Confess your KSP sins

[RedWolfKerbal]

First confession is only loosely KSP related I suppose... I posted this story in a tutorial earlier today to explain how grateful I was that it was made ( There are a few confessions, I'll summarize it up front but I hope you can enjoy the story)

***YOU CAN SKIP THESE IF YOU PREFER TO DISCOVER THEM THROUGH STORY TELLING ( I mean i put some good effort into the story telling part)***

Second confession, after seeing the game all I wanted to do was see how quickly I could get to orbit.. this leads to a few of the rest

Thirdly, I only watched the tutorials up to just before the science one...

Fourthly, I didn't learn about maneuvering until a YouTube video due to the aforementioned lack of finishing tutorials, this would have made all the difference

Fifthly, I paid way more attention to getting into orbit than getting back from orbit and left Jeb stranded in a very awkward polar orbit as my first real accomplishment

and Sixth, I have yet to recover Jeb after two days of trying to finish the Docking tutorial

I lied there are Seven, this one should be first honestly but I was too lazy to renumber: I owned KSP for about 3 years before ever playing it ;(

 ***Here is my story with and about all of these confessions***

As I am in the habit of learning things as they become necessary, never seems to be the easiest approach, this is a great tutorial to find! My story, lol:

I got the game shortly after PAX East (a lie really, had it for years and somehow never played it), and decided it was a game for me to get amazing at. Installed it and did the in-game tutorials, decided on Career mode because I prefer challenging things over gimme's. Ended the tutorials just before the science tutorial, yes i ended up regretting this and still have to revisit so that I can actually get a move on in the R&D Department. So then I decided that my first big goal was Orbit. At the same time decided not to use the revert flight options every single time something went wrong, determined this to be a big headache when learning so decided to use it after all and plan for after I've learned more that I can add that difficulty. After a few hours I had finally learned enough about getting into orbit and tweaking my TWR that I was able to get a Kerbal into orbit.

One small issue...

I was then out of fuel. And I had left that flight and returned later to realize there was no reverting from this situation now, so he was stuck out there... forever unless I learned some things. So in learning these things I discovered that I hadn't know much at all about getting into orbit properly and had ended up there by chance lol. That being said, I had a rather high altitude polar orbit, as opposed to a nice equatorial one, and I had no idea how to control that aspect of the flight. Also learned that I had never learned about maneuvering nodes because I stopped doing the tutorials because I was too anxious to get to orbit...

Sooooo, enter the need to learn docking...

Well the last thing I want to do is be a stranded astronaut with no means of getting saved. So my mission became to save Jebediah from this life of lonely orbit. Starting watching some videos and reading the KSPedia while I was stuck away from my computer in hopes of being armed with the requisite knowledge to get Valetina to quickly retrieve are marooned fella. Well, in this journey for knowledge it discovered the fact that the EVA suits have their very own RCS. Eureka! A means of getting movement lol. Well I wanted to experiment, mainly because I saw someone do it on video, and see if i cant get ole Jeb back using his one means. Well, I still don't know if he would've died reentering the atmosphere, because he ran out of Monopropellant... and now, a few hundred km behind our forever orbiting craft, is poor Jebidiah. Far more uncomfortably stranded than he previous was. So back to the Valentina Rescue Squad idea.

Thought there were a few ways i could do this:

Prep a craft with a cabin that supports more than one crew (can't, not unlocked yet);

    Get into orbit with the craft, and/or Jeb, and nudge them both radial in and retrograde and see where they fall (still an option, however it would be a highly skilled set of maneuvers and likely deathly for Jeb - I think the craft would be fine);

Or have an extra crew compartment for Jeb to stow away in after we rendezvous with him and get him to his ship. (this is what I am going to try)

 

Well I learned two things, maneuvering and meeting up with an orbiting craft is a pain; and the in game tutorial and my brain were not syncing up properly for me to learn enough to pull this off. I spent at least 2 hours a day for the past few days learning and trying to complete the docking tutorial and failing miserably.

So now I feel that what I have learned form this tutorial may be that little bit extra I needed to pull it off. What did I learn here that I hadn't in the in game tutorial? Well for starters, that both of the intercept nodes are important lol. I hadn't noticed that one orange was my intercept and the other orange was the targets intercept. Happy to know that now, the in game does try to convey this message however I didn't understand how it was conveying said message. Second, how to come about the approaching of the vessel, now granted this may be because I couldn't even get to this part in game yet but learning the NavBall tricks to line up all the markers properly will be extremely beneficial.Well, hopefully before the weekend is over I can report that Jebidiah has made it home safely. Also hope that maybe you were entertained by my story, the friends I tell this story to usually find it pretty entertaining... how much of that is my tone and mannerisms I am unsure.Oh and in the case that I was unclear of the overall intent of this entry... Thanks a ton for the tutorial

