Your Biggest Fail in KSP!

[MidwestB]

Hmm, biggest fail, huh? Lots to choose from...

Well, there was never being able to land on the Mun since getting the game back in 0.14. That lasted until .19 was released for some reason.

Time warping into the Mun is also a candidate.

There's also turning off RCS tanks on an upper stage so they don't get used up, then wonder why RCS won't work later when trying to dock and smashing into a station.

I think the biggest fail of mine that comes to mind though, would be the 4th or 5th time launching a probe and not bringing any way for generating electricity. The first or second time may be understandable, but 4th and 5th is just getting ridiculous.

[Execute13]

Oh, too many to think of. The biggest would probably by trying to dock with a station, timewarp up to it... And get stuck inside it. Big explosion as soon as I stopped warp. That same station has exploded on numerous occasions. Damn you, Arbitration Space Station!

Could probably also count running out of fuel while trying to get into a free return trajectory past the Mun and Minmus.

[wolfedg]

Forgetting to deactivate the main engine while docking and then switching out of docking mode to align the capsule. This has happened to me about 4 times now. Miraculously I have yet to crash into the target vessel but have had some VERY close flybys at high speed.

[Navypilot1046]

I spent weeks in between classes putting together an unmanned rover mission to every mun around Jool. I designed a type of rover that was theoretically capable of landing in any gravitational and atmospheric environment. I would dock 6 to a mothership which would fly them all to Jool and release one to each moon, with one spare that I could chuck into Jool for the laughs. I discovered that the first version of the mothership didn't have the delta-V or even a way to refuel. So after an excessive amount of explosions; I managed to lob a second mothership into Kerbin orbit, rendezvous with the first mothership, transfer over the three rovers I had already launched to the first mothership, launch the other three and dock them, and refuel the entire monstrosity. By the time I left Kerbin orbit I was crawling at 4 fps, 6 if I was lucky. I finally got a Jool encounter; time warped to it; quick-saved; warped to periapsis; quick-saved; burned into an elliptical orbit that crossed all the muns' orbits; quicksaved; then I realized that I was orbiting retrograde. Commence with head-on-desk smashing.

[AllenM3]

My biggest failure? I can't tell you how many times I have complete a trip to either one of the moons or another planet, and just as I am returning, I remember I forget the parachutes...

I just did this. Sent 3 kerbals to Gilly and ran out of fuel just as I landed.

Build a rescue ship and sent it there. Spent a **** load of time trying to land close to the stranded kerbals. Loaded everyone up and right before ascent I noticed I forgot the parachutes...

Now I have 2 more rescue ships going to retrieve the first rescue crew and original crew.

Who knew I would have 12 kerbals on Gilly at the same time lmao.

[deathchicken]

For me it's sending Jeb to Jool tried aerobraking went to low and hit Jool then finding out I did not quick-save.

(You can see Jeb's last photo to the left.)

[rodion_herrera]

Well usually the biggest fail you recall is your last one...I've been fooling around with landers on Eve and Gilly--I was stupid enough to think that a manned rover can be applicable on both places. I originally intended it for Gilly, so I wasn't that concerned about it smashing hard into some surface. Well, in true Kerbal fashion, when I tried to let the same stack land on Eve, the moment I decoupled the capsule + rover, I realized that the parachutes on the capsule would force the entire stack to go upside down...so my capsule-with-rover-on top, slowly glided down to Eve...crushing the rover on impact... Jeb was still alive but being roverless, he would die of boredom on Eve

[notsocrazy]

Probably burning for Duna, and leaving my landers forward-facing engine on, didn't realize untill I went into map view after completing the burn and seeing that my AP was only just past Munar orbit.

[Galacticruler]

I forgot the escape decoupler, but had the launch escape tower...

That was "fun"

[DeepSpaceDutch]

Coming home, friday night (or was it saturday morning?), drunk and bend on just watching my newly almost-completed beautifull space station in orbit around Kerbin. I knew I wasn't able at that time to dock the final piece that was parked in a lower orbit, so I just enjoyed watching Worf LKO Station move around Kerbin. Turning the lights on and off, warping to sunset and sunrise...

After 10 minutes, a final cigarette, I was ready for bed, Escape/key, End Flight, OK...sleep...wake up....thinking of KSP, aahh my space station, lets see it before I start my day...

....space station....where are you?

Edited May 27, 2013 by DeepSpaceDutch

[Iren]

Building a ship to Jool and forgetting to deploy the solar panels after the interplanetary burn, thus having a piece of junk on solar orbit instead of an automated station around Laythe XD

[MadBender]

Building a ship to Jool and forgetting to deploy the solar panels after the interplanetary burn, thus having a piece of junk on solar orbit instead of an automated station around Laythe XD

Kerbals can manually deploy solar panels in EVA. Launch a manned mission to rescue that ship (and fail it even worse)

[Ph34rb0t]

Building a ship to Jool and forgetting to deploy the solar panels after the interplanetary burn, thus having a piece of junk on solar orbit instead of an automated station around Laythe XD

"Forgetting about electricity" would rank top three in a list of reasons for huge "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"s.

