Is there anything the game lets you do that you won't?

[Red Shirt]

Title says it, but as example I usually won't use lander cans for atmosphere reentry vehicles because it seems unrealistic. Today I broke my rule as I wanted to deorbit a ship. I thought rather than terminate I would burn it up in the atmosphere. Not only did it not burn up, it survived without a chute or heat shield. Seems my personal rule was justified.

[wumpus]

I wouldn't  expect a landercan to survive deorbit without a parachute in pre-beta, let along with the current atmosphere.  Sounds like an old bug that allowed you to hit at terminal velocity and sometimes survive thanks to a glitch.

Mostly my rules mean not sending kerbals where I can't retrieve them (no sending kerbals to Eve in hopes someday I'll be able to send a rescue mission).  I think in your case (assuming crewed), I would send a rescue mission (and recently did when I had a heatshield on my lander but forgot the parachutes).  Otherwise burning the thing up is the correct option and just take the glitch as a lucky break (you could always terminate the thing on land if you really felt you didn't deserve it).

[Firemetal]

A lander can doesn't help at 100% re-entry heat. I thought anything could with a heat shield but it is just because I used to play at much reduced re-entry heat. Learned that the hard way.  Although it can if from LKO. Going above 3km never seems to work for me.

Don't really have much that I don't use. I play dirty.  

Fire

[razark]

Kerbals are not an expendable resource, and shall not be treated as such.

[TheEpicSquared]

I only send kerbals on expeditions if I know I can bring them back soon. So no landing a kerbal on Eve, hoping that someday I'll be able to make a return vehicle capable of doing the job. Also, I make sure that if something goes wrong, I can bring the kerbals back fairly quickly (the later part of this post (with the Mun landing) exemplifies thiis quite well...) <-- Shameless self-advertising is shameless  

[Red Shirt]

Agreed about the kerbals. Planning rescue missions is big part of my fun as well as a self-imposed duty. 

The lander can I mentioned was crewless but had a probecore (for Kerbnet) that made navigation possible. It hit on its micro legs, then took out the bottom fuel tanks and the spark engine. This apparently reduced the impact enough the lander rolled a couple times and stopped. Not recommended as a landing option though I've seen worse in a few space movies (like any of the Star Trek movies).

[Foxster]

I don't care much for unrealistic clipping. Stuff like tanks within tanks and that kind of thing. 

On the Kerbals (i.e. disposable meat-based science-experiment-reset modules) issue: I disagree. At best, a stranded Kerbal is useful protein for a follow-up mission.  

Edited December 14, 2016 by Foxster

[Superfluous J]

I never do science in the science lab. 

Also, I never terminate debris in a stable orbit. 

[Red Shirt]

7 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I never terminate debris in a stable orbit.

I probably would leave it if there were any chance of a collision. Actually I only started terminating it because I didn't realize until recently that I can turn off debris visibility in map mode. All the clutter makes selecting a target on the map too big of a pain. Even that would be ok if I could zoom in tighter to select what I intended.

[Slam_Jones]

The game absolutely allows me to bring my Kerbals back from whatever far-flung place they happen to end up.

But I usually don't.

[worir4]

I never let a kerbal leave the Kerbin system without at least two other companions. (Who wants to drift in space forever by them selves, eh?)

[IncongruousGoat]

I  don't let Kerbals die, ever. Neither do I strand them, deliberately or otherwise. Furthermore, I've started trying to make sure I never stick them alone in a cramped pod for any length of time, and that any manned mission I do is done properly-huge mothership with big hab modules, spacious surface hab, so on and so forth. I also don't build planes, but that's only because I have a much firmer grasp of orbital mechanics than I do aerodynamics.

[adsii1970]

I try not to drop Kerbals on their heads AND I do not put them in contraptions of doom guaranteed to kill them... Beleive it or not, I actually NEVER put a craft into play without some sort of escape system, just in case something goes wrong.

[Superfluous J]

6 minutes ago, Red Shirt said:

I probably would leave it if there were any chance of a collision. Actually I only started terminating it because I didn't realize until recently that I can turn off debris visibility in map mode. All the clutter makes selecting a target on the map too big of a pain. Even that would be ok if I could zoom in tighter to select what I intended.

