Breaking Ground, deployed science, and how are you supposed to use this?

[chd]

So, I packed up some surface-based deployed science pieces into a cargo unit and sent them off to Minmus, only to discover that my EVA kerbal's inventory can't hold both a jetpack and a single surface-based power unit. So how am I supposed to unpack this stuff?

Do I really have to make sure I have ladders all the way from the ground to the cargo space so I can climb back and forth a lot to haul things down one at a time, and I can't use the jetpack to go back and forth?

If so, I have to say that's an arbitrary, meaningless, and frustrating difficulty element that adds no fun at all to the game... just sayin'....

[Jodo42]

I just had a similar experience to you. I'll give you a stopgap solution that may or may not work, and my long term plan to not run into this issue again.

Is your cargo unit within reach of the ladder on the capsule? If so, here's how I did it (a very Kerbal solution)- EVA and while still on the ladder swap your RCS pack and the deployable science. Then let go, fall to the surface in ragdoll mode, and deploy the module. Minmus' gravity is low enough that you won't injure yourself. Then, I lined my Kerbal up very carefully and jumped. As I flew up past the capsule I pressed F to get on the ladder. Rinse and repeat.

This will work on very low gravity worlds, but nowhere else, and your lander design might be such that you can't get close enough to your capsule to grab the ladder during the jump. You could try the same strategy but jumping directly to the cargo bay instead of the capsule ladder too, but you'll have to be quick about transferring cargo between inventories.

In the future, I'm going to place my cargo bays low on the lander, down near the legs. This not only makes sense relative to a real-world design, since you wouldn't want to be carrying cargo down with you, it also lowers your CoM a bit some so you're less likely to tip. If you absolutely can't put the cargo bays low down on the lander, then yeah, I guess you'd have to use ladders.

[Cavscout74]

 A few people complained about this when 1.11 first dropped, and I think there was a bug report opened, but several others chimed in with basically "suck it up & deal with it"     I did a MM patch to change volume of the EVA pack, but I haven't tested it because my current career hasn't advanced far enough to have EVA packs yet.

Bug report:

https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/27096

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by Cavscout74

[The Aziz]

It's not an answer to the problem, but I just put cargo containers as low as possible. Below everything except fuel tank & engine.

Also technically on Minmus you could just quickly grab stuff mid-jump, no need to be stationary lol.

But yeah I think that's something that should be looked at by devs.

[Guest]

As long as they are relatively close by you can right click and access cargo pods from the ground without needing to ‘touch’ them (use pin to lock them on screen if multiple)

As I never use them, I leave parachutes off altogether giving an extra kerbal slot, then it’s like a mini puzzle game reorganising everything till you get the combination you need. However, the tear shaped cargo pod won’t even hold an 2 x experiment/solar panel and a jet pack so sometimes you have space you can’t even use. 

 

[IanCanberra]

I have submitted this to the team

 

Can I suggest that the next upgrade allows engineers to carry higher mass limits the more experience they have?

Or instead of a parachute they can have a trolley and that is able to be pushed. Starting at SEQ-3 for 2 Stars, SEQ-9 for 3 and SEQ-24 at say 4/5 stars for the mass it can have.

An option could be motorising it with small solar panels. Not to replace a full rover but to allow the engineer to go a small, <2 km, distance to help fix and setup things.