What's happened to you in KSP that was so painfully stupid that you laughed out loud?

[caba111]

Sent my first probe to Duna last night in my new 0.23 Career Mode save. Forget to pay attention to center of mass and drag and such when placing my parachutes. Oops.

*SNIP*

I did something similar to this on my first stock Duna landing. I send a large ship with two tiny detachable landers to explore. To save weight, I used external seats instead of pods. However, it never occurred to me that kerbals in seats actually have weight. So, Jebediah can't actually fire up the engine without spinning out of control. He landed okay with his parachute, but I never got around to rescuing the poor guy.

Here's a picture of him landed:

[ArmchairGravy]

I brought my lander to Minmus only to find out that i mounted extra monopropellant tanks instead of mysterious goo.

http://i40.tinypic.com/fn714y.png

I just did this myself. Between this and the antenna fiasco, I'm going to have to fire myself due to gross incompetence.

[Brethern]

I was working on a rocket that primarily used SRB's to get into orbit somehow I got the second stage rocket on upside down.

[Tarrow]

Built modified version of the Aeris using a couple of rapiers plus a turbojet. Twice.

Successfully SSTO'd to my refuelling station @ 125km. Twice.

Gassed up & went out on a jaunt then made reentry to Kerbin atmosphere. Twice.

Died in an autopilot-induced low speed flat spin @ 500m. Twice.

Lesson learned. Maybe

[viktorserecros]

Two events in particular:

1) I tried to asparagus stage a rocket on the demo version. At about 20km, I had a severe structural failure and I had to trigger my escape sequence. Physics was not with my that day as my still burning engines quickly caught up. Jeb was my first pilot killed. I laughed all the way to the steam store to buy a copy.

2) Ran out of dV on my first manned Duna round trip mission. I got out and pushed the rocket on EVA back into Kerbin's atmosphere.

[Monty_Droppings]

I sent Jeb to rescue Bill on Mun, i land within 20 meters of Bill, where i save and exit, i come back the next day, take some sample, and lift off and go back to KSP, it is only then I realize that i was supposed to pickup bill on the rescue mission.

[FenrirWolf]

Started a new career save for .23

My first ship is the prototypical tier-0 rocket consisting of a pod, an SRB, and a chute.

Well, I forgot to alter my staging so when the SRB fired, the parachute opened as well. So the rocket flailed around in circles for a while before slamming into the ground, fortunately sparing the pod but blowing up everything else.

In other words, Jeb's inaugural flight for my new space program went exactly how it should have gone.

[Zaryulenko]

I was messing around using Bobcat's Soviet pack then i decided to send a Soyuz to mun, after getting on its SOI i made the Soyuz pass the lowest safe distance possible. at the Periapsis Whermery Kerman decided to look at the Mun but the guys at the Soyuz decided to rotate as fast as they could while Whermery was close to it, HE GOT PUNCHED BY THE SOLAR PANELS! aaaaaaaaaaaaand hes now travelling away whit a wrecked EVA suit........

[Jarin]

Started a new career save for .23

My first ship is the prototypical tier-0 rocket consisting of a pod, an SRB, and a chute.

Well, I forgot to alter my staging so when the SRB fired, the parachute opened as well. So the rocket flailed around in circles for a while before slamming into the ground, fortunately sparing the pod but blowing up everything else.

In other words, Jeb's inaugural flight for my new space program went exactly how it should have gone.

I suspect a LOT of Jeb's first flights go that way. God knows mine did...

[Lunaran]

I had to send a ship to rescue someone from the mun, had to send a rescue for that ship, then had to send a rescue for that one, and that ship came apart on chute deployment and everyone died in the sea. I use Kerbal Engineer now.

[Guest]

A recent "fail" was yesterday in my new modded career mode. I built a lander designed for minmus, lobbed it into orbit and set up a maneuver. It wasn't until I finished the burn that I realized I was looking at the Mun. Then I went crazy trying to alter the trajectory, which ended up stranding Jebediah in space.

