Rescue mission contract?

[Cant think of a username]

I have got this contract many times. But I never accepted one. I decided to try one out today. But I want to know what kind of rescue mission is it. How should I do it? Can I control the ship I am going to rescue? Does it have engines? What resources does it have? Lots of question. These are thing I need to know before doing any rescue mission.

[Curveball Anders]

18 minutes ago, Cant think of a username said:

I have got this contract many times. But I never accepted one. I decided to try one out today. But I want to know what kind of rescue mission is it. How should I do it? Can I control the ship I am going to rescue? Does it have engines? What resources does it have? Lots of question. These are thing I need to know before doing any rescue mission.

It will be a poor lonesome Kerbal i a command/crew module without any control.

The solution is to rendezvous with the target (as close as you dare, I aim for 50m) with a craft with at least one free slot.
Then switch to the target and EVA the Kerbonaut and use the her/his RCS to board the rescue craft.

It's not that hard, since you don't have to dock, and the reward is a free kerbonaut, worth quite a bit compared to hire one (and some extra cash and rep).

Personally I (ab)use those contracts as much as I can.

 

[Spricigo]

2 hours ago, Cant think of a username said:

 Lots of question. 

Well, I have only one: how confident you are with rendezvous and docking maneuvers?

If you still wonder how to put two ships in close vicinity of each other be prepared for a challenge. (definitely have a save before approaching) 

If you did once to prove you can be prepared for some practice. (a named save before the stranded kerbal leave his/her ship may still be a good idea) 

But if you already learned how to do it then is just a fee kerbal waiting to board the ship you put within 2.1km range of him/her.  Kerbals have about 600m/s in their EVA backpack and no issues with misplaced RCS thrusters causing induced rotation, plenty to cover for the eventual mista (just make sure you don't fly into the atmosphere.)

 

 

[Cant think of a username]

58 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

Well, I have only one: how confident you are with rendezvous and docking maneuvers?

If you still wonder how to put two ships in close vicinity of each other be prepared for a challenge. (definitely have a save before approaching) 

If you did once to prove you can be prepared for some practice. (a named save before the stranded kerbal leave his/her ship may still be a good idea) 

But if you already learned how to do it then is just a fee kerbal waiting to board the ship you put within 2.1km range of him/her.  Kerbals have about 600m/s in their EVA backpack and no issues with misplaced RCS thrusters causing induced rotation, plenty to cover for the eventual mista (just make sure you don't fly into the atmosphere.)

 

 

I am good at that. Ok maybe not with so much precision since I crashed a docking with my biggest Duna base before. 

[Spricigo]

8 minutes ago, Cant think of a username said:

I am good at that. Ok maybe not with so much precision since I crashed a docking with my biggest Duna base before. 

Good enough. Even if you bash Whatever Kerman a few times in the rescue ship I suspect there will be no lingering health issues. (been there, done that) 

[king of nowhere]

one good thing is that once you get close enough (around 2 kilometers) you can take control of the stranded kerbal and use his jetpack to reach your ship. his jetpack is much more manueverable than any ship i've ever flown. in fact, i learned docking with rescue missions, and then went on to ships, which are more difficult.

the only added difficulty you have is that your stranded kerbonaut will always have his head pointing northward, and the jetpack cannot push down. so, you can control well with a jetpack on a flat surface, but tridimensionally it is lacking. the best way i found to compensate for this is to send the rescue craft to intersect the astronaut on a north-south direction slowly (less than 1 m/s) and use the jetpack to move east-west to be there when the rescue ship intersects it's orbital plane. the description is confusing, but it's not hard to do.

one advice i can give you is to prepare a rescue ship with a lot of ladders. the stranded astronaut will need to grab a ladder, and every capsule has a shot one prebuilt, but you have to touch it exactly. it's much easier if you cover your rescue craft in ladders until it looks like a porcupine, so the astronaut can grab anywhere. also make sure you have extra fuel for manuevering and enough reaction wheels to have easy manuevering.

and save the game when you get close to the stranded astronaut.

 

EDIT: oh, and equip a couple of floodlights to illuminate the rescue craft too. it helps in case you reach the astronaut when it's night.

Edited June 9, 2020 by king of nowhere

[Curveball Anders]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

one good thing is that once you get close enough (around 2 kilometers) you can take control of the stranded kerbal and use his jetpack to reach your ship. his jetpack is much more manueverable than any ship i've ever flown. in fact, i learned docking with rescue missions, and then went on to ships, which are more difficult.

the only added difficulty you have is that your stranded kerbonaut will always have his head pointing northward, and the jetpack cannot push down. so, you can control well with a jetpack on a flat surface, but tridimensionally it is lacking. the best way i found to compensate for this is to send the rescue craft to intersect the astronaut on a north-south direction slowly (less than 1 m/s) and use the jetpack to move east-west to be there when the rescue ship intersects it's orbital plane. the description is confusing, but it's not hard to do.

one advice i can give you is to prepare a rescue ship with a lot of ladders. the stranded astronaut will need to grab a ladder, and every capsule has a shot one prebuilt, but you have to touch it exactly. it's much easier if you cover your rescue craft in ladders until it looks like a porcupine, so the astronaut can grab anywhere. also make sure you have extra fuel for manuevering and enough reaction wheels to have easy manuevering.

and save the game when you get close to the stranded astronaut.

 

EDIT: oh, and equip a couple of floodlights to illuminate the rescue craft too. it helps in case you reach the astronaut when it's night.

A couple of things:

A Kerbonaut on EVA has 5 m/s dv available, quite a lot but don't run out of gas! Getting your craft within grabbing distance of an out of gas Kerbonaut is not easy...

Unless on a console or avoiding mods then @Snark's Indicator Lights provides a nice little beacon that can be added next to the hatch/ladder.
(Personally I set them to blink at 1000/500 to make them easy to spot in the dark.)

Also once your rescue craft is near the rescuee then try to position you craft so it's entry faces you incoming new crew member.

Edit:

The jetpack does push down (and up) use your throttle controls (left shift / left ctrl).

 

Edited June 9, 2020 by Curveball Anders

[king of nowhere]

22 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

The jetpack does push down (and up) use your throttle controls (left shift / left ctrl).

 

ctrl? ctrl????

all this time i did a painstaking manuevering where i had to rotate the whole ship to change direction in the north-south axis, when i could have just used ctrl???

i'm not sure whether to laugh or cry...

[AHHans]

4 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

all this time i did a painstaking manuevering where i had to rotate the whole ship to change direction in the north-south axis, when i could have just used ctrl???

Well, I got really good at orienting my rescue ship so that it's lit hatches were facing towards the Kerbal to be rescued, and to navigate an EVA Kerbal in near complete darkness. ... Until I read somewhere (probably here in the Forums) that Kerbals on EVA have lights...

So: Welcome to the club!

5 hours ago, Curveball Anders said:

A Kerbonaut on EVA has 5 m/s dv available

I guess you wanted to write 500 m/s dV.

[Curveball Anders]

5 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

ctrl? ctrl????

all this time i did a painstaking manuevering where i had to rotate the whole ship to change direction in the north-south axis, when i could have just used ctrl???

i'm not sure whether to laugh or cry...

Just giggle and accept that we've all been there...