We WON a KSP Esports Contest! 🏆

The first 100 people to use code MATTLOWNE at the link below will get 60% off of Incogni: incogni.com/mattlowne
Can Kerbal Space Program be an esports event? Apparently, yes it can! This is the story of how 2 plucky British KZbinrs went to France to conquer SpaceCon 2023's KSP Esports event! The contest was a gruelling 24 hour endurance challenge in which we would need to play Real Solar System to construct a lunar mining base, gateway station and surface shuttle, and then establish a Mars colony for crewed missions...and then DO a crewed mission. We were ambitious, but were we rubbish?
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Check out @TheBeardyPenguin 's video:
• How We WON a KSP Espor...
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Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
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[@MattLowne]

The first 100 people to use code MATTLOWNE at the link below will get 60% off of Incogni: incogni.com/mattlowne

[@holykebabempire]

Hey Matt Lowe

[@NNZaero4066]

Could you please enable comments?

[@Riku1302]

Reply to me for funny

[@Justins_stuff]

funny@@Riku1302

[@DanyoScribbles]

Ok

[@DrakeFaust]

In summary: Professional game-player and literal rocket scientist mop the floor at local KSP LAN party contest 🤣

[@MRtecno98]

but fail to change the keyboard layout lol

[@khulhucthulhu9952]

@@MRtecno98 they did get it to work, right? just after an hour of fiddling. Which is fair if you're not used to Windows 11 with it's new places for everything, with new icons too.

[@lordcrafty7578]

@@khulhucthulhu9952 windows 11 UI is designed to hide advanced features too

[@GaijinGamerGirl]

You can be a self proclaimed professional and a rocket scientist, you are still at the mercy of KSP's broken game and lack of realistic physics 🤣

[@Greatestswordsman69]

@@GaijinGamerGirl the kraken will strike!!!

[@frostbite4859]

Event Organisers: ok so you just have to land 10 tons on mars with increased fuel prices, just 10 tons, thats all, nothing else. Matt: Hold my beer

[@shiyian]

more like whiskey

[@beimanuel942]

​@@shiyian h-whiskeh*

[@vnc.t]

*hold my tea

[@austinclark3495]

it's pronounced ALE

[@SirEmperus]

hold my beard

[@lukeheslep4224]

Matt and Ollie: Having problems from the very start and changing their entire keyboard for the first hour Also Matt and Ollie: "I guess us playing the game professionally for over a decade and Ollie having a master's degree in spacecraft engineering made us a bit over-qualified." Lol Watched every second of this video, loved it!

[@vnc.t]

funny how their problems weren't with the spaceships but instead with the keyboard layout

[@RAFMnBgaming]

@@vnc.t Going to mars? Easy. Going to france? extremely difficult.

[@omegaotaku1342]

Only part of the video I didn't like was when he said, "and like heck were we going to use yankee-doodle-doo English!" I hope he was just joking and doesn't actually hate Americans

[@RAFMnBgaming]

@@omegaotaku1342 I think the animosity between brits and americans is... mostly for show these days. though for the record, you started it. Wasting a perfectly good ship of tea. completely unacceptable.

[@omegaotaku1342]

@@RAFMnBgaming you started it by taxing us

[@jocax188723]

At the team briefing: “We all know this will be a difficult mission-“ *quiet, distinctively British “HAHA” from the back of the room*

[@dutchdragon2472]

Not-so-local brits invade french competition, apologize and proceed to effectively colonize said competition

[@StarbucksCoffey5280]

FYI Matt the video isn't too long. Ya'll put in a ton of effort and it would be tragic for you to cut the video short for the sake of the algorithim. You did a great job of packing tons of info and content into every second of the video. @29 minutes you made a comment that the video was getting long and I hadn't even realized I was 30 minutes in, great video.

[@pablogafiloco4916]

Couldn't have said it better myself, the many hours of competition shouldn't be out of the picture, the many processes and man hours on it should be felt through the footage. Makes it all much more rewarding at the end too.

[@kellymiller6737]

Same. I was in awe of the speed.

