Editing Kerbals' Genders

[CalculusWarrior]

I recently upgraded an old 0.90 save to 1.0.4 and I'm attempting to change some of the male kerbals to female. As such, I open up quicksave.sfs in my favourite text editor, and change the nice little gender = Male line to gender = Female.

Then, I load up the quicksave, and the kerbals are edited! However, as soon as I've changed scenes, the kerbals magically shift back to their previous genders! It's maddening!

So here's my question: how do I make this more permanent?

[keeper]

havn't a clue, try giving them lady names lol

[Robotengineer]

IIRC, gender is based on something non configurable, like a name. So it is impossible to change without a mod, and maybe even impossible to change with a mod.

[Guest]

IIRC, gender is based on something non configurable, like a name. So it is impossible to change without a mod, and maybe even impossible to change with a mod.

I do it with Kerbal Renamer. The proof being that I have changed Jebediah Kerman into Svetlana Limonova in all my early saves (before I changed the random seed generation in the latest build). The thing is that his Kerbals may not be ProtoCrewMembers (being in a ship, for instance) or they may be somewhere else in the save file.

[Superfluous J]

I've heavily edited the names and genders of all the Kerbals in my save I'm using for my series. I've never ever had one revert back to what it was before.

I suggest exiting the game, editing the persistent.sfs (backing it up first), and then loading the game back up.

[Tw1]

I recently upgraded an old 0.90 save to 1.0.4 and I'm attempting to change some of the male kerbals to female. As such, I open up quicksave.sfs in my favourite text editor, and change the nice little gender = Male line to gender = Female.

Then, I load up the quicksave, and the kerbals are edited! However, as soon as I've changed scenes, the kerbals magically shift back to their previous genders! It's maddening!

So here's my question: how do I make this more permanent?

I have done it, but it takes a bit of save manhandling. I do suspect it is the name list at play, which is frustrating. The game shouldn't need to check the name for gender, when there's the separate gender variable. Plus, why must the police kerbal naming? It's gender discrimination that is! *goes of into rant*

Basically, I found two tricks worked to an extent. Changing the name very slightly had the best result (I suspect that this might be because it takes it out of the lists) . Changing the name of an already female kerbal, and duplicating the kerbal, then changing the gender, and removing the original by in-game means were less effective, and wouldn't work reliably.

So I suggest finding a name that's very close, and changing it very slightly. Adding extra spaces between [name] and Kerman also worked, though of course, it may take a few goes if you want to conserve specialisation. Remember to change every other instance of that kerbals name in the file too, so they appear in the right spots.

And update the name in other places. I assume this is for Kold War? The names in OoE/CoM needed a few edits too.

I've heavily edited the names and genders of all the Kerbals in my save I'm using for my series. I've never ever had one revert back to what it was before.

I suggest exiting the game, editing the persistent.sfs (backing it up first), and then loading the game back up.

That's interesting, I attempted to do it via the persistent file too, and ran into the same problem. Where the ones you genderbent also ones whose names you'd edited? But it's possible you just got lucky.

I do it with Kerbal Renamer.

I tried that. It did change kerbals, but it didn't seem to have the ability to make specific changes to an individual kerbal, which is what I, (And I suspect CalculusWarrior also) wanted to achieve.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Tw1

[Superfluous J]

That's interesting, I attempted to do it via the persistent file too, and ran into the same problem. Where the ones you genderbent also ones whose names you'd edited? But it's possible you just got lucky.

It's possible, but it's about 30 Kerbals. I hired them willy-nilly and didn't pay any attention to names or genders. Then I went through my list and just made them all the Gender I wanted with the name I wanted. I've got almost all males and 2-3 females, and they've stayed throughout.

Someone mentioned that the OP's Kerbals being in the field may affect things. This is possible. All of mine were changed immediately after hiring, before doing *anything* else with them.

[CalculusWarrior]

Someone mentioned that the OP's Kerbals being in the field may affect things. This is possible. All of mine were changed immediately after hiring, before doing *anything* else with them.

Yes, I've found that the game simply won't reassign genders to kerbals who are in an active flight; I will try editing the persistence file then starting the game though; that might be my problem.

[Guest]

I tried that. It did change kerbals, but it didn't seem to have the ability to make specific changes to an individual kerbal, which is what I, (And I suspect CalculusWarrior also) wanted to achieve.

That wasn't why I mentioned it.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, I've found that the game simply won't reassign genders to kerbals who are in an active flight;

I don't think it ever will let you. OTOH, you may just have to make multiple edits to the save file, do a "replace all", for instance.