escape systems?

[Stilgar2300]

Do you use them to save doomed kerbals? I used to use a hitchhiker, prove core and parachute s but with the mrk2 plane parts I've been experimenting with a shuttle type escape pod

I'm going to have four of them on my Eve mother ship just in case the areobraking goes terrible. Anyone else spend this much energy making redundancy?

[Pecan]

All (but one) of my crew-carrying designs have an 'abort' escape system.

I have also installed, but don't currently use, mods that provide escape-pods.

Any escape system I do have is wayyyyy less heavy than that you're planning! (The crew-cabin thingy seats 4 instead of 2 in the cockpit, for a start)

[Fiddlestyx]

Nope, they know what they signed up for.

[Stilgar2300]

All (but one) of my crew-carrying designs have an 'abort' escape system.

I have also installed, but don't currently use, mods that provide escape-pods.

Any escape system I do have is wayyyyy less heavy than that you're planning! (The crew-cabin thingy seats 4 instead of 2 in the cockpit, for a start)

[LethalDose]

Yes, whenever I can include it in the design (so basically when I get sepratrons). I love Vanguard's chutes and ejection systems.

[katateochi]

I usually put a basic launch escape system on crewed rockets and ALL aircraft/spaceplanes/SSTwhatevers have ejecting cockpits and I use a fairly set design for that. The main body of the craft it attached to the cockpit via a decoupler and the cockpit has septrons to push it forwards (3 for the Mk1 cockpit, more on larger ones or small craft that go v fast in the lower atmo) and a couple to push it up. I also always have the parachute on a separate group to abort (always 0) so it can be deployed once the cockpit is clear of the craft, otherwise bad things can happen.

That design has saved countless Kerbals from aircraft related deaths and on a couple occasions (by angling the cockpit and firing septrons 1 by 1) has manged to get a stranded crew back home. Also on all space fairing craft the cockpit/command pod has an RCS tank (that is disabled at the start) and a couple thrusters as a last resort return option and for making re-entry adjustments once everything else has been ditched.

I don't know why, but I kinda like designing and building escape systems. I would like to put more escape systems on stations, but it often comes down to part count limitations and stations are usually pretty safe (except the ones that aren't, but then it usually goes wrong so fast that no one has a chance to reach the escape-pods anyway!)

[merendel]

I'll usualy include a pair of seperatrons and a seperator to kick the command pod off my maned rockets tied to an abort sequence. normaly not perfectly aligned to COM but close enough that the SAS can keep things stable as it blasts off at an angle. I've even had one ship that had the command pod with a second stage above it and managed to rig things so the pod could kick out strait sideways, very violent ejection system but it could save a kerbal if things went bad. That one was mostly cause stage 1 was pure solids on that lifter.

space planes normaly dont have an easy way for me to eject the command pod but I do slap a radial chute on the cockpit. If alot of the ship is still attached it wont be a soft landing if I need to resort to it but it will be slow enough for the cockpit to survive impact, everything else will probably be a writeoff though. works well enough for those times I know I'll never be able to land safely because FAR sheared off somethign major.

[magnemoe]

If you add escape systems on planes you want to strengthen the passenger module as its pointless flimsy.

It has the same size and weight as the inline cockpit but an strength of 7 versus 45, only change is that they have removed the controls and added two extra seats.

Escape systems works pretty well on planes, at least then the passenger module is strong enough to handle a water landing.

You can use the forward canards as wings to gain height while slowing down so it can even be used close to ground.

Edited November 27, 2014 by magnemoe

[Overfloater]

Only if the crew capsule is conveniently placed on the uppermost part of the rocket.

[cantab]

If it's in a "serious" save, where I try not to just revert flights willy-nilly, then I usually put some sort of abort action on my rockets. Sometimes it'll use the LES or sepratrons, sometimes it just relies on the uppermost stage to power clear.

Planes I've not done so much with, but I'll probably equip them with whole-aircraft parachutes, at least in testing.

Once ships are in space, there doesn't tend to be any emergency contingency beyond "Use the RCS" and "Get out and push". Though when I'm playing with TAC Life Support that may change - at the very least I'll have to be mindful of when a return-to-Kerbin abort is and isn't possible

[7499275]

LES? Haha, your funny. I only use them if I'm playing realistically or with mods like FF. In which case I will use some kind of emergency action plan to help out the little Kerbals in the case of rapid unplanned dis assembly.

