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How Important is Kerbal Safety to You?


TheHockeyPlayer

To what extent do you go to in order to keep your Kerbals safe?  

344 members have voted

  1. 1. To what extent do you go to in order to keep your Kerbals safe?

    • I go out of my way to ensure my Kerbals don't die. If one of them does die, I'm heartbroken
    • I'll add a few parachutes here and there, but if one dies, it's not the end of the world.
    • I don't go to any extent to keep them from dying because they're a dime a dozen!


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#1 without the heartbroken bit. I just consider it a big failure in testing. And as Portal taught us, Testing is important. In fact, Testing is so important that a few non-essential kerbals can be sacrificed, for safety. For science.

And then I have occasional Danny moments.

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The "no-chute" thing, though... I guess that one was on me. Ooops

That's how I lost my first one. By the time I realized it he was already past the point of no return. My other loss came when I missed my targeted landing site and my Kerbal ended up tumbling down a mountain side.

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I pay close attention to Kerbal lifes in career mode and try to regain as much money from recovered parts as possible. That results in an extra decoupler under the command pod that could be decoupled in case something goes wrong on descent, even tough there are enough parachutes to descent all the parts safely.

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Sometimes choice #2 but almost always choice #3.

Way back in 0.19, i had space station of 9 kerbals and it's been up there for 4 kerbal years.So i deorbited it.

And just as i got re-entry heat, i remembered i didn't have any parachutes(hit my self in the head a couple of times). And when the space station hit the ground and exploded,i was literally heartbroken.I sat on my desk in my room and weeped for the next hour or so knowing that all of my kerbals just died.I still remember that moment till today.

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If they have an orange suit, I will probably start a new career when they die.

All the others have a white suit and a name I can't remember anyhow...

I need people to test my craft.

Had a few sad moments when I first started building surveyplanes for Kerbin, as I never ever used the hangar before.

But that's easily forgotten when hopping round on the moon...

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If a kerbal dies on Kerbin, I feel sorry for their "family", and plant a flag or something.

Example: SSTO made it to orbit, during the descent I lost control of the craft, and it started to spin everywhere. I EVA'd Orgun in an attempt to save him. The capsule survived, leaving Seedock safe. Orgun was lost. Flag planted.

If a kerbal dies away from home, they have a proper ceremony outside the astronaut complex.

Example: I lost a kerbal on the Mun once. It was a two kerb mission, so I imagine the other kerbal was probably upset. He went back on his own, only for me to forget how to escape the Mun's SOI, and just burn up. Ditched the fuel, and used the EVA trick to send the capsule back to Kerbin. Forgot chutes, so had to try to land on head. The first hit went well, with a bounce, the second one killed him. Both had a proper "funeral" with 20 kerbals in attendance.

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#1 without the heartbroken bit.

That's how I feel too.

I plan and design carefully, and do everything I can to ensure a safe mission. Fatalities are very, very rare.

But sometimes, bad things happen. It's all for science, and they died doing something they enjoyed, so Keep Calm, and Space Program On.

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  • 2 weeks later...

In career mode, I treat Kerbal death very seriously. Also, while the shedding of tears has never been positively identified, they are certainly possible. Not that I was crying - my eyes were just... sweaty.

I lost 3 Kerbals in career mode so far, and, in their honor, I resolved to name future space stations and bases after them. Since their names were Anrod, Thompner, and Bobfreid, I should really just get over it that my first Minmus base is going to have a really stupid-sounding name.

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There's... there's nothing wrong with sending kerbal to Minmus with enough TAC-LS supplies for over 60 days, right? I mean, that's just sensible planning in case of mechanical failure.

More seriously, I take kerbal life very seriously. I use Kerbal Construction Time and run multiple launch and mission sims before anyone gets to go anywhere, and always have enough reserve supplies to wait for a rescue mission. All first-landings are done by probes.

I will not accept deaths due to game bugs, like pilots flailing around at 1m above the surface, or kraken attacks, or those moments where a ship is mis-reporting having more delta-v than it really does. I would accept the death of a kerbal due to design failures; lack of supplies or fuel, but thus far (having explored Kerbin SOI only) I haven't had any casualties :)

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I try not to kill them, but I don't go too far out of my way to keep them alive either. I've sent a dozen or so (usually the stupid cowardly ones) on missions I knew would be one way and that I'd end up terminating rather than trying to bring them back.

Only ones I try really hard not to kill are the original three and the ones that have leveled up. Unfortunately I lost Bill to the Kraken. ;.;

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Also, I've noticed that every time a kerbal dies it's on Kerbin on some trivial mission.

I've yet to kill one on another planet, but they fall like flies left and right when doing survey missions.

Seven died on current save, 2 of them were piloting an aircraft and suffered an unplanned rapid ground rendezvous.

2 more suffered a fall when a test SRB landed perfectly with chutes and then fell to its side, smashing the pod into the ground.

2 were killed while landing an SSTO due to a bug of a motorized hinge of Infernal Robotics.

And then Jeb came back from the Mun only to land on the side of a mountain, where the chutes were cut leaving him to his (and my science data's) demise.

Edited by Janos1986
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Seven died on current save, 2 of them were piloting an aircraft and suffered an unplanned rapid ground rendezvous.

I have only once built a spaceplane without enough chutes for an emergency landing... once was enough to remember their little faces for the rest of my life :(

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In my current save only 2 have been lost, both newbie pilots. Both died in the same place trying to get the damn temp reading somewhere in the mountains. Since then I try to avoid survey Kerbin missions, especially if they include landing in dubious places.

Other than that there have been a few close calls (like forgetting chutes on Minmus lander, so that I was barely able to properly aerobrake it in LKO and send another vehicle; also couple hard landings on the Mun and 3 rovers exploded during tests on Kerbin - but the crew survied every time.)

Currently I have 1 guy stranded on the Mun, because while he was gathering the samples his craft fell hatch-down. Totally should have added a probe core to the craft.

-- Damn it! The rescue craft crashed into Kerbin on landing. Tried to soften the landing, but thrusted too much and got chute cutoff and then lost control! R.I.P. Lannard Kerman

Edited by Alchemist
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As long they don't die I do not revert (fall back on earlier save) - I just prepare a rescue mission - it's more challenging this way. If they die - I cancel a mission and fall back even if I had a ton of science already gathered.

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I'm glad that the concept of mission roles is finally making its way into the game. It gives me more of a legitimate reason to actually care about these guys, beyond cuteness or sentimentality.

Same here. I used to see almost no value in Kerbals until this was added. Now, I actually have more emotional attachment to specific Kerbals.

Edited by mythbusters844
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