Kerbal Professions

[Reiver]

So, I've been thinking of making a new Kerbal profession, namely, 'Colonists'. They'd be cheap to obtain (Presumably via a mission structure if I can't rig the KSC recruitment page to do it), but all but useless until they'd earned experience enough to be minimally competent. You know, something like

0-star: Tourist

1-star: Functional (able to count as 'doing work' for various parts)

2-star: EVA capable (No flags or surface samples, of course)

3-star: Vehicle command (No SAS or anything, but scientist/engineer level steering)

4-star: Repair wheels (Because a rugged frontiersman is going to eventually learn how to do the odd repair, y'xnow? )

...and potentially a science/engineering style multiplier available to be plugged into life support Greenhouses and the like, to represent improved productivity in such administrative tasks.

The idea being that these are the dudes you send to 'fill the ranks' of any hypothetical space station or colony base, leaving your specialised (and exponentially expensive!) Engineers, Pilots, and Scientists do do the tricky stuff. You know, like engineering, piloting, and running science labs.

My problem: I've no idea where to start. I'd thought it'd involve creating a new line in Experience.cfg and then adding lines to the relevant parts via ModuleManager or the like, but it seems such lines simply don't exist. Where does the game track the capabilities of what specialised Kerbals can do? Is it strictly inside the engine? I'm a little lost where to even look.

Edited August 23, 2015 by Reiver

[Stoney3K]

My problem: I've no idea where to start.

Texture them to have red shirts. That'll get you halfway through the problems you describe.

In all seriousness, though, you could try to use the Tourist as a template and see what its properties are.

All Kerbals except Tourists are able to interact with parts while flying a ship, I doubt there's any way you could inhibit that.

Blocking "vessel control" on a low level could be done on a per-part flight control basis, I can envision a PartModule that is attached to all parts and which tells every part "You are not part of the vessel being flown" when only a level 2 colonist is on board.

Edited August 28, 2015 by Stoney3K