What's your most stupid thing ever you did in KSP?

[guesswho2778]

8 hours ago, Snark said:

Stupidest thing I've done in KSP?

Starting any mission at all within an hour of bedtime, telling myself "I'll just do this one quick thing and then go to bed".

yeah i did that last night

[Geonovast]

I've certainly done a number of stupid things, but uh.. Jeb... just pushed the wrong button after an Apollo 13 moment and made things way worse.

I've been flying so much, that I just had to launch a rocket.  So I slapped together an Apollo style rocket for a landing mission to Mun.  Decided to use the FL-S3 Petal Adapter (Don't remember which mod it's from).  I didn't know how powerful the decoupling power was, so it exploded and destroyed half the lander on decoupling.  No biggie, I was in Kerbin orbit (~3,600km x 90km).  Easy enough, just ditch the lander, deorbit with the orbiter and decouple the command module.

Or I could just forget the first part and decouple the CM before deorbiting.

Warped to apoapsis, and after four EVAs, They managed to push the periapsis down to 38km.  Returned to Kerbin normally.  Although I forgot drogue chutes and nearly 15G when the chutes opened...

Edited August 31, 2017 by Geonovast

[purpleivan]

7 hours ago, Archgeek said:

HHEHEhHE, that is much more reasonable than the stupid monster I sent to Eve.  'Thing's legs were based on one of @Whackjob's designs, with one modification that made them not work right, it was a two-kerbal beast with a stack of 2 single-kerb cans, that insisted on using ion propulsion to finish off the ascent, complete with a pair of gigantors on top.

 

I see your 2 kerbal monster and raise you with this 4 kerbal monstrosity... big enough that legs weren't an option, had to use a bunch of huge wheels instead.

Unfortunately for the purposes of this thread, it actually worked.

On second thoughts, given the tortuous flight to get it partially fueled into Kerbin orbit, then all the fueling flights to fill it, plus sending up a couple of huge tugs to push it to Eve, I think this is the 2nd stupidest thing I've ever done in KSP.

Edited August 31, 2017 by purpleivan

[pwhk]

Forgetting parachutes

Forgetting ladders

Forgetting to put the crew in

Forgetting science experiments

[Atkara]

Bringing in one of these (the spaceplane, not the ore drone) for a night reentry & landing and forgetting to deploy the landing gear on final. Good thing I had saved before touchdown  

Other than that, I once launched an unmanned rescue mission halfway between Kerbin and the Mun, controlled by a Stayputnik, having entirely forgotten that these things don't come with SAS. Remembered it all too well early during the launch, but decided to go for it anyway.

As if this wasn't enough, I hadn't unlocked even the most basic solar panels. But that was back in 1.05, when remote battery locking/unlocking was still a thing.

Managed to bring it at about 300m from the target IIRC, being too proud to time warp. Both the craft and the kerbonaut came home safe.

Edited August 31, 2017 by Atkara

[invision]

bring probe to laythe and gather science....no problem

Welcome to Eve.....oh crap i think i took the wrong turn

another dummy moment was taking tourist to mun and minmus only to realize the space crew is in the pod not the tourist 

i have forgotten every important item out there at some point for a mission (antenna, solar panels, battery, ect.)

[blooder14]

Aerobreaking on a planet without atmosphere? Check.
How fast can i go with this rover? Check
Strutting is boring, let's go without them. Check
I'm sure i don't need this much Delta-V, let's scale it down. Check
Antenna on the booster and not on the main probe? Check.
Also trying to play with remotetech with signal delay without really knowing how to program manouvers. Don't do that, seriously don't.

[septemberWaves]

I was recently testing a prototype for one of my new Argentum-series rockets. The variant I was testing has 2 pairs of solid rocket boosters with different burn times, and so one of them cuts off before the other and is jettisoned first. At least, that's what's supposed to happen, but I staged it wrong and the still-burning boosters were separated instead. There was a rather large explosion following this error.

[Whackjob]

On 8/30/2017 at 7:37 PM, Archgeek said:

HHEHEhHE, that is much more reasonable than the stupid monster I sent to Eve.  'Thing's legs were based on one of @Whackjob's designs, with one modification that made them not work right, it was a two-kerbal beast with a stack of 2 single-kerb cans, that insisted on using ion propulsion to finish off the ascent, complete with a pair of gigantors on top.

Even more stupidly, the thing nearly worked, because I'd designed it to work, nice and carefully with KER in the VAB.  The lander even made a capable Duna vessel, as was found out on a test flight.  However, the stupidest part, is that it was just about perfect, save for the TWR, because I'd had KER in Kerbin mode instead of Eve when I was finalizing the design.

So, the monster lifter bore the beast up, the transfer stage worked a treat, the thing re-entered with no problem, landed...a bit wiggly because I'd unknowingly wrecked the legs, and most importantly, the four first stage engines -- two skippers and two mainsails (this was pre-1.0 and indeed pre-mammoth)....did not have the TWR they needed.  It'd hover, sinking briefly, then rise just before staging and really getting underway, utterly wasting the whole first stage.  A look over the numbers showed that it would've worked if they'd all four been mainsails.

I'd love pictures of that!

On 8/31/2017 at 2:47 AM, purpleivan said:

I see your 2 kerbal monster and raise you with this 4 kerbal monstrosity... big enough that legs weren't an option, had to use a bunch of huge wheels instead.

Unfortunately for the purposes of this thread, it actually worked.

