Stupid things you noticed too late in a Mission

[dnugroho]

Well, sometimes I did not read contracts carefully. Imagine the frustration after getting a satellite into a specific orbit around Duna but the contract could not be fulfilled simply because I forgot to put a thermometer!

[Bev7787]

"Vessel _____ has no pilots or operational SAS Modules on board" That was on a flight to the

Mun

[Sharpy]

Spent so much time picking the right location for left/right & up/down RCS thrusters I totally forgot the front/back thrusters. Instead of undocking from the transfer stage and docking the neat module to the huge station I had to detach another module that had functional RCS and use it as a drone to bring the new module in position.

[Wemb]

Building an early-tech Duna probe using asparagus staging with small tanks and spark engines - and only realising while entering Duna space that the fuel takes pretty much completely occluded the 1x6 solar array unless I went pointy-end sun-first - which was a problem when trying to enter orbit.

Wemb

[kreutzkevic]

I constructed an intricate low-gravity lander using AGU's instead of landing legs because (a) the crash tolerance on those this is really high and ( I supposed the craft would attach to the ground in low-gravity environments such as Gilly.

"This is a brilliant idea!", I thought. "Why haven't I seen anyone doing this before? I'm cornering the market with this one!"

In my hubris I decided to test this craft on the steep slopes of Pol. One long and destructive tumble later, my Kerbals are now stuck in a forsaken valley. After reviewing the design I tried it again on Bop. Same difference. And just to add insult to injury one of the claws grabbed my Kerbal as he went out to plant a flag.

Well, it doesn't mean it was a bad idea just because it didn't work... Apparently AGU's don't grab anything that has a SOI.

[ArmchairGravy]

Went to Ike, landed and came back, went to transfer fuel and then was reminded that LV-N's don't need oxidizer any more. I'm going to need to send a tanker of liquid fuel so the mission can return.

[The Science Bucket]

Got a very ugly but contract-fullfilling station out to Minmus orbit... then I noticed not all of the check marks were green. I forgot the docking port. I'm kind of glad I goofed because I'd like to send out a more elegant design.

Edited July 15, 2015 by The Science Bucket

[Goddess Bhavani]

Forgot to review control surface setup! Fortunately this is not a fatal mistake with stock aero as you can reprogram the control surfaces on the fly. With FAR, you can't do this and often leads to a frighteningly realistic conclusion soon after takeoff!

[AlexinTokyo]

Most common: forgot to shut off docking-port fuel crossfeed and didn't notice that my payload lander/probe's fuel had all been consumed by the tansfer/insertion stage engines.

Most recent: Scientist Kerbal brought along at great expense to reset Science Jr. and Goo^TM modules turned out to be an engineer.

[AbacusWizard]

"Science Mom? Science Dad? I've got something I have to tell you... I'm... I'm an engineer."

[Mister Dilsby]

Well, I just noticed there aren't any batteries on my Evestation, hope the solar panels provide enough to run the science lab and refinery. I'd revert and launch again, but I already posted the comic so now I guess it's canon

[Johno]

So after approximately 100 attempts to get my massive, re-usable cargo ship into orbit, I finally arrived at the target (a piece of space junk that someone wants collected - go figure!). It was hugely difficult; it involved engineering challenges, especially getting this thing to fly without spinning around, judging the launch time just so to arrive at the target with enough fuel to manouvre to rendezvous; and when I get there I discover that the cargo bay is too small to grab the debris!!!!!!!

[AbacusWizard]

Well, I just noticed there aren't any batteries on my Evestation, hope the solar panels provide enough to run the science lab and refinery. I'd revert and launch again, but I already posted the comic so now I guess it's canon

No problem; just send a small craft made mostly of batteries with a klaw on the front, rendezvous, and clamp it on!

[Mister Dilsby]

No problem; just send a small craft made mostly of batteries with a klaw on the front, rendezvous, and clamp it on!

Oh, I can do better than that, at least the thing has docking ports! It's just that it's already in solar orbit en route to Eve, so it will take some time for the BattShip to catch up to it.

[Godot]

Created a Tourist Expedition Spacecraft ... i.e. 2 man landercan together with a service module and a hitchhiker storage container.

Didn´t think it would be necessary to do a full barrage of tests (including landing on Kerbin with empty hitchhiker.

Sent to 2 of them, each having the hithhiker filled with 3 tourists and the 3rd Kerbonaut, to Minmus.

Landing on Minmus was a success ... upon return to Kerbin I suddenly learned about the big flaw in my design ... the fact that service module and landercan are above the hitchhiker puts too much pressure on the hitchhiker ... meaning that the hitchhiker of my first service module exploded upon impact (killing the scientist and the 3 tourists) (unfortunately I pressed F5 instead of F9, therefore I couldn´t even return to a save before landing).

