Emergency Procedures!

[Kruleworld]

We all have times when things go wrong. What tricks have you found to get out of trouble? (we have a thread on fails, but not recoveries).

I depleted my fuel supply in low kerbin orbit, so i used the eva jetpack to slow the craft enough to catch the atmosphere. it's lucky it gets refueled each time you get inside the craft, because it took a dozen evas to achieve deorbit.

[Wanderfound]

* Rammed a solar-panels-facing-the-wrong-way spaceplane into correct alignment with a passing satellite.

* Many versions of using SAS/RCS to roll a toppled lander over a cliff and get it upright again.

* Solved a "can't undock bug" issue with a carefully aimed impact probe.

* Creative spaceplane landing techniques: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/91644-Spaceplane-Speed-Challenge-III-Ice-Skating-on-Minmus?p=1381719&viewfull=1#post1381719

[magnemoe]

Well the first one is the obvious launch abort, kill all engines and decouple the pod.

I also has some other tricks, one is to use the lander as an upper stage then returning from interplanetary missions, for this to work you need room for all kerbals in lander. Lawn chairs is also an fallback here.

Using the rocket as a crumble zone also work surprisingly well.

[cantab]

Pay attention to the game and act quickly instead of sitting and gawping at the unfolding disaster.

I usually fail to do this.

[corvustech]

LV-N fairings on a triple stack adapter. I got one jammed on staging in orbit, locking a gimbal and causing turning on thrust. I fixed it by slamming a Kerbal into it over and over.

Also, separatrons on command modules make for winning escape pods .

[Skorpychan]

Launch abort:

Kill engines, pound up through the stages until you hit the highest TWR above the break, then full throttle upwards. Then kill thrust and pop chutes.

Not enough fuel:

Get out and push, or rendezvous and refuel.

Toppled lander:

Recently got one upright after my first Mun landing in a new save. It fell over, so I had to sort of roll it around to point downhill, then use the engine to thrust along and vector upwards a bit. Then kill horizontal velocity and land in a flatter spot.

[Xacktar]

I once was building a Mun base, but the pair of RCS-Claw-tugs I had for assembling the parts were too weak to lift the parts into place!

So I had a field of parts on the Mun with no way to assemble them.

I sat there and pondered for a while, then attached one tug to the other to make it a double-tug. Assembly proceeded.

[astropapi1]

I once clipped the wing of a fighter in Low Mun Orbit against a satellite I intended to repair, so a direct return was a no-no.

The solution? Ram poor Rodfel into the other wing until it fell off, basically turning the plane into a normal spacecraft. From then on, I just had to to the TKI, aerobrake, and rendevouz with a station equipped with drop-pods. It was a hairy mission.

[Red Iron Crown]

An extra battery that is disabled before launch can save an unmanned ship for which solar panel deployment was forgotten.

The Claw lets you dock to and refuel ships that have no docking ports.

I once broke the main engine off a Mun lander. To recover I used a combination of RCS and EVA to get the kerbal back into orbit for rescue by the orbiting CSM.

RCS and reaction wheels can sometimes right a toppled lander.

Pinning the Shift and W keys with something heavy can reduce the tedium of a long walk to a "rescue" craft that didn't pinpoint the landing.

[Madrias]

Ejectable Command Pod. Best thing I've got against the "Why's it blowing up!?" Four sepratrons, RCS fuel tank, RCS thrusters, parachutes, and a simple decoupling ring. Decouple and blast sepratrons, clearing away from the wreckage. If in space, use RCS to deorbit, if in atmo, skip this step. Deploy parachutes in Atmo and return to ground slowly.

I've done my share of get out and push. Also managed a Minmus Escape and Return to Kerbin on craft RCS alone. Ran out of fuel at the 40m/s mark, used RCS to make orbit. Used RCS to make it back home, plotting a maneuver node for a direct blast back down into Kerbin's atmosphere. Ran out of RCS with a 22km Periapsis at Kerbin. Now I make sure every ship I send up has plenty of extra RCS because, while the thrust is equivalent to an ion engine at full blast, it's one last engine to use when krap happens.

I've shot the boosters to my shuttle through my wings (staging error) and proceeded to make it to orbit with no wings. Transferred crew to my space station, used the docking port on the shuttle to mount a probe core. The now probe-controlled broken-shuttle was turned retrograde, then deorbited. At 10 km, I deployed the chutes to see if the remains could be reused. They settled down with only mild explosions as I broke the tail surfaces and knocked the engines off.

[zxczxczbfg]

Ran out of fuel on my first ever Mun descent; Was hurtling towards the surface with no way to slow down. In a rare moment of quick thinking, I EVA'd Jeb and started hoping beyond hope he'd somehow survive. The blast of the exploding lander launched him clear of the landing site, and I jetpacked him into a very low orbit, silently thanking Squad for not properly modeling explosions in vacuum.

[Rainbowtrout]

A cookie laced with sedative. They don't deserve to know!

[Frank_G]

Emergency batteries will save your life... I always have a switched off battery on board to re-fire up the systems after running out of energy.

And i like dockable arrays like antenna and solar panels on stations and large ships... I build those parts on a mini rcs tug with junior docking port, a small tank, some thrusters and a probe core. When a panel gets damaged, it can easily be exchanged, also it makes orbital construction and re-configuration quite easy.

[SunChaser]

Also, separatrons on command modules make for winning escape pods .

This. Great for launch escape towers on the cheap and they make good escape pods for space stations as well. I also always overbuild my rockets and include tons of Monoprop after (multiple) Minmus landings went wrong and I had to get home with just RCS.

