On the Ethics of One-Way Landing Missions ...

[LameLefty]

... Or, I Really Take This Game Too Seriously Sometimes

So I'm sending out my first crewed orbital missions to other planets at this point in my Career save. I'm taking my time, not spamming every last point out of every transmission and what not. I've unlocked 2.5m components, the Skipper but not yet the Mainsail, docking clamps and junior sized clamps ... In other words, I'm well enough along in the Tech Tree but not fully finished. I've sent a probe to flyby Moho, got one on the way to Eeloo but it'll be a year or so, game time, before it gets there. Sent one probe that made a distant flyby of Jool with another one (better aimed and with more dV!) that should orbit.

I sent out my first crewed flight to Eve since I had a window coming up quickly and I seriously considered equipping it with chutes and planetary science instruments like the seismometer and barometer and just landing it. Of course I have no hope of getting those guys back soon, if at all. I have never even tried to do so in Career, let alone in a limited-parts context like this. But I kept thinking of those great EVA reports, crew reports, etc. Even with transmission losses, it would be a lot of Science!â„¢ In the end, I just couldn't do it. I launched a lander probe, docked it to the nose of my orbital ship and sent the combined stack off to Eve instead. I'm doing the same thing for Duna. I know this is a completely fictional game with little green guys as stand-ins for people, but I really hate the idea of stranding them in the game.

I can't decide if this makes me a good person, a lousy KSP player, or just someone who over-anthropomorphizes too much.

[Dynamo]

I think you made the right decision. Immersion is part of the experience, and if you just land to 'get the points' and 'win the game' while displeasing yourself for being a murderer, then you aren't enjoying the game - you're a slave to its mechanics. Half the fun in KSP, i've found, is finding the way to accomplish missions at your pace and style, engineering a mission to fufill lofty goals and daunting challenges. Therefore, you should follow what gets you the best results in your mind, and get a fufilling experience with the program.

Plus, the game encourages survivability, as you can transmit back EVA reports for 1/2 the science, but if you bring the Kerbal (and the capsule, of course) back alive, you get all of the science. That mechanic was created to penalize the 'one-way landers,' and encourage creativity to make round trip missions.

But for those of you that believe Kerbals come plopping out of your cloning vats faster than Jeb can say "SRB!," there's a certain light humor value in stranding your Kerbals *cough* Danny2462 *cough*, so i won't say it's flat out wrong to do the one-way trip.

[goldenpeach]

Don't worry: in career mode,once I made my lunar craft, I stick a probe on it,removed the kerbal and sent the unmanned mission to see if it was working.

I was sure it was because I have made a similar craft in sandbox mode(before 0.22) put I wanted to be sure.

[SkyRender]

If it makes you feel any better, they appear to be metabolically inert (ie. they need nothing to keep themselves alive). So at worst you condemn them to an eternal life of relative solitude on the surface of an alien world.

...Actually, that's almost worse than dooming them to a slow death by asphyxiation on an alien world. Nevermind.

[RogueMason]

My first interplanetary missions took place in 0.17, so they all had to be manned. I hardly had the knowledge to reach Duna and Eve, so return trips from the surfaces of any planet were, for a time, out of the question. Besides, I wanted to set foot on these strange new worlds. My first mission to Duna ended up with me having to ditch the landing stage because I/the Kerbal engineers forgot to strap parachutes to it. Only the capsule reached the surface of the red planet, stranding the pilot. Of course, I couldn't just leave him there, so I zapped him back with the controversial 'End Flight' button on Jeb's desk.

That's what I would do; pretend the end flight button was a teleporter. Until I had the knowledge to return my Kerbals from the surfaces of the other planet's, it would have to make do. Eventually, of course, I seriously looked into return technologies. I've wound up with the whole mothership ordeal (big orbital ship, smaller lander) and it works very well provided you are willing to send refuelling ships out to the furthest planets. No more manned one-way landings for me, unless it's a base... or a crash...