Now my 2nd spaceship is in orbit around Kerbin ... I will be able to rendezvous a rescue ship with the spaceship, thereby transferring 2 of my Kerbonauts to the other ship ... which hopefully enables me to transfer one Tourist into the lander can (where he is safe) ... this also means that unfortunately, it is very clear that 2 of my tourists will probably die (as they won´t be able to do the spacewalk to get them to the rescue ship).

This teaches me to always test my tourist spacecraft with a landing on Kerbin, before actually using them with tourists

[WhoLikesCakes]

Noticed I lacked solar panels and batterys after leaving Kerbin's SOI, sadly the reason I noticed was because I ran out of power, now my 4 kerbals are slowly drifting towards Jool as their drone pilot is inactive. Now I have to rush to launch a rescue craft and somehow catch up with them before they get flung or eaten by Jool

[StrandedonEarth]

I noticed the drills trying to go on upside-down, but...

[Sharpy]

Deploy the drills before landing!

[HoloYolo]

I forgot to put a power source on my Ike lander for career mode. I still landed in 2 biomes, and got 1.3k science.

[Good_Cat]

Tourist Contracts round the Mun and Minmus built a 2.5m lander to hold 5 plus abaltor, decoupler, fuel, poddle, lander legs and RCS, looking good 3km/s delta v sweet added a cool Halo ODST nose with air brakes and parachutes.

Throwing this into orbit time after time gets expensive dumping mainsails and skippers to burn up.

I wonder could i use the Mk.3 SpacePlane, the Tourist Taxi fits into the cargobay nicely.

Wait a sec disable the fuel on the taxi don't wanna end up in orbit only to find out the Mk3 used the taxi fuel.

Launch. 80km later, undock Taxi, no solar panels. De-orbit both.

SPH - add another set of landing gear to the back double sets each side look cooler, oh yeah solar panels change the panels on the Mk3.

Launch. 80km later, undock Taxi, still no solar panels. De-orbit both. Really attention span pay attention.

SPH - solar panels add panels on the Taxi. Done

Launch. 80km later, undock Taxi, deploy panels while still in the cargo bay they all break. De-orbit both. Really, this can't be that hard.

Lau...wait SPH add the damn tourists. Almost forgot them only realising 3rd lauch attempt in.

Launch. 80km later, undock Taxi, deploy panels, Yes everything looks good, solar panels and tourists no MechJeb or KER who cares they're a luxury. Goooo.....noooo...???? No fuel I must of forgot to disable cross feed and used the fuel getting up here. FFS. De-orbit both. Really, this can't be that hard.

" disable the fuel and RCS on the taxi don't wanna end up in orbit only to find out the Mk3 used the taxi fuel." I forgot i did that............

Checklist - for ***'s sake pay attention.

- don't try anything complicated or clever because i'm an idiot, keep it simple.

- solar panels.

On and end note the Mk3 is over-engineered and works great looks cool too and the ODST air-brake and parachute section for the taxi works great too but adding solar panels takes 1.5 hours and 4 failed missions.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Good_Cat

[X-SR71]

I noticed 3 OX-STAT panels are not enough to power the probe core + reaction wheel of my spaceplane up there in Jool's orbit. I find myself constantly enabling and disabling electrical storage so i don't run out of juice definately. At least the LV-N generates electricity when running...

[Bev7787]

Mun or bust... No solar panels

[Fred Cop]

Landing on the Mun, with the spectacular three (Jeb, Bob and Bill), not enough fuel to leave the Mun.

Creates a new rocket to pick them up, wit the last spectacular kerbal (Valentina), lands side-on and too far away from original landing site, and the new rocket can't even launch off the face of the Mun since its side-ways.

[CobraA1]

Unfortunately things don't tend to make it to my check list until I've screwed up.

Actually, that's a better strategy than you might think - it helps to keep the list short and easy to use. You don't need a comprehensive checklist. In fact, you don't want a comprehensive checklist - it would just end up being boring and long. KSP is a game, you should be having fun!

In fact, in real life situations - such as the real NASA - ensuring that checklists are short is important. You don't want people to be tempted to "shortcut" and skip critical items. You want checklists to be easy to read and use. It's very important that checklists are not unintelligible messes. A good read on checklists and how to use them is The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.

As far as stupid things I've noticed too late - I'd say staging and remembering to bring the right crew. Especially tourists four tourism contracts, heh.

Maybe I need a checklist .

[Tanner Rawlings]

Had to rescue jeb from Mun, early in save so the rescue took a big chunk of my funds, i decided to send val (she was my only other pilot) i launched the rocket and got to orbit when i realized that i was in the perfect position to go to minmus, so i landed on minmus and came back to kerbin with a belly full of science, and as the parachutes opened i thought "sh*t, i meant to go to mun" thats what i get for being opportunistic...