Rescued Kerbals status/XP

[Mythos]

It's been some years that I hardly ever continued my 1.3 career (didn't want to start over and 1.4 changed too many parts). So I am a bit unaware when changes did happen. But the new changes in 1.11 convinced me to play around in a new career (and maybe the fact that KSP runs on my notebook while my desktop graphics card broke and delivery of a new one is already a month late, damn crypto miners). So the question is:

When I rescue a Kerbal from LKO that state doesn't appear in his "logbook", so he will get only 1 XP for the next state that is Kerbin sub-orbit, thus he remains lvl 0. Rescue from Mun orbit will give him Mun fly-by but not orbin and so on.

I did not expect this. My personal feeling is that this was different in older versions, although I'm not 100% certain.

My solution is, for e.g. LKO: Reduce periapsis to 69km, new state sub-orbit is reached, push it back to 70km, another state change to LKO, then continue with standard deorbit. When I do this, the rescued Kerbal will have orbit around Kerbin, 2 XP and be on lvl 1.

Seems a bit cumbersome to me to apply such tricks on every rescue (which appear more often than I'm used to).

[VoidSquid]

Well, next time that Kerbal will go on a mission like landing on Mun, he will automatically get that XP for orbiting Kerbin, won't he?

[Mythos]

4 minutes ago, VoidSquid said:

Well, next time that Kerbal will go on a mission like landing on Mun, he will automatically get that XP for orbiting Kerbin, won't he?

Well, yes eventually. But since I'm early in my new career I prefer that the just rescued pilot already can follow the prograde marker  

[VoidSquid]

17 minutes ago, Mythos said:

My personal feeling is that this was different in older versions, although I'm not 100% certain.

As far as I remember, you're right, not 100% sure too though. I think it can't be helped then.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Maybe if you try dropping the rescue pod just inside Kerbin’s atmosphere, waiting until it rises above it again, then pushing the periapsis back into space so it returns to orbit, they’ll get the XP?

I suspect that because you find them in orbit, the XP system doesn’t log a change in state to Kerbin-Orbiting and will instead only detect the change to Kerbin-Suborbital, so going back into orbit will trigger Kerbin-Orbiting as it would if you launched into space from the ground, and they’ll get the extra XP point when you bring them down properly.

[bewing]

2 hours ago, Mythos said:

When I rescue a Kerbal from LKO that state doesn't appear in his "logbook", so he will get only 1 XP for the next state that is Kerbin sub-orbit, thus he remains lvl 0. Rescue from Mun orbit will give him Mun fly-by but not orbin and so on.

No, they get full credit for being in orbit. When you initially "switch to" them, their orbital state may not get logged. However, when they go EVA from their initial wreck, their "current status" gets logged into the logbook.

So a Kerbal rescued in LKO will get two XP, and will certainly get one star when you land them.

[Mythos]

14 minutes ago, bewing said:

No, they get full credit for being in orbit. When you initially "switch to" them, their orbital state may not get logged. However, when they go EVA from their initial wreck, their "current status" gets logged into the logbook.

So a Kerbal rescued in LKO will get two XP, and will certainly get one star when you land them.

Ah ok. I usually try to clean up and rescue the pod as well (weld a docking port to it), regardless whether it's in the contract or not. Then I often don't EVA the rescuee at all. So maybe that's my fault then and I should just EVA. Thanks to 1.11 the task can be solved differently, and that's why I probably have never skipped the EVA part before and everything feels different 

Edited January 4, 2021 by Mythos