Honored to Join the Space Program

[Alexander_Kerbing]

Hi everyone!

I downloaded v0.13 the other day and played it for about a week before I bought the full version. I would have bought the full version earlier, but I figured the Kerbals wouldn't want me to control their space program until I had at least orbited Mun. Well, I accomplished that and promptly bought the game. I've been having a blast using all the new rocket pieces, but I've not made it back to Mun yet. In fact, my mission to Mun is partly why I'm making this post. After much trial and error and the lives of a few Kerbals were lost, I finally got my Mun rocket into orbit. When I decoupled my atmospheric stage, something went terribly wrong and it did some serious damage to the rest of the rocket. A few fuel tanks were destroyed, but that's not the issue. Along with the fuel tanks went all of the thrusters! I've got three Kerbals orbiting Kerbin with no way home now. For this reason, I decided to put the mission to Mun on hold and go about rescuing those brave souls. I figured I would construct a rocket (actually, just a modified version of my first orbiter) to go up and rendezvous with the remains of Mun II, have the Kerbals space walk over to the rescue vessel, then land safely back on Kerbin. I soon found that that would be much more difficult than I had thought. At first I thought I would just be able to add another crew capsule to my rocket, but that can't be done. So my next plan was to just have two of the Kerbals jump out on the landing pad, but that presented more problems. The first was the issue where my Kerbal left the rocket and went splat on the launch pad. Second, even if I figured out how to get the Kerbals safely on the ground, I don't know how to regain control of the rocket while one of my crew is on EVA.

So can anyone provide me with tips on how to rescue the Kerbals before they go insane or starve? I feel terrible that I managed to cause such a problem so soon after joining the Space Program, but I intend to do all that is within my power to fix the situation!

EDIT: Accidentally posted this thread twice. Sorry mods.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Alexander_Kerbing

[Ted]

Hi Alexander and welcome to the forums,

That sounds like an excellent story, if a little intense.

I think what you should do is try and use this Add-on that will allow you to add an empty crew capsule on to your current ship which will then hold your stranded astronauts.

Hope this helps and happy launching!

[sal_vager]

Hi Alexander_Kerbing, welcome to the community and thanks for a fun read

You can change between nearby craft with the [ and ] keys, and you should be able to hit Escape and end the Kerbals "flight" before they hit the ground, or while they are on the ladder if they grab hold in time.

Rendezvous can be pretty hard but a lot of fun, I tend to eyeball it, if you are behind the ship when you are up there, drop to a lower orbit, it'll be faster while a higher orbit will slow you down.

There's a nifty crew tank around here somewhere that you can use for rescues, ahh here it is.

Good luck Alexander_Kerbing

Dangit, pipped to the post.

[mustwinfull]

Welcome to the forums Alexander_Kerbing.

Well Done on orbiting the Mun, keep on going and you will land on it as well.

There is a mod/plugin for empty crew pods somewhere, that Ted game you kindly.

Good luck on rescuing your crew and keep on shooting for the Mun.

Have fun playing KSP and go blow up some rockets!

[Vanamonde]

To free up seats on the ship, have a Kerbal go EVA, then click to "end flight" him while he's hanging onto the built-in ladder rungs on the capsule, then "return to space center." That rocket will still be sitting on the pad, with an empty seat, formerly occupied by the guy who did not fall to his death. You can then return to that rocket either by clicking on the launchpad from the main space center picture, or through the tracking station. Repeat these steps to free up a second seat.

Kerbals never starve or go insane. They can hang around in marooned capsules for years or decades, so there's no hurry.

How did the booster hit the upper stage? Did you eject it while the engines were still running, or did the upper stage tumble?

[Alexander_Kerbing]

Kerbals never starve or go insane. They can hang around in marooned capsules for years or decades, so there's no hurry.

How did the booster hit the upper stage? Did you eject it while the engines were still running, or did the upper stage tumble?

I know my Kerbals will be fine, I just wanted to make an interesting post to read. I don't know what happened. It wasn't boosters I was ejecting. It was two of the tall fat tanks and the bigass thruster that fits on the bottom (sorry, I don't know the names). They were connected to thruster on the stage above with one of the powerful decoupler devices. I've never used that before, so I was just seeing what it did. That may have caused the damage...

Thanks for the links to the mods! I used the one Ted posted because I had found the one Sal posted, but I didn't know if it would work in 0.17. My Kerbals should be home soon!

[Alexander_Kerbing]

So after getting my rescue ship in orbit, I came within 650m of my stranded crew. I had one of the stranded crew ready to go on EVA and rendezvous with the rescue ship, but it never got any closer than 600m. I didn't think I'd be able to actually make it, so I put the Kerbal in back in the cockpit. While trying to get closer, I made the rescue ship's plane shift a bit from the target so I gave up as it took me quite a while just to get as close as I did.

I went back and looked at my Mun rocket to see what was wrong, and I think I discovered it. Some of the parts were clipping into each other so I think they collided when I dropped the stage. Fixed that and launched again. This time I was much more successful! I discovered another problem while on my flight to the Mun; a fuel tank on my lander was blocking the door. That meant no EVA, my Kerbals were sad . I decided to land anyway just to get a taste of that. My lander lacked any RCS system so I think it was a little more difficult to land than it should have been. I just had two of the smaller thrusters that can vector on my lander. Lacking finesse, I managed to set my lander down while only destroying some of the fuel tanks and both thrusters. Also, I ended up sideways instead of on the landing gears. Oops. Anyway, with the fuel tanks destroyed my Kerbals are enjoying low-gravity strolls on the Mun until rescue arrives(if it ever does...)!