I actually try very hard to never leave debris in a stable orbit which I suppose the game lets me do so it should be on this list

[adsii1970]

2 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I actually try very hard to never leave debris in a stable orbit which I suppose the game lets me do so it should be on this list

I actually do... because I have a whole squad of engineers that I use to "recycle" that space junk. It also gives me a chance to practice my encounter skills...

[Firemetal]

On the topic of killing Kerbals, I don't let Kerbals die or be stranded for too long. However, I do let kerbals go on missions alone. Of course that is going to have to change now with telemetry. When kerbals go out to the outer planets, there is no signal! Someone is going to have to pilot the motherships while the landers land on the surface.

Fire

[Red Shirt]

4 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

just in case something goes wrong

Ha ha, How long have you been playing KSP? Something always goes wrong - eventually, well at least on my missions.

[adsii1970]

Just now, Red Shirt said:

Ha ha, How long have you been playing KSP? Something always goes wrong - eventually, well at least on my missions.

Since 2012; there are some pretty stable craft I have; most of them rarely have accidents now that I know what I am doing. Oh, in that first six weeks, I crashed a many a craft... and when they added deadly reentry, I cooked a baker's dozen until I mastered the building and reentry skills...

Even my orbital space station has escape pods - just in case!

[Red Shirt]

8 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

I have a whole squad of engineers that I use to "recycle" that space junk.

This interests me. What do you do with the parts? I'm assuming using KIS/KAS? I've never got the hang of them.

[Dman979]

Long trips in a Mk. 1 capsule. I've been in the backseat of a car for 12 hours at a time, no need to make my Kerbals suffer for 75 years like that!

2 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Even my orbital space station has escape pods - just in case!

Well, yeah, but what if they go wrong? I had a catastrophic event on one of my stations once- an entire 50 meter Brussels sprouts-beam of escape pods started shaking and ended up destroying the station, and each other. I had sooooo much debris up there, it wasn't even funny.

[razark]

One of my personal requirements is that all crewed vessels must have a pilot onboard.  This includes doing an Apollo-style mission, both vessels must have a pilot.

I can revert to prevent Loss-of-Kerbal events, but I don't.  Lives saved must be done legitimately.  Every vessel should be designed with an LES to prevent Kerbal loss.  (I edit the Sepratron to be available as soon as the decoupler is, just for this purpose.)

Edited December 14, 2016 by razark

[Spacetraindriver]

I'm pretty sure I'm perfectly capable of getting to any planet. But I'm a sucker for looks soooooooo.

[Skavies]

I'll kill kerbals by the dozens, do a quick reload so I can watch it over and over.  Send them out of the system entirely for a half a point of science, cheese any way I can think of, google new ways to cheese it, but I won't use mech jeb.  If it's going to fail miserably, I want to be in control, or not in control depending on what's going wrong...  Anyway, when stuff goes wrong, I want it to be my fault.

 

(cheesing stuff is abusing in game mechanics, not hacks.  I'll make a rover to strip every ounce of science form ksp, or get out and push a capsule with mo more fuel using the kerbals suit RCS.  Things like that.   Abusing game physics/mechanics, not altering the current build with hacks or difficulty changes mid game).

Edited December 14, 2016 by Skavies

[HalcyonSon]

1 hour ago, 5thHorseman said:

Also, I never terminate debris in a stable orbit. 

I will terminate debris in a stable orbit... BUT only after I've proven that I can successfully recover it to Kerbin with a Klaw Return Vessel from that specific body.  So far, that means Kerbin and Mun and anything in between.  Anything headed to Minmus or outside the Kerbin system has to stay there until I successfully bring something back.

Since I try to make first stages nearly 100% recoverable, and the Klaw brings back the debris in one piece, the cost and time investment are negligible.  This helps my game to run more smoothly, as hiding debris in map view doesn't actually remove it from the save.

I won't hack gravity except for testing.

[Leafbaron]

Every flight is a simulation until proven otherwise