What are your quirks?

[Deserdi Verimas]

In playing in the past, I've had an abort system on crewed vessels, but if the craft begins to crash, I always revert - no Kerbal is allowed to die!

I wait a week in game time between launches. Or a "Kerbal" week, which consists of 8 kerbal days. When I finish sorting out the config files for my new realistic engines, I'm probably going to change this to a month, to better match with reality.

Action groups, like most people, are consistent between parts. 1&2 are usually engines, 3 are air intakes, 9 is usually solar panels (put far away from the engines so that I don't accidentally activate the engines whilst powered up and smash a craft into another one).

Don't pay attention during approaches to space stations, which inevitably leads to either multiple passes, or smashing the solar panels off. Kinda ironic, when I'm returning the tug to the space station after deorbiting the orbital insertion stage for the replacement solar panel array.

Despite only having the one launch pad, I still put some LKO space stations (science ones, not refueling ones) on inclined orbits, to better mimic the ISS (and also make it easier to access from map view)

I aim to have LKO at 72km above the surface each time. This is probably going to be a problem when launching two craft one after the other to intercept, but I'll deal with that when it happens.

And I've never left the Kerbin system, aside from a spent booster stage that picked up a gravity assist from the Mun back when I was just learning how to play.

Finally, all of my maneuvers are planned out in a book I've got on my desk, which is great, but the maneuvers usually end up not working out and I have to just fiddle with the nodes to get them to work anyway. Ah well, eventually I'll work out how to transfer from a parking orbit to a space station from theory and angles!

[CaelumEtAstra]

-Every single one of my launchers is a two stage design. It's always been like this. Not only that, I build launcher to a specific payload weight then save as a subassembly. It's a whole lot better than building unique launchers for every payload.

-I fire the engines before releasing the clamps.

-I build payloads that never get put to use. On a similar note, I build more often than I launch as well.

-My GameData folder is loaded up with a butt ton of mods.

-I have never left the Kerbin system.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Mrsupersonic8

[selfish_meme]

*edit* Oh, another: I use spaceplanes almost exclusively in sandbox. Of course, there's no benefit to using them in sandbox...

Me too, hence my Jool Grand Tour Spaceplane.

Edited July 15, 2015 by selfish_meme

[annallia]

Not sure if this counts as a quirk but... Something I did recently was increase the electric charge on all command capsules (left it alone on probe cores though for some reason).

Pretty much tripled it, now I don't use batteries anymore except on things that use a ton of power like drilling rigs and such.

[boxley]

often I try to make stuff as small as possible, this rarely works out very well :T

[Aragosnat]

Quirks or Quarks? Anyways. Make overtly fat bottom stages that make my rockets look like X-mass trees till they are staged. Constantly over building my rockets to the point where the bulk of the time they are able to do more then they should.

[Sharpy]

I wait a week in game time between launches. Or a "Kerbal" week, which consists of 8 kerbal days. When I finish sorting out the config files for my new realistic engines, I'm probably going to change this to a month, to better match with reality.

Look up the "Construction Time" mod. It makes construction of each vessel after it's been projected in VAB take considerable time.

[Red Iron Crown]

I refuse to leave a kerbal in a command chair for extended periods of time, but I have no compunction about leaving a kerbal in a tiny command pod for years.

[KingPhantom]

i dont care about the transferwindows... i overbuild the rocket with 1000m/s and leave kerbin with 950m/s and then starts to aim for the target-planet...

i can count on one hand how many times i used windwos.... if i used one it was absolutly lucky that the planet was on the right position then.

[peachoftree]

I take way too long to upgrade the VAB and end up using special action groups as normal ones.

How an emergency plays out:

Mission Control: Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong

Major Tom: Abort! Abort!

Mission Control: We didn't tell you, your launch escape system is not mapped to anything, Abort just opens your solar panels.

Major Tom: You maniacs... BOOM! -static-

Edited July 15, 2015 by peachoftree

[klesh]

One I thought of today, I like to sink the small batman batteries into my crafts so only the cylinders stick out. All_the_time.

[annallia]

I refuse to leave a kerbal in a command chair for extended periods of time, but I have no compunction about leaving a kerbal in a tiny command pod for years.

I do the same thing (in respect to the chairs) but I wont even leave them in pods that long anymore unless they are on kerbin (which means they are drivers and only active once in a while).

All Kerbals manning posts inside Kerbin SOI need to return home every 3-4 months. Outside is quite different but I do try to get new crew as often as possible.

That being said if I hopped back to my 0.2x save I do have one that has a kerbal that had spent years rocketing out into space.. I can no longer remember his name but every mission I had ever used him on had gone horribly wrong so I did the only thing I could at the time since I refused to kill them then, I shot him as far out into space as I could and left him there.

[Superfluous J]

One I thought of today, I like to sink the small batman batteries into my crafts so only the cylinders stick out. All_the_time.

I don't do it all the time, but I frequently situate batteries so only the little green light is sticking out. I love that look for some reason.

[kahlzun]

Never use RCS unless the ship must dock as part of its plan (ie: space station)

Dont assemble in orbit if at all possible.

Build one craft for every planet: ie, a lander/rover must be able to land on every planet and moon without needing changes.