Later, I sent up a probe...without any communications (I had remote tech) installed. The ground crew witnessed some great fireworks that day.

Edited December 25, 2013 by Guest

[jordanjay29]

I frequently have these when I send missions to some airless body, only to find that my return stage has no parachutes. I actually launched about three Mun missions with this configuration, failing to realize it each time until I got back to Kerbin. At least they left their little flags on the Mun's surface.

Actually, my latest blunder came with my recently-built space station (between KSP Interstellar and Science Station, I have actual parts to build a functioning science station in orbit, woo-hoo!). I sent up an experiment for the Science Station mod, only to find that I had forgotten parachutes. And this experiment was actually the second version, in the first I forgot the batteries, which makes deploying the parachute rather difficult once the power runs out of my experiment probe.

Thankfully, I was about to send down one of my manned crew capsules to relieve some of the crew, so I docked the capsule to the experiment and brought them both down safely with the capsule's parachute.

[barrenwaste]

Missing Landing Gear. Forgot to turn symmetry back on after a correction on the plane. Looked at my shiny new creation, smiled, and hit launch....only to watch it blow up almost instantly. I still didn't see it was missing gear, so I relaunched...and it blew up again...so I re...yeah, three times before I noticed my plane gots no wheels. Yup, I'm proud of that one.

[Mr. Scruffy]

I sent Jeb to rescue Bill on Mun, i land within 20 meters of Bill, where i save and exit, i come back the next day, take some sample, and lift off and go back to KSP, it is only then I realize that i was supposed to pickup bill on the rescue mission.

Hahaha! Let me guess: Since then, Jeb is heavily lobbying against a return to the Mun, right? Whenever he looks at it, now, all he sees is Bill´s angry face. And Bill? He´s full of self-doubt, asking himself why he´s been left behind, checking his armpit smell every 5 minutes and clinging to ´cogito ergo sum´ (i think, therefor i am) for reassurance of his existance.

And once your kerbals do get back to the Mun and happen to find instarvable Bill? Jeb´s gonna be hard pressed for an explaination... Right now, he probably considers to go with: ´He said he wanted to stay, but asked me to tell everyone back home he was dead... honestly´ on a sole-witness vs. sole-witness base.

Edited December 25, 2013 by Mr. Scruffy

[jocax188723]

I once spent hours in the VAB designing a Duna mission, capable of going straight on, no orbit refueling, no docking, just one ship capable of a landing and return of three Kerbals and science.

And then I launched it without 1st stage engines.

Ahh. That's gone wrong.

[rdfox]

0.22, built my first-ever Eve lander, an unmanned rover. Ended up with unexpectedly high fuel consumption that meant the planned aerocapture-to-circular orbit-and-then-deorbit plan was infeasible, so I instead went with a simple multiple-pass aerobraking entry to landing (something I'd planned for as an option from the start). After eight passes through the upper atmosphere, I make my terminal descent. Pop the chutes, which had me worried that I'd tear it apart, and everything goes right. "Oh, good, now I can explore the surface of Eve some," I think.

Right up to the point where it touches down. In a lake. And capsizes.

I never even got any Science back from that mission...

[Pecan]

Toal laziness - I'm still new and letting MechJeb handle most of the flying for my Munar landings ...

Time to bring a lander back up and re-dock for return to Kerbin, ascent put it in orbit going East from the surface. Command module was going West and had all the RCS fuel (to save weight on the lander) so I told it to rendevous with the orbiting lander. MechJeb's "solution" to matching planes was to come to a complete stop, burning all the fuel and losing so much altitude that the module simply drove straight into the Mun's surface. ^^

(That and on the next mission, delivering rovers, I attached them directly instead of with decouplers, separators or docking ports. All the way there before realising I had no way to detach them)

[jordanjay29]

0.22, built my first-ever Eve lander, an unmanned rover. Ended up with unexpectedly high fuel consumption that meant the planned aerocapture-to-circular orbit-and-then-deorbit plan was infeasible, so I instead went with a simple multiple-pass aerobraking entry to landing (something I'd planned for as an option from the start). After eight passes through the upper atmosphere, I make my terminal descent. Pop the chutes, which had me worried that I'd tear it apart, and everything goes right. "Oh, good, now I can explore the surface of Eve some," I think.

