Stupid things you've made to do missions in career mode

[crasher925]

Testing radial parachutes on Duna... between 17,000 to 16,750. My roommates are starting to think I have Tourett's syndrome.

why is that?

[boolybooly]

Its looks like a very tight test window, which might encourage repeated self expression in the vernacular!!

[sumrex]

Testing splashdown firing for main engine. This jacked up parade float was drove into the water and fired.

I later got the contract for the biggest booster which let to an equally idiotic design which blew up on firing but I got the contract and I think 200 science.

Edited July 28, 2014 by sumrex

[Renegrade]

This would then require a routine in the contract creation to only pair jet engines with planets having an atmosphere, "splash down" with parts containing a command MODULE and planets with liquid something etc.

That shouldn't be too hard. They already have some sort of internal catalog of planets, adding some meta-data to them wouldn't be too hard.

Y'know, like:

Eve: ATMOSPHERE, WATER, LAND

Kerbin: ATMOSPHERE, OXYGEN, WATER, LAND, BASE

Laythe: ATMOSPHERE, OXYGEN, WATER, LAND

Mun: LAND

Minmus: LAND, MINT

Jool: ATMOSPHERE

etc.

Also I've never gotten a splashdown mission for the Mun or Minmus... So I'm hoping that this already exists in some form or other (hopefully something a bit more intelligent than Kerbin|NotKerbin)

[rdwulfe]

You know, there are some contracts that are better off left alone.

Some are not worth the money. Others are VERY premature at some levels of tech. For example, I

never try Munar missions until I have batteries and preferably solar panels of some type.

My method for dealing with solar panels is MOAR BATTERIES! If I have 4000 energy, I know I can launch, get to the Mun, land, take samples/Science! and return home, and still have leftover for keeping me retrograde on entry. (Which I do out of habit.)

[syndicate]

Testing the LFB KR 1-2 in Kerbin Orbit.

114 tons of explosives, 68k funds, and several attempts later I got it to work. Emptying the fuel out of the test part helped a little.

[KandoKris]

Ran Out of Funds after setting out for Duna So I needed some cash

[Grover]

Testing the largest booster while splashed down, when the only engines i had available were the LTV 30 and 45... didnt get a picture but lifting a 3.75m stack using a couple of puny 1m stacks with no RCS did look quite precarious as i lowered it into the water

For atmospheric tests below 20km, i always use a jet aircraft, since it costs less than a rocket, i would never have done it before, and landing a home-made jet is a nice challenge with a dodgy joystick... and by dodgy, i mean i think this was on Jebs junkyard at one point

[bsalis]

EVA while falling in the atmo in order to re-pack a chute.

Fine, provided the little Kerbal does not lose his grip... but they always do!

[Aqua667]

Not exactly a stupid mission but, I had to test both the regular and radial ant engines while on a escape trajectory from Kerbin. Simple enough. Launched straight up. Free 140ish science . Then i just pointed retro and burned until my orbit was inside Mohos. Went back to the space center, planning to come back when I was nice and close to the sun for MOAR SCIENCE!! I went to the tracking station. It said the craft was escaping the sun. Swiched to it, and BOOM! KRAKEN ATTACK!

There was a contract that was test the giant SRB in a sub-orbital trajectory. Turns out a skipper couldn't lift it.... (I forgot about emptying it of the solid fuel first ). I also had to test landing gear in orbit. Guess C7 wants to build a orbital airport or something.

[Merinsan]

I had one contract where I had to test the small SRB (not sepratron), while in orbit. Being that it was the start of the tech tree it was incredibly difficult getting it up there. It got to the point where I started to doubt my ability - I consider myself pretty good. I eventually got it, and it was fun.

The most ridiculous ships I've built have had engines facing up. It was a happy day when I realized I didn't need fuel for engines that I was testing. It happened when I was given a contract to test a jet engine on the mun.

[Concentric]

Didn't take a picture of it, but I did a test of the small gear bay on Kerbin escape trajectory at the same time as a Kerbodyne SRB test in LKO and a Rockomax Poodle on a suborbital. Still haven't researched the Rockomax tanks, so it looked really silly. To make it easier to get up there, I tweaked the SRB down to 10% fuel - still more than enough to get the escape trajectory.

Also, my big Rockomax test (deliberately didn't complete the LFB test) where I activated then disabled the Skipper in flight with the throttle momentarily cut, and continued firing the LFB to get suborbital, and dry-fired the Poodle and Mainsail at the appropriate altitude. Came back down to land at KSC with radial parachutes down one side and landing gear on the other. Also tested a Launch Stabiliser at the same time. That looked rather funny. The engines didn't come out of their fairings.

