The Society for the Protection of Kerbels objects!

[Loren Pechtel]

A Kerbal died today in the orbit of Mun because of a defective jetpack.

<Space> is supposed to orient the Kerbal towards where it's facing--but for some orientations this does not work.  After many failed attempts to grab the hatch because of this (why can't capsules be outfitted with bars all the way around?  Ladders don't work, Kerbals refuse to move sideways on them) he was finally flung away at about 40 m/s and no longer would respond.

[AbacusWizard]

Unfortunately spacebar only seems to reorient around the Z-axis (yaw only; no pitch or roll). For future reference, you can also (left-click) drag a kerbalnaut on EVA to reorient. Rotating a ladder 90° during ship construction might also help; you can build chains of ladder up-and-down and round-and-round for plenty of handholds.

[katateochi]

I find EVA spinouts are best resolved by switching off the jetpack and letting go of controls, then firing the jetpack back up again and hitting space. That will generally get you back in control. 
Also you can change your roll by changing camera mode, which is a bit odd, but switching between orbital and free camera modes lets you roll by 90 degrees, and can make the difference when trying to grab a ladder.  

[Loren Pechtel]

5 hours ago, katateochi said:

I find EVA spinouts are best resolved by switching off the jetpack and letting go of controls, then firing the jetpack back up again and hitting space. That will generally get you back in control. 
Also you can change your roll by changing camera mode, which is a bit odd, but switching between orbital and free camera modes lets you roll by 90 degrees, and can make the difference when trying to grab a ladder.  

The pack switched off when this happened and wouldn't switch on again.  Maybe he would have recovered in time but by then I would have been marginal on fuel even if he had (not being able to point at the rocket had wasted a lot of fuel already) so I simply reverted the flight.

[FullMetalMachinist]

1 hour ago, Loren Pechtel said:

The pack switched off when this happened and wouldn't switch on again.  Maybe he would have recovered in time but by then I would have been marginal on fuel even if he had (not being able to point at the rocket had wasted a lot of fuel already) so I simply reverted the flight.

For future reference, doing a quick save/quick load will reset the EVA kerbal (supposedly, never had this problem myself, but I've heard that it works).

[bewing]

Kerbonauts cannot access anything directly (or close to directly) above their heads. Which generally means "north" when they are on EVA. If a ladder or hatch is in the wrong orientation, you need to reorient the rocket, not the kerbonaut.

[Loren Pechtel]

6 minutes ago, bewing said:

Kerbonauts cannot access anything directly (or close to directly) above their heads. Which generally means "north" when they are on EVA. If a ladder or hatch is in the wrong orientation, you need to reorient the rocket, not the kerbonaut.

As I said, a Kerbal died because of a faulty jetpack.

[AbacusWizard]

4 hours ago, Loren Pechtel said:

The pack switched off when this happened and wouldn't switch on again.  Maybe he would have recovered in time but by then I would have been marginal on fuel even if he had (not being able to point at the rocket had wasted a lot of fuel already) so I simply reverted the flight.

Had he just struck an object and gone into ragdoll mode?

[Loren Pechtel]

9 minutes ago, AbacusWizard said:

Had he just struck an object and gone into ragdoll mode?

There was a very gentle contact with the rocket, he was thrown away at about 40m/s, spinning and ragdoll.

[bewing]

That's what happens when the ladder is too close to being overhead. There is a large artificial torque in trying to grab a ladder at that angle, and if the grab fails your kerbonaut gets flung away.

[Loren Pechtel]

5 minutes ago, bewing said:

That's what happens when the ladder is too close to being overhead. There is a large artificial torque in trying to grab a ladder at that angle, and if the grab fails your kerbonaut gets flung away.

I wasn't even near the hatch (I've found that ladders at least in the vertical position were a hindrance, not a help--I omitted them from this launch.  Next bird I'll try some sideways ones and see if they will let me crawl around to the hatch better) when I bumped the rocket.  The messed-up perspective made me goof, I actually touched a fuel tank on the booster.  (Did my Kerbal freeze? )

[Stocchinet]

I once had a similar issue during a duna mission, i call it the "Hallmal incident", the poor guy started to spin out of control after grabbing the capsule ladder, drifting away from the ship. Everything was lost, but capitan joebert was brave enough for a desperate eva rescue. Hallmal was already 1.5km away but after a quick jetpack travel, Joebert was able to hit him with his head stopping the deadly spin, now it's a standard maneuvre teached at the kerbonaut academy. It's one of my best kerbal memories

Edited March 7, 2016 by Stocchinet