What counts as flight for the purposes of kerbal XP

[KerikBalm]

So I did a mission to Eve+Gilly, had a lander for a crew of 3, but I picked up a rescue along the way(rescued from orbit of gilly). Obviously, that kerbal had to wait in orbit while the 3 others went down to the surface of Eve and planted flags. It would be nice to pick up some extra XP for that kerbal, and I'd like to get "flight" experience for eve for that kerbal.

Do I just have to get my pe to 89.9 km, and then as soon as they're in the outer atmosphere, they get the experience, or do Pe and Ap both have to be in the atmosphere for it to count as flight?

[FullMetalMachinist]

I could be wrong, but I thought "flight" had to be both sub-orbital and in the atmosphere. 

[Superfluous J]

I'm not 100% sure either but I think that in addition to what FMM said, you also need your Ap within the atmosphere.

If I may suggest: Make a named quicksave, and then test a few scenarios to see what's needed.

[KerikBalm]

"I could be wrong, but I thought "flight" had to be both sub-orbital and in the atmosphere. "

Thats what I think too, however, the game counts any trajectory in the atmosphere as suborbital.

So if I go "suborbital" ie PE within the atmosphere, the part where they are in the atmosphere should count? It seems to count for taking a crew report... but...

[bewing]

I agree with you KerikBalm -- any "orbit" where the Pe is below the top of the atmosphere is suborbital, and you count as "flying" -- you can see the status change any time you do an aerobraking. So set it to 89.9 (which will be a nice place to set up your transfer burn out of Eve anyway) and try it -- I bet it works.

[Snark]

For the purposes of gathering science, you need to satisfy two criteria to count as "in atmosphere":

• Current altitude is below the top of the atmosphere
• You're traveling slower than escape velocity.

That is, it doesn't matter if you're suborbital, orbiting with Ap in atmosphere, or orbiting with Ap way up high.  It just has to have an Ap, i.e. can't be on escape trajectory.

I believe this was a deliberate design feature to stop folks from getting easy "in atmosphere" freebies by doing a flyby without actually capturing.

...So that's what it does for science.  I'm not sure what the rules are for "flight" experience for Kerbals, but I wouldn't be surprised if it uses the same criteria.

[Claw]

I believe it was recently changed. If you are in-atmosphere (and not landed or splashed), then it's "Flying."

[Plusck]

11 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

"I could be wrong, but I thought "flight" had to be both sub-orbital and in the atmosphere. "

Thats what I think too, however, the game counts any trajectory in the atmosphere as suborbital.

So if I go "suborbital" ie PE within the atmosphere, the part where they are in the atmosphere should count? It seems to count for taking a crew report... but...

I can only confirm this for 1.0.5 (I am concentrating on getting all my Kerbals back home in my 1.0.5 save, so haven't got far in 1.1.2), but if you check persistence.sfs you'll see that the log entry for "Flight,Eve" is always added after "Suborbit,Eve".

Therefore I'd assume that the game only checks for "flght" after it has successfully checked for "suborbit". I have a couple of probes with these two values (they didn't land and are back in orbit). Since the only Kerbal I've had enter the atmosphere later went on to land, I can't absolutely confirm that XP will be added for that, but to take an example from that Kerbal, her flight log gives:

                7 = Flyby,Eve
                7 = Orbit,Eve
                7 = Suborbit,Eve
                7 = Flight,Eve
                7 = Land,Eve
                7 = ExitVessel,Eve
                7 = PlantFlag,Eve
                7 = BoardVessel,Eve
                7 = Escape,Eve
                7 = Orbit,Sun

Therefore there is nothing more than that "Suborbit,Eve" followed by "Flight,Eve" which could make any difference to the XP calculation. Since "Suborbit" appears to happen as soon as the trajectory touches the atmosphere, I'd say you should be good with just a second's flight inside the asmosphere.

[Claw]

23 hours ago, Plusck said:

I can only confirm this for 1.0.5

The logic was different for 1.0.5. It used to be that the craft had to be suborbital and inside the atmosphere to count as flying. The check for "Flying" is now done before the check for suborbital state.