If our Kerbals refused?

[Duke23]

I work pretty hard to keep my Kerbals safe... As someone else mentioned, at least on serious missions. I tend to not count rocket tests, although I'm considering adopting a stricter "no do-overs" policy in general.

I felt bad when I lost one of the little troopers in an unavoidable crash while colonizing the Mun in my old save. The pilot survived but trashed the skycrane, however I was dropping a habitation module with a Kerbal aboard which disintegrated on impact.

[The Error]

The odd part is I find more insane designs tend to leave more kerbs alive.

All those boosters must cushion them, or something.

[BroomstickHero]

I...I didn't know how to land! The navball confused me! The landing legs fell off! I didn't mean to kill Calfurt, I swear!

But then he was alive and I was confused even more.

[cantab]

I set abort actions, and I revert any deaths due to blatant game bugs. And I *may* send up an iffy rocket unmanned. But no guarantees.

[NecroBones]

None of mine have died.... because F9.

[CatastrophicFailure]

I usually play "NKLB" but for some reason, with 23.5 (I start a new save every update), I've just said "@&$?! it" and have just been goofing around & experimenting rather than doing anything "serous." Think it started when I lost an entire 6 Kerbal crew on an asteroid ship that spontaneously exploded, I've lost well over a dozen so far, and poor Gregvan is "MIA" after putting him in the path of a big ship on a very low orbit (I was hoping for something amusing like him getting batted into orbit like a little green tennis ball, or at least an explosion. Instead he just went *poof*).

Edited May 1, 2014 by CatastrophicFailure

[Duke23]

The odd part is I find more insane designs tend to leave more kerbs alive.

All those boosters must cushion them, or something.

Man I can't count the number of times I've sent up something "questionable" (read: laughably dangerous and ill-planned) only to have it blow itself into tiny chunks and then out from the cloud of debris comes the command module with intact parachutes and one very distraught Kerbal.

[Robotengineer]

Kerbals are a Fictional entity, thus you can't really do wrong to them. They are a program. I try to avoid killing Kerbals, though mainly to make the game harder rather than save them.

[Robotengineer]

Though I do prefer to keep Kerbals with good names alive.

[Dizzle]

I've not lost any, but I don't have respawns enabled, so I try to be careful. Takeoff failures are reverted when it comes to planes, but rocket failures are fair game. My Apollo recreation has an abort button that causes the engine to stop, fairing to decouple, and launch tower to activate.

Not that I haven't had some close calls. I sent a ship out to what I absentmindedly thought was Eeloo, but turned out to be Dres. It was far from an optimal launch window, and I ended up entering its SOI very far away from it and with so little fuel that I decided to forget it and come straight home. They spent over 4 years in space, and what's worse, I was playing with TAC life support. By the time they landed back on Kerbin (after having used up all of my fuel and monopropellant to slow down enough), they had only 8 hours worth of supplies left!

[_Aramchek_]

If they refused, I'd send them anyway...this isn't a democracy, no choice involved on their part.

And if I don't like their name, or just feel like it...they die.

[Col_Jessep]

Every Kerbal who dies in the line of duty goes to Kalhalla where they get infinite fuel, mint desserts and a mansion on Eve. No motivational problems so far. ;P

[cantab]

http://i.imgur.com/j1ixkde.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/xcVIIcG.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4HOiGxp.jpg

Off-topic, but what on Kerbin have you done to Minmus?

[Liowen]

I lost 30 + on a fun Lunar Tour Bus mission, so I made thing one of my video. It originally had taps playing, but of course youtube didn't like that at all. So now the episode has the obituary roll with no music, to me it was a bit silly to make without the music. I have since found a version of taps that is royalty free that I can use in the future.

[Geschosskopf]

...So it came naturally to me that at some point our Kerbals would refuse to put themselfs onto our rockets....

That point was reached long ago in my universe. But no problem. I just send out the pressgangs to collect enough vagrants and drunks to fill the seats. Essentially all Kerbals I send to space are galley slaves. If they perform their duties adequately, the get food and air, both of which are laced with chemicals to make the Kerbals more compliant. It works well enough

[Orionkermin]

~snip~

Sounds like you'd make a good commissar. Or is that kommissar

[Tw1]

I avoid kerbal deaths if I can. But if they get stranded, well, just call it a long-term mission...

Same here. But so far, only 25% of my long term missions have been due to a "mission plan revision".

I have lost no kerbals in my main save for a while.

There was one that vanished when I decided to remove a few old mods, but he'll turn up.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Off-topic, but what on Kerbin have you done to Minmus?

That's a glitch with the Better Atmospheres mod I've grown rather attached to. Along with the fog it gives Minmus a very eerie feel.

[KerbMav]

"Launch and you may die. Go home and you will live. And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here as young men and tell these boosters that they may take your lives but they will never take your spirit!"

Every kerbal dies but not every kerbal flies.

[Random Tank]

The only time I have lost a Kerbal is when a ship with mod parts is deleted because I've had to delete that mod; otherwise a make sure they survive! I haven't got a Kerbal stranded anywhere either; I change the crew on stations every few months, but the only instillation where I don't change the crew is on my Eve science base, although that base only has a planned duration of 3 years, so I'll have to go get the 2 Kerbals that are there soon...

[Bishop149]

I have only killed one Kerb in my career game and it was inside Kerbins atmo. so I can still use the phrase "Never lost anyone "in space", as NASA do!

In true KSP style it was a stupid mistake . . . I had landed an SSTO and was coasting down the runway, SAS was still on when I engaged the brakes. . . which over compensated for the tiny shift in heading the slow down produced, the wing tip hit the floor and BOOM! Whole craft slow explodes piece by piece as it slid at a mighty 8 m/s along the ground.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Bishop149

[Frank_G]

I like to keep my kerbonauts save at all times. Caring for the crew makes the game more challenging and will let you think twice before launching.

And second... Who really could willingly sacrifice such friendly creatures? If kerbals would be plants, i would go hunt vegetarians...

[Jas1126]

Only time my Kerbonauts die lately is when the game kills them. BSOD or they suddenly explode on the terrain (usually whilst on a mountain cliff.) When I first started playing the game I had a couple of occasions when I would run out of fuel. I've long since learned from those mistakes. It's actually fairly difficult to accidentally kill or have them stranded lately.

[RogueMason]

I have had very few deaths in my save. The most recent was one on Moho due to the thruster pack not slowing him down enough. Typically, my deaths are in test aircraft, but even they are pretty rare now, and I usually revert flight on those to see if it was bad flying instead of shoddy design, so more often than not the Kerbals survive aircraft. I'm proud to say that my space vehicles, however, are all safe and tested before use, and deaths on ascent never occur any more. However, I plan for all crew to launch on a safe, proven SSTO shuttle from now on and not rockets, which I shall restrict to cargo.

Otherwise, it's a bug or something that claims a life for sacrifice to the Kraken. Out of my control.

[EpicRootHairCell]

I kill my Kerbals a lot. But I have this theory that what ever religion Kerbals have( we should presume they do) that dying in a massive rocket disaster is the best possible death and thus killing Kerbals is actually morally right.