Your KSP "preflight checks" or funny rituals :)

[Goddess Bhavani]

It just came to mind that after spending so much time in KSP I have designed my weekend routine around it, knowing how hours of my time will be sucked away to oblivion whenever I browse a facebook page or website about "planes that never flew", or having an idea to send cats into space to rendezvous with the Walmart Space Supercenter over Laythe.

I wonder if anyone has any rituals before committing their little green men to the adventure of their lifetime. Here's some of mine below:

So before each mission or build session I would ensure: -

• All household chores are secured, or delegated 'base personnel' to respective tasks
  
• All work related communications on whatsapp/email/etc are silenced for good
  
• The next meal is cooked / purchased and properly stowed, preferably something heavy in carbs like pasta or rice. In deep space, no one can hear your hunger pangs
  

[Riisos]

Place snacks and drinks on dashboard, press T, throttle up, make sure I filled the ship with Kerbals. Hold breath, 3, 2, 1, SPAAAAAACE

[Yukon0009]

SRBs active? Check.

Jeb Kerman onboard? Check.

Spinning out of control? Check.

Exploding? Check.

In space? Aww hell naw.

[rodion_herrera]

If you fly KSP aircraft or aerospace craft using a joystick, yoke, rudder, throttle or other HOTAS setup, like I do, preflight checks are no joke. If you forget that a throttle setting or some toggle switch is set to "ON", you could be in for big trouble after you hit the spacebar.

[InterCity]

The only preflight I do is checking whether parachutes and solar panels are in place (chutes are especially well preflighted ). Other than that: MASH SPA(AAAAAAAAAA)CEBAR!

Edited April 27, 2015 by InterCity
Typo

[stibbons]

If you fly KSP aircraft or aerospace craft using a joystick, yoke, rudder, throttle or other HOTAS setup, like I do, preflight checks are no joke.

I fly with a joystick and homebrew simpit. The first flight in a session includes a preflight checklist that tests all axes, toggles and buttons. I even go so far as to insert a dummy stage to test the stage button. This is mostly for the look of the thing, but did catch the one time a loose solder joint resulted in the stage button occasionally also setting the throttle to FTP.

[Goddess Bhavani]

If you fly KSP aircraft or aerospace craft using a joystick, yoke, rudder, throttle or other HOTAS setup, like I do, preflight checks are no joke. If you forget that a throttle setting or some toggle switch is set to "ON", you could be in for big trouble after you hit the spacebar.

No kidding! I used to be that way when I took flight sims seriously in my younger days. I also liked to have a bunch of mates in close contact before (virtual) squadron competitions, both to ensure I knew who are the guys that would watch each others' backs in a dogfight, and to get them in the right mood for spending the next few hours / most of the day running virtual campaigns.

These days I mostly just play KSP exclusively, so I would read up on articles on space exploration similar to what I'm flying for the day just to get in the mood.

[SubSonicRocket]

I think one big check I do is see if I have enough struts on my rocket/ship. I have a terrible habit of making the rockets tall and sleek, so it tends to wibble and wobble in the air like a arrow in slow motion. Hahah.

[SemiaCloud]

I check the staging sequence, check for important things like parachutes, and then the countdown.

[Freshmeat]

go - no go checks:

Kids tucked in

Dishes done

Wife otherwise engaged or at very least OK with me being occupied

Hardware hooked up

Coffee or water within easy reach

[wolfedg]

Z, T, R, [space], "Ooops!", [ESC], Revert Flight, (Fix staging) ], Start over

[eddiew]

1) Check KSP.exe memory use is being displayed on second screen so's to get no surprise game crashes during launch. If memory use over 3.4gb, reboot, make tea while game 6 million mods load.

2) Test all action keys do what I think they will do while still on the runway/launch pad.

3) Go to space!!!

[Feradose]

Adjust trim for perfect gravity turn, Z, T (yeah), fix staging then space, reset trim in space.

[MGCJerry]

Z, T, R, [space], "Ooops!", [ESC], Revert Flight, (Fix staging) ], Start over

This, most of the time.

I don't have a lot of time to play KSP anymore so I take every second or minute I can. Almost all the time I only have enough time to build something then I have to leave ksp for awhile then when I get a minute to two I can put it in orbit and by then other stuff needs to be done.

Edited April 27, 2015 by MGCJerry

[rcp27]

My standard launch goes something like this: M. Bring up nav ball. Click on resources pane. M. T. Z. [space]. Swear because the launch clamps were in a separate stage from engine start. [space] again to light the engines. Fiddle with staging because I forgot to combine decouplers and next stage engines into a single stage event. Check speed to make sure the ascent looks OK. Begin to roll over for gravity turn. Stage off the spent boosters. Curse as the separating boosters take out my main fuel tank. [Esc] and revert to VAB. Fiddle with sepatrons so that boosters will separate cleanly. [save] and [Launch]. M. Nav Ball. Resource Pane. M-T-Z-[space]. Swear again because I forgot to fix my staging. [space] to light engines. Fix staging. Begin gravity turn. Sigh in relief as boosters separate cleanly this time. M to map view, click on Ap to get it to display the numbers. Stage runs out. M to regular view, [space] to dump spent stage and light the next one (good thing I sorted staging out). M. Get annoyed that Ap numbers are gone, click around to get them back. Bring Ap to 86 km and engines off. Out of map view. As we pass 60 km, realise I forgot to put solar panels on an action group, and grope around trying to deploy them all. Get annoyed about the one I can't quite see because it's on the shade side of the ship. Back to map view and set a manoeuvre node for circularisation. Fiddle for ages to get the projected orbit exactly circular to within 0.1%. Bring ship round to blue marker for circularisation burn, and make a ham handed effort, end up with Ap out at 102 km while Pe is 84 km.

Right, Twitter tells me 1.0 is out, I'm off to get downloading.

[Goddess Bhavani]

Adjust trim for perfect gravity turn, Z, T (yeah), fix staging then space, reset trim in space.

Just curious, I heard engaging the SAS immediately nullifies the trim setting. How does it work?