Are the Kerbals you resuce from orbit ever not an engineer?

[LordCurlyton]

Or female for that matter? I've done quite a few rescues now and they are all female engineers. I'd like a little diversity in my kerbals but its so bloody expensive to hire one, and I could use a few more good scientists and pilots.

[Torih]

You can get all 3 classes and females also, I assume its just random as to what you get.

[razark]

I once rescued a Chuck Kerman. He was a pilot, of course.

In fact, he's the only one I've ever rescued.

(I had to find out if he was a pilot.)

[mikegarrison]

It's random.

[LordCurlyton]

Then I must be pretty damn unlucky. I was wondering if it was a secret SQUAD plot to force me to have a female-centric corps, but they forgot to give me truly useful classes (other than packing chutes, I don't really have a use for engineers yet. But boy oh boy do I have the largest and bestest chute packing corps out there.). Extra scientists i could use to fill mobile labs, and pilots are always useful.

[Geschosskopf]

Or female for that matter? I've done quite a few rescues now and they are all female engineers. I'd like a little diversity in my kerbals but its so bloody expensive to hire one, and I could use a few more good scientists and pilots.

Given that engineers are really the only class with any long-term value, you should be thankful.

[LordCurlyton]

What do they do besides pack up chutes? I'm still not entirely sold on the resource mining unless something akin to an actual economy enters the game, and I think I've seen that they speed that up????

Considering I make do with a lot of unmanned missions I guess the question may be moot for me.

[OddFunction]

I also rescue nothing but females. Luckily I get pilots and scientists too, but I've only ever rescued one male in hundreds of hours of playing. I remember thinking how odd it was.

[Geschosskopf]

What do they do besides pack up chutes? I'm still not entirely sold on the resource mining unless something akin to an actual economy enters the game, and I think I've seen that they speed that up????

Considering I make do with a lot of unmanned missions I guess the question may be moot for me.

Well.... Pilots are useless once you unlock 1st probe core that can do SAS. Scientists are useless once you've unlocked the tech tree. Engineers never become useless and in fact increase in value with experience. They can repack chutes, they can fix broken stuff, they can build stuff with KAS/KIS, they increase mining/refining efficiency. Probably a few more things. Any long-term mission or permanent colony always needs engineers, whether for routine maintenance, major repairs or redesigns, or self-sufficiency.

Now, if you consider the game to be over once you've unlocked the tech tree, maybe you don't see things this way. But what's the point of having all those nice parts to go conquer the whole solar system if you stop there? OTOH, if you think that life begins when the tech tree ends, then 2/3 of all Kerbals are useless, redundant, obsolete junk by that point. Which just points out the need to junk the craft-line, trade union mentality of the class system and replace it with a roll-your-own, pick-the-skill-you-want, RPG-esque system. But that's getting off-topic I suppose.

[LordCurlyton]

Heh maybe, but then there is always KSP The Sequel to hope for. And you do make a good point. For me, a career ends once I've unlocked the tech tree plus accomplished whatever personal objectives I've set for myself. Sometimes its as simple as 'Explore everything", sometimes its "make the biggest, most Kerbal rocket you can imagine, then see if it flies", sometimes its "International Kerbal Station". I've seen the extremely impressive setups others have done (interplanetary refueling stations, colonies, etc) but I lack that particular motivation to manage all of that. Would be a great thing to multiplayer in, I'd imagine. Especially when things go boom heh.

[Zild]

Seems to be skewed towards females and pilots for me. I have no use for pilots, I refuse to use anyone other than Jeb.

(I am thinking of getting him cloned for any missions where I may need multiple pilots...)

[annallia]

I do seem to be picking up mostly engineers, doesn't really bug me though I do most of the rescue missions early on and I would rather have free scientist at that point.

As to gender, it seems to be a bit streaky for me but I find it to be about 50/50, usually I will have 3-5 missions of male, then 3-5 of female, sometimes it is mixed better but usually goes in streaks.

[jkool702]

My rescue count so far is:

7 Pilots

5 Engineers

1 Scientist

7 Female

6 Male

So I'm pretty well spread out, with the exception of not getting many scientists.

