Stupid things you noticed too late in a Mission

[Zild]

Execute perfect transit between Kerbal and Mun. Separate lander module. Notice lander module's fuel rather than transit module'S fuel was used during transit.

This happens to me all the time, and is a real pain before unlocking resource transfer!

[Tourist]

My first asteroid redirect mission was a bit of a comedy of errors. A lot of the usual, overcooking the launch so it flipped, less than optimal launches leaving too much plane alignment to do.

Anyway, first error that is on topic. Asteroid was coming over the top of Kerbin, roughly NE to SW. Took off, almost perfect alignment with the plane of the asteroid. Good high orbit, heading roughly SW to NE.... in the opposite direction from the asteroid.

OK new launch, got an alignment requiring very little adjustment. Asteroid is still some time away from its PE. Go to the tracking station to accelerate time till the correct moment. Ship won't obey my commands.... why, I wonder. The claw won't open, the throttle won't throttle... then I realise. Ultimate rookie mistake. I'd forgotten to extend the solar panels before time accelerating hadn't I?

[Moh1336]

I was attempting to make a new rocket for a manned Minmus landing using the big orange fuel tanks, the Rockomax "Skipper" Liquid Engine and a whole host of solid boosters to help get it off the ground. After a few 'simulations' it became clear there wasn't going to be any sane way of getting all that payload up there without the mainsail engine. My intent was to take several crew (and one tourist who wanted to orbit Minmus to finish the contract) to boost their XP.

So I decided to use my unmanned Mun lander rocket to get some science, and stick a Kerbal in it. I knew if it could land on the Mun, it should be able to reach, land and leave Minmus.

After making a few minor adjustments, adding Val, I set off for Minmus. The entire trip there went well, landed in a nice spot. Did a bit of science and returned towards Kerbin.

My initial return orbit was 42,000km a bit too high for the new update so I ended up coming out the other side in a big elliptical orbit. I few corrections on the apoapsis to get a better insertion and I was set... That's when I realised I forgot to take off the stayputnik. Like I said, this was originally an unmanned design.

An unmanned design that was never meant to return from the Mun. I'd set it up to be able to take and send back science, so if I ever got "transmit science from the surface of the Mun" contracts, I still had a capable vessel there to do it immediately.

By now you're probably ahead of me, we've all done it at some point I'm sure. What do you not need on a vessel that is not intended to return? Parachutes.

Unfortunately I had left and reloaded the game before landing on Minmus, so the "revert flight" option was not available to me, but that's okay, reverting is not the Kerbal way not with all this science. Fortunately, with the rocket being designed for Mun landing, there was quite a lot of fuel in the lander part left. So using it sparingly at first to help slow me down, then going all out to land I did manage to make a safe, if violent landing.

This only issue I had is that the landing was at 10m/s - which to me seems way too fast. In previous versions I'm sure most if not all would have been lost. It could be a mod that affected this, I'm not sure. But either way, it was a stupid thing with a fortunate ending.

[rofltehcat]

Fairing clips into parts of the space plane, pieces get stuck on deployment. Ship starts vibrating furiously. Attempt to fix it by commencing the mission and deploying the payload. Get the satellite into orbit normally.

Switch back to space plane, space plane is displayed as "landed" in the tracking station. Turns out it is stuck at 80km altitude with 0 relative velocity because it is "landed". Getting to it and interacting with it would require braking 2000 m/s and doing stuff before dropping from the sky (maybe a KAS harpoon could work?). Either way it didn't have any Kerbals on board, so I just deleted it in the tracking station.

Always check if the fairings clips into something (and rotate them 90° so the pieces don't get stuck on other stuff).

On the other hand if this is reproducible it could make for an interesting LKO keosynchronous "landing platform"/space station.

Edited June 24, 2015 by rofltehcat

[Sharpy]

My first attempt at a Mun science station.

Got a lab up there, habitat module, two rovers and a dozen kerbals.