Note: Not sure why my text turned itself green, or if it really did and this note will be awkward... *shrug*

[Alessndr82465]

1-over powered spacecraft

2-never sucessfull landed a plane

[RoninFrog]

1. Never built a spaceplane SSTO or even used the RAPIER engine (I have built rocket SSTOs though)

2. Never visited Jool

3. Never used the claw

4. Never downloaded a mod for new parts, physics, or autopilot

[Chequers]

I'm a fairly new player... but learning quickly by removing Reverts and Quicksaves, meaning I have to fix mistakes and figure out solutions, or live with the consequences.

But sometimes, there's no fix... and when that happens, I delete any record of the mission. The craft. The Kerbal. Any record of their achievement like flags planted, etc as though it never happened. I still have 'crew respawn' on, so the Kerbal comes back after a few days with zero experience, like I've erased their memory.

It's like some shady cover up... and I feel dirty everytime.

Feels good to let it out, man.

 

 

[zeilden]

i never actualy launch my rockets from kirben i make a huge launch vehicle and when i start flying it after a few seconds of getting my ship to laugh in the face of all reality i just alt f12 it to its target and dump the stages for launch 

[billbobjebkirk]

I just used infinite fuel to fix a situation where I didn't realize my mission plan was impossible and wasted a bunch of fuel on it.

[kerbiloid]

Never using the deicing fluid on my planes.

[KerballingSmasher]

stranded my very first Duna orbital mission... in Duna orbit... with three Kerbals on board... then quick loaded to the beginning of the mission...

[HansonKerman]

I... cannot rendezvous for my life. That’s why I attach a MechJeb module to every one of my stations. Other than that I can preform every other orbital maneuver.

[HansonKerman]

On 3/15/2020 at 10:39 PM, Chequers said:

I'm a fairly new player... but learning quickly by removing Reverts and Quicksaves, meaning I have to fix mistakes and figure out solutions, or live with the consequences.

But sometimes, there's no fix... and when that happens, I delete any record of the mission. The craft. The Kerbal. Any record of their achievement like flags planted, etc as though it never happened. I still have 'crew respawn' on, so the Kerbal comes back after a few days with zero experience, like I've erased their memory.

It's like some shady cover up... and I feel dirty everytime.

Feels good to let it out, man.

 

 

*fanfiction intensifies*

On 2/13/2020 at 5:05 PM, Death Engineering said:

- I played ~8k hours before KSP included a Dv calculator (if Squad said I didn't need it, then I didn't need it!). Now using the built-in one makes me feel dirty

oh, same

[Dirkidirk]

On 3/20/2020 at 3:15 PM, HansonKerman said:

I... cannot rendezvous for my life. That’s why I attach a MechJeb module to every one of my stations. Other than that I can preform every other orbital maneuver.

TUTORIALS?

 

 

Spoiler

I can't land spaceplanes, for that they always land upside down or run out of speed and faceplant on the ground. therefore I usually just strap a large amount of parachutes on them. although I might practice landing later with normal jets.

 

[HansonKerman]

21 hours ago, Dirkidirk said:

TUTORIALS?

 

(Tried and failed.)

  Hide contents

I can't land spaceplanes, for that they always land upside down or run out of speed and faceplant on the ground. therefore I usually just strap a large amount of parachutes on them. although I might practice landing later with normal jets.

 

same! I hate planes unless they have a safety chute.

[έķ νίĻĻάίή]

Never completed the docking tutorial. After three years... now is the time.

[Whackjob]

Today's sin is I disrespected the roof of the VAB.

[R-T-B]

I'm good at saving fuel and actually a really good pilot, but lazy.  I don't bother to do that complex manauver even though I know it should.  That orbit will take 30 DAYS?  Let's just intercept it faster/sooner at the cost of more fuel. 

At the end of the day, I installed a budget mod to sustain myself, and I know exactly why:  I just fly around like a space cowboy in ludicrously overengineered fueltank laden monstrosities.  Because I don't like to think about energy...  in a game about rocket science.

I could probably accomplish what I do with half or even quarter the fuel, but I don't really care and my designs show it.  It only bothers me when the part count crosses 400 and my FPS dies.

Edited March 30, 2020 by R-T-B

[kerbiloid]

Many Kerbals would stay alive if I had properly checked staging sequence.

[Reverse Equa]

build artificial stations but use hyperedit to send them to orbit

use mechjeb to dock ships

abandon jeb in kerbin orbit 

 

 

[Dirkidirk]

19 hours ago, R-T-B said:

It only bothers me when the part count crosses 400 and my FPS dies.