I tend to use Ion return pods for my larger craft (you can get ~6800 dV out of a Mk1 Can with a total weight of 1.38 T. See here for an example: http://imgur.com/iFfMqAV.

Thats enough dV to get you home from anywhere

[gamowin]

I have six types of quarks: Up, down, top, bottom, strange, and charm.

Oh wait... quirks not quarks...

[JetJaguar]

I thought of another one. Right now I'm playing a moderate-difficulty career game where you have to pay money to unlock parts after researching them. Well, after unlocking a new section on the tech tree, I don't buy any of the parts until I'm actually going to use them. It just seems more fiscally responsible that way.

[Layereddiagram]

I feel uncomfortable launching any sort of manned interplanetary mission without a massive mothership with space for many more kerbals than are on board, usually by adding a few hitchhiker containers. I hate seeing one of those little guys in cramped capsules for years on end. For some reason I also like to return experiments to Kerbin even though I could easily just remove the data.

[scola_p]

I have a few!

A pilot has to be the first to do anything in career.

No Kersall can die.

I always visit the Mün first, even though I know minimus is waaaay easier.

I have mastered docking, but have never done anything useful with it.

I have never used an action group, other than landing gear (if that counts)

Never got a manned mission out of Kerbing SOI as every upgrade results in a new career.

Spaceplanes are evil. (Aka I can't make them work)

[DowncastParadox]

I play science mode w/o saves but "revert to launch/VAB" enabled and with crew perma-death (juggling budgets just doesn't add to the fun for me and the contracts felt tedious, so no carreer mode). My quirks are pretty standard, I guess. Like I try really hard to keep my pilots/crews alive and rescue anyone who gets "stranded" or simply return home w/o landing if I feel like it's too risky.

I've also visited Mün first in every game I've ever started - career or otherwise. My first flyby in science mode was manned, which is also something I tend to do a lot - sending people where a machine would've sufficed or even made more sense. Minmus comes usually very late (more often than not after Mün missions to every biome) and I really, really, neglect Kerbin as far as possible science gains are concerned. Planes are just too slow for my taste and landing a capsule from orbit is kinda overkill (and boring) in my opinion so I'll do only a few of those until I have enough tech for the "real" stuff.

I'm very sad to report that my Jebediah died early on in an unfortunate time warp accident (first Mün flyby, actually). But Valentina & Co. are going strong ever since - no further losses to report!

[lost_in_space]

What are your quirks?

I don't step on cracks in the VAB.

[Gampersnaz]

I always try to make my rockets look realistic if I can. No pyramid shapes or big flat sections of boosters. I usually try to go for an antares/delta IV/falcon 9 look. anything that I can't fit in a design like that, I assemble in orbit.

[Bev7787]

Constantly standardised rockets for all occasions

[Nich]

I try to do way to much in too little time. At one point i had an alarm to launch a lander on the Mun to rendezvous with its orbital refueler, an alarm to launch a lander on Minimus to rendezvous with its orbital refueler, and science/crew return craft entering Kerbins atmosphere all within 10 minutes of each other.

[imaspacestation]

I almost never do any manned missions. Everything is with probes. Only time I do manned missions is if I can take surface samples, and if that happens it must be a 3-kerbal mission for pilot/scientist/engineer.

Even with probes if they crash, it's a revert or savegame load. Even with sandbox. And every probe mission must have the max number of science instruments available.

[samstarman5]

I just recently started forbidding myself to time warp.

I have 17 days yet till the next Duna window, in 12 days I will start crewing my ship (ship is ready just needs crew and fuel) but until then I work on other projects, once it begins its journey to Duna I will also be working on other projects instead of time warping my way through.

I used to just be like "Oh hey 32 days till Duna no problem change orbit and timewarp, change back to a lower orbit and go" then I would time warp my entire trip there (dropping out only if course correction needed) until it was time to start my breaking burn. Months would go by at the KSC without anything going on. I decided I don't like that.

**I do still timewarp for missions within Kerbin SOI**

This is actually my intention with my current career. I had just today sent a probe to intersect Duna's orbit(the probe was actually launched to do science passes of Mun and Minmus. Sadly the stars didn't align that much for a Duna rendezvous), and looked at the TOA at the orbit's Ap. I think it is about 273 days, and the first thing that entered my mind was, 'That's a lot of contracts that could be done in that time.'

So far I have only landed on the Mun once, sent a mission to the North Pole for some science, and that is about it other than the passes of the Mun and Minmus. I fully expect that landing a mission on Minmus and returning will allow all the tech under the 500 science threshold in R&D, to where I will finally spend the funds needed to hit Tier 3 for that building. I could send a kerballed mission to Duna and, before it got there, finish the first landing on Minmus, explore more biomes on Kerbin and the Mun, and have my tech tree finished out before Duna landing occurred. I may just do that, as landing missions don't require custom-built craft and something already on-mission can be used to accomplish it, and I haven't gotten a contract to land on Duna, yet, only to put a satellite in orbit there.

It does make you wonder how the ground crew assigned to the first manned mission to Mars will be delegated, and whether they will also have responsibilities for other on-going missions, as well. It definitely isn't going to be just a 7-10 day job like the Apollo missions were.