[Zedwardson]

my only abort system is rapidly pressing the spacebar to let the final stage separate and then land. if it cannot survive landing (such as most station modules) it goes up unmanned.

I only lost 4 kerbals to launch failures for rockets (don't get me started on space planes from the hanger) one was a 3 man capsule that had the paras ripped off by i think tumbling Gforce, and the second one was a one manned capsule that had a deployed canopy and was hit by one of the boosters that was flying uncontrolled in the KSC airspace.

(I have lost six to goofing off with jetpacks on the Mun.)

[montyben101]

Acutally I have lots of safety stuff for my shuttle missions and all other ones...

For the shuttle I use the vanguard parachute mod for lift off and landing safety and I always have a shuttle on one of the other launch pads (I have three)

For my warp drive ship I will have a small Pteron shuttle docked so they land quickly and safely if they need to

[MGCJerry]

I usually use the tower on my large rockets when things go horribly south. First I hit "X", and if I'm still under power, "abort!" If I'm not under power, I decouple the intact stages and fly away and try to carefully land the rocket vertically on the ground under power & some parachutes. Failing that, "abort!". I have actually recovered most of my rockets (minus a stage or two) doing this and on several other occasions have saved my landers.

I do make a lot of my rockets fail because I sabotage them to see if I can recover, and I've also made crazy contraptions to see if I can escape from... Lets play a game! We need an evil Kerbal smiley... Ok, took care of it:

I play sandbox, no perma-death, and revert a-lot because I do a lot of 'simulated' launches (and goofing off).

[TheSaint]

My crewed rockets all have LES installed. I don't use the LES part, I build my own. I also put escape pods on my space stations. But on the interplanetary ships I don't bother. They're too far away from safety for any escape system to help anyway.

[Norpo]

No, because I need all the extra delta-v I can get, and the less the part-count, the better.

And yet, those guys always seem to survive anyways...

...35% of the time

[Crown]

New planes are usually tested unmanned. All the simple rocket have no escape system, the abort action group though is (most of the time) bound to shut down all engines, fire retro rockets and decouple the pod. The bigger ones have the LES or an otherwise constructed escape system, with the abort action group configured the same. Only the manned rocket have an escape system, anything that goes up unmanned doesn't have one. Which makes it easier to construct stations, send supplies or build ships in orbit.

[Apature rocket science]

I use the vanguard parrashute system and if that dosn't work they can use rcs and if that doesn't work I can have them use KAS to make their own emergency system using comand chairs and rcs

[Kerba Fett]

Escape systems are a crutch for the careless like seat belts and crash helmets.

If your only options are to get it right or perish, you try harder to get it right.

[xrayfishx]

I love making very complex launch abort sequences/modes. Some of my rockets have 6 or more action groups dedicated to aborting. It's mostly OK because I don't really use action groups for other things. Now, all of that is automated by SmartParts, which constantly, throughout the flight drop away with a stage (disabling the now obsolete abort mode), disable each other (to switch to other abort modes) and when the abort sequence is started, automate the whole process, from activating the Launch Escape Thrusters to detaching the capsule aerodynamic shell and opening the parachute to activating the landing slowdown thrusters. Creating, testing and improving the launch abort takes half the development time.

My manned launches never fail, however. I have never had a Launch Abort on a manned mission, unless I've intentionally created a situation where it's necessary. Those abort modes and sequences never get any real testing. Just like in real life.

[Kizarvexis]

my only abort system is rapidly pressing the spacebar to let the final stage separate and then land. if it cannot survive landing (such as most station modules) it goes up unmanned.

I flirted with an actually abort system once, but I use SPAS also. The SPacebar Abort System, where you frantically hit the spacebar until the capsule separates and the Kerbals gently descend amongst the the exploding parts.

[LethalDose]

No, because I need all the extra delta-v I can get, and the less the part-count, the better.

And yet, those guys always seem to survive anyways...

...35% of the time

60% of the time, it works every time!

[Aethon]

When I do use them, they don't seem to work right.

It could be my staging.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Aethon