Right up to the point where it touches down. In a lake. And capsizes.

I never even got any Science back from that mission...

Oy vey! I had that happen to my manned Eve lander as well. I got my Kerbal out and thought, "well, nothing to do now but swim for shore." Sometimes I wish MJ worked with Kerbal EVAs.

[Moar Boosters]

Most of my builds probably count.

[Weegee]

Well a few days ago when I was recording my first video (not up yet due to Youtube stupidity), I was launching two rovers into space. Instead of releasing the last two boosters when they burned out, I accidentally released the two rovers, which then smashed into said boosters. I've had plenty of other fails, but this is most recent.

[Skorpychan]

- Launched a Mun station crew change mission, documenting it on tumblr as I went. Went up alright, got onto the Mun precisely, ferried kerbals across and back, and sent it back to Kerbin. Landed flawlessly, apart from one tiny issue. It was on a slope. So, it landed, then toppled over before I could turn on the SAS again. Then it exploded.

- Launched a mission for Duna, with on-orbit assembly. Design flaw made the docking port flex, and the whole thing folded in half and exploded. Quickloaded in panic, lost THREE MONTHS OF WORK.

- Mun mission in career mode. Worked flawlessly, apart from the bit where it ran out of fuel. Jeb got out and pushed with his RCS pack. There was plenty of fuel left, just inaccessible in a tank with fuel lines running the wrong way; I'd gone from one central engine to a set of four, both designs having a pancake tank with four LV-200s around it.

- The quickload that lost months of work reverted to where I saved just after Jeb got back into a decent aerobrake periapsis. I forgot that, and sent up a rescue mission. Switched to Jeb, and found him heading for aerobraking. Oops.

- Launched a Minimus mission, with my Mun lander. TWR was too high to adjust the landing properly, and it often ended up going UP during braking.

- Landed Jeb and Bill on Eve. Lander landed in the ocean, rover was dumped as useless. Jeb swam to shore, Bill thought 'screw that', and tried to hover the lander up to get to shore. It rose, I trimmed thrust a little, and it crashed down into the remains of the rover and exploded. Jeb still stands there, looking out to sea, over the grave of Bill.

I later dropped a habitat for him. On the other side of the planet. Aerobraking is hard.

- Two-engine interplanetary cruise stages. Every damn time I launch a tweak, I've forgotten the goddamn fuel lines.

[Dean Harper]

I had Bill flying a plane loaded with remote science probes. The idea was to have him fly over different biomes, dropping probes along the way that I could switch to later for science. Unfortunately, after dropping a probe over the mountains his plane became unbalanced and spiraled out of control. He ejected, popped his chutes, and safely drifted back to the ground.

He landed on the slope of a mountain, his chutes disappeared, his capsule slid down the cliff face and hit a cliff edge like a ramp to pop back into the air. The laugh out loud moment came when he slammed back into the ground.

[caba111]

Most of my builds probably count.

http://i.imgur.com/VwvqI0T.png

That... Wow, that's impressive.

Did you actually get that thing into orbit?

[BagelRabbit]

I was trying to land a twenty-ton rover on Moho once. After hours of building and flying, the craft was finally in its final descent.

I jettisoned the transfer stage about three kilometers above the lunar surface, so that I could start my skycrane. The craft was descending rather quickly and I was rushed, so I dropped the stage while the rocket engines were still burning just a little. I then turned on the skycrane engines full blast to distance myself from the transfer stage.

Twenty seconds later, the descent stage flies upwards and knocks off a skycrane engine. Tumble, tumble, tumble... crash. I hadn't even quicksaved. AGH!

[Moar Boosters]

That... Wow, that's impressive.

Did you actually get that thing into orbit?

Not yet, but I'm hopeful it's possible. Been a bit side-tracked recently with another building using the new engines.