Cursed Places

[Iforgotthis]

If you use the regular WASD controls, you'll simultaneously be driving the rover wheels and trying to rotate the craft with any probe core or reaction wheel torque it has. On a low gravity world that can easily flip it. Some people use docking controls for driving to avoid this issue, others remap the wheel control keys.

Even without that issue, the low gravity and I believe the low grip of Minmus's surface makes rovers not work so well.

Ah well, I'm going to keep trying. I'll definitely try using docking controls, I'd never thought of that...

Out of interest, what is the best design for low gravity bodies? I love rovers but designing them isn't my expertise!

[WWEdeadman]

For me it's Eve. Ever since the first mission I sent there. Quick list of failures so far:

1. forgot ladders on lander, got Jeb stuck outside his ship on the surface, no way to transmit any science. (I never "finished" that specific save)

2. tried to make an Eve-base, got the second module over (a radiotower, so to say) and coudn't move it because it was couldn't go uphill on Eve.

3. a redesigned version of that radiotower knocks off the docking ports I was going to use for the base, trashes the entire base in the progress.

4. An exploration plane I sent over randomly lost a wing while flying, killing the Kerbal inside on impact.

5. I sent a science-rover over, to pick up the crew from the base, but ended up landing so far away, I had to drive around eve for multiple hours.

6. I sent an extremelyx huge "Eve Escape Vehicle" over to get my Kerbals back to end this careere mode, it looses one of it's NASA-pack SRBs on "landing", also landing so far away I need better transportation than the rover. (also getting the thing over took me hours, with 2 big NASA-pack tanks with 9 Nuclear engines attached pushing it over)

7. I got my "Eve taxi" over, which is a Ion-powered plane, and had to land without SAS on, since the SAS makes the plane go faster somehow, so I never got to landing velocity, and kept accelerating instead. (I have it landed only 3 km from the rover, and will try to fly my Kerbals over to the escape vehicle next. I hope that doesn't end in a tragedy)

[nekogod]

I hear you about Minmus, the last ship I sent there had all kinds of spooky happenings! First it bugged on the launchpad then fell through Kerbin. When I eventually got it in the air it came time to drop the first stage only 3 of the 4 radial engines dropped and it spiralled out into a mountain side, without any changes whatsoever it worked perfectly the next time. I was then completely unable to use timewarp at all even when coasting as whenever I came out of time warp a random part would explode (the flightlog said it had crashed into the launchpad). I eventually got to Minmus and on my descent the entire lander exploded about 6000m from the ground leaving nothing but a landing strut plummeting to the ground.

[Piper]

I personally love Minmus. Every mission I've sent there has been flawless, and I usually come back with twice the amount of science I was expecting. For me, my curse is anything involving rovers and the Mun. So far, they've gone something like this:

Rover 1: When I deployed it on the Mun, it didn't have brakes on, and started rolling down all the way to the centre of the bottom crater of Twin Craters. I sent a Kerbal chasing after it, and finally caught up with the rover some 2km away from where it first touched down. I tried to drive it back to my Munar base, but the traction on it was so poor and it was so uncontrollable, that it ended up sliding even farther. By the time I gave up on it, it was now 4.5km away. I ended up sending another lander out to go pick up the poor Kerbal.

Rover 2: Added landing gear to work as a parking brake. That part worked great, everything else didn't. I had added RCS thrusters to help provide traction and control, but I quickly ran out of fuel, and I didn't go anywhere with it.

Rover 3: For some reason, I decided to change the engine layout of my "sky-crane" that I used to land the rovers, and it ended being horribly under-powered. The rover and skycrane ended up making a rather larger debris field in the centre of the bottom crater, ironically right near my abandoned first rover.

Rover 4: Same design as rover 3, now just with a better skycrane. Landed well, had better wheels, and now engines pointed skyward to provide constant downward pressure when climbing steep slopes. This one finally worked fairly well, and I was actually able to climb out of Twin Craters and do some science in another biome. The problems this time, was it was still rather top heavy, and didn't have any SAS so it toppled very easily. The skycrane on this one also went all "wonky" after detaching, and crashed beside the rover, adding even more debris to Twin Craters. I feel sorry for the place, I've made a right good mess of the place.

Rover 5: Improved and a more even layout, added SAS. Rover design looked great, but I did the dumb decision of deciding to test it out on a mission going to the anomaly near the south pole. As I approached the landing site, I very quickly learned I wasn't going to do much driving. But just to top it off, when I landed the rover, and detached the skycrane, I discovered to my horror that the MapTrak assembly was stuck to the skycrane, and the detached rover was flopping against the bottom of the skycrane. Somehow, after spinning through the air (well, vacuum), I dislodged the rover, and it actually landed landing gear side down. Thinking I had actually managed to salvage the rover, I sent out my manned lander and landed beside the rover, only to discover that one of the landing gear had become damaged, and wouldn't retract, trapping the rover in one location.

