Orienting Kerbals in EVA

[cicatrix]

OK, the manual says:

Space - Reorient attitude to camera by jet

I press space while in EVA and nothing happens (thruster pack is activated). What I basically want is to face my Kerbal towards the direction I need him to fly and use W instead of shift or control, for example.

The problem is - nothing happens, the Kerbal still faces the wrong direction. What am I doing wrong?

[TheXRuler]

Well, Kerbals on EVA can be hard to control, first of all you might want to try switching camera angles.

I don't know why that won't work, maybe what is meant is that space reorients your kerbal to the upright position relative to your camera angle

Your best bet for going somewhere other than straight ahead is to combine the different translational controls eg. oyu want to go up and left? Use L-SHIFT to go up and the a key to go left. It is also possible to freely orient a Kerbal using the middle mouse button when on EVA (assuming enabled jetpack and zero-g enviroment) but I personally find this fiddly and not helpful most of the time.

Edited April 7, 2015 by TheXRuler

[cicatrix]

No, I have learnt to navigate Kerbals from all possible angles, it's just I'm wondering why pressing space does not work as expected?

[Perry Apsis]

The vertical axis doesn't change. Space just rotates your Kerbal around the vertical axis so it's facing away from you. If you're seeing the back of the Kerbal's suit, even if from above or from below, there's nothing more for the space bar to do.

[TheXRuler]

Oh sorry cicatrix, I misjudged your level of experience with ksp

Well done Perry Apsis you managed to word what I was trying to say in an understandable way xD

[cicatrix]

I see, so there's no way to control the 'pitch'?

[TheXRuler]

Apart from using MMB (which if I remeber correctly is reset was soon as you touch translational controls) no. At least not that I know of, I'd be happy if I was mistaken though ^^

[Drew Kerman]

I see, so there's no way to control the 'pitch'?

Click and drag with the left mouse button

[Wcmille]

On ‎4‎/‎7‎/‎2015 at 9:05 AM, Gaiiden said:

Click and drag with the left mouse button

This works until I try to use WASD. Is there any way to "lock in" the direction?

[wibou7]

I'm looking for an answer to this question as well: the lack of "pitch control" for Kerbal on EVA is VERY frustrating.

Kerbals are often catapulted away if they try to grab ladders at angle... this trashed more of my solar panels that I can account for. Big stations do not rotate easily, expecially when there is stuff docked. I often end up having to get the "board" button without grabbing ladders to protect the solar panels... It makes EVA unnecessarily frustrating to me.

[steve_v]

There's a mod for this. Seems to work ok in 1.0.5, though I find rotation a little jittery.

And yeah, stock EVA controls are hopeless.

The ladder-ejection thing has been an issue as long as I can remember, IIRC StockBugfixModules  prevents the exiting craft catapult effect, but I still get it sometimes on grabbing a ladder.

[Plusck]

Kerbals on EVA are at least always oriented the same way (normal / anti-normal when in orbit, radial in/out on suborbital trajectories), so it is predictable. The solar-panel trashing and MPL upside-downedness is more of a pain, imo.