Controls not working

[IMonocleMan]

So I was playing career mode with my level 2 pilot and on my war returning from Minmus, I entirely lost control over my spacecraft. It was worse than not having SAS active as I literally could not control my spacecraft. I've made about 83 quicksaves because I want to try it again without blowing up. Please help :/

[Snark]

Hello, and welcome to the forums!

Moving to Gameplay Questions.

On 10/15/2021 at 6:10 PM, IMonocleMan said:

So I was playing career mode with my level 2 pilot and on my war returning from Minmus, I entirely lost control over my spacecraft. It was worse than not having SAS active as I literally could not control my spacecraft. I've made about 83 quicksaves because I want to try it again without blowing up. Please help

Is it possible your ship ran out of electrical power?  What sort of batteries and/or solar panels do you have?

Are you running any mods that might conceivably affect controllability?

[Vanamonde]

I'm sorry I overlooked this question until now, but yes, I suspect the craft is out of power, as Snark says. If you don't have solar panels you might not be able to get control back. However, if the craft is already on a path to enter Kerbin atmo you may be able to save it.  Eject the other stages and the capsule should orient itself properly and be able to deploy parachutes during re-entry. 

[king of nowhere]

alternatively, it is possible your pilot is not in a control module. There are some crew modules, like the hitchhicker container and the lab, that have no control of the ship. you can put crew in those, but the ship will still be without control.

if that's what happened, just transfer your pilot to a proper command module will give you control back

[Entropian]

Likely not the problem, but you may want to check your trim.  (lower left pitch, yaw, and roll sliders).  You can change it by pressing ALT-(movement key).  Resetting them back to the middle of the sliders stops trim movement.

[Zhetaan]

On 10/15/2021 at 6:10 PM, IMonocleMan said:

It was worse than not having SAS active as I literally could not control my spacecraft. [...] Please help

As others have said, loss of power is the likely culprit here.  Assuming that that is the problem, here are some solutions:

1. If you have solar panels, then turn the spacecraft to face the sun.  This may require you to get out on an EVA and nudge the vessel with your suit jets.  You don't need a lot; you just need to get it moving so that a panel eventually rotates to face the sun.   Don't push the panels themselves; you'll break them.  Just nudge the nose of the rocket a bit. This happens sometimes with the deployable panels when their rotational axis ends up pointing at the sun; they can't get power because that's the direction that they cannot turn to face.  It's preventable by having panels that are not 180° from one another (I like to use either 3-symmetry, or if I don't need that much power, having two panels at 90° from one another).  Be certain that nothing is on and drawing the power; you may want to use stability assist to keep your vessel facing the sun, but turn off any lights or other power-draining modules.
2. If you are using the right rocket engine (a Swivel or Reliant, for example) then you have an 'alternator' installed that generates electricity while the engine is running.  It would not take much, but of course you will need to make a course correction afterwards.  The best part is that in the stock game, you don't need electricity to start the main engines.
3. If you have the right trajectory, then you may need to do nothing at all.  Once you are on a re-entry trajectory, you don't need to worry about power.  You may need to use the engine to brake a bit, but you can do that once you're committed to the atmosphere.  To get on that trajectory, you may need to get out and push (which is possible with your suit jets, albeit slow), but it is doable.  Hopefully, you designed your rocket so that its aerodynamics orient you correctly on atmospheric insertion.  If you need the electricity to keep your heat shield pointed in the right direction ... well, let's hope that you don't need that.

Good luck!