Funny/epic KSP fails

[s_gamer101]

I have a lot of KSP screenshots showing ridiculous or epic failures on my PC, so I was thinking "Why not make a thread where funny KSP failures can be shared for entertainment purposes?" Examples:

suspension.exe has stopped working

 

However, videos showing funny KSP fails or just texts telling about it are welcome too.

[qromodynmc]

Failure is part of what makes ksp fun, and sometimes it's even funnier than success :))

Anyway, sometimes i record my fails and share, here are some;

 

[Guest]

 

[RobertaME]

Worst fail? That would be the time I was assembling one of my first large space stations in orbit around Kerbin. It was to be launched in four stages: the first was the station core, habitation modules, and lab module on top of an Atlas V-type 1st stage. (2nd stage was like an oversized Centaur and was meant to remain attached as a re-fueling tank) The rub? I was playing the science game and lacked any kind of remote guidance, so every module had to be put in orbit with a Kerbaled capsule on top, moved in, docked, and then decouple the control capsule and de-orbit before O2/Food/Water supplies tap out... (I play with TACLS) which means after placement, the remaining station will have no guidance until the last module docks with the control cupola. (which at time of first launch was not yet unlocked)

First launch goes off without a hitch. Easy, right? Just put it where I want it, decouple, and burn home. No sweat. 2nd launch has the power and main life support module; a ton of batteries, solar panels, O2 scrubber, wastewater recycler, and some utility ports for docking later unmanned resupply missions. Again, this goes off without a hitch... I rendezvous, dock, decouple, and burn for home again. Third launch is the kicker; the station power module already docked was done at a 90° offset from the core, like a pipe laying on top on another pipe forming a big cross. The 3rd launch contains the station's main docking port, supply truss, and several tons of food and spares supplies and docks to the core... parallel next to the left wing of the power module. However, this is a two-part launch. The second part with the command cupola (just unlocked) will have to decouple from the first part after it attaches to the station, then be guided around to the other side of the station and docked to the core parallel to the right wing of the power module. So I get up there, rendezvous, and just after docking the first module and am ready to decouple the 2nd, I accidentally double-tap the staging key, decoupling the 2nd module from the station and decoupling the guidance capsule from the 2nd module. So now I have this whole station up on-orbit (sans 4th launch with the crew and emergency escape module) with no way to guide the 2nd module into position... and it keeps knocking gently at the power module, pushing the as-yet uncontrollable station into a slow tumble.

So here I am... with Val in a capsule that can't do anything other than de-orbit... with a command cupola drifting free with no way to connect to it except the docking port that needs to attach to the station... the rest of the station in a slow tumble that I can't stop that makes docking with the station impossible... (even if I had anything to do that with... which I didn't) and of course, I hadn't done any quicksaves since before I started. (saving and reloading won't help either because I use the Persistent Rotation mod)

Forty hours of work, not including design time, down the tubes because I go for high realism and failed to account for the idea that I might mess up. Ended up abandoning the whole thing in orbit and starting over. (it stayed up there, still tumbling out of control and useless until I lost the entire game in a HD crash)

Not too horrible of an "epic fail" I guess, but for me it was a devastating setback. (and really embarrassing)

Edited August 28, 2020 by RobertaME

[purpleivan]

For me it was my first Eve (failure to) return mission.

It was the typical, massively asparagused lander, that would throw brave Malzor Kerman back into Eve orbit. All was set for the liftoff, but after the first staging, there was a small explosion and the thing lazily leaned over and headed towards the surface, where it shortly after exploded in fine pyrotechnic display.

An investigation then ensued to determine the cause and after much searching it turned out to be a fuel line that had snagged on a ladder, rather than the tank it was attached to. This meant that the 2nd stage tank drained of fuel, instead of drinking from one in the 1st stage, causing an imbalance in thrust/CoG, plus a not yet emptied tank and engine being detached, resulting in a bad, bad day for the program.

