Totally gamey discoveries

[farmerben]

I've made at least two totally gamey discoveries recently.  

1) Kerbals can splashdown safely using only their jetpacks.  So I was deorbiting a vessel of some kind in career mode, when I realized my vessel had no parachutes or other provision for landing, it did manage to aerobrake to a reasonable speed. OK no problem, I'll go EVA and the kerbonaut will land on his personal parachute.   Oh crap, he doesn't have one, must be a rookie.  Using the jetpack he managed to hit the water at just under 50m/s and survived.   

 

2) Aerospike engines can fire safely through large numbers of toroidal fuel tanks and tiny decouplers.  Many players have probably tried putting toroidal fuel tanks and decouplers below their spark engines, nothing gamey about that.  Well I decided to try it with the Aerospike and it worked.  It worked too well.  I've added dozens of extra stages of fuel tanks that pop off the bottom when depleted. I've never caused an explosion through overheating.  Aerodynamic instability... and even wobblieness in vacuum eventually becomes a problem, but autostrut goes a long way toward fixing it.  The exhaust flames are definitely bigger than the hole through which they go, but it seems 100% efficient, not like what normally happens when some part of the craft is below an engine.  

[Aeroboi]

@farmerben Never tried using a aerospike like that. The funny thing is, it makes sense (apart from the exhaust not melting the toroidal tanks)

A aerospike exhaust is expelled in a line like a funnel, call it a spike while bell shaped engines expel the exhaust conically out the back. So the aerospike exhaust fits through the opening of the toroidal tanks. This can't be coincidental, this is a Squad joke and a good one.

This will probably bring up some very creative designs, albeit unrealistic ones

[farmerben]

Edited October 5, 2018 by farmerben

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Most small engines can do the same, I do this all the time on my smaller landers.

Kerbals used to be able to fall from orbit and live if they landed on their helmets! Lol.