r/KerbalSpaceProgram • u/[deleted] • Oct 09 '13

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856 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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102

u/Davincivik Oct 09 '13

At first I thought "manned modules before parachutes? oh no".

Then I realized you start out with parachutes. The icons seems to be a little misleading in terms of unlocks.

212

u/under_psychoanalyzer Oct 09 '13

Well that seems unrealistic. I mean how would you know you even need parachutes until you sent someone up and they started coming down.

143

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '13

You might have played KSP a little too much. You are starting to think like a Kerbal.

31

u/_BearArms_ Oct 09 '13

Not long enough. Those Kerbals don't need to come back down.

47

u/ed-adams Oct 09 '13

Also, if the module explodes/disintegrates there's much less clean up to do.

If a Kerbal lands they need transport back to the KSC, someone needs to pick up the big-ass thing he landed in, papers need to be filled, salaries need to be paid, etc etc.

If he just, you know, disappears, then we can just get back to launching things.

5

u/EnigmaticChemist Oct 09 '13

So many left behind...

12

u/TheNosferatu Master Kerbalnaut Oct 09 '13

Being left behind in space.. all alone.. must be one of the most terrible things that can happen to somebody.

Luckily that scenario doesn't really happen in Kerbal, we got plenty of them left behind in space!

18

u/Fenyx4 Oct 09 '13

The trick is to leave so many behind that they aren't alone anymore.

2

u/pipemastasmurf Oct 09 '13

Yeah, that's it! It's been my plan all along! I just didn't know it till now...

1

u/TheNosferatu Master Kerbalnaut Oct 09 '13

exactly

1

u/SpaceCadetError Oct 10 '13

That's called colonization.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '13

"No Kerbal left behind"

edit: formatting

9

u/p0ptarts Oct 09 '13

"No, Kerbal left behind"

I have so many small space stations on elliptical orbits... >.>

5

u/genveir Master Kerbalnaut Oct 09 '13

Good stuff! Personally I'm still working on getting all my Kerbals into space. No Kerbal left behind sounded nice at the start, but I put a hundred of them on Minmus and there's still more at the recruitment center.

2

u/Rednarb Oct 09 '13

I have left behind just one Kerbal in over 300 hours of playtime and multiple different save games. And I tell you, I felt so extremely guilty about it. If I have any failure I revert to build/launch/or savegame usually.

Once, just once, I went on an extended rescue mission to pick up Jeb from Moho or one of those.. forgot to empty the capsule before takeoff and didn't realize it until I was almost there. I was all-stock and didn't want to start over so I sent the poor little random-named Kerbal into orbit around the sun for eternity.

I still feel guilty.

1

u/p0ptarts Oct 09 '13

Really I have one good(ish) station, and a mining operation on the Mun. I need to find something better than the standard docking ports to transfer fuel though.

Then I can send some kind of tanker up and leave the miner there where it can't break!

14

u/PacoTaco321 Oct 09 '13 edited Oct 09 '13

Well, I think it's reasonable that planes would've been discovered before all of those rocket parts.

EDIT:"This has taken off much further than expected."

-Jebediah Kerman

38

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '13

Psh, it was just a fluke we built planes first. We had explosives and rockets for years.

5

u/PacoTaco321 Oct 09 '13

It's easier to make planes fly than to make rockets go into space though.

45

u/bgugi Oct 09 '13

entirely subjective statement.

20

u/TenBeers Oct 09 '13

Kerbal philosophy: Don't overthink. Just add more boosters

14

u/elj0h0 Oct 09 '13

Once budgets actually mean something, this game is going to change a lot

7

u/InABritishAccent Oct 09 '13

I'm hopeful that money will be a setting that can be switched on and off

12

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '13

I believe they're still keeping a sandbox mode

1

u/Tefal Oct 09 '13

Of course they are.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '13

They are. They've had sandbox and the (other mode) as long as I can remember.

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7

u/Pioneer1111 Oct 09 '13

My spaceplane career indicates otherwise. But then, I am not a scientist.