[@BsamohT228]

Thank you Matt! (I'm BsamohT, from the KSC crew organizing the competition) It's weird to see my face in your video... I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for sharing to so many people what KSP esports could be! (We need to convince Pricate Division to make a professional league I guess.) See you next time!

[@calebs4887]

I really like how the contest was structured/organized, it made it feel more like an FRC/FTC/FLL competition than a typical Esports contest, mainly due to the focus on innovation and problem solving. Seeing the variety of solutions was much more interesting than seeing who could "do X" the fastest. I would love to see more events like this in the future.

[@FitzRurisk]

Hey BsamohT, thanks a lot for organising this kind of event, it's amazing to know competitions like this exist and are pretty well done ! By any chance, were you guys using KSRSS for the planet mode ?

[@BsamohT228]

@@FitzRurisk Indeed, KSRSS was a key mod in the modpack.

[@wtfisgoingon2534]

Is there a website or similar where someone could see other competitors missions? Maybe not videos but I would be interested in seeing other competitor's presentations.

[@FitzRurisk]

@@BsamohT228 Thanks for the reply ! As part of the dev team behind KSRSS, it's great to see our work being used for this kind of event (French mod by the way) ;)

[@oasntet]

Glad to see the whole presentation. This is what KSP e-sports should be; mission design and proving, and the real challenge being engineering a solution to a clever problem. Would love to see more of these in the future.

[@uristmcary]

Disagree, at some point it quits being a game.

[@pesty4592]

@@uristmcaryat its core, ksp is all about intricate planning and making the most efficient moves. This is perfect for complex missions and serves well for a competitive event.

[@uristmcary]

@@pesty4592 Well yes, my point is that at some point doing something well is a job not a game. It's inevitable, doing well is never as fun as doing something new.

[@ShakeNB1ake]

This is the closest we are getting to a matt lowne RSS video

[@SPACEMAN98]

Lol

[@DanyoScribbles]

true

[@hairlessape5107]

I'm counting it as RSS myself.

[@MattLowne]

I make a KSP RSS video every April!

[@adamgames1975]

​@@MattLownebruh

[@sankang9425]

Wow, was this a giant mission. No wonder people there asked how you got time to do all of this.

[@IvanRodriguez-tl2zr]

32:52 There is actually a setting in KSP that changes how many patched conics you can see. This will help you view orbits across multiple SOI's.

[@quoniam426]

Stting it to more than default can cause severe bugs, especially around Jool in the stock system.

[@RAFMnBgaming]

@@quoniam426 hadn't experienced that one yet. Will have to try it out.

[@MichaelCoombes776]

On a related note, I'd love to see Matt play with Principia. It's very fun and interesting

[@IvanRodriguez-tl2zr]

​@@quoniam426 Good point.

[@mineton1293]

@@MichaelCoombes776 yes me too

[@ballistic_buddha]

You guys did more to represent the British in space than the British government! Congratulations!

[@LeProfKerbal]

I was there. Bravo! 😀 But actually, since there was no other professional KSP players, you were the professional KSP players with the worst ranking in this event. I will make my own video of my participation in the team CERES, we were mentioned at 38:58.

[@SirDeadPuppy]

i dont get it...how were they the worst? i feel im missing some context here

[@vnc.t]

​@@SirDeadPuppythere's a race, you're the only one participating in it, you're average, the best and the worst all at the same time, get it?

[@SirDeadPuppy]

@@vnc.t ohhh ok!!! cool i get it now thx! lol

[@GamezBeatz]

@@SirDeadPuppy I guess it's a Frenche sentence, quite odd indeed.

[@DarkValorWolf]

How's the video coming along?? 👀

[@eloquentsarcasm]

Moments like this are like the local High School holding a chess competition, and two World Grandmasters wander in. The comment about "How did you find time to DO all this?"cracked me up, they really didn't have a clue who you guys are, lol. Thank you Matt, you and Scott Manley have taught me everything I know about KSP since the Early Adopter days, so it's nice to see you get some recognition on a wider stage.

