Ever heard of life hacks? (KSP related)

[Draconiator]

I.E. putting baking soda in your fridge?  What about PartHacks!  KSP stock parts used in a way you'd never expect, but it REALLY makes things easier, no matter what you're doing.  Unfortunately I don't know of any offhand....lets see some!

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

Separatons for de-orbiting launch vehicles. They also work great for de-orbiting crew return capsules.

[Urses]

Or other Way as Satellite last Stage for go to sunar orbit. 

Roverwheels as landinggear for a plane. Fly Land rove around. (Best for surface contracts)

RCS as main engine for a Lander  (Mono for Minmuslike, Vernons for Münlike)

Vernons as a afterburner for a rover, Wheels are to weak? Go Vernon

Funny Kabooms

Urses

[Firemetal]

Want to land on the Mun? Point towards the surface and full throttle.

Edit: Oh yes... Parthacks... ok...

Not enough TWR? Add 15 more vectors.

Edited April 1, 2017 by Firemetal

[Tex]

I like to use the Mk-1 Lander Can rather than the Mk-1 Command Pod because it's lighter, and often it's not as weak as you'd expect a lander can to be, so it can re-enter just fine.

[jros83]

Did you "accidentally" kick a Kerbin out 10s of thousands of meters in Kerbin's atmosphere?

Turn on their pack (RCS control, I am sure everyone knows that), and give continual upward thrust.

Live.

Edited April 2, 2017 by jros83

[kBob]

I've been know to stick a few extra useless parts on landers so if they come in a bit hard they will explode and act as a buffer preserving the pod.  I don't do this so much now unless I'm trying something a bit dicey, but it used to be very handy (before heat shields I'd use decouplers, now if I do it would be like a few heat shields with ablator removed...and this is mostly in early career).

[jros83]

  On 4/2/2017 at 4:29 AM, kBob said:

I've been know to stick a few extra useless parts on landers so if they come in a bit hard they will explode and act as a buffer preserving the pod.  I don't do this so much now unless I'm trying something a bit dicey, but it used to be very handy (before heat shields I'd use decouplers, now if I do it would be like a few heat shields with ablator removed...and this is mostly in early career).

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Very Kerbaly. I approve.

[MinimalMinmus]

Wanna create a conventional rocket SSTO? Use mammoths.

[horace]

I tried in demo version of ksp   change thrust very high and ratio very low and make it high isp 

I usually hack parts and use hacked parts as mods

 

[Gargamel]

Jeb.

 

 

 

Jeb is a life hack on his own. 

[Snark]

Using Communotron-16 antennas as small, low-tech, lightweight landing legs.

[Red Shirt]

  On 4/2/2017 at 4:23 AM, jros83 said:

Did you "accidentally" kick a Kerbin out 10s of thousands of meters in Kerbin's atmosphere?

Turn on their pack (RCS control, I am sure everyone knows that), and give continual upward thrust.

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This is a thing? I thought I just got lucky!

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

  On 4/2/2017 at 3:04 PM, MinimalMinmus said:

Wanna create a conventional rocket SSTO? Use mammoths.

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A Skipper works for this, too (albeit for smaller payloads.) Twin-boar is also great for this.

[Reusables]

1. Elevons are, basically, airbrakes with decent heat tolerance. They provides sufficient drag when deployed on reentry.

2. 1.25m docking port is a cheap decoupler for low-stress environment. It has the same mass as 1.25m decoupler while being 120 cheaper. Great to use on orbit.

3. If you have a station with the big refinery, it's cheaper to launch ore.

Edited April 3, 2017 by Reusables
Added some more.

[DoctorDavinci]

  On 4/2/2017 at 4:23 AM, jros83 said:

Did you "accidentally" kick a Kerbin out 10s of thousands of meters in Kerbin's atmosphere?

Turn on their pack (RCS control, I am sure everyone knows that), and give continual upward thrust.

Live.

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You can also head butt a planet to survive if it happens to not have a thick atmosphere 

 

[Blaarkies]

MK3 tail ramp works as a nosecone if you flip it around. Obviously only for big MK3 planes, but it is very heat resistent

[Boganaut]

  On 4/2/2017 at 11:03 PM, Snark said:

Using Communotron-16 antennas as small, low-tech, lightweight landing legs.

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Love it! Will try it for my next unmanned landing on a moon....

I've used extending solar panels to try and tip rockets back up the right way if toppled over (they are surprisingly strong!), and in a similar manner, I've used them to keep a small probe upright on Gilly (not designed as a lander, so no legs to speak of). Sometimes I use legs to re-orient rovers, but I feel that hardly counts as a hack - they're practically designed for it!

Jeb keeps talking about using Bill as a heat shield :-/

[Snark]

  On 4/3/2017 at 4:10 AM, Blaarkies said:

MK3 tail ramp works as a nosecone if you flip it around. Obviously only for big MK3 planes, but it is very heat resistent

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Or as really big airbrakes.