Disaster

[hikerchick]

While in reentry from a mun trip, I accidently switched views from the pod to a piece of debris on reentry, and lost the pod completely. Not sure how this even happens, the parachute was open, and it was in it's final descent. Point is, I just lost almost 200 science points that I have been working on for hours, and have no idea how to get it back, without spending an entire day trying to get the conditions exactly the same

[Franklin]

Yeah, try docking between two rockets, and having those rockets decouple from their launch struts/lifters during this process. Lots of panic, lots of spamming bracket keys until you get to the right drifting thing, lots of re-re-re-aligning.

This issue would be solved completely if debris was filtered out of the next/prev bracket keys. I mean who ever wanted to switch to the separator ring between rocket stages anyway?

[hikerchick]

So in other words, no way in hell to recover an extremely valuable mission that was lost due to an accidental keystroke?

[Franklin]

Could always switch to the Tracking Station and cross your fingers they somehow landed safely? Or if you didn't speed up time that they're still in freefall and you can catch them? If they're manned/probed they should be tracked still if they didn't explode.

But this is also a lesson in quicksaves, I guess.

[Tex]

Other than that... there's not much that can be done, I'm afraid. Never fear, nearly every person you might encounter on the Forums have lost missions in a similar manner. It's just a part of the experience. I myself have lost two consecutive missions in the exact same mistaken keystroke at the exact same point in the missions XD

[Pecan]

Not unless you did a quicksave. History is gone forever, until it repeats itself.

On the other hand:

1) The 'valuable' mission has taught you many things. You still know these.

2) The entire tech-tree can be unlocked in 2 missions.

3) The persistence file is amenable to editing (give yourself the 200 points).

4) KSP is an alpha pre-release.

[hikerchick]

Nope, it was gone within literally seconds of pushing the key.

[Tortoise]

This belongs in the questions/support section.

But you couldn't switch back to the pod with the other [ or ] key?

Or even go into map view and click "Switch to"?

[LordQ]

From what the OP has said so far, I would have to guess that the piece of debris you accidentally switched to was near the physics load range (2.2km) of your spacecraft. A few seconds would be all you need for the two objects to drift far enough apart to not be selectable with the [ or ] keys. Additionally, if the spacecraft itself went below 23km, the game likely automatically deleted it, as it does all orbiting objects not focused upon that breach that altitude.

[technicalfool]

Only way I can think of saving that mission is if you've quicksaved. Hold down F9 and you'll reload the quicksave, even if you've scrapped the mission, built another rocket and have it on the launch pad waiting for lift off.

That approach saved my 2,500sp return from Minmus. Of course, it helps to use F5 first to create a quicksave (or alt+F5 to create a named quicksave and alt+F9 to load it).

[Pecan]

:-( And just bit by the same Kraken (species). 3 long orbits of almost-Munar Ap and aerobraking Pe to finally getting an unpowered, parachute, landing ... 2,000m is good, 1,000m is good except the ground has disappeared, 500m parachutes fully-deployed, 200m ship explodes. ('Blue dot' memory-leak bug). DID quicksave after parachutes deployed ... deployed parachutes are deleted on a quickload. Ah well, it is what it is ^^.

[joekidd1992]

I hate to hear that. I spent literally 4 hours trying to land on the Mun. Kept crashing. Only to not have enough fuel to get back once I landed and took off again. Poor Bill is up there in Kerbin orbit. He and Jeb both are waiting on one day for me to rescue them.

[Levelord]

If you switched from the pod to a piece of debris and you are approx 2km away from the pod, the game will stop rendering the pod and remove it from the game.

[technicalfool]

deployed parachutes are deleted on a quickload. Ah well, it is what it is ^^.

I didn't notice that when I reloaded my own quicksaves. The parachutes only looked like they'd been cut. They still fully deployed themselves at 500m (magically reappearing in this case), and remained deployed when quickloading from approximately 11 seconds before landing.

Then the game crashed again while attempting to recover the vessel.

Fortunately, starting the game back up left me with a landed vehicle which I could recover from the tracking station. 2500sp from Minmus: Achieved.