I finally did get to test the same rover design on Minmus (just with a now properly placed MapTrak), and it worked really well, so I FINALLY seem to have a functioning and decent rover design. But for me, wheeled vehicles and the Mun just don't seem to go together.

I'm also very much feeling the "curse" of deltaV and Moho. I decided to make Moho my first planetary target for a manned mission (I'd been been out to a couple of asteroids manned, but never to another planet). Right now the landing vehicle is in orbit of Moho with about 2600m/s worth of fuel, enough to get the vehicle down to the surface, but not up again (Jeb's in there, and naturally he looks like he want's to try it anyways), and the return vehicle with a very lonely Bill in it has not much more. The return vehicle has a large science lab on the front of it that I plan to jettison anyways, and I could transfer the fuel from the lander to the return vehicle, and I would have enough fuel to get back, but it would mean abandoning the manned landing. So instead, since I have another transfer window for Moho coming up, I'm sending up an unmanned refuelling vehicle to dock with both spacecraft so I can complete the mission.

[Javster]

I swear there's something fishy on Minmus that is determined to ruin everything... Particularly rovers. I couldn't begin to explain the amount of rovers I've had flip over because of the low gravity. Am I just designing them wrong? Does Minmus not feel comfortable with the concept of wheels?

Nah, Minmus is really ticklish. Rover wheels REALLY tickle it.

[Sof]

YES. No matter where I'm coming in from, or from whatever inclination, it's always in the way!

Ike's SOI lies over Duna's plane overlap with Kerbin. On any hohmann transfer from Kerbin to Duna, you'll cross the SOI of its large moon. It also lies at such a distance, that crossing the orbit of Ike also takes a while so the chances are that you will intercept Ike at some point.

[Wahgineer]

Ike's SOI lies over Duna's plane overlap with Kerbin. On any hohmann transfer from Kerbin to Duna, you'll cross the SOI of its large moon. It also lies at such a distance, that crossing the orbit of Ike also takes a while so the chances are that you will intercept Ike at some point.

The question is if you can use it to your advantage (reverse gravity assist)

[TechnicalK3rbal]

The new "spaceport" I think is cursed.

[iDan122]

I think CURSE is, well, cursed. Srsly, kerbals are green and Curse is red, completely opposite of green. Not very kerbal.

[pauix]

Ike's SOI lies over Duna's plane overlap with Kerbin. On any hohmann transfer from Kerbin to Duna, you'll cross the SOI of its large moon. It also lies at such a distance, that crossing the orbit of Ike also takes a while so the chances are that you will intercept Ike at some point.

I knew it! Ike was put there only to make it more difficult to land on Duna!

[TimMartland]

I like all the planets and moons except Eve and Tylo. I wont go near Eve after the NH-K5 Mission vanished mysteriously into the clouds (Its orbit was too low and I didnt notice. The Kerbals were fine as they were setting up my mini temporary satellite/station monitoring thing in a higher orbit, but I had to abandon all my Eve missions) and Tylo.... screw Tylo seriously. The devs must have been having a bad day to unleash it upon us.

[SourMonkey]

I love Minmus, and except for a few very strange mishaps or disappearances it's been good to me.

The most recent cursed event on Minmus was a ridiculous made-in-two-seconds-then-launched rover I sent there. Two kerbals were sent, and one got into the science pod. While moving at high speeds across the flats, the other kerbal decided to try it too, and ended up getting stuck between a fuel tank and the pod. Nothing I did would unlodge him so I sent the other kerbal to try to get in the command pod and stop it, but fell and cartwheeled helplessly while he watched his friend quickly speed off into the distance.

Edited May 7, 2014 by SourMonkey

[The Destroyer]

Moho. I've been playing since 0.14, and everything- probes, science labs, etc, just went by best I could do was a probe orbit.

Then, in 0.23.5 with the new epic SLS parts and LLL SXT, I managed to land two kerbals and two landers on moho!

[Iforgotthis]

I think CURSE is, well, cursed. Srsly, kerbals are green and Curse is red, completely opposite of green. Not very kerbal.

I noticed your signature - might I ask what it is about the partnership you object to?

[Iforgotthis]

Moho. I've been playing since 0.14, and everything- probes, science labs, etc, just went by best I could do was a probe orbit.

Then, in 0.23.5 with the new epic SLS parts and LLL SXT, I managed to land two kerbals and two landers on moho!

Moho has always been difficult-looking...