[Wanderfound]

This. Great for launch escape towers on the cheap and they make good escape pods for space stations as well.

Also handy for de-orbiting unwanted engines off space stations and the like.

[cantab]

I did the bail-out of a failing landing thing. That was on nice forgiving Minmus though, I ran out of fuel so I just exited the craft and RCS'd down, then had another ship on the expedition come and pick him up.

[nadreck]

1. Like many here have jet-packed down or to orbit from a ballistic arc on a broken/fueless space ship on a low gravity body. Note that 1st important thing to make this work is EVA before things get to close to ground. Most interesting situation here was hitting a crater rim on take off going more than 100m/s and having Bill bail and land on RCS.

2. Toppled vehicle trick: if torque or RCS is not enough to right the vehicle on its own and you are on a slope (one of two main reasons for toppling - the other is to high a lateral vector on landing) retract your gear, point nose up the slope use retro RCS to build up speed going backwards downhill, extend gear (for one vehicle on the Mun the magic speed was about 2.5m/s) the gear catches and the vehicle topples upwards, enable SAS and leave RCS on and use attitude controls to find the right stable up attitude or thrust with main engines and take off.

3. Moving fuel/oxidizer in equal proportions or equal balances for landers. Make sure you have a small tank that you can use for this purpose where filling it provides a minimum useful amount. It is generally a 45/55 fuel tank. Also usefull for returning enough fuel to an orange tank or larger tanker to allow it to return to Kerbin.

[Xyrus]

The most unique emergency escape I've done was probably During the testing of an space plane. I had already gotten orbit, gone around Mun and came back. As I was entering the thicker part of Kerbin's atmosphere, I noticed my plane was very difficult to control . It got worse the lower in the atmosphere I got until I was basically in a stalled flat spin. I guess my CoM and CoL were off by a touch.

Anyway it was looking to like it was going to be a pretty nasty crash when I noticed that while I couldn't control the spin, I could control the pitch and the yaw. I proceeded to turn my craft into a whirling helicopter blade spinning around over gentle arcs. The G's would have likely killed anyone but a kerbal, but instead of hitting the ground at terminal velocity, I ended up doing cartwheels at about 30 m/s. The cockpit was recessed so just about very part of the plane was destroyed during the cartwheeling except for the cockpit (and it's attached landing gear). It slid to a stop pointing straight up, landing gear still attached.

Jeb just kept smiling through the whole thing. He's got big ones.

Out of curiosity I later built an aircraft based on the whirling concept. It actually flew but was practically uncontrollable and pretty much always ended with a cartwheel-of-death.

[Hodo]

I have an capsule eject system designed into 90% of my functioning SSTO space plane fleet.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[eataTREE]

*sniff* *sob* Hmm, what? Sorry, I'm distraught over the loss of Bill. It's my fault. I totally underdesigned his ship with tiny delta-V tolerances and a pitiful supply of food, water, and oxygen. Stupid high-gravity Mun. We told his wife and children that Bill crashed on landing to avoid revealing a grimmer truth: having exhausted even his RCS propellant in a desparate bid to get home, Bill was trapped in a wildly eccentric Munar orbit and facing a slow death by suffocation as his oxygen supplies depleted. Rather than risk the life of another Kerbonaut in a dangerous rescue mission, Bill elected to trigger the craft's self-destruct charges.

Yeah, emergency procedures: something I haven't been designing enough of into my craft. Now that I have a life support mod, "Leave him in a stable orbit somewhere for a couple of years until I come rescue him" is no longer an acceptable failure mode. Bill, your heroic death shall not be in vain: the Redundancy and Failure Engineering Committee has been formed and must approve all future kerbed launches. Their requirements include life support supplies sufficient for five times expected mission duration, generous delta-v allowances, and appropriate contingency planning for every mission phase.

[worir4]

Emergency procedures, what are they?

(Whoo 50th post in just over a year of foruming!!!)

[Heimdall5008]

After a not so upright Mun landing, I used Jeb to turn and push the ship (it was small) so on the next slope that SAS got it upright again.

[StrandedonEarth]

1. Remove sharp objects like pens from pockets

2. Place head between knees and grasp ankles

3. Kiss your little green butt goodbye

I can't say those procedures have helped me, but they've helped many brave kerbonauts face death without panicking.

[Stratzenblitz75]

Safety? Why waste mass on emergency systems when you can go bare bones efficiency! The extra mass of a parachute or a decoupler can cost you precious fuel every time you launch. This little bit of fuel may not seem like much, but it adds up over time. When you're on a budget, can you spare this fuel to save your moron pilot who endangered your ship in the first place? I don't think so! So save your hard earned cash, get rid of your safety systems today!

Warning, removing safety systems may result in the deaths of more pilots. You may have to forc.. Ahem, "hire" more pilots to compensate.

[GreeningGalaxy]

I love how many of these solutions involve ramming things with kerbals.

In KSPI I have several vessels that run on antimatter power, and I've rigged elaborate fail-safe/safe-fail systems into them to prevent my kerbs from dying of antimatter poisoning. Generally, I put a decoupler and a few sepratrons between the antimatter bottle and the Alcubierre ring, so that in the event of a power failure, I can split the ship in such a way as to keep the Alcubierre drive with the habitat module and the antimatter with the drive section, so the kerbals can escape at 0.10c.

Other systems involve autopiloting the drive section into warp with its destabilizing antimatter bottle in tow, or else going for a drop-bottle-at-warp-then-kill-warp scenario. These have the advantage of getting the antimatter out of the vicinity of any other ships that might happen to be within the blast radius, but the last time I tried exploding something while at warp, it didn't end well.