What is the most HORRIBLE way one of your kerbals died

[jimmymcgoochie]

I’ve had a few crews killed by CO2 poisoning after Kerbalism decided not to bother warning me about the rising levels of CO2 in their station/base/ship until after they all died... It’s supposed to stop time warp when those warnings happen but apparently doesn’t for CO2 poisoning, so the first I ever know about it is when the time warp stops due to the crew dying.

PSA- keep all your scrubbers switched on all the time; saving a little bit of power isn’t worth accidentally killing the crew.

[kerbiloid]

Or there was another episode.

Two Kerbals with their helmets off were operating the inflatable greenhouse module on the back side of the Mun, and out of panic confused the airlocks, getting opened the unpressurized one, when a rover with blinking lights suddenly stopped by the window...

Spoiler

Since then I always check if my Aviation Lights are off on the base approaching.
Because who knows what was the researchers' background...

[Zamolxes77]

Haven't played since they introduced a relative wing surface for command pods. All my crafts usually use their engine to break, no heat shields (100% reentry heat).

So I started a new career, did my 1st suborbital flight, capsule flipped nose first and plunged into the ground killing Jeb. And Valentina.

A series of flights followed, killing more kerbals, adding all kind of contraptions to the upper stage to make it fly properly, nothing helped. Until I noticed the description on the command pods.

[OutInSpace]

Took them out on an EVA to reset some experiments before firing up the drives for a return trip from Jool. Had to go do something in the middle of it. When I came back to my PC I switched back to the ship without thinking and began the transfer burn.

Only after I was going 15 or so kilometers per second and down to just barely enough Xenon to brake at Kerbin did I realize that I had left the scientist behind in low Jool orbit.

She ran out of snacks hundreds of days before even the fastest rescue ship could reach her (~240 days). RIP Melbgas Kerman.

[septemberWaves]

 I've had a few cases recently, when testing for my modpack, where kerbals have died of CO₂ poisoning due to Kerbalism. This kind of death is probably rather a lot slower and thus quite a lot nastier than just blowing up (normally the predominant cause of kerbal death). I need to do some rebalancing of Kerbalism to make it work with the rest of my progression overhaul, which means I need to do a lot of testing; I anticipate this testing will be quite lethal at times.

[sir rocket]

Probably today. Jebs capsule was peacefully floating toward the ocean. Then suddenly, it blew up, leaving nothing but a rapidly spinning decoupler. There were no decouplers on the ship

Edited November 15, 2020 by sir rocket
Spelling

[Vezbot]

On 10/28/2020 at 3:34 AM, tosha said:

not dead, but I stranded Jeb on eve, where he tried for two hours to swim to shore before accepting his doom

Eek, sure I've stranded some kerbals on the other side of the kerbol system but landing any kerbal on Eve will ensure the kerbal will never see blue skies or snow capped gray mountains again. It is possible to get them back (I'm planning on building an atomic spaceplane with an low Eve orbit refueling station myself), I wish you the best of luck!

[sir rocket]

Burned Jeb up when his shuttle ran out of monopropllent on reentry when after the payload had smashed into the tanks. I tried to save him using usual plane tactics, but he crashed  because I had lost a flight surface to a docking port

Edited November 20, 2020 by sir rocket

[Vezbot]

On 11/5/2020 at 1:46 PM, OutInSpace said:

Took them out on an EVA to reset some experiments before firing up the drives for a return trip from Jool. Had to go do something in the middle of it. When I came back to my PC I switched back to the ship without thinking and began the transfer burn.

Only after I was going 15 or so kilometers per second and down to just barely enough Xenon to brake at Kerbin did I realize that I had left the scientist behind in low Jool orbit.

She ran out of snacks hundreds of days before even the fastest rescue ship could reach her (~240 days). RIP Melbgas Kerman.

Imagine being the astronaut leaving the ship to reset experiments and 5 minutes later you let go of the ship and then the ship fires it's engines. You yell at the pilot in the ship to stop as the whole craft speeds up and flies past you, you desperately use your eva pack but the ship's rockets are stronger. Eventually the ship gets smaller and smaller and despite your best efforts the ship is now a dot quickly fading out into the deep void of space. You are alone, the ship did not hear your calls to come back, and you have no contact with any living being. All you can do now is stare at the great green planet that is Jool, and are flooded with a sense of peace for several hours until you find it harder and harder to breathe. Soon enough, even the darkness of space seems irrelevant as another darkness consumes your vision and you live no more.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Vezbot
Spelling fixes

[AmericanRocketryRambler]

i built a Soyuz rocket in RO, and at around 17,000 meters it self destructed. My kerbal jumped out but the parachute wouldn't deploy...   he crashed at 200 meters per second.

[Bej Kerman]

First thing that comes to mind is when one of my Kerbals slowly winched themself into a terrain rift at the Mun's north pole. Winch came off and they plummeted down a steep mountain before hitting 0.

[paul_c]

I haven't killed a staff Kerbal for a while now - I'm taking the realism seriously and trying to keep them alive. I did kill a tourist recently - controller went dead and the parachute didn't deploy, even though they'd landed on Minmus and made it all the way back, including the re-entry. That was unlucky. I kinda feel partially responsible.