SOME OF MY CREATIONS GO PAST 500,

AND I PLAY ON THE XBOX 
which if you didn't know, starts getting slow at 200.

Spoiler

oh wow a spoiler!

Spoiler

58 minutes ago, Reverse Equa said:

build artificial stations but use hyperedit to send them to orbit

use mechjeb to dock ships

abandon jeb in kerbin orbit 

oof, that is a pretty big sin.

Spoiler

of course I did that when I started playing, and would probably use mechjeb the second I heard of it if I had a computer. 

 

 

I am going to attempt to complete the jool 5 challenge before a kerbal has caught sight of gilly. of course I am probably going to abandon this just as I have abandoned bringing a balled mission to the mohole.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Dirkidirk

[arthur106]

I cheated.  I sent a rocket to Duna with relay sats and M700 resource scanners.  I've set up resource scanners and triangular constellations of comm sats in synchronous orbits around Kerbin, Mun, Minmus*, Eve, and Gilly already, so I really didn't feel like doing it again.  It can be tedious, monotonous work.  So I used alt+F12 to set the orbits to their proper positions.

I landed a rover on Eve and when it landed it was out of comm range (the 500k antenna wasn't extended).  So, I temporarily disabled CommNet, extended the antenna, re-enabled CommNet, and pretended nothing happened.  I didn't feel bad about this, as it would be so easy in real life to have the probe core automatically do this whenever atm pressure and weight-on-wheels sensors indicate certain conditions for long enough.

[C1arl]

Never gone farther than just out of Kerbin's SOI. Without cheats. I've been to Duna with cheats but I won't count that.

Never finish any big plans. I plan on remedying this with my current long term save.

Also am mediocre pilot. Still working on that one. Practice makes perfect but time can be limited.

[fulgur]

My computer is quite slow, so I don't actually bother with big missions, mostly just fun messing in LKO and the occasional trip to Minmus. Since I only do the fun stuff, for me I have only made SSTOs for several months... most of which are either gigantic lumbering cargo-carrying behemoths, or fun little Mk1 craft with about ten times too much thrust.

[Misguided Kerbal]

On my first SSTO, I ran out of fuel for deorbit and now Jeb's stuck in orbit.

I left more than 10 crafts in orbit trying to dock.

I've never flown Bob on a mission. He's still stuck in the administration pool.

[Hotel26]

This one is a Thought Crime in incubation.  Unless I hear an ultra persuasive argument in the next 48 hours, I think I am going to do it.

• I probably have a dozen at least craft in LKO at any one time.  Maybe more.
• I recently put a KISS space station into a 45-degree incline.  I'm seeing  a lot of new territory.
• For several orbits, I watched, fascinated, (from another craft) as KISS intersected my orbit, multiple times, passing as close as 23 km in front of my craft
• KISS was so much fun, I want to put another one into orbit.  But which orbit??

I've decided on an 80² km orbit -- in a westerly direction.  Now everyone gets to see it every 15 minutes!  Mwahahahaa.

Conversely, riding in the cupola on KISS-W should provide some kind of low-grade meteor storm.  (I think I could sell this to tourists!)

Edited April 11, 2020 by Hotel26

[Lewie]

I have complete disregard for kerbal lives. I’ll keep Bill, Bob, Val and Jeb alive at all costs, but if it’s not them, I just say screw it and leave them where they are, or not bother to install heat shields and/or parachutes....also may have made them go into eva while descending into kerban an 50,000 meters...I should stop killing them. The vets are so lucky.

[kerbiloid]

On 4/8/2020 at 5:08 PM, C1arl said:

Never gone farther than just out of Kerbin's SOI. 

Don't worry! Humans still didn't, too.

On 4/8/2020 at 5:08 PM, C1arl said:

Never finish any big plans.

At least you haven't spent billions of dollars. This alone makes you more efficient than all known space agenices.

On 4/8/2020 at 7:13 PM, Misguided_Kerbal said:

On my first SSTO, I ran out of fuel for deorbit and now Jeb's stuck in orbit.

A little later you will start doing this intentionally, to stop him reappearing every time in your recruiting office.

On 4/11/2020 at 3:53 PM, Hotel26 said:

KISS-W

Couldn't you just start it with "P" to keep the name shorter.

16 hours ago, Lewie said:

I have complete disregard for kerbal lives. I’ll keep Bill, Bob, Val and Jeb alive at all costs, but if it’s not them, I just say screw it and leave them where they are, or not bother to install heat shields and/or parachutes....also may have made them go into eva while descending into kerban an 50,000 meters...I should stop killing them. The vets are so lucky.

Once you'll face their rebel, and the thin glass of the monitor will not save you from their rage.