[@KhAnubis]

I like to imagine ESA using this so they could quietly take notes from you guys on how they'll get astronauts to Mars

[@legionof0ne441]

This was pretty close to the mission in the Martian.

[@spacehedron]

Matt is sounding suspiciously more and more like mart.

[@user-en8wc1lo6c]

Mart lowne

[@Pirwill-xn4yn]

spending 2 years in an eve spacecraft with mart destroyed his mind

[@CreeperDude-cm1wv]

Mart mental infection

[@uebern8191]

THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT

[@livethefuture2492]

i know right, that "Hello there!" at 00:01 sounded so familiar! XD

[@Noobaryaa]

This is honestly so much more interesting than any "normal" Esports event (like LoL, CS or any other PvP stuff.) I love the XXL video and how much of the event you showed us

[@vicroc4]

We need more of this kind of esports IMO. It's got a lot of brainwork going on and still is entertaining.

[@killerstache5321]

Matt: creates a KSP esports team representing England, shows up to an esports competition, and faces teams from around the world Also Matt: Okay, first things first we need to rearrange our entire keyboard layout in Windows 11, replace a whole bunch of keys using our bare hands, and change language settings in both the OS and game. Now we can begin actually playing!

[@ulyssebully5816]

Bonjours, je crois qu'il n'y avis que l'équipe de Matt qui n'étais pas Français il me semble, l'évènement est encore jeune et ne demande qu'a s'exporter a l'international :)

[@vicroc4]

Think of it as giving them a handicap, to make things easier for the other players.

[@Jamon1916]

"Yankee Doodle Do English?" As an American, I find that hilarious. Lol

[@jamiller1110]

Still frosty over the American Revolution :)

[@patrickjohnson6916]

I’d love to know how many variations of English would have won over American 😂

[@jacobely6826]

@@patrickjohnson6916 all of them.. hell, i'd take Jamaican Patwa first.

[@patrickjohnson6916]

@@jacobely6826 our rng 4 digits are so close, we must be digital cousins!

[@KerbalFan]

Didn't Expect an KSP E-Sports but I guess it exists lol

[@MrMonkey3]

Yeah I didnt Expect too

[@masterhound5093]

More unexpected than the Spanish inquisition.... and noone expects the Spanish inquisition

[@UnknowinglyDerpy]

At first I thought the same, but then I remembered that I had participated in a bunch of robotics competitions in school when i was younger so it’s actually pretty viable especially since this tournament basically uses the same ish format

[@TheEdwardNigmaShow]

Wait until you hear about the microsoft Excel esports league. I'm not joking.

[@StanleyFlinn]

“esports” implies a set of trappings that you could, if you wanted, append to Kerbal Space Program. I’m delighted to see went in more of a “NASA contract proposal” direction.

[@NNZaero4066]

I knew you could do it! But, did you really have time to make everything look good? What am I saying, you're Matt Lowne!

[@i.will.rip.you.apart.]

No, but seriously tho

[@FruitLoops_]

What my brain should be thinking about: "Ah yes, KSP can be an esport." What it's actually thinking about: "Wait, so a Falcon 9 could take a heavy rover 1/8 the way to the Moon?" 🙂

[@TlalocTemporal]

Do remember that this is Kerbal scale real solar system, and their Falcon 9 is a rough replica.

[@aedendal]

team S.S.T.O here ! congrats for the first place but next time you are not gonna win !

[@beimanuel942]

the passive aggressive french vs the mountain biker and a penguin

[@richardbloemenkamp8532]

Thanks for having participated to this SpaceCon event and for having made such a nice video about it!

[@TeamMaric]

Then stratzenblitzen and bradley whistance showed up and did the same mission with 5 parts and 267m/s of delta-V. Robotank uses chatgpt to become real and steals your identity regardless of the video sponsor. Great job man, good video. Thanks for this content.

[@spacecon_io]

Thanks for joining us and gg 🚀

[@Pseud0nymTXT]

1:24 somehow I feel like I should've expected that a KSP esport would include thesis defence

[@leavell101]

I had no idea ksp could have esports stuff, looks cool!

