EVA Question

[Scarecrow71]

I'm not really sure where this question belongs, so if it doesn't belong here I would really appreciate it if the mods could move it where it needs to be!

Anyhow, I am not good at EVA.  No matter what I do, I simply cannot make the Kerbal go in the direction I want them to go.  Up?  Nope, I go backwards.  Forwards?  Nope, I go sideways.  No matter what I do, I am just not good with EVA flight.  So I am asking if anyone knows of a tutorial that exists somewhere that can help me identify how to properly do EVA?  I see videos of Matt Lowne and Orb8ter and everyone else always flying all over the place, but I can't seem to get it.  I know I should also probably re-map the EVA controls, but I'm just not sure what keys to map to what action.

Any help here would be extremely keen.

[king of nowhere]

maybe your problem is one of perspective?

eva kerbals are always standing straight from ground or orbital perspective. also, they will always default to your camera orientation. you can press space to align the kerbal to your actual orientation, which I suggest you do. at this point you shouldn't have any problem using the wasd commands

[Scarecrow71]

27 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

maybe your problem is one of perspective?

eva kerbals are always standing straight from ground or orbital perspective. also, they will always default to your camera orientation. you can press space to align the kerbal to your actual orientation, which I suggest you do. at this point you shouldn't have any problem using the wasd commands

That's a bit confusing.  At least to me, anyhow.  How do I know which was is down so that I move the way I want to?  Pressing space to orient the Kerbal to my current camera angle will do...what, exactly?  Will that insure that towards the Kerbal's feet is down?  Or does that simply rotate the camera angle to center the Kerbal and keep "down" in the same direction?

See, this is my major issue with the controls.  I don't know which way is down, I have no way of identifying which was is down, and I can't seem to get patient zero down oriented so the controls function the way I expect them to.  I'm quite sure they are working as designed, but not how I expect them to.  How does what you posted above solve the issue?

And perhaps I just don't understand what you are saying, which is on me.  Some things I pick up really quickly.  Others...dinosaurs have been extinct for far less time than it takes me to learn.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Scarecrow71

[king of nowhere]

34 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

That's a bit confusing.  At least to me, anyhow.  How do I know which was is down so that I move the way I want to?  Pressing space to orient the Kerbal to my current camera angle will do...what, exactly?  Will that insure that towards the Kerbal's feet is down?  Or does that simply rotate the camera angle to center the Kerbal and keep "down" in the same direction?

See, this is my major issue with the controls.  I don't know which way is down, I have no way of identifying which was is down, and I can't seem to get patient zero down oriented so the controls function the way I expect them to.  I'm quite sure they are working as designed, but not how I expect them to.  How does what you posted above solve the issue?

And perhaps I just don't understand what you are saying, which is on me.  Some things I pick up really quickly.  Others...dinosaurs have been extinct for far less time than it takes me to learn.

Down is always the same direction when you are eva*. you can turn right and left, but not up and down.

go ahead and try. take your kerbal eva, press space, see how it orients. move around the camera, press space again, see how it reorients. you can rotate him left and right, but UP AND DOWN WILL ALWAYS BE THE SAME DIRECTION FOR HIM.

i suggest you always use space and let your kerbal reorient before giving other commands. I also suggest moving your camera so you're looking at your kerbal's back. this way you will share your kerbal's frame of reference, and it may be more intuitive for you to control. but in any case, i suggest first you make some experiments until you understand the up/down thing

 

 

* exception/problem: when you are in orbit, your head point northward. when you are on the ground, your head points up. when you are transitioning from orbital to suborbital, the kerbal may rearrange himself spontaneously to change orientation. this only happens at a very specific speed, though, and you'd have to be very unlucky to stumble onto that problem.

[Scarecrow71]

3 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

go ahead and try. take your kerbal eva, press space, see how it orients. move around the camera, press space again, see how it reorients. you can rotate him left and right, but UP AND DOWN WILL ALWAYS BE THE SAME DIRECTION FOR HIM.

i suggest you always use space and let your kerbal reorient before giving other commands. I also suggest moving your camera so you're looking at your kerbal's back. this way you will share your kerbal's frame of reference, and it may be more intuitive for you to control. but in any case, i suggest first you make some experiments until you understand the up/down thing

Yeah, up/down are my biggest issues in EVA flight.  I will have to try hitting space and orienting the camera and then experiment with movement to see what happens.  I might also have to re-map the controls; I did so with rover movement because using WASD was messing up other stuff.  It's entirely possible that the controls being mapped to WASD is part of the problem.

Thanks for the help!

[18Watt]

Here's my tips:

• Not sure how your keyboard is configured, but I think the standard configuration is the 'V' key cycles through different view schemes.  I usually play using 'Free', but pick one that works for you, and stick with it.  The EVA'd Kerbals will orient themselves differently depending on which view scheme you are using.
• Regardless, the WASD and shift/ctrl keys will always thrust with respect to the Kerbal, NOT your point of view.
• I find it helpful to orient the camera so that I am looking at the back of the Kerbal, in other words with my viewpoint the same as the Kerbal's, just positioned behind him/her.  
• Best advice I can give you is cheat a capsule with a kerbal into orbit in a sandbox game.  Practice maneuvering around the capsule.  
• Move slowly while practicing.  Bursts of speed are not helpful while you're figuring out how to EVA maneuver.
• As has been pointed out, hitting the space-bar will orient the kerbal roughly facing away from you.  But you may still need to move the camera viewpoint around using the arrow keys, to get a consistent view of the kerbal.

Good luck!

Edit- Here's another tip:

• It's important to be able to zero out your relative velocity to the capsule.  The thrusters on the EVA pack are quite strong, which can make zeroing your velocity difficult.  You can turn down the EVA thruster power in the Kerbal's PAW (part action window).  Right-click on the EVA'd Kerbal, and set the thruster power to 20-50%.  That will make it easier to make small changes while on EVA.
• Also, while you're practicing target the capsule (or ship) while on EVA.  Then, if the navball hasn't already done so, switch to 'Target Mode' in the NavBall.  Now you will have your velocity expressed as a number relative to the capsule.

 

[Beamer]

When you first enable RCS your Kerbal won't always (will never?) re-orient itself automatically, so hit space or tap one of the wasd keys after enabling RCS, that will orient the Kerbal in proper up/down position. From that point on, 'down' is always 'towards your feet' and 'up' is always 'towards your head'.

There is also a setting somewhere that will always automatically turn your Kerbal to face towards your camera direction as soon as you use an RCS thruster (but here too the up/down orientation will always remain fixed). There must also be a hotkey for this because I always manage to lock it unintentionally, so it's probably something like ctrl+space or shift+space, but I don't even bother looking it up anymore. I accidentally lock it so often that I got used to just hitting space when I want my Kerbal to 'face forward'.

When it comes to flying from one vessel to another, remember that you can set a target while in EVA the same way as when in flight, from the map or by double clicking the target in flight view. That will give you a target marker and prograde marker on your nav ball which can help a lot with finding your way to a dark vessel, just keep the prograde marker on the target marker like you would when docking. Also useful when flying on the night side of a body, hit U to turn on/off the helmet lights.