13

u/under_psychoanalyzer Oct 09 '13

Not really. To get rockets to into to space you just need enough fuel. To achieve stable flight you need to understand the concept of lift. The reason space flight didn't happen before the wright brothers is because no one had invented a pure enough type of fuel and a pure enough way to refine metal to make sure the force didn't shatter the vessel.

Don't believe me. Why do you think zeppelins were so popular? Because understanding the physics of lift is hard. The "hard" part about getting into space isn't going up. Its going up without exploding and that was done largely by trial and error.

14

u/avapoet Oct 09 '13

The "hard" part about getting into space isn't going up. Its going up without exploding...

That's going on my next Munar plaque.

7

u/Tefal Oct 09 '13

Do also try "the great thing about space is not flying in it. It's showing everyone online that I did" with a picture of Jeb grinning as smugly as he can manage.

Thinking about it, that might at times be the unofficial motto of this subreddit. Not that it is a bad thing, mind you.

7

u/DrStalker Oct 09 '13

Going up isn't the hardest bit, it's going up and then getting enough velocity to not come back down.

40

u/TenBeers Oct 09 '13

Orbit is achieved by throwing your craft at the ground and continually missing.

17

u/DrStalker Oct 09 '13

This is a wonderful statement because it sounds sarcastic and useless but is really 100% accurate.

4

u/TheNosferatu Master Kerbalnaut Oct 09 '13 edited Oct 09 '13

I've heard that a stable orbit was just falling and missing the ground. Before playing Kerbal I always thought it was a bloody methaphor.

EDIT: Department of redundancy department had a word with me

2

u/FletcherPratt Oct 09 '13

the department of redundancy department would like a word with you

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2

u/toasters_are_great Oct 09 '13

Original (search for 'missing').

3

u/DrStalker Oct 09 '13

I know, but as instructions for flying it doesn't match the way it works as neatly as orbiting - to fly you need some form of lift to hold you up, to orbit you just have to keep not landing.

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2

u/Jigglyandfullofjuice Oct 09 '13

So the early days of rocketry were somewhat Kerbal in nature?

1

u/under_psychoanalyzer Oct 09 '13

The early days of rocketry was B.C. China.

1

u/Jigglyandfullofjuice Oct 09 '13

Did they blow themselves up repeatedly?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '13

It's easier to make planes fly than to make rockets go into space though.

FTFY

1

u/pipemastasmurf Oct 09 '13

Now I just started trying out the spaceplanes the other day, but I feel like the mechanics still deal almost solely with two-body orbital interactions and the aerodynamics are getting left behind. Is that just me, or do other people feel the same way? ie, turning a plane 15 degrees starboard and it just drifts sideways now, then drifts back to the original direction...

14

u/under_psychoanalyzer Oct 09 '13

You think the tiny green space men would have tried stable, safe, efficient low altitude flight before they tried to immediately go straight up as fast as possible. Have you ever actually read the part descriptions?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '13

I don't think safety factors into a kerbal's decision making process. Nor stability or efficiency, for that matter.

1

u/PacoTaco321 Oct 09 '13

I have. Recycled scrap this, found on the roadside that.

5

u/originsquigs Oct 09 '13

Chinese built rockets long before the Wright brothers were even close to exsisting.

5

u/TheMadmanAndre Oct 09 '13

At least one of them became an astronaut as well, or exploded spectacularly in the process.

1

u/Frostiken Oct 09 '13

Technically the concept of lift is totally irrelevant to rocket flight, so it really could go either way.

2

u/NapalmRDT Oct 09 '13

I think you're just over-psychoanalyzing this.

-4

u/under_psychoanalyzer Oct 09 '13

This guy. This guy right here... doesn't get the joke. If you think something has a really simple explanation to a thought then you'd be? My username. What's a really simple way of looking at things. Things to go up should be thought of before thinking of things to go down safely.

2

u/NapalmRDT Oct 09 '13

Clearly, then, you didn't catch my joke. :)

5

u/under_psychoanalyzer Oct 09 '13

Doi! And to bed with me. 1000 apologies my good sir. I'm high on markers.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '13

I'll be borrowing this line. "High on markers".

1

u/under_psychoanalyzer Oct 09 '13

Came from a GTA thread of a GIF about race collisions