Remove the terrible lawn mowerseat and kerbal mechanic

[322997am]

So improving kerbals has been suggested and I won't  resuggest  it. So I want to make some way of not throwing away craft when a kerbal In a lawn mower chair suddenly "gets pushed out" of the seat and then I lose all control. Quick saving is an option but that is kind of cheaty and not allowed for some people. Right now if this happens at jebs airport at the island airfield then I just take another rover that destroys the part that the chair is attached to(rendering the car with the bugged kerbal garbage) and then takes it to the trash dump. This this is pretty annoying on other worlds too when making bases. Also if I'm flying a small plane with the seat and if my kerbal decides to do that thing then the kerbal and the plane are lost to crash down in a spiral and die. So save the lives of kerbals by fixing this

[Tex]

Valid point, but remember that it is an external command seat, and thus is unprotected from bumps and aerodynamic forces when flying or roving about. There wouldn't be much point to fixing the seat because it doesn't look like those brave, brave Kerbals have invented seatbelts yet, so I recommend using regular cockpits in new innovative designs or creating a nice steel shell around external seats.

[322997am]

1 hour ago, Maximus97 said:

Valid point, but remember that it is an external command seat, and thus is unprotected from bumps and aerodynamic forces when flying or roving about. There wouldn't be much point to fixing the seat because it doesn't look like those brave, brave Kerbals have invented seatbelts yet, so I recommend using regular cockpits in new innovative designs or creating a nice steel shell around external seats.

I don't care if enough force can rip a kerbal out. What I don't like is the fact that any rover that this happened to is rendered trash.

[jwbrase]

To elaborate on the OP's complaint, when a Kerbal is knocked out of a command seat, we get Schroedinger's rover, which is in a quantum superposition of piloted and unpiloted. The command seat thinks its still occupied, so the Kerbal can't reseat himself,  but the rover doesn't detect any pilot on board, so it can't be controlled, and this behavior persists after a save and reload. Some black-magic save editing (for which I forget the proper procedure) is required to make the rover usable again.

[Superfluous J]

This sounds like a job for @Claw

Edited December 29, 2015 by 5thHorseman

[AbacusWizard]

2 hours ago, jwbrase said:

To elaborate on the OP's complaint, when a Kerbal is knocked out of a command seat, we get Schroedinger's rover, which is in a quantum superposition of piloted and unpiloted. The command seat thinks its still occupied, so the Kerbal can't reseat himself,  but the rover doesn't detect any pilot on board, so it can't be controlled, and this behavior persists after a save and reload. Some black-magic save editing (for which I forget the proper procedure) is required to make the rover usable again.

Intriguing. Could these forces be harnessed to make a quantum kraken drive, allowing a chair-powered FTL starship?

[322997am]

4 hours ago, AbacusWizard said:

Intriguing. Could these forces be harnessed to make a quantum kraken drive, allowing a chair-powered FTL starship?

No. A kerbal is clipped in but kerbals only interact with ladders.

6 hours ago, jwbrase said:

To elaborate on the OP's complaint, when a Kerbal is knocked out of a command seat, we get Schroedinger's rover, which is in a quantum superposition of piloted and unpiloted. The command seat thinks its still occupied, so the Kerbal can't reseat himself,  but the rover doesn't detect any pilot on board, so it can't be controlled, and this behavior persists after a save and reload. Some black-magic save editing (for which I forget the proper procedure) is required to make the rover usable again.

Either that or the game requires you to be standing still to reboard.

Also I just smash the rover to save the kerbal

[Majorjim!]

8 hours ago, jwbrase said:

To elaborate on the OP's complaint, when a Kerbal is knocked out of a command seat, we get Schroedinger's rover, which is in a quantum superposition of piloted and unpiloted. The command seat thinks its still occupied, so the Kerbal can't reseat himself,  but the rover doesn't detect any pilot on board, so it can't be controlled, and this behavior persists after a save and reload. Some black-magic save editing (for which I forget the proper procedure) is required to make the rover usable again.

Yes this is annoying. Also Kerbals can be knocked out of the seat but remain in the seat, sat but a ragdoll. Not clipped, just a seated ragdoll.

 Also why do Kerbals sometimes 'tilt' in the seat? They can still operate they are just sitting at a funny angle. The only time I sit like that is when my chalfonts are playing up.

[steve_v]

8 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

This sounds like a job for @Claw

As awesome as Claw is with such things, this is another one of those long-standing stock bugs... in which case it's properly Squads problem to fix.

[Majorjim!]