[@Meatloaf_TV]

When I saw beardy penguins videos I was shocked when I heard it was realism overhaul but it was stock scale :( you almost played rss which would have been hilarious

[@ecophreak1]

Dressing like that and then going on to win the contest in Paris, it's no wonder they can't stand us 😂

[@ianhogben3472]

we have a 1000 year long tradition to maintain

[@Doomguynowaying]

Matt you made our childhoot amazing and you deserved all of this ! I am nearly a space engineer and you teached me a lot! Thankyou to both of you! ❤❤

[@quoniam426]

Congratulations Matt and Penguin ! Some criticize your inefficiency but your main argument of realism and long term thinking still stands imo.

[@SamanthaLaurier]

You guys deserve the win, you did amazingly. I can't imagine being able to do a tenth of what you did in the time you had, this is probably the most impressive thing I've ever seen you do.

[@TheHorzabora]

Congratulations! You did a very good job of recreating the Ares program plus. All you needed to do was maroon a Kerbal and rescue them to truly hit every single ‘knocking it out of the park’ score :-) Also, congrats to everyone else who took part - KSP esports is a very odd idea, but it’s also very cool and doubtless contributing to helping people learn :-)

[@crazy8chief]

Huge congrats Team Beardy Brits! 👏

[@Robert-bz5cc]

Wait... Qwerty isn't standard!? Also massive congrats! Everything you did was genuinely genius.

[@benlees2486]

The French use AZERTY, it's weird but you can get used to it pretty fast

[@gameknightjek2640]

Nope, Europe use AZERTY

[@ExplizitDuester]

@@gameknightjek2640 thats just not true, QWERTZ is the standart in germany and I have never seen azerty here

[@gameknightjek2640]

I've seen it in Switzerland and Spain, and it's standart here in Belgium, i just made a supposition (wrong).@@ExplizitDuester

[@pablogafiloco4916]

@@gameknightjek2640 QWERTY or variants might be more standarized in Europe, I've only seen QWERTY over here in spaniardland

[@Gaming1Doge]

They really made The Martian in KSP, make sure to add potatoes

[@nexustheninja1927]

I loved this video! The increased information and raw footage was insanely awesome! I found it very informative and has given me some inspiration for things to do in Ksp!

[@davidml1023]

21:00 "simulated reuse". Ngl I do this all the time on my saves. If nothings time dependent, I just alter the persistent file and fill up instead of grinding multiple trips.

[@silassimonis5050]

Awesome video Matt! I have always loved KSP but this competition feels like it adds a whole new depth to the game. Hopefully we will see the return of the bearded brits some day.

[@jean-didiermasson4894]

That sir is a really good job ! Well done for your victory ! Did you know if we can find somewhere the contest rules, mission specs, list of mods, etc ... for redoing it by our own ?

[@yourloosebowels1344]

@MattLowne

[@EggyTheEggMan]

Well done Matt the whole nation of Britain is smiling upon you

[@hunterkillerai]

New to KSP and had this video suggested to me after watching a few KSP tutorials. Needless to say, I am super impressed.

[@Cotcan]

This is getting out of hand! Now there are two Matts!

[@golf398]

I actually like the idea of certification, might use it in my career modes. Remove grinding after it’s been done once.

[@ScarlettStunningSpace]

The definition of overkill lol. What a great video!

[@cdz9400]

A 1 HOUR MATT LOWNE VIDEO! WITH BEARDED PENGUIN! THIS KS AWESOME!

[@joeymack5810]

Congratulations. Excellent job. Need more content from you like this. It always amazes me how great you are at this game. Thanks to BP for joining you on this epic mission.

[@m0rtez713]

Amazing performace! Your win was well deserved. I didn't mind the longer video, it was put together well. Makes for an interesting challenge to try to beat for the rest of us as well.

[@bernardomoreira]

Thanks for leaving the uncut presentation in!

[@sockeatinggolden8316]

Awesome video. Congrats and thanks for sharing!

