Keep stranding kerbals on the Mun

[Provisional Name 12]

Ok well I'm a bit of a noob to KSP (playing on career mode) and as such have been unfamiliar with the quicksave function till now which I tried using forgetting that it prevents you from being able to revert. As a result I have permanently stranded a bunch of kerbals on the mun in 2 separate trips. 1st mission I forgot to ensure that the fuel lines from the propulsion system I loaded were all connected and it crashed destroying everything except the kerbal I had intended on sending up with the rover to do a mission. Oh well I figured, I have to send some tourists up anyway and I just loaded a new rover up on another rocket I had planned on sending anyway. I accidentally over staffed the craft making my rescue attempt futile (oops), but I ran out of fuel anyway and damaged the engine on landing...

So... not sure where to go with this. If the craft had a working engine it would just be  a matter of refueling it and getting a winch up there to stand it upright. The craft doesn't have any docking ports at all, so I don't know if I can get these tourists out if they can't EVA. Any ideas? I could easily send a craft to pickup my crew but have no clue how to deal with the tourists.

Also, my rover is pretty far from my the location I wanted to science for the mission and it moves slowly in addition to being a pain to pilot around craters. What are other people doing with rovers? is there a way around this? I think I have to move it like 1/40th of the way around the mun, but at 16 m/s max speed taking a long route it is kinda arduous.

Also, what are others doing to prevent this sort of thing with quicksave? Maybe I should just not use it, it definitely seems to be a problem for me.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Alt+F5 let's you make a manual quicksave and give it it's own name, so what you do is make a quicksave on the launch pad right before taking off.

Now if you have any problems you can load that quicksave, which is effectively the same thing as reverting to launch. I also highly recommend manually quicksaving at all important milestones on your trip like making orbit, encounter, just before attempting to land, etc...

As far as saving your Kerbals sending a rescue mission for your rescue mission for your rescue mission for your rescue mission is a time honored Kerbin tradition so just keep trying!

Edited February 6, 2016 by Rocket In My Pocket

[pandaman]

As @Rocket In My Pocket says above 'rescue' missions are a part of the game.  

Your kerbals are safe where they are.  Life support is not a stock thing yet so they can stay there without risk until you can develop your skills enough to get them home.  Enjoy the challenges and learn from your experience and failures, that's what makes this game so great.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

A couple of notes:

Rovers are neat but building a biome hopping lander is a better idea for lower gravity bodies.

If you are new and can spare the crew, leave your Kerbals until you get a bit better. Also, when you are ready, sometimes you can combine a contract or two, eg plant a flag on the Mun, with your rescue.

[RizzoTheRat]

Plant a flag missions crop up quite a lot so leaving someone stranded can be quite profitable in the long run. 

[Snark]

Quicksave is your friend-- as long as you use it properly.  Just get in the habit of always doing a quicksave before doing something major and potentially irreversible... and make it a named save (i.e. do Alt+F5, not just F5) so it's easy to keep track of.  Here are examples of my own standard "named" quicksaves that I routinely make:

• "launch" - when I'm sitting on the launchpad
• "descent" - when I'm in orbit and about to head down to the surface
• "ascent" - when I'm landed and preparing to take off back to orbit
• "try this" - when I'm about to try something risky and potentially lame-brained
• "yay" - when I just successfully completed the difficult, lame-brained thing after the Nth try

...you get the idea.

As for rescuing your kerbals:  it's going to be tricky, because they're tourists.  The inability to go EVA is going to severely hamper your rescue efforts.

For example, if they were regular kerbals, you could just do something like this:

1. land a rescue ship reasonably nearby
2. go EVA, fly to the rescue ship, and board it
3. fly home

Without the ability to go EVA, life gets more complicated.  For example, you could do something like this for a stock solution:

1. land a rescue ship reasonably nearby
2. also land a rover reasonably nearby; the rover has a crew cabin and a klaw on it
3. drive the rover to the stranded ship, and use the klaw to attach
4. transfer the kerbals from the stranded ship to the cabin on the rover
5. disconnect the klaw
6. drive to the rescue ship
7. connect to the ship with the klaw
8. transfer the kerbals aboard
9. disconnect the klaw
10. fly home

You mentioned "getting a winch to stand it upright", which I assume means that you're running KAS.  If you're running KIS as well, you could manage a rescue much like the klaw-based one above, but using KAS connector ports instead of a klaw.