Not a single piece of equipment had an antenna on it....

I'd totally send them a small drone with the Klaw and an antenna.

[ImaSpaceJunk]

Hard career mode with Remote Tech. Single tile panels, 30 parts limit, can't get enough power on a single launch to power an antenna that connects from Minmus but I need the science and I have funds for maybe three orbital launches. Launch two small tanks surrounded by panels and dock them majestically without RCS.

Send it direct to Minmus surface, wait for the suicide burn and... KSP goes out of view and I have no long range sats in LKO.

Splat!

Had to recover by using the last funds on filthy suborbital tourists.

[Starhawk]

If you don't install KER and you aren't careful with your calculations, there may be consequences.

I ran the numbers for my Duna mission and everything looked good. After landing and making orbit again, I was concerned about the fuel level.

Ran the numbers again. Turns out I did the dv calcs before I added the lander legs, chutes, and decoupler to the lander. Ended up about 160 m/s short of what I needed.

Damn, we will not get home from space today.

Happy landings!

[Fenris]

This only issue I had is that the landing was at 10m/s - which to me seems way too fast. In previous versions I'm sure most if not all would have been lost. It could be a mod that affected this, I'm not sure. But either way, it was a stupid thing with a fortunate ending.

I don't think it was mods that allowed you to survive a 10m/s landing. I honestly can not count how many times in the past (and every once in awhile still do) I've landed at 10m/s and survived. Usually the only thing that will happen is that my landing gear break to some degree, usually they will just become unresponsive and stuck in the deployed state and sometimes they will break off. Although if I've landed and 10m/s and had too much vertical speed as well then things get interesting as gear snaps off and then fuel tanks hit the ground and explode.

[mattssheep4]

In career mode (1.0.2) I had designed a more than one science gathering vessel that did not have parachutes. And then Jeb decided to get out of his capsule... and it started spinning too fast for him to get back in. And, of course, my Minmus base that didn't have an antenna. So I landed a small science vessel on top of it to dock before I realized that didn't have an antenna either.

[Evanitis]

I checked some checklists from the thread - none of those seem to list reaction-wheels. Most probes and cabins have it built in anyways... And if not, RCS can substitute for that... in most cases.

I assumed that the small, modern and expensive OCTO2 core would have torque - the prevoius OCTO version had it... MK2 doesn't. It was a fun feeling to notice that when I decoupled a scan-satellite on a munar equitorial orbit. And I couldn't set it to polar orbit. The said mission involved landing tourists on both moons, and leaving the satellites there. I had enough dV to approach Minmus with a polar orbit, arm the sat and still land/bring home the tourists, but I had to scrap the Mun probe.

I still feel that Probodobdyne Corporation was the stupid in ths case, not me.

[Sharpy]

Sending a command module into Minmus orbit to retrieve kerbals from the laboratory (which can reach the orbit but definitely not perform a reentry.) I finish circularizing on low orbit, switch out of the map view and start pondering... when did Minmus get so grey?

*groan*

By that time there wouldn't be enough fuel to reach Minmus, enter its orbit and return to Kerbin. Now I have a spare command module in Mun orbit in case someone ever needs ferrying home from the surface.

[StrandedonEarth]

I checked some checklists from the thread - none of those seem to list reaction-wheels. Most probes and cabins have it built in anyways... And if not, RCS can substitute for that... in most cases.

I assumed that the small, modern and expensive OCTO2 core would have torque - the prevoius OCTO version had it... MK2 doesn't. It was a fun feeling to notice that when I decoupled a scan-satellite on a munar equitorial orbit. And I couldn't set it to polar orbit. The said mission involved landing tourists on both moons, and leaving the satellites there. I had enough dV to approach Minmus with a polar orbit, arm the sat and still land/bring home the tourists, but I had to scrap the Mun probe.

I still feel that Probodobdyne Corporation was the stupid in ths case, not me.