I Would also agree that engineers have the most long term value of the three different classes.

[Scotius]

No. I only got two engineers. Rest is scientists and a whole bunch of pilots.

[Umlüx]

in my career so far i had:

6 pilots

5 engineers

0 scientists

and more females than males.

[Moh1336]

I am tied between Pilots and Scientists, I've only had one engineer so far and it's been fairly even on gender.

Well.... Pilots are useless once you unlock 1st probe core that can do SAS.

Unless you forget to pack enough batteries/Solar panels. Then pilots are quite useful.

[FancyMouse]

Well, with RT, one man + best light probe core is still useful (zero latency local control), so I just rescue as many as possible and don't quite bother with their occupation.

[Janos1986]

I rescued a pilot once, he's been the first kerbal on the mun in my last save.

Too bad he crashed on reentry due to a timewarp issue. RIP in pepperoni.

[Zyffyr]

In my current game, my rescue totals are : 14 pilots, 10 Engineers, 14 Scientists. 18M/20F (didn't bother to count that by-class). I never reject a rescue contract.

[Hazelnut]

Engineers are pretty useless as well, given they can only pack parachutes and not actually repair anything. It says they can but it doesn't work - I tried when my tanker broke all it's wheels in a rather hard landing because it was carrying down more Ox than usual because the fuel modules were all full. Looked at the wheels and thought, great can get the engineer out of the driller and fix these, awesome. Pissed off when it didn't work and reloaded a save.

Was hoping it would be fixed in the patch 1.0.4 but it wasn't.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Hazelnut

[Rickenbacker]

I get a pretty good mix, slightly more pilots than anything else, though. I'm going to guess it's entirely random.

[Sharpy]

What do they do besides pack up chutes? I'm still not entirely sold on the resource mining unless something akin to an actual economy enters the game, and I think I've seen that they speed that up????

Considering I make do with a lot of unmanned missions I guess the question may be moot for me.

Resource mining is actually a big thing if you want to go anything but lightweight to "elsewhere" (not LKO Mun Minmus). Instead of sending a rocket with tons upon tons of fuel to get there, land, get back up and return, you send one with just enough fuel to land on the lightest nearby moon, an ISRU unit and enough electricity to power it up. ISRU may *look* very heavy but it's only 4.25 tons, the Rockomax tank of the same dimensions is 18 tons full. You can get the whole mining operation with ore tanks, solar panels, drills and orbital scanner, in size of an orange tank and roughly a third of its weight - and that means unlimited fuel, but not FREE unlimited fuel - not paid in money or resources, but in your sweat of brow, to construct it, test, find deposits, land and so on. And the engineer of high qualifications is absolutely essential, especially if you power it up with fuel cells (three stars is a break-even point for ISRU running on fuel cells with a decent deposit).

And suddenly your mission of "get there, land, gather science, launch, return" (with managing extreme amounts of fuel between the stages) becomes something much, much more complicated if it involves delivering a fuel miner lander/delivery craft to the nearby moon alongside with your happy planetary lander.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Sharpy

[Mister Kerman]

I've rescued 4 female engineers... :|

[tutike2000]

I only ever got female pilots. No males, no engineers, no scientists.

[Sharpy]

pff... My current Minmus operation:

1 resident engineer at the refinery, doing the mining and fixing wheels on fuel trucks that landed too hard.

1 pilot, who really doesn't belong there, in the orbit, by the orbital laboratory.

22 scientists across two laboratories, one orbital (4) and one "jumping lander" (18).

And lots of probe cores. Lemme estimate... miner 1, trucks 4, tanker 1, 3 return vehicles 1 each, 2 labs, 9 speeders and the speeder garage. Survey sat. Twenty-one probe cores, not counting the ones that survived a crash and lie among debris, still operational.

(actually, a tenth speeder is in the orbit, docked in the cargo bay of one of the return vehicles. Serving as its probe core, since I forgot to put one in the reentry vehicle.)

Only ever needed to rescue a truck. It was without fuel and driving over the surface to the miner running on solar power, rolled over, broke a wheel. The engineer got in his speeder, flew to the truck, fixed the wheel.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Sharpy