You know you overbuilt your rocket when...

[Madrias]

When you can land it safely with pieces missing.

[GamerMitch]

...when you have to leave half-full fuel tanks behind because of maneuvering problems.

[NecroBones]

... When your rocket was intended only for a sub-orbital flight, but manages to swing by Eve and do a landing and return along the way instead.

[worir4]

When you can reach a trajectory out of the sun (some of my debris has... It was only meant to be able to go to mun but the debris went far...)

Did you use like a 20km/s dv burn for the mun transfer or something?

When 40 of the big x4 nasa pack boosters still fail to give you a TWR of 1. On Gilly

[Matrix Aran]

...you spent 380k funds on a booster to get you to Minmus, just because you love the ignition sound of the Griffon Century.

[MGCJerry]

Land on Mun with your transfer stage because its still about 66% full. Not to mention having missed a few burns and having to correct them in-route on top of having an inefficient transfer.

However, I landed on a slope (oops), which caused the rocket to fall on its side (oops), but didnt break anything (yay) because the solar panel retracted JUST in time (yay) and was unable to right myself because it was an old design that carried no monoprop (oops), but in the end of fooling around crashed and killed Jeb (oops). Now my girlfriend and her mom is mad at me, they like Jeb (oops x2).

[Ikaneko]

I once got to orbit with most of my side-boosters remaining.

[TheBigFish]

You can fly your rocket to Jool without decoupling the four 5 meter diameter and 100 meter tall LFBRs.

[Coga19000]

...when you accidentally decouple your lander instead of igniting the lifter engines (DANG YOU STAGING), then you ignite the lander engines by frustration and start climbing... to find yourself in orbit.

When you can land it safely with pieces missing.

That's not really ovebuilding; it's called redundancy, and in real-life, it is necessary for making sure your astronauts will come home. Even though noone really cares about that in KSP (), the engine physics make this entirely possible as long as you still got a functioning parachute/engine/landing legs (preferably a combination)

[The Error]

...when you land safely on Kerbin with approximately 30% of the intended touchdown mass.

Bonus? It was a spaceplane, too.

[waterlubber]

...you can land on ike with your interplanetary transfer stage,

you seriously consider going to Moho...on your Duna mission...

you use 3 nuclear engines because you think they look neat...

then an hour after you undock your lander, you realize that a misplaced docking port just made your transfer stage useless...

and you have enough DeltaV to return home.

In the lander.

After ascending from Duna.

Edited November 22, 2014 by waterlubber

[zekes]

When the successor to your awesome heavy lifter is just said lifter with two more of its first stage slapped on the side.

[LABHOUSE]

...you can land on ike with your interplanetary transfer stage,

you seriously consider going to Moho...on your Duna mission...

you use 3 nuclear engines because you think they look neat...

then an hour after you undock your lander, you realize that a misplaced docking port just made your transfer stage useless...

and you have enough DeltaV to return home.

In the lander.

After ascending from Duna.

Look at overfloater's sstos, he made one as to to eeloo and back, he can probably do an like and duna ssto.

[Guest]

your ship that was designed to bring an asteroid from high kerbin orbit to low minmus orbit...

...has enough fuel to land the asteroid on minmus...

...rendevouz with and deorbit the probe that originally brought the asteroid to kerbin orbit..

...and get into an almost circular, almost non-inclined 90km orbit.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Prof. Endwalker]

You know you overbuilt your rocket when it comes with multiple capsules that fit E Class Asteroids. With room left.

[SunJumper]

When Whackjob says your rocket is big.

When you use Gilly as your return vehicle.

When your second stage engine is so big that you have to name it "Explosion"

When your first stage engine is called "Ragnarök"

When your Launch Stability Strut Manufacturers are thinking of making space elevators out of them.

When your upper stage engine emits more power than the Space Shuttle at liftoff

When your launch configuration's power output is a serious rival to the Saturn V

When your launch configuration's power output surpasses the Saturn V

When your first stage engine weighs more than a mun rocket

When your first stage engine weighs twice as much as a rocket capable of launching from Kerbin, Landing on the Mun, Launching from the Mun, Landing on Minmus, performing another flyby of the Mun, and landing on Kerbin

When your battery has as much stored energy as 10 grams of Uranium 235

When your battery has as much stored energy as 10 solar masses of Uranium 235

When your separators use nuclear bombs

When your solid rocket booster is labelled "An international threat"

... And is simply called a "Missile Silo"

When your launch configuration's power output is a serious rival to the Human Race

When your landing legs were used as supports for bridges

"What is this, an engine for elephants?"

When your launch configuration's power output is a serious rival to the sun

"This is a beast of an engine. Using quantities of Testium that would cause entire planets to shudder, this engine's power rivals that of the Milky Way."

When you use the Sun as your rocket engine.

When you have multiple Alcubierre Drives set up in stages.

When you use "Missile Silos" as seperatrons.

When, somewhere, some time, wherever Jebediah Kerman is, he feels a tremendous sinking feeling. He feels an alien emotion... fear. The rocket is... nowhere. The rocket is... everywhere. The rocket uses every star in the universe, and it reaches 4.46 on the Kardashev Scale. It is two orders of magnitude lower than the Planck Force, where the force between the Earth and the Sun is 22. The rocket converts the equivalent of 2,200 solar masses of energy a second.

Unknowing, Jebediah is launched by the Everywhere Rocket, he recieves 4,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy, and reaches a speed that is so relativistically high that a 50 digit calculator says that it is exactly the same as the speed of light.

Jebediah becomes... infinity. He experiences... eternity. Infinite time. Zero dimensions. Infinite mass.

And the players Whackjob, Scott Manley, Zisteau, and everyone else, finally admit...

"One more booster until perfection"

[Stratzenblitz75]

When the first stage falls back down to the launchpad and destroys it...

[Deadpangod3]

When the first stage falls back down to the launchpad and destroys it...

http://i.imgur.com/HkxHRAf.jpg

*claps*

how big was your stage?!

[Stratzenblitz75]

*claps*

how big was your stage?!

There were 20 5m KW Rocketry Griffon Century powered boosters in the first stage. Gave me just enough power for the rocket to have a TWR of 1.11 on the launchpad.

The stage in the picture consists of five 20 meter procedural fuel tanks powered by 11 Griffon Century engines each. At launch, it was producing 900 Mega-newtons of thrust.

[Deadpangod3]

There were 20 5m KW Rocketry Griffon Century powered boosters in the first stage. Gave me just enough power for the rocket to have a TWR of 1.11 on the launchpad.

The stage in the picture consists of five 20 meter procedural fuel tanks powered by 11 Griffon Century engines each. At launch, it was producing 900 Mega-newtons of thrust.

o.o

what on kerbin are you launching and where are you going that requires that much thrust?

[elfnet]

I know I over built my rockets when they become too heavy and will not lift off instead they fall over and blow up or things start falling off at random.

When the first stage falls back down to the launchpad and destroys it...

ok I have a better one. You know you over built when your testing a lander and it destroys the launchpad just by sitting on it..

Even better -- When your rover test destroys the launchpad, VAB and mission control...

Edited November 24, 2014 by elfnet

[cantab]

When you need to build a notch in the side of your rocket so it fits round the VAB when you launch it.

[icedown]

When your TWR is > 10.

[elfnet]

When you launch it and it blows the windows out of mission control

[Yukon0009]

When your Gilly lander has enough fuel to do a GT minus Eve and Jool landing.