[@konan102102]

Quite surprised you didn't do SSTO for the whole mission

[@sonicsupersam7793]

In missions where fuel is expensive, I don’t think an ssto would be a good choice.

[@MinerBat]

@@sonicsupersam7793 i think ssto's (at least of the spaceplane type) can use less fuel per amount of mass to orbit since they can use airbreathing engines

[@sonicsupersam7793]

@@MinerBat rockets spend such little time in the lower atmosphere I don’t think it would pay off in terms of the whole mission

[@zindleethan2061]

7:04 was totally from the book/ movie "the Martian" wasnt it

[@ulyssebully5816]

excellente mission, un bonjours de France :)

[@L3G33K]

Very nice video presentation ! Really cool to be able to discover in detail your entire project, the method of progression, and the details of the technical choices you made to win - with a large lead - this competition.🤩

[@rankoldbeast3479]

I've been waiting for this since I saw the ESA tweet

[@MichaelJLS]

Great vid, and congrats on winning. This has probably been asked already but please could you list the mods that were used please. Many thanks.

[@MrMacgyver69]

Holy hell, what great documentation and a great presentation!!! Just fantastic and a joy to watch!!

[@StarbucksCoffey5280]

"Yankee Doodle Do Language" XD

[@Azyraasr]

Who knew the all time ksp youtuber and a space engineer actually won the ksp esports

[@captaincrunch416]

@ 32:52 "KSP can't show the orbit that far ahead when encountering multiple S.O.I.s" You can get KSP to show the next segment of the orbital path by dropping a maneuver node in the segment inside the new SOI. . For example you encounter the moon, so to see how your orbit will look on the other side you can drop a node in the segment of the orbit that is in the Moon's SOI.

[@lucasmarchezim881]

Amazing video mate! Congratulations on the win, totally deserved!

[@gavinarthurs752]

good job absolutely going above and beyond with the competition matt!

[@ErnestCF]

Matt did you think about an ionic mars Transfer stage???

[@TheOnlyBritishGuy]

Brilliant video mate, hope there is more of a challenge next year

[@rafaelduarte7137]

This was an awesome video! I've been subscribed since 14 August 2019, love your content.

[@nicholaszonenberg8023]

Great video and awesome to see how much you went above and beyond :D

[@MicaAvali]

Been meaning to watch this for a while Awesome video! And congratulations on the win

[@DrssaFerri]

Wel Done Matt!!!!! amazing adventure in RL and in Game, the in game plan was incredible! Your understanting of the game, space mechanics and construccion infrastructure ability was outstanding as usual in all your videos. All also possible with the help of a pro!

[@travishunter8573]

I have always been able to use reusable rockets by landing them on the next continent and since it's far enough I would be able to get the upper stage into orbit before going back to the first stage and landing it

[@iCharFK]

I think with the amount of realism in this event, they would want to calculate, or at least factor in, the cost of retrieval. If you had to lug that across the planet, you'd be spending even more money on the project than necessary. Solo in game: great idea. Real life: Not exactly the most practical.

[@hairlessape5107]

Well done, both the competition and this video.

[@Cory-Stewart-]

As an aussie, in my limited experience, aussie english isnt installed and I normally have to choose between UK & US, usually depending if I want colour or color / mum or mom

[@AlmostHunter]

this was a good wone, Matthew Lownthew

[@YevhenSavchuk]

Amazing! You guys did very well!

[@nicholayhansen5748]

imagine nasa just launched a secret program and this is just them using you to figure out to do these things

[@ulle85]

Very cool competition, it warms my heart that this kind of event exists, more competitive KSP please! ☺️

[@adamredwine774]

Congrats. Nice work.

[@wowmemez828]

Thanks a lot Matt for the content we hope soon to get newer harder tournaments i enjoyed watching every second of this video

[@Jonathan-me9ek]

During the presentation, you looked like u wanted to fall back and sleep 🤣🤣🤣 Congrats Matt and Ollie

[@iambiggus]

Congratulations to you both!!! Making us proud!

