborting the take off of a ship carrying three separate (ie, not vertically mounted) landers and seeing all three landers decouple and open their chutes at once was fun. But all I had to do was turn the ship to the side and press the abort button.

[Geoff-AU]

Made a mission to land on a few of Jool's moons to pick up loads of contract points, the last one was Tylo (the other moons were tiny so required less dV to get off again, I knew I'd never make it back off Tylo). Final approach my surface speed was 200m/s and I had 260m/s of fuel left. Ooooh this is gonna be tight (you use extra fuel on the way down since it's hard to instantly cancel out movement). Was burning short and hard and as late as possible in order to slow my entry. Ran out of fuel about 10 metres above the surface and although I had dropped under 10m/s, without fuel I saw it rapidly climbing through 26m/s as the probe hit the surface... ................wait.... it didn't explode! it landed! Got my science done and transmitted back to Kerbin woohoo!! contract complete!

I've had other badass moments, maybe some bigger ones.. but that's the most recent

[Rickenbacker]

Doing a suicide burn on the Mun, thinking I'm going to have to reload since I don't have enough fuel and I'm proably too low to make it in any case.

The burn ended at 4-5 meters above the surface, with a few m/s vertical velocity. Touched down perfectly!

...then tipped over, but hey, wasn't like I was going to use that rocket again anyway .

[LongbowEOD]

I have a dual-nuclear skycrane design that I use for Mun landings. On one such trip to the south pole, I discovered an inconvenient ridge directly in my descent path. Lacking the thrust to stop before smacking into it, I pulled a Jeb and burned hard radial+ to my descent, flinging my ship up and over the ridge. Once clear of the ridge I swung back flat retrograde to kill my horizontal velocity, but still dropping. The trajectory then plummeted into a deep polar hole, giving me sufficient space to kill my vertical velocity, burn back up to the surrounding terrain (remember, it's a nuke lander, so plenty of dV) and land safely.

[NecroBones]

I'm not sure very many of my missions could be called "bad-ass". I usually do too much planning to end up in daring rescues, unexpectedly dangerous situations, etc.

Though the first time I ever successfully landed a spaceplane on the runway (which was actually quite recent, since I just hadn't spent time with them), the plane was unstable during reentry. I managed to pull it out of the dive a hundred meters or so off the ground, and then fly over the mountains to KSC and land. Oddly enough, I think I had Bill in the cockpit, not Jeb.

[Geschosskopf]

Well, my thing that looked most like the pic in the 1st post was using TAC Self-Destruct to get rid of excess construction debris littering the area of my 1st MKS Munbase.

TAC Self-Destruct. Best. Mod. Ever.

But if badass means showing cold dedication to the mission whatever the cost, then there's this episode from a trip to the Jool system. Luney Kerman, a petty thief pressganged from KSP (Kerbin State Prison), was sent to Vall to pump Kethane for all eternity. He had a house, a company car, and a whole planet to call his own, so it wasn't so bad on paper. However, after he'd been there a long time, a probe lander stopped by to get Science! from Vall. Luney was led to believe that it was his ride home, but in reality he was just to store his surface samples in its pod and then it would leave without him. Luney was, after all, necessary on Vall to support the glorious exploration of Laythe. Needless to say, there was a bit of scene when Luney found out the truth and Mission Control had to use the cattle prods built into his suit to restore order.

[KingPhantom]

I'm not sure very many of my missions could be called "bad-ass". I usually do too much planning to end up in daring rescues, unexpectedly dangerous situations, etc.

you know the correct way how to play KSP... teach me master!

[NecroBones]

you know the correct way how to play KSP... teach me master!

Such wisdom exists within a single word: Overkill.

[Felsmak]

Does this count?

[The Mechanic]

Does this count?

What kind of black magic is this? Reading the forum during the last year I saw things like the Kraken-Drive and also read somewhere about suspension for rovers made from radial decouplers. But how does this work? I assume it uses the flexibility of jr. docking ports and radial decouplers somehow?