Nearly 3 years playing KSP and the same old failures happen

[James_Eh]

Forgetting to move the launch clamps down to the first stage is my standard failure mode. That's a bit of a pet peeve of mine I must admit - it's a pain to have to hunt through the staging list to find where the game decided to drop them, I'd think a line or two of logic in the code would suffice to always default them TO THE FIRST STAGE!!! (I mean, they devoted time to defaulting the throttle to 50%...)

[merendel]

Ya solar panel issues (both breaking them off and forgetting to deploy) are one of the reasons I always have a couple of the static ones stuck to my ships. I've just screwed up the main panels too many times not to design around the fact that they may not work. They may be insufficient for transmitting in a reasonable time frame but they ensure I'll at least get some power at some point. Even getting partial exposure on a panel will at least let the probe operate enough to deploy the main ones or to let it limp home eventually if they got broken off.

I've also fallen pray to welding capsule doors shut with science instruments. Always makes me wonder how the kerbal got in there in the first place.

[CtrlAltEL1TE]

Only fitting 2 solar panels to the command module. I engage a transfer orbit and commence time acceleration. Come out of time acceleration to do my orbital insertion and realise niether of my panels where orientated towards sunlight and I had 0 power. THe craft proceeds to fly past the target body into the void. Played for 3+ years and still do this once every 2 or so months im playing for.

[WOODY01]

Forgetting to move the launch clamps down to the first stage is my standard failure mode. That's a bit of a pet peeve of mine I must admit - it's a pain to have to hunt through the staging list to find where the game decided to drop them, I'd think a line or two of logic in the code would suffice to always default them TO THE FIRST STAGE!!! (I mean, they devoted time to defaulting the throttle to 50%...)

What is also fun is forgetting to add them to a large and heavy rocket, realize it just before the physics kick in, pray you will be able to launch before it collapses, then watch your very expensive rocket destroyed and never have left the pad. The last time this happened is when I decided I will always allow reverting flights in my games.

[James_Eh]

Only fitting 2 solar panels to the command module. I engage a transfer orbit and commence time acceleration. Come out of time acceleration to do my orbital insertion and realise niether of my panels where orientated towards sunlight and I had 0 power. THe craft proceeds to fly past the target body into the void. Played for 3+ years and still do this once every 2 or so months im playing for.

OK, first that is an excellent forum handle. Second, yah that's why 3X sym is your friend... always point your ship to solar equator @ 0 or 180 degrees and even one lousy little single solar panel (per 120 degrees) will supply the oomph you need for those long interplanetary coasts.

[Vanamonde]

I tried to land on Ike with a ship that only had landing legs on the side that faced the VAB camera.

[Kerbart]

A little year of playing and still put my parachutes in the same stage as the main engine.

At least you remembered the parachutes. The number of times where I have to tell Jeb & the crew halfway during re-entry “Ok, this may sound stupid, but trust me, your best chances of survival are actually to get out of the capsule right now, trust me...â€Â

[Kerbart]

Putting your abort actions into the staging action group also never gets old...

Or your Action Group 1 items.

Why did my solar panels fall off during launch?

[Piper]

I had a very similar failure to the OP's. I was returning to orbit from Duna's surface with Jeb and a couple of other guys, when I realised the I forgot to retract my solar panels just in time to see them break off the lander. Luckily in that case, I had a plenty big enough battery to last me till docking with the return segment of the ship, and the return segment was automates to boot, so if all else failed, I could dock controlling that instead.

[Bigbootie]

Ohh man I do that all the freakin time too. I've posted screen shots of it.

A little year of playing and still put my parachutes in the same stage as the main engine.

[Bigbootie]

Launch clamps in 2nd or third stage or even worse, 1st stage with no main engines powering up.....KABOOM!!!!

[Tank2333]

For me staging errors wich tending to panic attacking the space bar are fun too

And designing a cool plane good balance etc.

Maidenflight, all system good thrust 100% 100m/s and lift off...ir not? ...

Then the runway ends and u see that u forgot thr controll surface

Also funny is to crash jeb into the mun on 1000x speed because u are impatient

[John FX]

stage 1, release clamps

fall to pad, explode.

[waterlubber]

Found a mod called WernerChecker that automatically reminds you you need solar panels, etc. Also, I always disable flow on the probe core body. If the ship runs out of power, you can still reenable flow long enough to do something about it. I call it hibernation mode ()

Also, if you install Alternate Resource Panel (I use it to replace the hideous stock panel) you can set alarms on various resources.

[numerobis]

OK, first that is an excellent forum handle. Second, yah that's why 3X sym is your friend... always point your ship to solar equator @ 0 or 180 degrees and even one lousy little single solar panel (per 120 degrees) will supply the oomph you need for those long interplanetary coasts.

I go for tetrahedral, just to be sure. It's not hard to have three panels all orthogonal to the sun.

[Calvin_xc1]

Okay, perfect orbit. NAILED IT. We'll be coming up on rendezvous in 3 . . 2 . . 1 . . Excellent. Circularisation burn complete. Almost there. And a little nudge with the RCS . . .

Waitaminnit, I have lots of RCS tanks. Why isn't it . . .

No RCS thruster blocks . . . *facepalm*

Actually these are some of my most favorite times, I get to try docking with the engine (-: I've had some very awesome docking experiences that way!

[antb0y]

Releasing the launch clamps without igniting the engines is probably a classic.

What happens to me frequently is that go into time warp instead of throttling up because I confuse the keys in the heat of the moment.

[Excalibur]

I've also fallen pray to welding capsule doors shut with science instruments. Always makes me wonder how the kerbal got in there in the first place.

How else do you think - they build the capsule around the Kerbal of course! I guess that would make BionicJeb?

[NecroBones]

I have a bit of a mental checklist, so it's been pretty rare that I've forgotten something important. I've forgotten non-critical details more frequently (like putting a probe core on a stage I meant to de-orbit later).

But staging mishaps? All the freaking time.

[ArmchairGravy]

Releasing the launch clamps without igniting the engines is probably a classic.

What happens to me frequently is that go into time warp instead of throttling up because I confuse the keys in the heat of the moment.

Oh yeah, good times right there.

[Artfact]

I've been here for almost 3 years and i still can't build a cargo SSTO. I'll admit that.

Same here....Playing since 2011 and still most of my time is consumed trying to get my transport plane into orbit.

In development for about a year now.

[JimmyAgent007]

I still forget solar panels. Docking ports are another issue of mine. I over engineer and end up with tanks full of fuel that other ships could use if I remembered to put ports on the tanks. My only SSTOs are the ones I over engineer for the launch phase, then dont have the RCS to turn them quickly in orbit because i wasnt planning on bringing them that far.

[Aragosnat]

Mainly staging issues for me. Take a part off add a new one then add an old one but new as in I grabed it from the list and it gets put in old stage instead of new one. Forgetting to add chutes is another classic one that I sometimes do along with decuplers along with the chutes.

[FellipeC]

Or your Action Group 1 items.

Why did my solar panels fall off during launch?

I did that yesterday

[Madrias]

Crap! I put my drop tanks in the same action group I used to turn my landing lights on and off. Dropped a pair of Rockomax Jumbos loaded with nothing but liquid fuel about 10 minutes into my flight. Was turning on the landing spots while flying low so I wouldn't hit the ground. As for how big the plane was... I had a delta-wing jet fighter in the cargo bay. 5m fuselage.