Do you have any abandoned ships?

[Dizzle]

Saw that I had one and thought some of you guys would have interesting stories. Basically, do you have any instances of not just debris, but entire abandoned ships?

The inspiration is the lander of an Apollo-style mission in my new game. It was my first time trying such a thing and the orbiter was running on fumes. When the lander docked with it, I had no choice but to transfer all of its fuel into the orbiter. In order to lose weight, I decided to just leave the lander behind in a 66km munar orbit. This turned out to be a good call, since even then the crew just barely made it back. Now the lander just sits up there, and it's kind of creepy. I like creepy, so there it will stay.

[joppiesaus]

I... had *snip*... 0.21...

Anyways,

I had one space station that didn't had it's solar panels unfolded, it is a really creepy thing in a weird orbit arround the Mün. I kept it.

[Darndello]

In my last save file I had an empty 22 crew cruiser on Jool orbit. The crew abandoned it when out ran out of fuel. They got picked by another ship.

[FenrirWolf]

In my .20 save, the ship I sent to Moho barely had enough fuel to slow down. I got as much of the interplanetary transfer stage as I could, then transfered the remaining fuel to the lander ship and undocked it. The lander was just barely able to make an elliptical orbit before running out of fuel. So there was Bill trapped around Moho while a big piece of space junk was orbiting around the Sun too.

Never did get to rescue him before the update made me abandon that save.

[Guest]

Before 0.21, I had one wrecked lander on the Mun that was left abandoned after the crew were rescued. With a new build comes new opportunities for derelicts.

[stallion x1]

I have sent a kerbel through my mass acelorator which had 200 mainsail engines in it as thrust and shot him out at ~300,000,000 metres per second......

[AmpsterMan]

Tons of debris strewn around Mun mainly from failed landing attempts. No dead Kerbals since 0.18 though

[Sapphire]

Before 0.21, I had a space station in Munar orbit. In the final days before 0.21, I brought the Kerbals home, but left the station, so it floated around abandoned for almost a week before 0.21 dropped.

[Themohawkninja]

I have some rovers on the Mun, but that's it at the current moment.

[acealeam]

Before I had a ship without enough deltav in an orbit around the sun. I mannaged to land them on another duna and send a rescue crew. Their lander is still there.

[Levelord]

I've built an entirely probe operated space station around Mun orbit. It's not derelict, but it does have crew quarters ready to accept crew.

But I'm guessing my Kerbals don't entirely trust it yet...

[Guest Aaack]

The last rover I sent to the Mün (yesterday) was extremely light, so much that the lander that brought it to the Mün's base ended with the fuel tanks almost full.

So I shoot it full speed out and put it in an orbit between Kerbin and Duna, my hope is to catch Duna's gravity field in some moment in the future and go away from the solar system... without any fuel and a RTS that will make it live almost forever...alone in the dark silence.

May be it will return as V'ger, who knows

[Galahir950]

Bill is trapped in Capella 4, originally meant for the moon but I overshot it, it is now orbiting the sun.

[MrIronMoose]

Before 0.21 I had several airplane wrecks scattered around Kerbin (mostly modified Firespitter K-17's). There were two perfectly useable ones I was going to salvage and keep as trophies. First was "Bigfoot," a utility K-17 that ran out of fuel and was landed intact in a valley. Second was the "Yeti," a Firespitter/B-9 cargo plane, that flew gift baskets to my polar base and was abandoned there.

I also had most of a "Mun Donkey" ship and a "K-17 I" abandoned on the moon and a "K-17 I" on Eve.

Then the great .21 solar flare destroyed all exposed vessels.

In the post .21 Kerbal Space Program, Bill's "Dogolpon" spaceplane crash landed on a beach during initial testing, and is now a high class hotel/fuel depot

[Scotius]

Before 0.21 i had abandoned lander on the Mun. It lost one of three engines during botched landing. So i've rescued the crew, and left derelict hull as a memento and memorial of sorts. And it still had more than half fuel left, KAS connectors and intact capsule - so in a pinch it could serve as an emergency outpost.

[Tw1]

I had an awful lot in 0.19... Mostly things from my first Munar attempts, that ended up in Kerbol orbit. Lots of dead landers across the surface, including the one that made my first landing.

