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Confess your KSP sins


Red Iron Crown

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I haven't touched my career save in quite a while. because I was going to develop the Eve ascent vehicle for it in the sandbox save... But instead of this I once again found myself putting red flag over there and making replicas...

Let's face it - I'm slightly afraid of Eve. I've never built a properly working ascent craft for it.

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All my 15 kerbals have developed their own personalities - inside my mind, of course -.

I'm so afraid of having a Kerbal killed that I have to tentatively suggest to myself that "...I could cheat..."  (save game) if the worst should happen one day, in order to be able to send Kerbals on difficult manned missions at all.

 

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I generally do spaceflight in exactly the way it shouldn't be done.

Real spaceflight revolves around numbers and calculations. My specific brand of insanity insists on crude rule-of-thumb cobbling together of usually overdesigned contraptions, made hopelessly inefficient by a combination of "convenience margins", useless parts slapped on for the looks, and a boneheaded tendency to make "multi-purpose" or "flexible" designs.

I enjoy that KSP allows an intuitive approach, which in the real world would be utterly insane.

Rules of thumbs are like "if it barely reaches orbit on Kerbin, it will comfortably reach orbit on Laythe", and similar drivel. Instead of actually learning anything, I'm training my gut feeling. I can build some wheeled vehicle, test drive it on Kerbin, and have a good feeling how it will behave on Minmus, or Duna.

Smart people increase their knowledge by studying. I decrease my explosions by trial and error. All my designs, regardless of size, have the same delta-V entry on their data sheet: "probably sufficient".

For ages I have told myself: "The NEXT mod will finally have to be KER, I need to know what I'm building!" ... then, comes go-look-for-mods-day (an event that occasionally just happens to me) I somehow get lost on the path to KER, get some sort of weird brain kraken, and suddenly find my game with not KER, but something called KOS installed in it. Before I even have the faintest idea what is happening, I have somehow suddenly spent days writing a KOS script that flies my Rapier based planes into orbit. Why? I don't know, and I also still don't know the delta-V of that thing...

I'll tell you what a "transfer window" is. When Kerbals want to go someplace, they immediately get up from the desk, strap themselves into some scary vehicle, blast off and leave Kerbin's SOI. The "transfer window" is whatever kraken-cursed porthole they get to look out of for ages whilst waiting for an opportunity to try burning for the place they want to visit.

Generally, I have 1000 unfinished things lying around, and barely get to actually fly stuff. Which is somewhat lame, as that's what I'm building all that stuff for.

Only once, a long time ago, have I dropped a probe on Eve, to have a look at that hell myself. While that worked fine, just seeing how that probe behaved there scared me. Since then, I just pretend that the place doesn't exist, which has worked surprisingly well so far.
 

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I use Hyperedit to test out lander designs as sort of a "sim within the sim". Once confirmed the design would work, I revert and send them on their way via a legit launch and transfer. One time, I was testing out a landing rig for a large fuel tank I was going to deliver to my Minmus refinery. It took a few tries and design changes, but once I settled on one that worked, I callously and with little regard for rules of fair play... left it there.

Edited by jonrd463
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On 2/6/2016 at 1:55 AM, n.b.z. said:

I generally do spaceflight in exactly the way it shouldn't be done.

Real spaceflight revolves around numbers and calculations. My specific brand of insanity insists on crude rule-of-thumb cobbling together of usually overdesigned contraptions, made hopelessly inefficient by a combination of "convenience margins", useless parts slapped on for the looks, and a boneheaded tendency to make "multi-purpose" or "flexible" designs.

I enjoy that KSP allows an intuitive approach, which in the real world would be utterly insane.

Rules of thumbs are like "if it barely reaches orbit on Kerbin, it will comfortably reach orbit on Laythe", and similar drivel. Instead of actually learning anything, I'm training my gut feeling. I can build some wheeled vehicle, test drive it on Kerbin, and have a good feeling how it will behave on Minmus, or Duna.

Smart people increase their knowledge by studying. I decrease my explosions by trial and error. All my designs, regardless of size, have the same delta-V entry on their data sheet: "probably sufficient".

For ages I have told myself: "The NEXT mod will finally have to be KER, I need to know what I'm building!" ... then, comes go-look-for-mods-day (an event that occasionally just happens to me) I somehow get lost on the path to KER, get some sort of weird brain kraken, and suddenly find my game with not KER, but something called KOS installed in it. Before I even have the faintest idea what is happening, I have somehow suddenly spent days writing a KOS script that flies my Rapier based planes into orbit. Why? I don't know, and I also still don't know the delta-V of that thing...

I'll tell you what a "transfer window" is. When Kerbals want to go someplace, they immediately get up from the desk, strap themselves into some scary vehicle, blast off and leave Kerbin's SOI. The "transfer window" is whatever kraken-cursed porthole they get to look out of for ages whilst waiting for an opportunity to try burning for the place they want to visit.

Generally, I have 1000 unfinished things lying around, and barely get to actually fly stuff. Which is somewhat lame, as that's what I'm building all that stuff for.

Only once, a long time ago, have I dropped a probe on Eve, to have a look at that hell myself. While that worked fine, just seeing how that probe behaved there scared me. Since then, I just pretend that the place doesn't exist, which has worked surprisingly well so far.
 

 

I'm an engineer, and that is how I manage my RL job.  :wink:

 

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I have never landed a Kerbal outside the Kerbin system 

Ive sent them to orbit, and several probes, but never a kerbal. Something in my heart screams that doing so is dumb and unrealistic, which is probably why I also never play career as I hate kerbal style rockets that are irrealistic.