[Godot]

I also don´t put my Kerbals into unnecessary risks and totally avoid manned one way missions.

Which is why so far only probes have set a foot (or wheel) on Eves surface.

Also my lifters (those who put spacecraft into Kerbin orbit) are most of the tims first tested with an unmanned assembly that has the same weight as the intended payload

and my return modules (which return to kerbin) as well as my landers are first tested with short hops at the launchpad (usually with the landers getting equipped with stronger engines than intended so that a TWR > 1 for Kerbin can be reached) ... and only afterwards are cleared for regular service.

[Thogapotomus]

I do everything I can to ensure my Kerbals' safety. I don't like one way trips, but I make exceptions for bases because it'd be too much hassle to rotate the crew. I don't consider a stranded ship a base either

You could make the argument however, that they wanted to go so badly they were willing to die there. I know there are plenty of humans that would be willing to live out their life on another world.

[Brofessional]

Eventually there's going to be penalties for losing your crew, so it's not a good habit to get into.

[RuBisCO]

One way missions are called "Colonies"> end of story

[Kromey]

It's one of the 5 guiding principles of Kromey Kaerospace that no Kerbal is to ever be sent somewhere that he can't be readily returned from, right after "Failure is always an option" (which is elaborated to mean that mission failure is always preferable to endangering Kerbals' lives) and a mandate that all manned launches include an LES (something that's actually been missing so far because I simple lack the unlocked tech to implement one). (The other two simply mandate clear mission objectives and profiles before launch, and prohibit the dumping of nuclear material onto any inhabited world.)

There's a million and one ways to play KSP; despite the apparent separation between "sandbox" and "career" modes, the entire game in either mode is, ultimately, a sandbox game, where you set your own rules and your own goals and play the game the way you want to play it. Some refuse to play without FAR and Deadly Reentry; some refuse to use MJ while others won't play without it; some insist on a pure vanilla game, while others have more mod parts than can be counted in a single byte (that's more than 255, by the way).

Personally, I take great pride in Kromey Kaerospace's safety record (even though, owing to sheer lack of time, I've only flown 3 missions so far), and have even gone into my persistence file to disable re-spawning should I happen to lose any of my kerbonauts. I would never send a manned lander to Eve if I didn't know they could return to orbit and (transfer window permitting) then Kerbin within minutes of touching down.

Anyway, all of this is to say: Go for it. Play the game the way you want to play it. If stranding Kerbals on Eve's surface or casually exploding them just for the heck of it is fun for you, then by all means do it (and then please upload the YouTube videos so that rest of us can enjoy your hijinks!). If, on the other hand, you can't stand the loss of even a single Kerbal, then certainly ensure their safety and their ability to always return from whatever mission you send them on.

Note: Kromey Kaerospace reserves the right to amend its principles for the purposes of establishing indefinite-duration colonization of extra-Kerbin worlds; guidelines to ensure the safety and health of all kolonists will be drafted before any such mission is undertaken.

[AGTMADCAT]

I have yet to lose a kerbal in my latest career - Most of my ships are unmanned, although I did take a risk with my first mission to an Even orbit being a manned one. Three crew, a big ship, and a safe return to Kerbin with no fuel left after the transfer burn out of Eve, and then two more transfer burns because I don't know how to interplanetary. Ended up tweaking my Kerbin approach using RCS, which thankfully I had plenty of! I've counted that as a rescue on my Eve badge, because I was pretty convinced that they were all goners!

But anyway, I also do all my testing using probes, and only once I understand a planet reasonably well do I risk sending Kerbals to give me reports.

[TheBladeRoden]

Someday I'll rescue Jeb from Eve, someday

[Galacticruler]

Have you ever seen Apollo 18?

I know I'll never leave a kerbal stranded.(If I can ever get off kerbin...)

[Sof]

I always try and devise a way for a return trip.

However, many missions do tend to turn into colony founding trips by accident.