1 hour ago, steve_v said:

As awesome as Claw is with such things, this is another one of those long-standing stock bugs... in which case it's properly Squads problem to fix.

A thousand times, this!!

[Superfluous J]

6 hours ago, steve_v said:

As awesome as Claw is with such things, this is another one of those long-standing stock bugs... in which case it's properly Squads problem to fix.

As are every single one of the bugfixes Claw has addressed.

[Wjolcz]

Wasn't this ragdoll seat thing fixed in 1.0.5 though? I was driving a rover the other day, crashed it and my kerbal went limp (the buggy way), but after a second or two it just jumped to it's feet and everything was alright.

[322997am]

1 hour ago, Veeltch said:

Wasn't this ragdoll seat thing fixed in 1.0.5 though? I was driving a rover the other day, crashed it and my kerbal went limp (the buggy way), but after a second or two it just jumped to it's feet and everything was alright.

Rag doll was fixed. The quantum between piloted and unpiloted has not

no pun intended? Rover=Buggy

Edited December 30, 2015 by 322997am

[Claw]

Well, if I can find a reliable way to replicate it, I can probably look into fixing it.

[John FX]

It`s a bug that should be fixed but I must say I was thinking just the other day that a kerbal on an external seat should get blown off if in too much wind.

[pandaman]

19 minutes ago, Claw said:

Well, if I can find a reliable way to replicate it, I can probably look into fixing it.

And this^^ is probably the most important thing about bug fixing.

And it's why it's so important when reporting or complainting about 'bug' issues to try and describe what happens, when and how as accurately as possible, with as much relevant detail as possible.  It can be surprisingly difficult to pinpoint that information, it can take hours of experimentation to find a way to replicate or even describe the issue effectively.  And to communicate the information effectively to those who can fix it has it's own particular challenges, but its worth the effort if we want these issues corrected.  Understandably, so many people reporting issues don't grasp this crucial aspect very well.

I'm not a programmer, and have no clue how to actually 'fix' anything, but I have done bug reporting for complex commercial software, with a fair mix of 'awesome success' and 'frustration' (I won't say failure, it's perpetual WIP until it is fixed) so I understand the process, and it's not easy, unless you get lucky.

Claw evidently knows his stuff from what he has shown before, but even he can't fix anything properly if the problem can't be isolated, no-one can.

@OP,  I'm not aiming this at you, so my apologies if it seems like it, you do seem to be trying your best to describe the issue.  I just get a bit irritated by the amount of 'it's broke - please fix now' complaints that make no effort to actually help.

[Curveball Anders]

On 2015-12-29 at 4:55 PM, steve_v said:

As awesome as Claw is with such things, this is another one of those long-standing stock bugs... in which case it's properly Squads problem to fix.

I quite sure that Nathankell is keeping a close eye on whatever bugs Claw fixes (possibly swearing a bit under his breath while adding stuff to his list).

 

[Claw]

23 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

I quite sure that Nathankell is keeping a close eye on whatever bugs Claw fixes

@NathanKell and I work pretty closely together, actually. He is directly responsible for teaching me how to create add-ons over a year ago, and we chat on a near-daily basis. I actually had an idea for making my own add-on, but wanted to work on smaller "side projects" to learn more about KSP's interface. Those small projects started out as parachute fixes, then editor fixes, and on and on. I started releasing them, because I spend nearly all my forum time helping people resolve issues, so I guess it ended up being a good fit. Then I never got around to that original project.

The deal with my bug fix modules is that they are primarily work-arounds to the actual problem. So when working with NK (and other developers), I can point to where the actual issue is. My code is a bit of a hack-job sometimes, but that's because I work hard to live within the stock code (vice replacing it completely). I've spent a lot of time looking for some of the really hard bugs (like the claw bug, which took about a month to find with semi-reliable replication steps). So I do understand the sentiment that "these are Squad's problem to fix," but I actually help them pretty heavily (or try to). And I can tell you that @pandaman is correct. The better the bugs can be detailed, the easier they are to attack and fix. And, quite frankly, when a bug can be replicated in an easy-to-do-way, I can usually get to the root of it pretty fast.

So, on topic, I do know what @322997am is talking about, but I don't know of a way to make it easily happen. I've circumnavigated rovers around 10 planets and moons and have only had this bug on maybe one occasion, but I've seen it reported by others many times (and have edited a fair number of saves). It requires hitting the kerbal just right. Same with the "triangular wings hitting the launch pad" and "can't undock" bugs. They are crazy old, but still can't be easily and quickly replicated.

[NathanKell]

@Claw Darn right you help "pretty heavily" <3