I just remembered once when I did land a kerbal! Granted the craft was heavilty damaged and only two of the three crew survived, then later starved (Or would have if I had TAC installed), but it still nullifies my sin

Edited by nosirrbro
Remembered a mission
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I still drive trains... Thing is ive got realworld flight experience...

I built a plane today .
It had tiny forward facing jets to slowdown on landing..

Why dont I use flaps.. Why did it look like a giant enemy crab.

I DONT KNOW!!!
I have sinned

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I'm not sure how much of mine are actually sins...

  1. I hate playing on "easy" levels.
  2. Because of that, I hate the early game. I've had more new games than I can count, and can never stick to it long enough to upgrade everything. My own fault, I know, because I make things too difficult on myself.
  3. I cheated on my first orbital space craft. While deorbiting, I kinda burned too much. I reloaded 3-4x but couldn't make Bill survive reentry.
  4. RemoteTech is probably my favorite mod. When combined with Sin #2, this also means I always skip the DP-10 antenna (the 500km one for atmospheric flight). Because of this, I've become better at pre-programming flights than at flying them myself. I'll fly unmanned missions long before I research that atmospheric antenna.
    T+1:00 85° pitch
    T+1:06 Stage S3
    T+1:21 Toggle antenna
    T+1:40 SRF GRD+
    T+2:00 Stage S2
    T+2:20 ORB GRD+
    T+3:06 Stage S1
    T+3:40 0° pitch
    T+4:00 Stage S0
    T+4:10 Toggle antenna
  5. As an additional mod, Kerbal Engineer is used to give me orbital information. Except, I use it in parts mode (only active with an Engineer, a computer part, or an L3 tracking station) and forget to attach the part about 90% of the time. And because everything is all screwy, I have a tough time synchronizing orbits. And because of that, my communications networks... well... they drift. Sometimes significantly. I had some satellites in what I thought was GSO but, after a fair few missions, they migrated to the wrong side of the planet.
  6. Whenever I upgrade my early craft, I screw them up. Either they can no longer reach orbit (though I theoretically have enough dV) or they can't survive atmospheric flight (I haven't unlocked fairings yet) or they fail in some other unexpected way--like not having big enough batteries or insufficient solar panels or the Kraken strikes...
  7. My current ContractSat launcher is rudimentary and way overengineered. It's got 3 rocket stages before its final LFE probe stage. I could probably do a lot better by simply programming a LFE to fire when I can't communicate with it. In fact, I'm going to go design such a launcher now!
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Since 1.05 makes multiple docking ports slow the game to a crawl for me (1.04 doesnt?)

Trains have fallen from individual wagons readily uncoupled and replaced if damaged or empty

To shamelessly permanently coupled rakes of 4 wagons with a single docking port each end.. With only exploding connectors in an emergency to seperate each wagon

It feels horrible ...

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On 2/8/2016 at 4:46 PM, jonrd463 said:

I use Hyperedit to test out lander designs as sort of a "sim within the sim". Once confirmed the design would work, I revert and send them on their way via a legit launch and transfer. One time, I was testing out a landing rig for a large fuel tank I was going to deliver to my Minmus refinery. It took a few tries and design changes, but once I settled on one that worked, I callously and with little regard for rules of fair play... left it there.

Kerbal Construction time has a simulation feature, and a setting that disables all other functions of itself.

I use infinite fuel to compensate when Mechjeb loses its mind.

I tend to reuse designs without thinking, caused a bit of a problem when the Jeb and co. found themselves in a CTV, built for low Kerbin orbit station crew rotation, on a return trajectory from Minmus.  With four hours of air left.

I use Extraplanetary launchpads because I'm to lazy to design a mothership that can be launched in pieces and assembled in orbit.

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1. I always use Mechjeb.

Don't get me wrong, I know basic maneuvers. I'm just lazy.

2. Almost 2 years of playing KSP, still don't know how to dock.

Meh, too complicated for me....

3. I have never lasted more than 2 days playing career/science mode. 

Once again, I'm lazy...

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I have only recently managed to perform rendezvous and docking maneuvers reliably without quick loading or mods. 

I have never actually flown anywhere further than Duna.

I quicksave religiously.

I refuse to let a Kerbal die from running out of electric charge before reentry, even if it means cheating.

I have never gotten a highly circular orbit (<1000m difference) on my first burn.

I build my rockets with a 300 m/s safety margin if possible.

And finally, my darkest secret: for the first year that I played, I would make my gravity turns retrograde.

:blush:

Edited by kmMango
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I use MJ for Acent Guidance

I know im perfectly capable of flying a rocket just like MJ, but i'm just really lazy.

I love when rockets have low TWR and don't just fling off to space, but i rather enjoy just looking them fly gracefuly

Edited by Joco223
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Here's one I've actually committed more than once, but every now and then I forget it until it happens again. Well, it happened again.

My newest Minmus mining vessel has all nuclear drives. Which don't use oxidizer. So I thought "yay, I don't need this any more!" and yanked off all the expensive and heavy oxidizer-containing fuel tanks, making the ship a streamlined model of efficiency.

With RCS jets that suddenly don't work. $#?%?@!

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On 2/13/2016 at 8:31 PM, Joco223 said:

I love when rockets have low TWR and don't just fling off to space, but i rather enjoy just looking them fly gracefuly

I'm guilty of this one, too. There's something majestic about a rocket slowly lifting off the pad, and a high-TWR rocket that leaps away always feels like a model rocket to me. (I know there are RL high-TWR rockets, but my biases were formed when I knew far less about spacecraft).

I also like low TWRs for orbital maneuvering but that's no sin, that's just efficiency. :)

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