I did leave my first Duna rover behind, though. And the original module for returning my first Moho mission, which was orbiting the opposite way to the capsule it was supposed to recover...

[Geschosskopf]

My 1st Mun lander was really cool. It could tip itself over, rove around on wheels on pivoting arms supplied by Damned Robotics, then stand back up and fly away. But it had a fatal flaw; it lacked the fuel to return so was stuck in a highly inclined, retrograde orbit. And it didn't have a docking port. So I sent a tanker equipped with KAS out to rendezvous with and refuel it, but due to operator error KAS became nonfunctional so there was nothing for it but to EVA the crew into the tanker and abandon the lander. The lander remained in Munar orbit, a constant reminder to always have enough fuel, until the Great Supernova of '21 fried it and everything else.

[Jarin]

I launched an unmanned test rocket, seeing what I could do with massed nuclear engines. Just forgot one little detail... remote control units require battery power. Mine died just after I started my circularization burn... and since I couldn't turn the engines OFF, it quickly became a planetary escape burn. Dang thing ended up on an elliptical solar orbit that nearly reached Jool by the time it ran out of fuel.

[Wheffle]

Same exact situation as the OP, except I had planned to leave the lander after it was used. I probably could have tugged it back to Kerbin, but it would have taken longer with the extra weight. It's empty now and orbiting the Mun. I was thinking it can just chill there and serve as an orbit-to-surface bus at the Mun, as long as subsequent landing missions bring enough fuel to gas it up.

[AfailingHORSE]

The closest thing abandonment was a station that I was sending to Moho. However, a launch incident forced me to stage earlier then I wanted causing me to run out of fuel way early. But I re-purposed it to be a Kerbol orbital station that may or may not one day hit Eve or Moho.

[Kerbonautical]

I seem to have an odd pattern developing since restarting my save file. Whenever I reach a destination and notice my fuel might not be sufficient for the mission I turn the ship round and take it back to orbit in Kerbin. Problem is most of my missions involve taking and leaving a new space station at the destination so when I send the Kerbals home I end up with an abandoned space station floating around. I really need to take a few spare engines and fuel tanks up to de-orbit them sooner or later since it's already beginning to get clogged in lower orbit.

Other than that recent habit I usually keep everything manned and try to have an escape plan for every situation. Haven't gone to another planet with that much thought yet though.

[Decho]

On an old save I had a lander and rover on Minmus, had already been to the mun, thought I'd give it a go, lander didn't have quite enough juice left (forgot to refill). I RV's the Kerbals back with the command module using the backpacks though, so it was left abandoned.

[Galahir950]

I seem to have an odd pattern developing since restarting my save file. Whenever I reach a destination and notice my fuel might not be sufficient for the mission I turn the ship round and take it back to orbit in Kerbin. Problem is most of my missions involve taking and leaving a new space station at the destination so when I send the Kerbals home I end up with an abandoned space station floating around. I really need to take a few spare engines and fuel tanks up to de-orbit them sooner or later since it's already beginning to get clogged in lower orbit.

Other than that recent habit I usually keep everything manned and try to have an escape plan for every situation. Haven't gone to another planet with that much thought yet though.

Take a structural tank with a bunch of micro solid boosters and use it as a missile to attack the debris and stations.

[Rainbow-Dashie]

At first I had an abandoned space station, the 3 man crew bailed when a kerbal on EVA jetpacked into the only solar panel... So that was floating around Kerbin for awhile...

Later I sent up a 20 man 'Colony ship" which by some great chance, collided with the derelict space station, crew bailed out.... so now there is a debris field of space station bits... and two halves of the colony ship floating around kerbin....

[Godot]

Abandoned ships ...

if abandoned landers count, then yes ...

I use a coupled Lander+Spaceship combo ...

getting crew into the lander, uncoupling, doing landing mission,

after start, rendezvous with Spaceship again, to transfer the crew.

The now empty lander then is left in orbit around the planet/moon to stay there for eternity,

while the spaceship with the crew travels back to Kerbin.

Had a few of them in orbit around Testsite #2 (usually called Mun by the ordinary people)