How do you Kerbal Rate your ships?

[Halo_003]

I'm curious to see if anyone else also does extensive testing on safety certifying, AKA Kerbal Rating your ships. (Such as IRL Human Rated vehicles)

Personally, I build a crew specific launch vehicle to get crews to orbit, which is one that has undergone extensive unmanned test flights and has an abort action group. For example, right now I use an ARES I for my crew transport to LKO, built using Tweakscale and a couple of KW parts. I've been testing it for about a week of IRL time, and it's flown maybe 15 times to get it all ironed out and running smoothly, today was my first manned flight to LKO and back to finish certification.

If I am launching something like a station or a large ship, I send the crew up afterwards.

Or, do you just throw Kerbals in and hope it works out? My career save is on hard so that gets expensive fast.

[Mitchz95]

I pretty much just slap solar panels and life support on a ship and call it a day. If there's a design flaw I either revert to VAB or send a rescue mission.

[Randazzo]

If it doesn't explode, it's ready to go.

[Superfluous J]

I test launch, but unless I'm testing gravity turn efficiencies or something like that I stop testing as soon as I make orbit. Sometimes, I revert before I've made orbit when it's obvious I will, and then start the real launch.

[maceemiller]

I have to admit I used to just knock a rocket together and test as I go, which was fun for a while but started to get frustrating when things went wrong.

I have KSP on 2 PC's - a laptop which plays it ok albeit with a few frame rate and overheating issues and a tower PC with a seperate graphics card and no gaming issues.

In the last 2 weeks or so ive found myself building and testing rovers, landers, etc on my laptop then transferring them to memory stick ready to be used on my gaming PC for hassle free missions.

(Another reason I do this is because my wife moans at me because I have to set my tower up on the kitchen table because I lost my gaming room as my granddaughter is living with us now (family issues) and she "doesnt like all the wires" haha!)

Testing now is just as much fun now as doing missions, because she dont mind my laptop!

[mikegarrison]

"revert to VAB"

[Slam_Jones]

Usually, if it gets up there, it's good enough.

For atmospheric re-entry vehicles, I'll usually just strap an SRB to it, launch it up a ways, decouple, and see how well it glides. If I can make at least one successful landing, then it's good enough.

[zekes]

For lifters, I test them at maximum load capacity to orbit, and then when I add the kerbals, I make sure it's under that limit, to assure no stresses. Also have around 100 m/s more D/V than expected for every planet you visit, it's safer that way.

[Mikki]

Usually, if it gets up there, it's good enough.

For atmospheric re-entry vehicles, I'll usually just strap an SRB to it, launch it up a ways, decouple, and see how well it glides. If I can make at least one successful landing, then it's good enough.

Very much this, but testing reentry vehicles is often then when it comes to a serious kerbaled reentry... maybe i should copy your testingprogram... for the sake of my crews!

[GarrisonChisholm]

If it doesn't explode, it's ready to go.

...Most...Kerbal...Answer...Ever.

[Boris_T_Roach]

What is this "testing" of which you speak?

Slap the ship together in the VAB, and go launch it.

If it makes orbit all well and good... if not...

Then look in the flight log to see which bit failed first and add more struts

Boris

lost count of how many kerbals have died on his watch

[Cairol]

I test if it does not wobble badly, does not flip at gravity turn and sometimes if it has enough thrust to circularize the orbit.

(yeah.... trying to circularize a 70t transfer stage with only a "Terrier" engine inevitably leads to a belly dive back into the atmosphere. )

All of this because of bad bad expieriences...

For rovers, I test low-g rovers on Kerbin to be sure they can manage trips on Mun or Minmus.

Never landed on a high-g body yet.

I did test some re-entry vehicles by a short space trip. But only more complex ones for other planets like Duna.

[Gaarst]

For the rocket itself, I usually just make it, launch it, revert it until it does what I want. For landers or rovers though, I usually test them thrust limited, or with less fuel at Mun if they are designed for other bodies such as Duna, Moho, Joolian system...

[Fleb]

If it stays in one piece when physics kick in, GO FOR LAUNCH!

[nsgallup]

I make extensive use of the autosave and revert functions, however if I miscalculated required delta V or T/W for a lander or something I will do a rescue mission.

[Halo_003]

I guess additionally part of it is that I enjoy the LKO and launch operations more, interplanetary missions are pretty rare for me. I don't build launchers specific to payloads either, I build launchers and then load payloads onto them.

[FyunchClick]

I'll usually test some new idea or techniques in little proof of concept crafts first that more often than not never even get of the runway. When it comes to launches though I'll shamelessly revert flight as often as I have to (either due to some catastrophe or because I only noticed I bolted that landing gear upside down when I jettison the fairings), and tell myself it was a simulation.

[NecroBones]

Yeah, for me it was always "revert to VAB". Most of my missions would succeed, or mostly succeed (leaving someone stranded until a rescue could get to them), as long as I could actually get off of Kerbin, and used Quicksave at the right times. Most of my design flaws related to just getting to space, with whatever complicated, bendy payload I had designed.

[March Unto Torment]

'Kerbal Rating' is done by Jeb and Val, on account of their utter fearlessness and ability to recover literally any craft.

[Bill Phil]

I don't kerbal rate. I launch it, and if it works, good. If it doesn't, too bad...

[carneyvich]

if it can make it its good enough

[cantab]

I'm playing with no reverts or quickloads*, so testing becomes important. I'll test re-entry vehicles, atmo landers, and orbital spacecraft around Kerbin, and if need be estimate performance (eg speed under parachute) on other bodies. Probe missions need this the same as Kerballed ones, since a critical failure means flying a whole new mission. I try and remember an abort action on Kerballed rockets, and failing that I have Vanguard EVA parachutes so I can just bail. So far I've yet to kill a Kerbal, though I've stranded a few and had to rescue them.

(*Blatant bugs excepted. And I'll revert unmanned launch failures, since I'm in Science mode and it saves me time.)

For a particular example, for my Kerballed Serran (New Horizons mod world) landing and return I had already returned a probe from the surface which itself took several missions to accomplish. I then ran analogues to Apollos 8, 9, and 10 - an orbit and return, a test of the landing ship in Kerbin orbit, and a near-landing that is intentionally aborted close to the ground. Each of those missions taught me things I needed to know to make the real deal, the actual landing, a success.

[DocMoriarty]

I usually test craft that transport Kerbals at least once empty. If that goes without problems then I allow Kerbals to go with them. But that doesn't always prevent Kerbals from dieing. Was testing a new rover with Jeb as driver. Got the problem that always comes after a while on Kerbin and was too fast, the rover hit some invisible polygons, acted up weirdly and crashed, Jeb died. Sigh.

[GoSlash27]

I have some odd kerbal- rating procedures. Some are important, some aren't.

Important:

The ship must complete an entire mock mission without any mishaps or even potential mishaps before a kerbal is allowed on- board. Except Jeb; he has an annoying habit of stowing away unexpectedly.

Unimportant:

The ship must be piloted by a kerbal rather than a remote guidance unit and any kerbals must be in a pressurized cabin.

My goal is to never have a kerbal die on my watch, so I take the criteria very seriously.

Best,

-Slashy

[DalisClock]

Whenever I test a new aircraft/spacecraft, I tend to do a few trial runs unmanned to make sure I can reasonably expect to get it into orbit/into the air and safely back to kerbin. Once that's done, I'll start sending it up with Kerbals inside. I don't wan to lose kerbals if can help it.

Rovers I usually don't care and prefer to have a kerbal inside to test if I can get back into it, amongst other things.