Are escape towers needed?

[3mon]

I only add abort procedures if Jeb, Bill or Bob are going in the ship. Everyone else is deemed expendable

[vetrox]

I've got a save that i forbid myself to use any from of quickload or revert to launchpad. Escape systems are a must on some of my craft. Even my Mun space station has escape pods incase i break it and my guys need to get home.

[slims_s]

You can quite easily create an escape tower in KSP by simply popping a few Sepatrons on a structural component, or even utilize mods like Procedural Fairings to create towers like these: (made by yours truly)

http://i.imgur.com/mm6pMbcl.png

I do that too!

Another advantage, if using FAR, is that it reduces the drag of the rocket (don't have exact Cd numbers but it raised after jettisoning the LES)

[Tank Buddy]

If you are not good at building stable and safe rockets and are interested in caring for the lives of the Kerbals, then yes. I always seem to make successful rockets and I am yet to kill a Kerbal since .21, possibly earlier.

[I_Killed_Jeb]

I do that too!

/pic/

Another advantage, if using FAR, is that it reduces the drag of the rocket (don't have exact Cd numbers but it raised after jettisoning the LES)

that's quite the Freudian escape tower you've got there

[RocketPilot573]

I often equip my rockets with escape towers. My more complicated designs tend to have a LOT of failures during testing... Pressing the abort button is just more fun/interesting than just instantly pressing "revert flight." It also shows that the pilots did not die.

Here's an example of my LES in action (after my Soyuz rocket decided to blow up on the pad):

Edited January 2, 2014 by RocketPilot573

[Ravenchant]

I usually revert to VAB if things go awry and "keep" the situation only if I feel like it. Still, all manned crafts have escape systems. Because jettisons look too cool to pass up

[MonkeyFuzz]

When playing in Sandbox, escape towers are a critical part of nearly all my manned Mercury/Gemini/Apollo-style launchers. Unmanned flights get to enjoy the rolling of the dice. It typically takes several shakedown flights (read unmanned with a probe core at the controls) to get the Apollo-type launcher sufficiently strutted.

What's bugged me is that it's much harder getting to the tech relevant to escape towers in the Career Mode tech tree. Separatrons don't strike me as being high-technology.

[CaptainArchmage]

You do not need escape towers. Depending on how powerful your capsule engines are, you can set your abort to use those, shutting down the other engines. Modern spacecraft (i.e. the SpaceX Dragon) have started to use this method.

I have used liquid-fuelled towers, which remained on the spacecraft (using the 3-Kerbal pod) until orbit, and these could be used for emergency propulsion. They were massive, using 6 of the small radial engines and the FL-T200 tank with docking ports, so the escape tower could be turned into a probe as well.

[Camacha]

I feel that in career mode there should be two 'go to launch' buttons. One is 'simulated test launch' and you end at 70 KM and the other is the 'Go to launch' and no reverting is allowed after that ignition.

Squad has stated it will not implement something like this, as there is no fun in running a good or perfect mission, only having to do it again because it was simulated and not the real deal. There are ways of doing that yourself if you really want it, either by mere discipline, or by running multiple installations next to each other.

Running a no revert zero death tolerance space program makes things a lot harder, and a lot more interesting too! ")

Edited January 3, 2014 by Camacha

[KSK]

You do not need escape towers. Depending on how powerful your capsule engines are, you can set your abort to use those, shutting down the other engines. Modern spacecraft (i.e. the SpaceX Dragon) have started to use this method.

I have used liquid-fuelled towers, which remained on the spacecraft (using the 3-Kerbal pod) until orbit, and these could be used for emergency propulsion. They were massive, using 6 of the small radial engines and the FL-T200 tank with docking ports, so the escape tower could be turned into a probe as well.

I havn't worked out a good way of doing this for the 3 kerbal pod yet but four sepratrons stuck to a 1 kerbal pod makes a functional escape system. Just remember to set two of them slightly asymmetrically so they lift the capsule up and out, away from the booster. You lose a little payload capacity but yeah - they make a useful emergency propulsion system. I got a little overambitious with visiting multiple sites on one Mun mission and didn't quite have enough fuel to get back to Kerbin. Made it home by firing the escape rockets and then getting out and pushing for a course correction burn.

[thunderstar]

I only add abort procedures if Jeb, Bill or Bob are going in the ship. Everyone else is deemed expendable

lol it should be the opposite, jeb, bill and bob are the only ones that respawn, the other ones die and never appear again

[Skyrunner27]

Why does this silly rumour still exist. All kerbals come back with Respawn=True none come back if it is false. I am sorry but this has been annoying me since .21

[draeath]

I've used something similar on space stations as an "escape pod" - a docked capsule with the mini SRBs on it. The idea was that if I botched a dock and massacred the station, I could pile kerbals into the pod, undock, point retrograde, and fire the miniature SRBs. As it is otherwise just the capsule, docking port, and parachutes, it's light enough that they would put it on a return trajectory.

Don't see why you couldn't (abuse?) one of these escape towers for a similar purpose.

EDIT: of course you could always "accidentally" fire them while docked to the station and enjoy the hilarious results...

[dreadwave21]

What mods include L.E.S?

[Ozzallos]

Nearly everything I build has an escape system of some sort built into it, even if it's not a tower per se. I just like the idea of being able to recover the crew

Once I know they survived the, um, event, and have a safe landing profile, that's when I revert.

[draeath]

What mods include L.E.S?

NovaPunch2 has at least one.

Generally you'll set up your pod to decouple and LES to fire when you hit the abort action group. After it finishes burning, you then stage it's decoupler (it should have it's own) and your chute(s) which should be the remaining stages after the initial decouple. You don't really have to decouple it, since it's not very heavy - but that's what happens IRL.

Edited January 3, 2014 by draeath

[dreadwave21]

NovaPunch2 has at least one.

Alright thanks