[Alchemist]

Bop. It's haunted by you know who. My last landing there was plagued by anomalous problems: Bob got tossed out of the airlock, docking ports were refusing to attach, RCS fuel disappeared somewhere...

[Duke23]

Just came back from a series of disasters on Minmus... That place really is cursed. I was using the quicksave function heavily I'll admit. First I landed in the southern part of the Greater Flats (so I could drive over to Flats, Midlands, Slopes, etc) and I brought my brand new shiny rover with powered wheels, RCS for downforce and brake assist, and an ion engine because it sounded fun. When I released the rover it got stuck under the lander even though nothing was touching, so I had to thrust up and switch to the rover and reverse before the lander came back down (probe core on the rover). Well I had it humming along and since everything was flat, I decided I'd let it roll for a while and turned up the ion engine. I hit around 40m/s and zoomed out to see how far I had been (engine still throttled up) and I saw an explosion. As I was zooming back in I saw my rover with the poor Kerbal on it flipping through the air with 3 broken wheels. I'll admit that one was probably my fault... By some miracle I managed to flip it back on its wheels and decelerate with RCS and when I stopped my Kerbal was slumped over in the command seat like he was dead. I couldn't get him to move... He was still in the seat (and controlling the rover) but there was no option for him to get out. I finally got him to jump out of the seat, and he immediately fell over on top of the rover. Just collapsed and wouldn't get up, and his face was glitching. So I had to quick load. I had it going about 20m/s this time but apparently there's an area where its downhill (on the flats?!) and it speeds up for no reason. So before I realized that I started to turn and slide and then had another random flipping accident and everything got screwed up. Third time around I was able to make it down to the Midlands and then the Flats before I got nervous looking at the slopes and just returned to my ship. I hopped over to the slopes, lowlands, and southern pole without issue and headed home.

The name on my flag is intentionally blurred in this screenshot...

Edited May 8, 2014 by Duke23

[Geschosskopf]

Pol.

First off, if you have ground scatter at a reasonably high level for anywhere else, your computer will melt when you get low enough on Pol for its total coating of scatter things to appear. Second, these scatter objects make Pol look exactly like the spawn on the Daemon Sultan Azathoth from HP Lovecraft. Third, the place is like Gilly in that landing........there.......takes........forever. And finally, the collision mesh is way off so that often your rocket explodes in midair because it thought the ground was about 1500m higher than it really is.

[samstarman5]

In early career mode, I seem to always find Minmus easier to land on than the Mun. It might be I am just more attenuated to landing on lighter gravities.

[pauix]

In early career mode, I seem to always find Minmus easier to land on than the Mun. It might be I am just more attenuated to landing on lighter gravities.

It is easier to land on Minmus that it is to land on the Mün. Besides the lower gravity, Minmus has some perfectly flat areas at ground level (0m on the altimeter) that are easier to spot from orbit. On the other hand, I believe I've only landed successfully once on the Mün in my career mode

[peadar1987]

Eve. Eve hates me. I play with FAR and deadly reentry, and it is unbelievably hard to design a craft that will get to Eve, park in orbit, deploy a lander (with a huge heat shield), shed orbital velocity without burning up (and hold the right orientation stably enough not to wobble any crucial parts into the fiery death), land safely and stay upright on those godawful sand dunes (everywhere on that planet seems to be on some sort of slope!), and then still have enough delta-v to punch through the atmosphere, make orbit, and get home.

My most recent mission, I got there with an absolute monstrosity, landed it (just about) upright, took a sample and a photo, then found that, in spite of extensive successful testing on Kerbin, the ascent vehicle was unstable in Eve's thicker atmosphere, and would just tumble out of control when I tried to take off. Devastating!

I've abandoned it for a grand unmanned RT2 tour of the Joolian moons now. Just launching a beast of a communications array so I can set up a network of commsats around Jool. I wonder what new disasters I'll manage this time

[Jas1126]

Moho. If it's not for the delta v needed (which is always more than I think) it's the fact that it hates to be landed on. I've had more frustrating moments trying to stabilize the lander on it's surface. It's as if the body has a repulsion field.

[[email protected]]

Laythe has a bad habit of eating my jool missions if the first aerobrake isn't deep enough...last time my lander came down right smack dab in the middle of that huge ocean..no land for a thousand miles in any direction, sigh. That rescue mission is going to suck.

[EdFred]

I too have issues with Minmus rovers flipping over constantly. I am going to attempt inverting some rocket or ion engines on the rover, and have them push the rover into the ground to provide artificial gravity.

[hasty6]

The Mun.

More gravity and those holes.

So far none of my landings went without at least breaking something.

And during night time, I swear something will pop out from the dark and eat my rocket.

That is probably because you are landing to hard, i make my landings at like two or three m/s to be safe.