Still it did give me the opportunity to put down a 2nd, unmanned (and so very slightly different) lander as a rescue vehicle, just a few hundred metres from where the pilot of the original was patiently waiting for hs ride home.

Here's Malzor, before realising he'd riden here in a lemon.

[Kerminator K-100]

I installed BARIS to give myself a new challenge on a career save, and then started a new game. My second launch, the entire booster exploded and left the capsule, the fins and the science experiments floating upward.

Unfortunately I was busy trying to save Jeb so I didn't get a screenshot.

I do have a picture from the launchpad:

I do have a second fail (with pictures). When I was rotating the crews on my space station, the new crew hit the staging button, but didn't realize the engine plate was attached wrong. Long story short, the entire bottom tank went up in flames: 

It ended up not hurting the top stage and the crew managed to transfer without further problems.

Edited August 28, 2020 by Kerminator1000

[king of nowhere]

unfortunately, after all the times i forgot to put parachutes, or forgot to put solar panels, or to deploy solar panels, it's not funny anymore. it's just another day of ksp

[DunaManiac]

After 6 years of playing KSP, I've lost count, but I do remember times when my enormous rockets explode midair, raining down destrution.

My probably worst failure was an experimental Mk3 spaceplane I designed. It flew to LKO perfectly fine, but upon reentry it flipped the wrong way probably due to an unbalanced center mass. The 4 kerbals onboard did have enough time to escape via jet packs (this was after 1.4) and most of them were saved, except for one kerbal, which due to a bug or something his parachute didn't deploy. Unfortantely, it was Bob. I still have the wreckage near the KSC as a memorial.

My most recent one was probably this:

It happened when I tried to attach boosters to an early career plane...

Edited August 28, 2020 by DunaManiac

[s_gamer101]

Yesterday I built a monorail - and it derailed and fell to the ground

Screenshot taken seconds before the disaster

[Stormwalker]

My very first attempt at a rescue mission - after quite a long time of frustration (and two failed efforts where I 1: accidentally deorbited myself burning Target at the wrong time, and 2: accidentally ran myself out of fuel) before finally getting the orbital rendezvous right, I got to within thirty meters of the target of my rescue mission... and accidentally hit the staging button, releasing my rocket motor, fuel, and more importantly my RCS thrusters to drift away uselessly and leaving me as stranded in space as the Kerbal I was trying to rescue.

I then tried to load the quicksave I thought I had done earlier in the mission... only to find out I hadn't, and hadn't in fact quicksaved in the last, oh... ten hours of gameplay, back to what had been only my second mission.

At that point, I just restarted my career from scratch.

[Kerminator K-100]

While trying to bring a tourist (Tito Kerman) to space, the main engine failed, the booster failed and exploded and Val and Tito barely managed to escape.

[s_gamer101]

1 hour ago, Kerminator1000 said:

While trying to bring a tourist (Tito Kerman) to space, the main engine failed, the booster failed and exploded and Val and Tito barely managed to escape.

I always press „Revert flight“ when something like this happens

2 hours ago, Stormwalker said:

My very first attempt at a rescue mission - after quite a long time of frustration (and two failed efforts where I 1: accidentally deorbited myself burning Target at the wrong time, and 2: accidentally ran myself out of fuel) before finally getting the orbital rendezvous right, I got to within thirty meters of the target of my rescue mission... and accidentally hit the staging button, releasing my rocket motor, fuel, and more importantly my RCS thrusters to drift away uselessly and leaving me as stranded in space as the Kerbal I was trying to rescue.

I then tried to load the quicksave I thought I had done earlier in the mission... only to find out I hadn't, and hadn't in fact quicksaved in the last, oh... ten hours of gameplay, back to what had been only my second mission.

At that point, I just restarted my career from scratch.

This reminds me of the feeling when you realize that you have been holding F5 instead of F9...

(The reason I do a lot of named quicksaves too)

[Kerminator K-100]

11 minutes ago, s_gamer101 said:

I always press „Revert flight“ when something like this happens

I would but was trying a hard mode career so... 

