Placing a kerbal in a certain IVA seat

[Drew Kerman]

I did a Google search for "switch IVA seat" here on the forums and didn't find any answers. Has anyone figured out what the game does to place kerbals in certain IVA seats? Here's my dilemma: I'm using the Mk1-2 pod for 2 crew members and I want them both sitting in the pilot/co-pilot seats up front. But one of them always ends up down in the back seat. So I went into the internal.cfg file for the Mk1-2 pod and found that the backseat module was listed first, and I changed it to be listed last, hoping that would fill the two front seats first. Nope. So then I outright deleted the module for the back seat location. That had no effect whatsoever. So I tried re-ordering the crew name fields in the Mk1-2 PART{} of the SFS file for my vessel. No difference. So finally I gave up and edited a third crew member in there, had two climb out and climb back in to swap seats from front to back. Then I went into the SFS file and removed the third crew member. After restarting the game, I loaded up the rocket and found both remaining crew members still sitting in the front seat! Yet when I EVA one and have him climb back in, he's now in the back seat.

I have no idea how the game is remembering which seat the kerbal is sitting in, all I see in the SFS file are the crew fields that tells the game who is in the capsule, but not where they are in the capsule. And yet the game seems to remember somehow. (I looked in the KERBAL{} node too. Nothing)

I'm aware of KerbalHotSeat but that doesn't let you choose where to place them, although is perhaps a good starting point for a mod that does.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Gaiiden

[The Yellow Dart]

Herehere!! I want an answer to this too. That drives me crazy!

[klesh]

What were the roles of the crew members during your tests? Perhaps it is preferring to put a specific role in the bottom (or top) seat(s)?

[StrandedonEarth]

You can place them in specific seats in the VAB or when you pick a rocket at the launch pad, but I don't know of any way to pick a seat if they're re-entering from EVA

[AbacusWizard]

Fill the command pod with three kerbals you don't care about. Remove the two that are in the seats you want. Tell the two kerbals you do care about to get in. Remove the third kerbal you don't care about. Problem solved.

[Drew Kerman]

What were the roles of the crew members during your tests? Perhaps it is preferring to put a specific role in the bottom (or top) seat(s)?

Oh yea, forgot to mention I tested that too. Didn't matter, which is how I was able to swap them into their proper places once I loaded up three.

Fill the command pod with three kerbals you don't care about. Remove the two that are in the seats you want. Tell the two kerbals you do care about to get in. Remove the third kerbal you don't care about. Problem solved.

Thanks but I already stated that's what I had to do to get it to work. It's the only way I've found, so I'm coming here to see if there's another.

I still can't for the life of me figure out how the hell the game knows what seat to place them in after a restart

[SpacedCowboy]

While or after constructing your ship; Go to Crew, Astronaut Complex, Hire however many kerbals you need, (Pilots, Engineers or Science guys), From the "Available" list, click and drag the Kerbonaut you want to the seat of a pod or transport of your choice. You'll need an EV-1a, (Or whatever the hell they call them), the Exterior Seat. On the launch pad, move the Kerb of your choice by EVA ing him out of the pod and moving him towards the EV seat. Right click on the seat, and you'll be prompted to board. Good Luck from there!

[Drew Kerman]

I'm not looking for any methods other than in flight, with two kerbals. My two kerbals will depart on a mission and want to get them back into the front seats without having to edit in a third crew member every time I need to do this when they come back in from an EVA. I can't just drag along a 3rd crew member the whole time and pretend he's not there because I have life support usage to consider.

I still dunno how deleting the seat from the interior config didn't do anything. How does the game even know the seat is there?? It's built into the model or something? But then what is the definition in the cfg file for? *pulls hair out*

[Drew Kerman]

okay I figured it out. It's the curiously-named idx property of the KERBAL{} node. 0 = seat one, 1 = seat two, etc. In the Mk1-2 if you want two kerbals in the front seat you need to have their idx set to 1 and 2. Don't even bother messing with the crew names in the PART{} node, the game will automatically re-order them for some reason, even tho if you re-order them but not the idx value, the name order will swap back to match the idx order. BAH!!

[Enceos]

Nice find Gaiiden!

[flashcactus]

mahgawd. I think we should request a mod that allows to move kerbals between seats in flight.