I did build a massive rover truck thing, with a science lab on it, loads of structure, big motors too, it could do about 40m/s. It also had massive ground clearance - unfortunately not quite enough though, and the chassis was about neck height. I pressed the wrong button, or they walked in the way, and it hit them. Amazingly they survived although I suspect he'll have a headache for a little while.

I had one guy who was stuck on the Mun for about 2 months. Ironically, when I eventually rescued him, the skyline after re-entry was a beautiful twilight scene with a full moon, but he didn't want to see it and says he doesn't want to go back.

[Minmus Taster]

I was doing Mun/Minmus? Mission when i made a mistake and made Bill go on EVA in the MIDDLE OF REENTRY.

 

 

 

 

It did not end well.

[munman19]

when i first discovered the cheat menu i put a  station in orbit and then i also put a crew vehicle with the jeb bill and bob into orbit right next to it

i couldnt dock so i had to return..... and thats when i realized: i didn't have chutes so i made them all jump from the capsule and i deployed all of their personal chutes and for some reason only bob lived

R.I.P. in peace jeb and bill

[Souptime]

Good ol' object thrower, or forgetting parachutes, or kerbal kompatortm

[DunaManiac]

Once I had a spaceplane, and it was returning from LKO. The mission was to recover two stranded kerbonauts on my space station, as they had been there for over 2 years. As I was entering the atmosphere during reentry, I accidentally made Legee Kerman exit the cockpit, which she died soon after. The plane and the remaining returned safely, luckily, but the death was accidental and she will be missed.

[SiriusRocketry]

Just had my first ever Career Mode death in my first ever career mode save. Landed on the Munar Midlands, jetpacked Jeb over to a crater for a look before I took off back to my station in polar orbit. Jeb ran out of EVA fuel on the hop back to the lander, and slammed into the Munar surface at 27 m/s, breaking several bones and breaching his suit before suffocating to death, unable to move, just 2km from the lander. (I was lazy and neglected to keep an eye on the fuel in his EVA pack; he bounced once, kraken'd out, and poofed).

The crater he found was named Jebediah Crater in his memory, and a flag bearing his name was placed in front of the KSC flagpole, as per tradition. Jebediah was the first kerbal to die in the Kerbal Interplanetary Society's exploration of space; I hope he will be the last.

[Kerbal Productions]

     Landing on Jool in breakneck speeds!  

 

[Daveroski]

On 12/10/2015 at 2:17 AM, SpaceplaneAddict said:

None of my Kerbals have died.

I have thought about dispatching Val in a different and complicated way for each game but I never actually carried it out. I stick her in the command pod of the first space station and leave her there until the end of the game.

Alone... for years... I dunno, maybe I haven't gone soft after all.

D.

 

[HyperDraco]

This might sound straight out of a movie, and admittedly the plot is almost identical but hear me out.

I have TAC installed and naturally my crew had cycled out and the station resupplied. On the return trip for the precious crew, a piece of debris was hurdling really quickly towards my capsule. I noticed this only about 100 meters away and it was ridiculously fast. I managed to get one Kerbal out of the capsule before it blew up. The other 2 kerbals died and my now alone kerbal was falling towards Kerbin and gaining speed. He ended up burning up in Kerbin's atmosphere and I don't find that a particularly pleasant way to die.

No, I couldn't avoid the debris as I had separated my capsule's service module and had my trajectory locked at the bay next to KSC. I also am terrible with RCS so that wasn't an option (nearly 4 years and I still haven't figured it out)

 

[kerbiloid]

Every time I close the KSP, all Kerbal existing here get their bytes replaced with absolutely random information from other programs reusing this RAM.

Like they are:

Spoiler

 

[Defenestrator47]

Playing with life support mod.  Jeb Bob and Bill were returning from Minmus in the 3 crew pod.  I already knew I was low on life support, had underestimated the amount I needed (first time playing with life support).  So I did a burn to accelerate the return leg, dropped periapsis well inside atmo but not enough, ditched the transit stage, managed to aerocapture but 'bounced' back out on a long loop.  Ran out of 02 with ~21 minutes until the next atmo descent, which would have resulted in a landing.  Came so far, got so close.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

On 12/14/2020 at 8:23 AM, Daveroski said:

I have thought about dispatching Val in a different and complicated way for each game but I never actually carried it out. I stick her in the command pod of the first space station and leave her there until the end of the game.

Alone... for years... I dunno, maybe I haven't gone soft after all.

D.

 

this is me, except i go through with most of it and then revert to a previous time and pretend their deaths never happened

[Pod4898]

One time in 2021, I launched a colony to laythe. It landed on the ocean and everything was succesful. The kerbals were chilling and I thought of zooming out because at that time, I saw bop,  pol, tylo, jool and vall in the daytime sky. Out of nowhere I heard explosions! I went into that log that comes after a mission ends and I saw the colony heating up out of nowhere. I asked this issue in the ksp discord server and the helpers were confused as well. Needless to say the kerbals died a silly, dumb, unfortunate and horrible death.

[Aerodynamic Kerbal]

I once made a plane that had an external command seat. It was designed just for one simple test: Can kerbals die due to lack of oxygen? 

So Jeb took his helmet off and flew to around 9km. Then he died.

Another one might be glitching through my PS4 existence. Valentina and another 2 kerbals were going to launch on a Soyuz but when I went to the launch pad the game... CRASHED! 5 minutes later I had realised they were all dead.