On second thoughts, given the tortuous flight to get it partially fueled into Kerbin orbit, then all the fueling flights to fill it, plus sending up a couple of huge tugs to push it to Eve, I think this is the 2nd stupidest thing I've ever done in KSP.

You can always, always build your own lander legs.  I've never had something so heavy that I couldn't build a leg to hold it.

I took off and landed this thing, even lost a couple of legs thanks to me getting to close to that tank.  But she still held in this landing gear test.  I think that's the "An Exercise in Absurdity Mk8"

Edited September 5, 2017 by Whackjob

[Hands MCML]

I often forget to check the horizon on the nav ball before launching, especially on a moon. The rocket just crashes back on the surface. I use MechJeb a lot and it can be very confusing.

On a personal note, in settings I change quick save and restore to F1 and F2. That makes it much easier to find on the keyboard.

[Archgeek]

21 hours ago, Whackjob said:

I'd love pictures of that!

You can always, always build your own lander legs.  I've never had something so heavy that I couldn't build a leg to hold it.

Spoiler

I took off and landed this thing, even lost a couple of legs thanks to me getting to close to that tank.  But she still held in this landing gear test.  I think that's the "An Exercise in Absurdity Mk8"

 

Sure, here're a few!

Spoiler

Note the ion engines and the gigantors.  Can you see how I wrecked the leg design?

 

The whole stack.  I think this was .90.  I'm actually still kinda proud of that transfer stage -- it's smaller than the lander, and was intended to dock with the ascent craft to give it enough xenon to get back to Kerbin.

 

Tenuous and scary.  Explodes on re-load!

 

[something]

In true pursuit of scientific knowledge I added a probe core to a stack of decouplers just in order to see what would happen if you staged it...

[Geonovast]

12 minutes ago, something said:

In true pursuit of scientific knowledge I added a probe core to a stack of decouplers just in order to see what would happen if you staged it...

I'd ask for Screenshots, but I think I'd rather replicate the experiment myself..

[JonathanPerregaux]

Built a cat-shaped rocket with ears, eyes, cheeks, whiskers, legs and a tail and then spent the next few hours attempting to make it fly into space.

It did, eventually, get to space. But man, was it was stupid.

[HerrCrazi]

Forgot almost anything you can forgot

Probes, fuel, antennas, Kerbals, gyros, RCS... Even forgotting to put the payload under the fairing... Yeah...

The last I did was forgetting to put RCS on a science probe I attached to my KSS-2 Space Station. Result : I moved the whole station to dock the probe.

 

[p1t1o]

Uninstalling it.

[kraden]

16 hours ago, something said:

In true pursuit of scientific knowledge I added a probe core to a stack of decouplers just in order to see what would happen if you staged it...

Scott Manley did this with Principia installed. 'Twas pretty cool.

[joacobanfield]

I sent a 50 ton probe to Leto using only one ion engine.

[CaptainTrebor]

Landed a probe on Duna, but forgot to put an antenna on the lander so it has no way of sending all the science back to Kerbin. 

[JK_Kerbineer]

Stupidest Thing? I built a heavy lifter cargo ssto that could haul 100 tons to a 100km orbit. It took 6 hours to build. My cargo was a 75 ton relay sat.(I wanted to give my kerbals good wifi  ). Anyways, after using a bunch of power dives and 3 hours, I got to orbit and released the payload. Then, I realized that the batteries were all on the sat and not my plane so my reaction wheels could not work. So, I time warped  until I was pointing retrograde to Kerbin and deorbited it. When I later went back to the relay comsat. I saw that I had no electric charge. No worries, I thought. I'll just extend the solar panels. Then I realized I couldn't control the satellite and couldn't extend them. * insert facepalm emoji* 

[Firemetal]

On 9/7/2017 at 1:30 PM, joacobanfield said:

I sent a 50 ton probe to Leto using only one ion engine.

So how long did that take you?

Fire

[joacobanfield]

...one hour.

[Geschosskopf]

Way back in 0.20 when I first started KSP, I did a Minmus landing based on a contemporary Scott Manley tutorial video.   All went great.  The stupid part was sending this same lamder to Mun next, not realizing Mun has way more gravity.   Oh, and adding a lot of extra parts to the lander, too.  Strange to say, it landed OK (TWR was still good) but of course it didn't have near enough fuel to get home.  This was more ignorance than stupidity,  though, perhaps. 

So to really get into stupidity, I had to make essentially the same mistake again a year or 2 later when I definitely knew better.  Another Minmus lander sent to Mun.  This time I made sure it had enough dV but forget to check TWR.  And thus the Bobfred Memorial Crater was formed.

More recently, I typed this WOT on my phone.

Edited September 10, 2017 by Geschosskopf

[Xyphos]

back when Val wasn't in-game yet, I forget what version, but I learned how to get to orbit and Jeb got stuck up there so I sent bill to go rescue him with a two-person lander pod. timed the launch and got to orbit but I had trouble rendezvous with Jeb because I forgot RCS thrusters and had to attempt to get closer with only the main engine but eventually I got there, Jeb grabbed the hatch ladder and attempted to get in, but couldn't because Bob decided to come along too. reverted to VAB, kicked Bob out, added RCS and did it again.

[Cat91]

On 2017/9/7 at 5:13 AM, JonathanPerregaux said:

Built a cat-shaped rocket with ears, eyes, cheeks, whiskers, legs and a tail and then spent the next few hours attempting to make it fly into space.

It did, eventually, get to space. But man, was it was stupid.

Do you have a pic or save or something? really want to see it..