Kerbal safety and stuff

[Daffs]

In a hardcore game (no reverts, perma death) then yes I'll add a sequence to the abort button to recover the kerbals from a rocket. Except for planes they tend to go wrong FAST, I've tried abort sequences but the plane is usually the wrong way up, parachutes rip off etc...Just don't put your veterans in those....Maybe I'm just terrible at building them (three deaths due to landing gear being miss aligned )

[Thomas988]

Revert flight works wonders.

[Sky_walker]

Kerbals are borderline-indestructable, killing them doesn't affect the gameplay, and they respawn in unlimited amounts, so... Why bother with anything?

I build crafts with safety mechanisms where I still thought KSP simulates any of these. Now I can't be bothered.

[Damaske]

We at The Mass Key Shipyards believe in safely therefor each craft that we launch, that is of our own design and that leaves the ground have some sort of an abort system.

These types of abort systems include:

1. Vertical launch mode 1:
   
   • Shutdown of all engines
     
   • Decouple of capsule and firing of escape tower
     
   • Activation of chutes
     

[*]Vertical launch mode 2:

• Shutdown of all engines except orbital engines
  
• Decouple of capsule and firing of orbital engines
  
• Activation of chutes
  

[*]Spaceplane launch mode 1

• Shutdown of all non-air breathing engines
  
• Dumping of all solid fuel boosters, and oxidizer from tanks.
  
• Return to runway
  

[*]Spaceplane launch mode 2

• Shutdown of all engines
  
• Complete fuel and oxidizer dump as with solid fuel boosters
  
• Deploy chutes, or don chutes on kerbals and jump from cabin.
  

Our ground craft come with safely belts, airbags, self sealing fuel cells and full rollcage or crumple zones in non-Kerbal occupied zones.

[Richy teh space man]

I have a sandbox save called test which I think of as being a simulator within a simulator (Kerbception?)

I imagine the crew play around in there launching weird contraptions and killing themselves without any consequences, then on the rare occasion something actually works, I then use it for my "career" games.

[Madrias]

Parachutes for safe landing, ejectable cockpits, jettison all un-necessary equipment. My basic standards.

[merendel]

Most of my ships are fine with simple escape systems. shut down engiens, decouple pod, rock it off if there are SRB's still burning and the situation can not wait for them to burn out. I have made more elaborate systems on a few craft. One notable one to moho had the pod situated on top of the transfer/lander stages (and the launcher under that) with a return stage attached above the pod. That one had an abort sequence that didnt even cut engiens. pod would decouple from both sides and seperatrons would blast the thing out sideways before it could get crushed. Very violent ejection sequence but it worked. The explosion caused by the launch system pancakeing through the return stage was glorious as well when I tested it.

Dont generaly have extra pods for my kerbin stations although I do frequently have one of my rescue clusters in orbit. Each cluster has 9 rescue pods (8 syemetry with an extra built into the core) each pod has 1kdv on seperation. If anything went wrong on a station the crew could EVA and could be picked up withen an orbit or two. Not really any different than what the cluster was designed for, kerbal rescue missions.

[Fendleton]

....what is this "Safety" of which you speak?

[Spatzimaus]

Dedicated "safety" gear, like the escape tower, just isn't that important to me. It's not because I don't want my Kerbals to live, but because I design my stuff such that it's not an issue. I don't use SRBs, my rockets are all SSTO with separatrons to push away from the payload, and my payload (if manned) stage is always a fully fledged descent vehicle with plenty of parachutes and such and will be designed to land on any terrain. So if something does go wrong (very rare, since I've been playing for a long time) I just kill the engines and stage out to the end. Easy descent with no risk, and Jeb's home safely.

For that matter, even my booster rockets are designed to descent safely, with parachutes and landing legs. So even if something breaks, it's pretty common that most of the important bits make it safely to the ground.

Spaceplanes can be a bit more dangerous, as they have a chance of blowing up on the runway with no easy way to escape, but again I've done this enough that that just doesn't happen to me any more. Part of it there is that I prefer a "thick wing" design, where I use a full-body top and bottom wing that meet up at the edges; besides giving tons of lift, this also gives a nice internal space I can use to strut everything together firmly. This really cuts down on runway wobble and makes landings a lot safer as well.

