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So recently, I noticed Jebediah and Valentina weren't in my inventory. And if they were missing, they should have been back by now. I checked the astro complex and it said both were"K.I.A". Fyi, they're not missing as i checked everything in my tracking station and the astro complex doesn't say that they are missing. Edit: I found out that K.I.A means killed in action, but they should've re spawned. I set the re spawn timer to 1 hour and I'm sure I've been playing for more then 1 hour. Any of you know how to respawn them?

A .I. "pilots" that can be put inside probe cores, just like astronauts go inside command pods and cockpits. This comes from me treating my unmanned ships as if they were an entity flying on their own through space... and then realizing they are hollow shells being controlled from ground. But then I thought modding could be the answer. Sadly I don't know how to code so I can't make this work, that's why I'm here requesting this. What I can do is graphical design like that eyecatcher up there, as well as textures and models if needed. So the idea... The most basic thing should be just some A.I pilots you can select from a menu to be inside probe cores, much like we do with astronauts and crewable parts. These should be able to fly the ship even when communication is not possible and you would be able to control the ship as if there were living astronauts there, of course at the cost of a greater consumption of electric charge to "keep the complex software running" and the A.I. "concious". The A.I. would also not be able to EVA, since they are just "software" inside the probe core. Not sure if crew reports should be allowed. example of menu: Building on that idea would be the option to transfer them around the ship, so they can go from one core to the other, giving more freedom when it comes to in which probe core the A.I. is at, as well as the possibility of more than one A.I. pilot in a single core for the larger models. And a more advanced idea would be allowing kerbals to transfer them around and carry them in a "inert" form and store them just like science experiments if needed. As for tech tree stuff, prices, etc. I usually just play sandbox, so I have no experience with that and how to balance it, but I imagine this should something pretty advanced tech wise and probably very expensive as well, so just not caring about the A.I. and letting them "die" out there would be a huge waste of money compared to recovering/rescuing them. And for their portrait and reaction to flying the rocket (just like the kerbals react in them), I'm not sure. I'm not experienced with animating in 3D, specially for KSP but I could experiment with it if instructed on what to do. Would be cool to have a neon glowey digital face there to remind us that it's not just a probe. Like this: Advantages comparing to astronauts are simple. On it's own, this would make so you can use just probe cores for missions out of communication reach. Allowing for the same type of control for less mass and less volume since the probe cores are smaller than the command pods and cockpits. Now if used with a life support mod, since the A.I. pilots are not biological they would only need electrical charge to "survive", while astronauts need water, oxygen, food and produce waste, CO2, etc. The balancing of that should come with the extra batteries necessary to keep them "concious" or active. I have no idea of how hard this might be so I would be happy with just being able to put a soul in my unmanned ships, but any addition from there would be even better if possible. Now if a similar thing already exists and works on the current version, I would love to download it, even if it's not exactly what I described here, as long as the focus is the A.I. pilots being their own entity like the kerbonauts and not just a part that you add to control the ship where there is no communication. If anything I'm just happy to share this idea and even if someone takes it, as long as it gets done, I don't really care about credit.

I just saw this on Imgur and thought it was worth sharing, the article is very interesting!