[[email protected]]

In my first sandbox save I've lost well over 180 Kerbals according to mission control, if you include all the crashing-then reverting to save that I've done I'm sure its probably six times that. I spent the time in that sandbox learning pretty much everything on my own-without watching youtube or surfing the forums for help. There were several times that I had so many scrapheaps in orbit around Kerbin I had to delete them in order to even see to set up manuever nodes. I also play with persistent debris and I've had a couple of collisions in orbit (from rogue satellites or spent stages) while docking with my transfer station. Even then I didn't plan on any missions being 1 way trips...well except that landing on Jool, but other than that I always PLANNED to bring my guys home...even if when they did all the parachutes ripped off and they slammed into the surface at 400 M/S.

[Leatherneck]

Personally, I enjoy the added challenge to keep them alive, so I too take my Kerbal's safety into consideration. For example, just about an hour ago, I sent a rescue ship piloted by a probe core to Mün to save Jebediah. I spent too much fuel landing his ship that otherwise should have had just enough fuel for a return trip, so I sent a second that saved him. Jeb is now in the lounge playing pool and telling his favorite, "This one time, Mission Control..." stories.

Next trip, Minmus. Bob is packing a deck of cards just in case.

[Payload]

Is it wrong that I turn grey shirt kerbals into Kethane reserves? Where is the mod that gives them red shirts?

[Felsmak]

I never strand Kerbals anywhere without proper housing and a neat looking way to get home. That's why manned missions anywhere beyond Kerbin are such a huge challenge for me.

[CalculusWarrior]

Is it wrong that I turn grey shirt kerbals into Kethane reserves? Where is the mod that gives them red shirts?

The mod you're thinking of is Universe Replacer; I don't have the expertise required to teach you how to edit their suits, but there are plenty of resources available on the thread.

As for kerbal safety, ever since discovering Sepatrons on the tech tree every single manned mission of mine has had an escape tower. When I get to the point of launching interplanetary missions again, I will not send a single kerbal up until the ship is complete, then launch a safety-tested crew vehicle with appropriate safety measures.

If something ever goes wrong on a mission, I will often quickload, but in cases where that is impossible/the screw up was too hilarious and I want to try getting all kerbals home safely, I will do everything in my power to save them.

[boomerdog2000]

I refuse to lose any kerbal that I have the power to save through quickloads. If they are going on a one-way trip it is because the return vehicle is right behind them.

[Xyd]

I can't decide if this makes me a good person, a lousy KSP player, or just someone who over-anthropomorphizes too much.

Don't be daft! Nothing wrong with being careful with your Kerbals.

Sooner or later there will probably be some sort of punishment system in place for needlessly killing Kerbals, so might as well get into the habit of not sending them to their deaths so easily.

Regardless, ever since I played KSP, even in Sandbox I'm extra careful not to put any Kerbals in unnecessary risks. I tend to test everything remotely first before I resort to using a Kerbal, and I always tend to build an escape tower of some sort. As someone else already stated; it adds to the immersion.

Also, as a result of doing the above, if you ever do suffer a catastrophic accident and a Kerbal/Kerbals die as a result, the impact of that death is more pronounced.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Xyd

[[email protected]]

Now in stark contrast to my sandbox game I haven't lost anyone in career mode, although Bob did have to get out and push to get his aero-braking capture on return to Kerbin.

[Sig]

I think this is one of the great parts of this game, at least in its current form; you play by your own ruleset. You devise your own missions/quests. You define what is and is not good for your own space program.

[RocketPilot573]

Back in .17, return missions from planets were ah... a bit hard... Remember, there was no docking! No, you could not leave the giant fuel tanks in orbit and land with a tiny lander. Instead, you had to bring ALL the fuel down to the surface, and back to space again! By the way, there was none of those fancy "maneuver nodes", and ESPECIALLY no "closest approach" and "ascending/descending node" markers! We had to eyeball EVERYTHING!

I had a policy of letting the Kerbals have an "extended vacation" on all the planets until .18....

[CommandantAce]

Blow them up hundreds of times ... sure. Leave a Ker behind, never!