Seated Scientist Cannot Reset Nearby Experiments

[shadragon]

I have a Rover. I designed it with two EAS-1 External Command Seats up front for the lads and lasses to enjoy the drive. I surrounded the seats with science gear expecting a scientist to be there as well. The gear works to collect science,.but in order to collect and reset the experiments I need to release the scientist from his seat, even though the boxes are well within his sphere of influence. 

Is this by design or should I put in a bug report? Thanks. 

[magnemoe]

Its more like an feature, kerbal in seat is much the same as kerbal in an pod as game see it except that the kerbal is an part with weight and he can fall out of seat if you crash. 
Only diference is that kerbal in seat can do eva report. 

An kerbal on an ladder is eva something who is nice in freefall. 

[shadragon]

Was hoping you wouldn't say that. My dreams of drive-by science are now shattered.

 

 

[Jarin]

Ladder sliding is supposedly fixed in 1.2, so you can do ladder-chairs (think of it as a kerbal holding the smallest ladder like a steering wheel in front of them) again.

[shadragon]

15 hours ago, Jarin said:

Ladder sliding is supposedly fixed in 1.2, so you can do ladder-chairs (think of it as a kerbal holding the smallest ladder like a steering wheel in front of them) again.

Right, but the idea was to control the rover while doing science. I suppose I could so that using a probe, but not as sexy looking. Thanks.

[Jarin]

Yeah, you have to flip back and forth with [ and ], but at least it's a quick switch, rather than having to get out of the seat. 

[ForScience6686]

Doesn't the mod, for science, allow what you?  I thought it auto ran experiments and would auto reset if you had a scientist.  Been considering it for a bit, but I'm running a sandbox game until the update.

[Snark]

On 9/19/2016 at 6:33 AM, shadragon said:

Is this by design or should I put in a bug report?

I believe it's by design.  But that doesn't necessarily mean it couldn't be changed, because "by design" isn't an absolute. 

"By design" is a pretty broad term.  When you hear the term "by design", probably what pops into your head is "by design" in the strong sense of the term, as in:  someone cares about it a lot, made a conscious decision to do it this way, spent engineering time to make sure it was this way, and the decision is unlikely to change because they want it to act that way.  And yes, there are plenty of cases like that.  If you bump up against something in the game that you strongly dislike, which is strongly "by design", I doubt you'll see that get changed.

But there are other, "weaker" cases of "by design", where change is a lot more possible, generally speaking.

There's "by techically obsolete design."  It may be that a feature was originally implemented a long time ago, and the design decision made good sense at the time, but the reason may have become obsolete with changes in the game.  Maybe it was designed that way out of technical necessity, but other options opened up as the game developed, and it's no longer an actual technical limitation, and the only reason it's still there is because nobody complained about it before, or because everyone's been busy with higher-priority stuff and nobody got around to it.

There's "by gameplay obsolete design."  Same deal, but perhaps the original reason was based on long-ago gameplay behavior, and if the game behaves differently now, perhaps the original reason for the design decision has become moot.

There's "by accidental design."  Maybe somebody built a general-purpose gameplay mechanic to cover a broad range of behavior, and this one specific use case happens to be one where the default behavior doesn't make much sense, but nobody ever thought to address it before.  In other words, it could be that the specific behavior isn't a conscious design decision on anyone's part, but rather, it just ended up that way due to default behavior.

 

I don't work for Squad and therefore don't have any more insight into this particular case than you do, but I'd guess that it's at the weaker end of the "by design" spectrum.  Certainly I think it makes perfect sense for a kerbal in a command seat to be able to collect science if it's within arm's reach.  Heck, in 1.2, with the right probe core, you can transfer science around even without any kerbals present, so if that's allowed, why not allow a kerbal in a command chair?

My suggestion to you:  Go ahead and log a bug in the bug tracker.  However, under "issue type", classify it as "feedback" rather than as "bug".  Keep it simple, "I think a kerbal in an external command seat should be able to collect science from instruments that are within range."  Include a link to this thread so that the discussion's visible to the Squad staff when they're looking at it.  Then, after you've created it, post a link to the bugtracker issue here, so that your fellow forumgoers who like the idea can go there and vote it up.

It doesn't guarantee that Squad will make the change... but hey, it's worth a shot.  We're in a pre-release right now, so it's the perfect time to be making that sort of suggestion, and the sooner the better.  If it turns out to be something that's easy for Squad to implement, and if they like the idea, who knows-- they might do it.