You ever have one of those son of a bunny moments??

[Rhomphaia]

Built a Rover/Lander combo for my first Mun mission. Used an octagonal strut between the rovers docking port and probe core. not a problem for the mun mission since they started docked, but when I tried to attach a new rover to the same lander for a Minmus mission I learned of the problem.

Redesigned my Rover to not use octagonal struts attached it to my lander and set off for Minmus. New rover was taller than the landers legs...

After several failed attempts I managed to get the rover an lander down safely and set off back to Kerbin to pick up a new design of rover and set off on a misison to Ike. New rover had a clipped Cubic Octagonal strut between the probe and docking port.

[Guest]

First successful orbital flight (0.18.2), I discovered that I'd forgotten to install parachutes on the capsule. The hard way.

[llamatoes]

Forgot to re-stage mainsail and launch clamps, my side asparagused tanks flew off, while my clamped main one just sat and looked sheepish.

[cesium133]

On my first kerballed mission to Minmus, I landed and sent Jebediah out on EVA. After climbing a mountain and then returning to the ship, he was almost out of jetpack fuel, at which point I realized I had neglected to include a ladder on the ship. So, after several failed attempts to get him into the capsule, he was completely out of jetpack fuel. I decided to send a rescue mission to pick him up. When the rescue mission arrived, Jeb's ship was still there, but Jeb was nowhere to be found. Only afterwards did I realize I had stupidly clicked "End Flight" instead of "Space Center", thus condemning poor Jeb to non-existence.

[Fried]

built a new eeloo ship with a cluster of 4 lv9s with one in the center and three on the outside. Spent hours getting the lifter to work only to find, upon separation, the farings on the center lv9 destroyed 2 of the other one. It left me spinning just making a reentry, sadly the parachutes ripped it apart. Not my day.

[That guy who builds stuff]

Maybe the RTG's in KSP would be better balanced if they produced less and less electricity over a very long period of time (months and years) like in real life. Hmm...

I thought it did.

Isn't that what the efficiency value is?

[Ringer]

Batteries. For reference, most of my space stations built in lowish Kerbin orbit, which also have lights to power, use up about 800 ElectricCharge at night. On the Mun, the time you spend in darkness should be much less, although you may be eclipsed by Kerbin for longer periods. Still, 8 batteries don't weigh much. Use the smaller ones; they have a much better charge/mass ratio, and they light up!

It'd be cool to keep one battery pack as a reserve; disable its flow at launch, and if your electricity runs out, you can choose when to flip it back on. However you aren't able to do ANYTHING once your probe core loses electric flow, so no cigar.

Of course, you could always get into a stable orbit to make sure an eclipse isn't about to happen before you try landing.

[ThatBum]

Just had this kind of moment. Spent all the trouble getting a rover to Duna, and once it landed I realized I forgot to put the batteries back on it from when I took them off during the design of the delivery system. So now I have an RTG powered rover that can move for about 20 feet a time before the internal OCTO battery dies.

[eskimo]

Several, in the space of two missions:

First one

Rescue mission from the mun

Went off without a hitch when suddenly:

Edited April 29, 2013 by eskimo
Images.

[Ringer]

I built a kethane-detecting, -mining and -converting ship with loads of fuel capacity, five nuclear engines, and one lucky pilot. Its capabilities allowed it to travel, land, and perform EVA's, without assistance from other vessels, to Mun, Minmus, Duna, Ike, Dres, Pol, and Bop. I might have been able to land on every single solid body in the system.

Then I went to Tylo.

We shouldn't have gone to Tylo.

[Dr. Muttonstache]

Words need not to describe these

Except this one maybe, where i've gotten to the point I crash things into the SPH

Edited April 30, 2013 by Dr. Muttonstache

[Guest]

Youch!! And I felt bad about snuffing three Kerbals last night by bone-headedly jettisoning some SRB's early...

[Spatzimaus]

Still, 8 batteries don't weigh much. Use the smaller ones; they have a much better charge/mass ratio, and they light up!

Exactly. Batteries are really light. For small probes using ion engines, slap on a dozen of the small radial batteries, or a smaller number of the new bigger ones. For large vessels (like stations) that don't use ions, stick a few of the stack batteries on it somewhere just to provide enough power for the lights, unmanned control node, and so on. On my mapping satellites, I've given them enough battery power to maintain a Kethane scanner whenever the probe travels behind the planet, which is a huge plus.

Now, I've still occasionally run into power outages in specific situations, like when my Grand Tour ship (propelled by a set of twelve hybrid-ion engines) was trying to leave Laythe orbit and was suddenly eclipsed by Jool. But that's why the ship had a backup rocket engine set; they kept it from running into anything long enough to come out of eclipse and continue the journey.