In this case, instead of the rover having a klaw, it has a KAS connector port.  It also has an engineer on board, who has a power drill and a spare connector port in his inventory.  Drive to the stranded ship.  The engineer goes out, bolts a connector port to the stranded ship, then connects the ship's connector port to the rover's, then transfer the kerbals that way.

 

[Wonky kergineer]

What they said. As for the tourists, i wouldn't worry about them. Usually you have more than enough time to complete missions, so you can wait until you unlock the Claw. Or if you need the contract slot and don't mind the penalty, just cancel it.

Edited February 6, 2016 by Wonky kergineer

[GoSlash27]

Suggestion:

 Don't send manned (I mean "kerballed") rescue missions. Drones are cheaper, easier, lighter, and most importantly they don't put even more kerbals at risk when something goes wrong.

Best,
-Slashy

 

[Raptor9]

46 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

...they don't put even more kerbals at risk when something goes wrong.

Meh, they live for that.

[Snark]

5 minutes ago, Raptor9 said:

Meh, they live for that.

Or, fairly often, don't.

[Raptor9]

1 minute ago, Snark said:

Or, fairly often, don't.

Ha ha, well played.

[Provisional Name 12]

Nice, thanks for the good advice here, I think that covers both of my problems and straightens out autosave for me.

 

I am wondering some stuff though now.

1. I am running KIS/KAS would I be able to fly up a drone to refuel the ship and send a new engine with it that an engineer could attach? I'm kinda confused about what exactly KIS and KAS did and how it works, are there resources to clarify this? It wasn't entirely straight forward when I downloaded it.

2. I think I installed mec jeb last night. is it possible to use that to get my rover to autopilot using that? I mean even if I have to send a part up and install it, it would be nice, but I can't find a lot of information on how the mods work. There is next to no info on the site the game sends me to that hosts a lot of the mods.

[Snark]

You can install a new engine. However, be advised that a kerbal can only move things up to 1 ton (strong little critters!), so make sure that the engine isn't too heavy. If you have additional Kerbals present who can go EVA and stand really nearby (they don't have to be engineers), it boosts the mass limit by 1 ton per kerbal.

Make sure that your engineer has a power drill, so he can mount/dismount the engine.

There is a pretty good PDF file included with KIS that explains how to use it.

[Provisional Name 12]

Yea, that is actually a good idea, I could probably send up a ship with a winch to pick up the remaining people and winch the ship back to kerbal (should work? Almost did it but i made some design mistakes that gave asymetrec propulsion when i got to the mun and don't think I included enough fuel... again) but other than finishing the tourist objective it won't do much and it will be pretty expensive. So maybe I will focus on other things for now, also the location is shifting to the dark side of the mun so rescue will suck for the next while. It might be easier to just send a drone up with fuel and a an engine replacement, sounds like it would be a pretty simple operation with my kerbals up there already, don't have a drill though, so ironically i would need to send a giant cargo container just for that lol. I actually don't have the drill as a technology yet, so what is the criteria for what can be attached (wasn't clearly stated)? From what I understand a wrench can be used to attach any non-node part, so I should be able to mount my anchor point or insert a fuel line, but not an engine right?

How are people estimating their fuel needs? I find it pretty hard to get it figured out, I have the engineering mod with the delta Vs listed but I don't really understand what that means or what my targets are.

 

Also I blew up my rover by having a bad quicksave without implementing a good system for it yet, definitely should have done that then but oh well Bob Kerman my best scientist at the moment and first cosmonaut to land on a non-Kerbal surface will be missed. I think he will respawn with 0 exp cause I am on normal difficulty.

[elpollodiablo]

14 hours ago, SpaceCommunism said:

How are people estimating their fuel needs? I find it pretty hard to get it figured out, I have the engineering mod with the delta Vs listed but I don't really understand what that means or what my targets are.

Some calculate it, but i'd guess most use a mod (Kerbal Engineer or MechJeb) to display the delta-v of the rocket, combined with their own memory or a delta-v-map. 

Easiest way to get info on mods is in their release threads in the mod section. Or do it like i do, just build a mess with all the parts from a mod and then trial and error on the launch pad. Helps with forgetting to add the necessary parts later because you already went trough it