What is the point of the External Command Seats?

[lajoswinkler]

Kerbals must be made of the same stuff their planet is made of. A 1m tall creature that weighs 93 Kg (~3ft, ~200lbs for you Imperial types) is awfully dense.

As with our astronauts, a great deal of weight has to do with their EVA suit. Kerbals are lightweight, actually.

[Red Iron Crown]

As with our astronauts, a great deal of weight has to do with their EVA suit. Kerbals are lightweight, actually.

They're about 1/2 the height of a human, so one would expect them to be about 1/8 the mass given similar density. If an average human is 80Kg, that makes a 10Kg Kerbal wearing an 80Kg suit, which seems unlikely to me.

[Temstar]

I second the LRLF idea:

Chairs allow you to build a spacecraft weighing less than 900kg, capable to taking two kerbals down to the surface of the Mun and then back to orbit.

[Seret]

Tbh, the seats are so light that I often stick one on the outside of things like my robotic space tractors, just in case they need to go rescue a Kerbal.

[technion]

Chairs allow you to build a spacecraft weighing less than 900kg, capable to taking two kerbals down to the surface of the Mun and then back to orbit.

Where is the torque in that coming from? I built a similar thing and it couldn't turn. By the time you add on 0.2T worth of SAS unit, the thing is four times the size and looks silly.

[Red Iron Crown]

Where is the torque in that coming from? I built a similar thing and it couldn't turn. By the time you add on 0.2T worth of SAS unit, the thing is four times the size and looks silly.

A probe core is my guess.

[Wooks]

Use them for landers or rovers... but you can always strap a chair to a rocket

I use them to give an extra layer of difficulty on my personal challenges, for example in my circumnavigation challenge I could use a capsule or two to man my rover, but where is the fun on that?

[Claw]

Where is the torque in that coming from? I built a similar thing and it couldn't turn. By the time you add on 0.2T worth of SAS unit, the thing is four times the size and looks silly.

A probe core is my guess.

Yes, a probe core provides more than enough torque for something like that. Here is yet another example of using external command seats. It's from a challenge I just did, except I wanted to make it a bit more capable of a rescue vehicle.

It weighs less than 1t unmanned (including mounting hardware), can recover on land or water, can carry two kerbals, and has 1700 m/s dV when manned. It also comes equipped with power, flight computer, and communications. The pictures show it recovering from the surface of the Mun, but that used less than half the fuel.

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[magnemoe]

Tbh, the seats are so light that I often stick one on the outside of things like my robotic space tractors, just in case they need to go rescue a Kerbal.

Like my MTUG, seats are secondary, its mostly to move stuff I build in the shipyard around even if they first mission was crew transfer, this has a reaction wheel but that is because primary mission is to move heavy parts.

[Claw]

Like my MTUG, seats are secondary, its mostly to move stuff I build in the shipyard around even if they first mission was crew transfer, this has a reaction wheel but that is because primary mission is to move heavy parts.

I love it.

Seats on tugs and rovers feel so much more appropriate. And I find it's just plain fun to see a little guy driving that stuff around, instead of it driving itself.

[EtherDragon]

What is the point?

That's the point!

[immolated]

On 3/25/2014 at 5:17 AM, Superfluous J said:

Actually, the chair is 0.14375t per Kerbal, as the Kerbal himself masses 0.09375t. Kerbals' mass doesn't count in pods but it does count in the chair.

 

Pretty sure you're wrong

[Superfluous J]

59 minutes ago, immolated said:

 

Pretty sure you're wrong

I'm 100% sure I'm wrong.

I'm also 100% sure that in 2014 I was right.

[Linkageless]

On 6/1/2022 at 6:35 AM, Superfluous J said:

I'm 100% sure I'm wrong.

I'm also 100% sure that in 2014 I was right.

yep - that changed in 1.11.  Even back before crewable parts were rebalanced the seats were excellent for ultra economy class tourist trips among other things.

oh, and 8 years is quite some necro!

 

[TheLoneOne]

for me they are good for getting kerbals "accidently killed" on missions.  they cant blame you if the kerbal was the one that fell off their gaming chair and died!

[imcute]

paragliders