Edited August 30, 2020 by Kerminator1000

[s_gamer101]

Here are some spaceplane fails.

More below the spoiler.

Spoiler

My plane didn't want to take off at the runway's end. Some fuel tanks with engines still attached to them fell off and returnet to the shore because the engines were still on full thrust and they were pointed towards the shore.

Me: Those lights in the corners of the runway have no colliders, right? My plane: *collides with one of these lights*

Front view.

Oh it still flies - as a glider!

 

Edited September 5, 2020 by s_gamer101

[RoninFrog]

*smash*

Houston, we have a slight problem.

[Vanamonde]

This is what happens when you become distracted and attempt to dock at a closing speed of 164m/s. 

[Kerminator K-100]

4 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

This is what happens when you become distracted and attempt to dock at a closing speed of 164m/s. 

 

That went supernova!

[KeaKaka]

just a slightly sub-optimal launch trajectory...

[s_gamer101]

15 hours ago, KeaKaka said:

 

just a slightly sub-optimal launch trajectory...

 

 

Many of my RSS launches look like this

21 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

This is what happens when you become distracted and attempt to dock at a closing speed of 164m/s. 

Well, at least you didn‘t miss the target.

Edited September 9, 2020 by s_gamer101

[harrisjosh2711]

The time i bailed out of an un-stable high altitude jet that managed to land its self in the ocean causing no damage.

 

[swjr-swis]

A somewhat mistimed antenna deployment during a launch preparation test may have inadvertently lobotomized one of my kerbals...

(He was just momentarily stunned and continued his service at the KSC for many years. All the doctors reported was a recurring short outburst of laughter at odd moments.)

 

On a later mission, a spaceplane pilot reported a problem during main landing gear deployment prior to deorbit, and what seemed like a wheel blockage during touch down. We're still not sure how she ended up in the gear bay during reentry...

(She would later go on to claim she was just assisting the braking operations, made necessary due to an erroneously low hydraulic pressure level)

 

While test flying an early hypersonic plane, something went horribly, horribly wrong in the auxiliary personnel cabin. Warning: the following picture from the inboard camera may be very graphic.

(No kerbals were harmed in this test flight. The fires and radioactive fallout damaged the plane beyond repair, but our kerbal testers walked out of the fire laughing. The word 'Neat!' may have been exclaimed several times.)

 

Or maybe when you say 'KSP Fails', you are thinking more of things like these:

[a test craft demonstrating spontaneous and self-amplifying destructive wobbling in stationary craft - a few KSP versions back]

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by swjr-swis
disclaimer: no kerbals were harmed in the documenting of these mishaps

[RaiderMan]

9 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

Or maybe when you say 'KSP Fails', you are thinking more of things like these:

[a test craft demonstrating spontaneous and self-amplifying destructive wobbling in stationary craft - a few KSP versions back]

 

..its the space worm!
..its the space noodle!

[Nazalassa]

On 9/8/2020 at 6:46 PM, Vanamonde said:

This is what happens when you become distracted and attempt to dock at a closing speed of 164m/s. 

Er, I see thet the Navball shows 2128.7 m/s, in target mod, which means you tried to dock at a docking speed of 2km/s, which is impossible. That's more the orbital speed. So, I'm sorry, but I think this is a fake .

[Vanamonde]

8 hours ago, Nazalassa said:

Er, I see thet the Navball shows 2128.7 m/s, in target mod, which means you tried to dock at a docking speed of 2km/s, which is impossible. That's more the orbital speed. So, I'm sorry, but I think this is a fake .

Naw, I noticed what was happening right before the crash and it was 164. I believe the targeting mode was momentarily  confused by the destruction of the target. 

[Axelord FTW]

Well, yesterday I completed a somewhat large extraction and conversion base on Minmus (via Extraplanetary Launchpad), costing 160k RP...
And I forgot to add storage space for metal, of all things. The intermediary resource needed to create RP.

Forgetting something is usually what I do wrong. Once things are launched, I'm gud enough not to screw up.