Huge EVA problems

[cephalo]

I've been trying to master the rescue missions, and I can park my craft nearby, but I can't handle the EVA suits to board the ships. Pressing 'w' only turns away from the camera in one axis! If your target is above you, pressing w makes things very deadly, as it merely pushes the Kerbal in the wrong direction. It will not change his pitch. I just spent a whole hour bumping my Kerbals helmet against the door and grabbing and missing until he finally ran out of monoprop. So frustrating! It's not clear to me at all how to orient the Kerbal. The controls don't seem to provide for that.

Edited May 8, 2015 by cephalo

[Garius]

Shift and control thrust up and down.

I'm not aware of anyway to change the orientation plane, which can make boarding an uncontrollable ship tricky if it's aligned awkwardly. You can thrust your kerbal into the ship to force it to rotate if all else fails (this can also be used to push an out of fuel ship back to Kerbin... Last night I had to push my peri down from 1.2mil; took a long time)

[MartGonzo]

If you change to free camera and press space the kerbal will re-orient himself to face away from the camera.

as far as I know it currently the easiest way of changing the kerbals orientation.

EDIT - nevermind, I just checked and apparently that no longer works with the new free cam

clicking the left mouse button and dragging seems to be the best solution.

Edited May 8, 2015 by MartGonzo

[Interloper]

You can actually hold Left Mouse Button when on EVA to rotate your Kerbal. He'll spin in whatever direction/plane you want.

When the cockpit door is facing down, it can be a little tricky to get him to board. Get below your ship, and use SHIFT to start him moving slowly upward. Then hold Left Mouse Button and orient him so he's facing up at the door. If you do it right, he'll face the door as he ascends and can grab on without tumbling away.

[cephalo]

Shift and control thrust up and down.

I'm not aware of anyway to change the orientation plane, which can make boarding an uncontrollable ship tricky if it's aligned awkwardly. You can thrust your kerbal into the ship to force it to rotate if all else fails (this can also be used to push an out of fuel ship back to Kerbin... Last night I had to push my peri down from 1.2mil; took a long time)

Jeez, it's a lot more than tricky. If your hatch is facing the wrong way its impossible. Does anyone know what this locked plane of movement is? is it the equatorial plane? How can you do rescue missions if you don't know how to orient the ship so that it can be boarded? This is really unsatisfying.

- - - Updated - - -

You can actually hold Left Mouse Button when on EVA to rotate your Kerbal. He'll spin in whatever direction/plane you want.

When the cockpit door is facing down, it can be a little tricky to get him to board. Get below your ship, and use SHIFT to start him moving slowly upward. Then hold Left Mouse Button and orient him so he's facing up at the door. If you do it right, he'll face the door as he ascends and can grab on without tumbling away.

I'm practicing with the EVA scenario, and the left mouse button thing is not useful, as soon as you touch a control he snaps back into his preferred plane.

[impyre]

Yes, kerbal orbital movement on eva is locked to equatorial plane. If you have camera mode on orbital mode... before going on eva, adjust your ship so that it is nose-up and appears to be aligned to 90 degrees regardless of which way you pan the camera (if you're equatorial it will be pointing toward your normal vector (or anti-normal if your orbiting the other direction). This makes EVA orientation *much* easier and it doesn't take long to get the hang of it. I also use this method to easily align ships for docking (except in this case I often align one to point to normal and the other to point to anti-normal and don't take equatorial into consideration at all).

[cephalo]

So ship RCS has the same issue of being locked equatorial?

[impyre]

No Cephalo... I just do that so that I know the ships are aligned without having to use a docking port alignment mod. IE: if they have the same orbital characteristics (which they do if you're about to dock.... or at least... I really hope they do) and then you align one to point at the normal vector, and the other to point at the anti-normal vector... then you know they are perfectly aligned. This way, you only have to use translation to line up and close the gap. You'll already be oriented correctly.

[cephalo]

I'm so confused. I haven't tried ship RCS yet, is it very different from EVA RCS? You can rotate with it?

[Reddeyfish]

I'm so confused. I haven't tried ship RCS yet, is it very different from EVA RCS? You can rotate with it?

the translation part of RCS will be somewhat different, but the orbital mechanics are the same. (match velocities, burn towards the target, and make small mechanics to stay on target) (IJKL for up-left-down-right, h to move forward, n to move backward)).

(with RCS, you also get to see the navball, which is very useful for being precisely on target)

When RCS is enabled, it'll also respond to rotation commands (the same way your reaction wheels can turn your ship using WASDQE by default).

Note that if your RCS thrusters aren't positioned correctly, RCS translation will cause unintended rotation, and RCS rotation will cause translation.

If you really have trouble with RCS docking, I suggest you start by using the Klaw; with the Klaw, you don't have to worry about lining up the docking ports, so all you have to do is touch your target with the klaw to dock.

Edited May 8, 2015 by Reddeyfish

[DocMoriarty]

Plain and simple: Kerbal EVA movement should have never been different from steering a spaceship. The only difference between a spaceship and a suit is that the suit is a tad smaller. I agree that Kerbal EVA controls are a catastrophe and should have never been implemented like this ...

[Shrike99]

Plain and simple: Kerbal EVA movement should have never been different from steering a spaceship. The only difference between a spaceship and a suit is that the suit is a tad smaller. I agree that Kerbal EVA controls are a catastrophe and should have never been implemented like this ...

I don't think you are thinking about this correctly, the Eva Pack acts like a ship using RCS translation, which is nothing like a normal ship where WASDQE steers you, and throttle is foward.

So what i think you are saying that the Eva should have only one direction of thrust, and the key controls are for steering.

Which would probably be easier to fly, but much harder to actually get where you are going.

Try docking with only and engine and reaction wheels, it can be done, but it isn't easy

That or you are saying that the Eva should use NHIJKL, where N/H is foward/back, J/L is left/right, and IK is up/down, and you would steer using WASDQE as well.

This sounds rather more complicated than the current system, having to use 12 keys.

Try flying a ship around a station using the RCS translation and steering controls.

Neither really seems to be an improvement

The Eva controls as they are are based on the docking controls in linear mode, if you considered your target to be "up", Ctrl/Shift is up/down, W/S is forward/back, A/D is left/right, but rather than swapping to rotation mode, orientation is done with the mouse.

I personally have never had any major issues with the current system, the only change i would like is for them to make the rotate-with-left-mouse-then-press-space-to-focus-camera feature actually work, so that flying at different orientations was easier.

But the Ctrl Shift WASD layout is fine, especially if you are used to docking a lot

[Lorunification]

I asked the same question a while ago: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/118428-Attitude-control-of-Kerbals-on-EVA

Until now it seems there is no solution other than cycling through cameras.

[cephalo]

I don't know if there's a technical reason to have a static pitch orientation, but the current system would be fine if while turning away from the camera, the Kerbals head oriented with the 'up' vector of the camera. I wonder why they didn't do it that way.

In any case! The wiki needs to be updated with this very important info. 'Turns away from the camera' is not correct, not enough to save your Kerbonaut from the void anyway. It's pretty terrifying when you don't know about this limitation.

I'll update it when I have time this morning.

Edited May 8, 2015 by cephalo