As for space stations, my old 800-ton designs did include four one-man escape pods for crew to use, but getting TO the pods was a bit of a chore as they were located on the outer pylons of the station. In my newer designs, the entire central crew habitat is a detachable descent vehicle as well, so if the station breaks apart the crew will almost always survive. Besides, you can always just EVA away from a disintegrating station and wait for a ship to come pick you up later; I've got a small 8-ton spaceplane designed for just this sort of thing. It's not like life support is an issue.

So no, I don't bother with escape towers and such. It's just not worth the headaches.

[General Rarity]

Launch escape systems? Pfft...

My launch escape system is the rocket.

[magnemoe]

Launch escape systems? Pfft...

My launch escape system is the rocket.

Someone did an original launch escape, he was launching an Eve lander then the launcher failed, solution was to kill engines, decouple the Eve lander and take it to orbit.

Most of my manned launches today is with spaceplanes, has had one fatality, a kerbal who was rescued in orbit and a to hard landing.

Can separate the crew compartment on the plane but need to modify it so it also lift as an crash during landing don't help much.

[Wanderfound]

Someone did an original launch escape, he was launching an Eve lander then the launcher failed, solution was to kill engines, decouple the Eve lander and take it to orbit.

Most of my manned launches today is with spaceplanes, has had one fatality, a kerbal who was rescued in orbit and a to hard landing.

Can separate the crew compartment on the plane but need to modify it so it also lift as an crash during landing don't help much.

Appropriately aimed Sepratrons on the cockpit and fuselage work for this...sometimes. I've lost plenty of pilots due to having their eject capsule steamrollered by an out of control 100 ton spaceplane.

[TimberWolffe]

My safety equipment is up to Kerbin's highest safety standards, that is, as quick and painless a death as is possible. RIP Bill, Bob, Jeb, Gilbald, Sigbald, Segfried and Herden Kerman. Your contributions to Kerbalkind will not be forgotten for maybe 5 months

[MarvinKitFox]

Do you have any sort of safety stuff? do you use escape towers?

Safety stuff?

Escape towers???

BAH HUMBUG!

The very first thing I do when I start a career is:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60181-Disabling-quicksave-quickload-and-revert-flight-in-a-campaign

Disable quicksave/quickload.

Disable revert

Enable permadeath for Jeb and his mates.

I only allow myself "backup" saves from the command centre.

I only use these backup saves in event of Kraken, Desktop, or similar FUBAR.

My career games all use Deadly Reentry, TAC life support.

Why so draconian?

It makes me *think* about my missions. *plan*. *design* a spaceship, not just slap some stuff together.

I have not had a Kerbal fatality in the last 3 career complete playthroughs, and only 3 in the last 2 months of playing.

(rest in peace Jeb, Rose, Merber. I will not misjudge the slope on landing again)

Disclaimer!!

Sandbox is where I go nuts. Kerbals die there like lemmings!

I consider sandbox mode to be in a flight simulator, in a training/research centre somewhere.

If I am in a career game and I don't know if I can trust my ship design, I save the design, export it to a sandbox universe, and test it there.

[magnemoe]

Appropriately aimed Sepratrons on the cockpit and fuselage work for this...sometimes. I've lost plenty of pilots due to having their eject capsule steamrollered by an out of control 100 ton spaceplane.

Abort should also kill all engines.

yes, tested now and four aimed back and down work, I also found that using the cancard as a wing help a lot, it lets you convert horizontal speed to attitude.

If you damage the cancard during takeoff or landing you are pretty dead.

[Bothersome]

....what is this "Safety" of which you speak?

Safety is doing a simulation BEFORE you do it for real.

See I play on hard core settings (no quick load, no reverts, dead kerbals are dead kerbals, they don't come back). Using RO, RSS, DRE, etc and playing the Kerbal Construction Time and that mod has a simulator mode. That is where safety comes in. You got to think ahead to keep Jeb alive.

[nine_iron]

A couple of hundred dV or some monoprop engines usually suffices.

Also chutes to aid landing

[KandoKris]

Safety... I'd like to think I'm just a great designer as I havn't had a kerbal death since 2.20 (touch wood )

I'd like to think that... but ...I'd say its more luck then anything else. Also lots of rescue missions...

I once was obsessed with safety but these days I wing-it and just cross my fingers