[@joyhoward6105]

They should’ve had the contestants use principia because (as I understand it) the missions were supposed to be very realistic

[@dark6.63E-34]

Changing the physics engine is quite questionable. It is a KSP competition so you want the game feel to stay the same.

[@orionSpacecraft]

@@dark6.63E-34 and people who already used the mod in the past would have an advantage as everyone else would have to get used to n body physics

[@BsamohT228]

(Im an organizer) This was considered, as for RSS, but in the end this would have made the challenge way to hard and specialized. People without principia experience would have struggled to even get anything going in 24hours, while the goal of the event is still to have fun.

[@dark6.63E-34]

@@orionSpacecraft yeah. Basically the main goal is to measure ksp skill with the ksp physics engine. Changing the engine doesn't make sense.

[@JakubKnop-ml8fs]

After leaving vanilla towards rss and ro principia this challenges are for me missing a lot of real stuff. I couldnt go back to vanilla its just too easy.

[@gadget231]

Well done for winning. You missed a trick with the edit of this one though I think... Should have used some split screen and the clock from the show "24" 😃

[@soniankasaha5949]

Matt lowdown on the ground perfect name

[@vrenibowe]

Sounds a bit like he's saying "the weird Brits" at the end 😂😂 this has definitely made me want to follow Ollie's page too! I'm glad you included the things you did for this mission. I'm much earlier in the game in my career save, now that I've come back to the game (it's been like 10 years since I first tried it haha), so I'm still figuring a lot of things out, but I have lots of ideas! So a few of the things you've shown here, like the docking port in a hinged/rotating arm has really helped me understand how that would work. It was also really cool to see the "inflating" hab module. :) and the fact that a lower stage you can land and reuse is actually a possibility in the game! Thank you both for getting my creative energy flowing! I can't wait to try some of these out. :) I've been hoping to get a lot better at not creating space debris in the game too. Just don't quite know how to deal with the stuff I've already created, without having a lot more tech unlocked.

[@thatfluff.7581]

They just had a win bagged from the beginning since Matt is one of the more famous KSP KZbinrs, and Ollie has a master’s degree in space flight.

[@astrobotnautics5291]

This is definitely one of the best, most rewatchable videos I think you've ever done.

[@scoutworks]

That is so cool! Congrats Matt and Beardy Penguin! Very awesome!

[@TheFLOW1978]

Congrats. Impressive to watch.

[@ZakisHereNow]

Wow. Fantastic mission and presentation. I’m not surprised you guys won.

[@scottbrick9918]

Such a good job guys, glad you did so well

[@DaysDX]

The fact that you won this contest without any SSTOs (so far) is amazing!

[@The_Beard]

This was brilliant. Never through of eaports on this way but it works so well - to the ortanisers well done, I hope your event keep growing! Matt, basically uou guys were racibg against yourselves but never the less an amazing performance, really enjoyed the video too. Never srress about legnth when the content is this good.

[@Gperalta]

Hey man, video felt like it was 20m! It was awesome! Thanks for keeping in your full presentation at the end, I always want to get into KSP then i rememeber thats its usually more enjoyable watching people who are wayyyy better than me do all this math stuff 😂

[@TheZoepers]

kinda wanna know if other contestants went to sleep. Congratz

[@jordandegraaff]

Congratulations! Very impressive. I think you and Beardy Penguin should start your own esports competition for KSP.

[@jordandegraaff]

Call it “Kraken Slayer.”

[@StarBlaster2000]

Bro opened his video in the same style as Martincitopants and I love it. XD

[@fieldie]

Congratulations 🎉 but then, i had no doubt you would win , even if it wasn't in the title! I've watched your channel for years and know what you are capable of! Well done bruv 👍😃👍

[@marcusbrown3880]

A LAN event in France, with Elon listening in. Gratz to you both, and def over qualified, hopefully the others at the event learnt something new. Uber gratz to those who organized that event. They are the real winners. Now if only ksp2 bugs got fixed, comps could be held in a more modern gaming infrastructure.