If the main engine on your Mun probe has gimbal, you can still steer. It's less efficient and less accurate, but you can fire up the engine on low power and use that to turn the probe. I've done this in the same reaction-wheel-less situation to put a satellite in the contracted orbit, although not from equatorial to polar

[monstah]

If you don't install KER and you aren't careful with your calculations, there may be consequences.

I ran the numbers for my Duna mission and everything looked good. After landing and making orbit again, I was concerned about the fuel level.

Ran the numbers again. Turns out I did the dv calcs before I added the lander legs, chutes, and decoupler to the lander. Ended up about 160 m/s short of what I needed.

Damn, we will not get home from space today.

Happy landings!

Time to learn the greatest secret of all time:

Jeb can go out and push

It's boring when it's too much DV, but totally doable as a last resource. EVA fuel is infinite if you reenter the pod to refuel

[dorin6565]

I ran out of fuel on a return mission from the Mun without getting a PER below 1000KM. I only had life support for 1 day and didn't have docking ports.

I quickly designed a rescue craft to use KAS to transfer fuel over. I felt very proud of myself when I plotted a direct and quick intercept course, closed on the drifting craft, and matched velocity when I was only 30m from the craft. I got JEB out and grabbed the transfer hose and floated over only to realized I forgot to bring a second attachment point so couldn't transfer fuel over. Then realized I had only had a 1 kebal command pod on the rescue ship so I couldn't even bring the stranded kerbal home (double mistake).

I finally just came up to the stranded craft with the rescue ship and "pushed" it just enough to get it into the atomosphere for the return. Even though I made a double mistake, it is one of my best memories in the game.

I play with a "Never Leave a Kerbal Behind" theme.

[Seal_Of_Gondor]

On my first Mun mission, I forgot an engine on the final stage. After that, I tried again. I forgot a ladder that time.

[Mic_n]

* Putting the "flippy" landing gear on upside down having not used them for a very long time (attaching them "on the bottom" and rotating them 90 degrees into position.. the wrong way)

* Sending two tourists to Minmus, decoupling and landing a tiny RCS powered lander then realising I'd put them in the wrong seats, and the one who wanted to land was still in orbit.

...and soooooo many more.

[Goddess Bhavani]

I recall the Stayputnik used to have SAS in an early version of the game, maybe 0.23.5 or something.

Didn't know the SAS was removed in a more recent version; uncontrollable rocket went into the drink.

[Superfluous J]

I think my worst was when I sent a rescue lander to Duna and it wasn't until I was slowing down there and decoupling my transfer stage that I noticed I forgot to bring the orbiter and the return stage. Poor thing didn't even have enough fuel to take off again, after using its fuel to make orbit.

I had to send a refueler for the rescuer.

[Sharpy]

That Ant has no gimball. Stayputnik + Ant scheduled for Eve orbit... it will be a very distant flyby instead.

[hellion13]

Was copying Scott Manley's cargo bay rover compartment except I was using tweakscale and had a 3 meter bay.

First launch I was halfway to duna before I realized I had no crew.

Second launch I watched as my rover continued to orbit Kerbin while i sped away on a duna injection burn.

Finally got the whole thing to duna only to watch my hastily designed landers heat shield flip off taking the landers wheels with it during entry.

A simple fix later and I was back at duna enduring a stupidly steep entry as I was getting aggravated when I realized that no landing legs in the game can survive a 400m/s impact(my engine/chute combo was not enough) so after all of the bull, it ended with my design being scattered for 30km across the surface of duna and Jeb standing there with a smile and me alt/F4 rage quitting.

[Triop]

After E.V.A:

Now were is my ladder...

[HoloYolo]

Forgot to put science on Minmus mission. 100,000 down the drain.

[Triop]

Forgot to put science on Minmus mission. 100,000 down the drain.

You should be in politics

[HoloYolo]

You should be in politics

Caused a war that was unnecessary, 150 Billion gone.

[Montag]

Had XL stack seperator and Docking Port Sr switched.