[MadBender]

"Launching a big multipart interplanetary ship and discovering a major design fail when approaching the target" would be number one then

[NetZer0]

...happened just yesterday. First time I had a good course to Mun. Everything went fine. Then, 100.000 kilometres above ground or so I decided to use time warp. Somehow, shortly before the surface, my PC began to stutter because something was blocking in the background - time warp didn't react anymore. So I crashed into Mun's ground with like 1200 metres / sec or so. Really annoying.

[Aqua667]

After about 20 minutes of warping, apoapsis raising, circularizing, and stuff like that, I finally got an Eve encounter. Lowered my "periaphsis" until my orbit would bring me to the ground. Then I set time warp to 1000x (really bad idea). Crashed so quickly Mechjeb nor KSP could lower the warp when I entered the atmosphere. At least no Kerbals were on-board :/

Oh yeah, and every single freaking time when I forget to deploy solar panels, (especially when the probe is mid-transfer)

[Extemma]

I was just about to start my orbital burn when all of a sudden with random chance, a wild satellite appeared. I ended up losing both a satellite and a munar lander...

[Brabbit1987]

Some of my biggest fails in KSP is staging wrong. Things flying off at the wrong times and such. My fiancee laughs at me every time I fail. I just look at him and am like .. oh oh .. you wanna give it a try then? XD

[warzone2455]

My ship going inside Kerbin and get shot out on the launchpad on escape trajectory of the sun. Without doing anything on the launchpad just having some kerbals filling the spots open on the spacecraft then glitch and reload the game and they're 20,000,000,000 Km away from the sun.

[gmpd2000]

Here's another one by me!

I made a probe in the 0.20 update using the new system, well i started the probe by a structural piece (to test somethings) and i forgot the probe command pod.

uuuuummmm...

[Arkran]

Finally managed a successful orbital rendezvous for the first time ever! Pulled right in with within meters of the docking port on the first piece of what will be my space station. Then as the pieces didnt dock together I went in for a closer look.

I PUT THE DOCK ON THE WRONG WAY 'ROUND!

At least I can take away the experience of my first (would-be) docking.

[Parkaboy]

Well, this may not be my biggest fail on KSP so far, but it's certainly my most spectacular.

There I was, cruising a Mun canyon on my new exploration rover...

...when I decided to use the mini-rover I was carrying to investigate the canyon walls.

So little Manfrid Kerman took the mini-rover and went slowly uphill.

And he found a nice chunk of rock to take a sample from. So far, so good. Notice how high he is.

Now here comes the fail, and it's a shame I don't have screenshots of it, because it happened too fast.

Manfrid was going happily back to the mother-rover, when he realized the little rover was building more speed than its brakes could handle. Basically he overshot the main rover by 800m when finally managed to get the speed under 4m/s, and when he thought it was just a matter of turning around and carefully go back a few hundred meters, the thing flipped on its side.

That's not the fail.

Manfrid sat there, resting its helmeted head on the cold munar regolith, and thought of a solution. The mini-rover had no command module other than the seat, so it couldn't straighten itself on its own. The only way to get it back on its wheels was if Manfrid used his jetpack to bump the rover in the right spot, at the right speeds. The odds of it actually working were very small.

And that wasn't the fail either, because, surprisingly, it actually worked pretty well. The rover rolled a few times on the metaphorical air, but landed incredibly on its wheels, while Manfrid stumble for a few meters.

This was the fail: before getting out of the rover, Manfrid forgot to put the brakes on.

So when the thing got back up, it started slowly rolling down the canyon. Slowly though it was at first, it was still faster than Manfrid could run on the Mun, so the kerbal quickly decided to use his jetpack. But he failed to land on top of the rover the first couple of tries, and by then the thing had picked up quite the speed. Unwilling to quit, Manfrid chased the mini-rover for more than 2 km, reaching speeds of over 18m/s, when he finally managed to land right on top of the seat. The mini-rover shot through the canyon, building more and more speed towards the canyon wall.

And suddenly I learned that Manfrid had to be standing to be able to properly board the seat. I frantically tried to get him to get up without falling from the speeding rover, but it was too late. Manfrid and his rover crashed at the canyon wall at 25m/s, and all that was left was an empty seat bouncing on the cold, grey surface.

R.I.P., Manfrid. Go chase your rover in the afterlife.

[Caelib]

Anyone who has played KSP for a prolonged period has too many choices ... but the most memorable one for me is the time I went to land on Eeloo and realized that my thrusters wouldn't work because I had neglected to open my solar panels before time warping.

[hazarada]

After many hours and variations of vehicle design i managed to make one capable of getting my heavy and totally not aerodynamic rover to the Mün.

All the stages went perfectly and it landed with plenty of fuel to spare... upside down.

Got it right on the next try though

Jebbediah is especially happy to be back

[Whackjob]

Nice rover. Looks like something I want to make eventually. Next time you need to lift a rover, let me know. I'll loan you my heavy lifter.

Well. When it's done being built, anyway.

#EDIT: My biggest fail so far:

Edited June 24, 2013 by Whackjob