What do you do to get rid of kerbals?

[Vermil]

I don't

 

[AlamoVampire]

I dont do career mode. Only the first 3 kerbals we ever had get special care. Val and every "hire" are easily replaced. 

[Madrias]

Various space stations end up taking on 'working tourists'.  Basically Kerbal crews I no longer need at this time on Kerbin, but make great crews for those unexpected missions I come up with.  Like when I need 30 random Kerbals to start my new Eve Colony.

[Puggonaut]

Look at the Roster an think , its ok your Expendable

[Guest]

state = Dead

Easy.

[Andem]

Well, I don't intentionally. Punishments for atrocities against Kerbalkind usually get you a one way trip on an asteroid on escape velocity. Most dead kerbals I have resulted from drafting them into the military or some Dangit! moments...

[max_creative]

I have only played sandbox, and the original four respawn, so I just put them in a test craft that will explode may experience a rapid unscheduled disassembly and just press space.

[Rath]

I retire them by changing the crew roster order in my super duper role play sandbox save.  I've only had three deaths (better than NASA!)

 

I keep them instead of firing them because I feel that it keeps them being paid, and so I can yank them out of retirment to go save kerbin in from a impacting class e asteroid 

Edited April 5, 2016 by Rath

[samstarman5]

On 2/3/2016 at 1:17 PM, AbacusWizard said:

The one and only time I had any need to "get rid of kerbals" was when 1.0 first came out and, to celebrate (finally!) the introduction of female kerbals, I decided to launch an all-female space program in a new career game. Of course this meant Jeb, Bill, and Bob were just hanging around with nothing to do, so when I had the tech to do so, I gave them all a promotion and both literally and metaphorically "kicked them upstairs" to a nice cushy desk job on board Starbase Alpha in low orbit.

I always feel that Bob would be most comfortable working a science lab in orbit, as opposed to riding a craft piloted by Jeb or Val, so I tend to just get him ranked up and put in charge of the space station.  Jeb and Val will always be indispensable to getting missions off the ground. Bill strikes me more as wanting to set up a ground base off-planet, like at the Mun or Duna. With that frame of thought, it is rather easy to get the orange suits something to do and not worry about them being ignored or useless.

White suits, on the other hand, are as expendable as any mission they are on.  As soon as I get access to OKTO and HECS(I should change that to TARS and CASE sometime...), then every mission gets AI support so, no matter what, the science gets done and back home.

Just retiring them in the Astronaut Complex seems silly to me.  Any good kerbal will want to always be on the job and is more than willing to give their life to it.  That's one of the reasons I build my crews with rescued kerbals. They had an 'oops' or an 'uh-oh,' but survived enough to get brought back home. That's what I like to call a 'Pre-Disastered' kerbal.  They are never getting retired unless it be by the Kraken's doing.

On 2/5/2016 at 11:38 AM, Madrias said:

Various space stations end up taking on 'working tourists'.  Basically Kerbal crews I no longer need at this time on Kerbin, but make great crews for those unexpected missions I come up with.  Like when I need 30 random Kerbals to start my new Eve Colony.

"You are our future. We all must strive together to perfect the Purple Equation.  With that, we will be able to not only go to and leave Eve at will, but will finally achieve the stars. Do not go gentle into the hold of the Kraken. Burn, burn, against the failure of the flight." - some kerbal talking to the thirty colonists of Eve.

[tranenturm]

I'm very careful to only rescue Kerbals who name I like. Therefor I haven't felt the need to get rid of any. On my Kerbin, it pays to have a good name. Otherwise you never get rescued...

[samstarman5]

36 minutes ago, tranenturm said:

I'm very careful to only rescue Kerbals who name I like. Therefor I haven't felt the need to get rid of any. On my Kerbin, it pays to have a good name. Otherwise you never get rescued...

A good name is what gets me to hire the rare kerbal. I pretty much only rescue those in orbit. After one frustrating and maddening affair, I will not bother with kerbals who got themselves marooned deep in the northern or southern hemisphere of a world.  They are not survivors.

[Tourist]

I've never had the need to "get rid of" a Kerbal. Although eventually I retire the Jeb, Val, Bill and Bob to senior leadership/science roles once I've sent them on missions to Duna and Eve. After that, the torch is handed over to the young guns.   

[Rocket In My Pocket]

They retire to the scenic and dignified "Kerbal Towers Retirement Home" where they sit around watching lift off's and wait for their children to come visit them.

(Also it has wheels in case we ever get sick of them talking about the "good ole days" and decide to drive them all into the ocean.)

[Kuansenhama]

Well in my old career save I would rescue all of my astronauts. I wound up with a bunch of engineers and pilots I never used. I remember I kept getting contracts to expand my minimus base, (Had about 50 crew capacity before the game bugged and I lost all my kontracts and rage-quit, it was a pretty big base) so I would just send them there inside of whatever new modules I was sending and then indefinitely postpone the return trip. I tend to be fairly merciful with my Kerbals and figured if I wasn't going to use them, at least they could be the colonists of Minimus. Plus, I had some return craft there so if I ever did need more Kerbals, they were right there.

But yeah kerbals are bloody expensive, and I like to play on normal/hard difficulty.

[N_Danger]

Never had to worry about it. In fact I'm sure at the at the KSC hiring office you hear " I don't think we have any openings right now" ( cue loud explosion) "Wait, I have just heard that we had some new opportunities become available."   

[jbterminator]

Suicide missions to Eve.

[HebaruSan]

In my original science save (pre-career career), I felt attached to the crew that did Mun and Minmus, so when they got back Jeb opened a food trailer with an outdoor seating platform. I believe they're still out there.

[Geschosskopf]

On 2/3/2016 at 10:21 AM, Findthepin1 said:

When I want to retire kerbals I send them to the bottom of the ocean or occasionally to the North Pole. Or they die in an explos- an experiment. What do you do?

It used to be that I'd just crash them into the VAB doors but then buildings became destructible and rep started falling with each dead Kerbal, so now I either fire them or exile them to all the useless stations and bases I build for contracts.

I do rather like the idea of sinking them in the ocean, though

 

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

Retiring? Most of the times they die from "natural causes" on my end.
 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[SpacedCowboy]

51 minutes ago, MalfunctionM1Ke said:

Retiring? Most of the times they die from "natural causes" on my end.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

There you go, kind of unnatural selection.

[msasterisk]

I decided to build an orbital retirement home. It's basically a big, empty box attached to some crew cabins. With the newly built reusable spaceplane, the active Kerbals can visit them. The retired Kerbals secretly hope for a class-E asteroid to come towards Kerbin because in the event that it happens, they get to go catch it and stick it onto their home.

Anybody that I rescue first comes home (for the levels) and then goes to the station.

Edited April 7, 2016 by msasterisk