Put a radial 'chute and a big Rockomax decoupler atop a rescue ship once in place of the ordinary 'chute. The orbit was about the right height to test the decoupler.

[SlyReaper]

Did you really get a contract to do that!? That's hilarious!

Yeah, that one appeared in my game too. Bit of a headscratcher, that.

[Razor235]

I made this... thing to test a Rockomax booster splashed down.

I would fix the staging so that the two smaller boosters would fire and launch me towards the ocean. THe four radial chutes would activate, and then I would fire the large booster immediately upon splashdown. Once it ran out, the capsule chute would trigger and the booster would be destroyed upon landing.

[aceassasin]

Testing a jet engine while landed on the Mun.

[Justice]

I've been having fun testing weird things on planes.

Forgot to disable fuel crossfeed. Oops. Took a long time for this sucker to recover from the shallow descent it had gone into by the time I finished transferring fuel back to the main engine and throttled up.

Because deploying parachutes on a plane that is trying to fly somewhere is a good idea. So is forgetting to put cut chutes on an action group so you have to do one at a time...

Because every plane should have eight separatrons for that extra little burst of speed when diving towards the right altitude at full throttle.

[MarvinKitFox]

I'm a strong believer in less missions: more reward.

Always recycle your launcher. So flyback control systems, 'chutes, etc.

Don't dump parts. Fly em back if possible.

So here is my Duna+Ike manned lander return mission.

It is on a self-returning single-rocket-stage-to-orbit. If I don't drop anything, and i land on the runway, I get 100% of launcher cost back. (minus fuel, and typically minus the decoupler)

The launcher has about 4800 delta-v with this load, just enough to get the 30-ton Duna/Ike manned return mission lofted(plus the two 6-ton unmanned probes)((plus the 2 tons of testing junk), and still de-orbit & land itself.

Some parachutes, a basic probe pod inverted into the top tank, and enough batteries to power it all.

The Duna mission is a nuke-powered monolithic lander, with 6 science+goo pods. It landed on Ike, then duna, then returned for a landing right next to pad.(gah, only 98% return! Next time land on the runway!)

Quite light, only 30.1 tons.

Also on the agenda:

Test hydraulic manifold on launchpad.

Test aerospike at 17000m

Test RV-1 radial microengine at 44000m

Test tiny decoupler at 55000m (got the Eve explorer on this, need to switch to it asap after atmo exit)

Test ion drive at 70000m suborbital.

Test large seperator on orbit (then decouple the Gilly explorer at 70000)

*then* decouple the launch stage, and fly it back home. Land on runway if possible, for 100% returns.

The Duna Destiny lander goes to ike, duna and back for 100% refund of all parts. (ok, got 98%. Seems ksc is not close enough, it wants Pad or Runway)

[Razor235]

-snip-

Just so you know, you can trigger the test engine with staging. Once you meet the necessary test parameters, you can right click it and hit "run test" without actually activating it.

[SDEngineer]

Firing full thrust prograde while diving into the atmosphere. I got a parachute test where the velocity range for the test was about twice what terminal velocity was at the specified altitude range :-)

I got one of those too - needed to be going at least 380m/s at 7800m altitude (where terminal velocity is ~210m/s or so). My solution was to come in from my Munshot mission dead centered on Kerbin. Just barely squeaked by the velocity requirement (I was down around 400m/s when I hit the maximum deploy altitude).

[Aethon]

I think Harv succeeded in putting the Kerbal back in KSP.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=289147900

[SelectHalfling0]

I put a totally out of place experimental engine on the first mun landing, which also happened to be a rescue mission (that kerbal was the first on the mun), which also happened to be testing jet engines at the launch pad. I will have no such thing as resources wasted.

[goldenpeach]

I've had missions to test landing gear escaping Kerbin and with a sub orbital trajectory.

And I had to test them on a escape trajectory from kerbin(what, for Kraken's sake, are the kerbals doing?!)

[NecroBones]

I've been building some really simplistic, goofy things for specific contracts:

But if I'm hitting more than one at a time, in the atmosphere, I've made a test-rig that lands with nearly everything on board being recoverable (except the main lifting SRBs), and it usually comes down fairly close to the pad.

This thing still looks ridiculous with the test-parts attached. Some examples:

[SubzeroSpartan7]

well I had to test the Lv909 and the BACC SRB at the same altitude and speed so i decided to do it on the mission. Also I had to test a parachut moving below 300m/s at an altitude of 29000-32000 meters. That was very interesting.

[SubzeroSpartan7]

Well I had to test the Lv909 and the BACC SRB at the same altitude and speed so i decided to do it on the mission. Also I had to test a parachute moving below 300m/s at an altitude of 29000-32000 meters. That was very interesting.