Grab

[DennyC]

In my first EVA, in orbit over Kerbin, I flew Enwig around for a while, then back to the ship before I lost sight of it. After several tries, I got him close enough to the ladder that the F (Grab) prompt appeared. I hit the F key, which had the immediate effect of shutting off his RCS, driving him back from the ship and spinning. I did this several times with the same result, and he never did grab the ladder. His propellant is now gone and he drifts in orbit.

How do I get him to grab the ladder?

[Hodo]

In my first EVA, in orbit over Kerbin, I flew Enwig around for a while, then back to the ship before I lost sight of it. After several tries, I got him close enough to the ladder that the F (Grab) prompt appeared. I hit the F key, which had the immediate effect of shutting off his RCS, driving him back from the ship and spinning. I did this several times with the same result, and he never did grab the ladder. His propellant is now gone and he drifts in orbit.

How do I get him to grab the ladder?

There can't be anything else around the ladder, and you can't be going that fast. The slower the better to be honest. And sometimes there is a bug on some capsules where it wont detect it correctly and bounces your kerbanaught off the vehicle.

[RocketPilot573]

Yep, this often happens when you don't bring the them to a complete stop before grabbing. To save your Kerbal, you're going to have to move a ship up to him so that the ladder is within his "grabbing range." Though that can be quite tricky.

[Vanamonde]

It does seem to be touchier than usual lately, though.

[DrMonte]

I experienced this few times and it always solved by changing rocked orientation in space. (not in 0.22 yet)

For example turning 90deg always helped to get in into the capsule. This should have something to do with Kerbal limitation to turn directly up or down (as with camera angle).

[KvickFlygarn87]

You could rescue him by rendezvousing, and positioning an empty pod in fron of him. Alternatively, use infinite EVA fuel from the debug menu, hit alt and f12 at the same time.

[Kasuha]

When you have problems with grabbing the ladder, change camera (V key, Free to Orbital or vice versa), the Kerbal will turn around according to new camera orientation and may have it easier.

You can also try to turn the ship around if it has a probe core or another Kerbal inside.

[Trux]

Also make sure the ladder and hatch is unobstructed, if there is and part collision the Kerbals can be thrown off of ladders with very high velocities.

[KerbMav]

change camera (V key, Free to Orbital or vice versa), the Kerbal will turn around according to new camera orientation

... where is the things I did not know before thread???

[toomuchbrew]

I've had Kerbals bounce off capsule at the instant they start their EVA. It happened again a bunch of times. What appears to have happened was there was an antenna sticking out. Make sure there's nothing near the hatch.

[lajoswinkler]

Modules should have hooks on them. Too bad you only have the ladders to grab. Real life station modules have hooks and handles all over the place.

A friend of mine tried to go EVA in Kerbin's orbit and he told me the feeling of not drifting away was terrible. I remember that happening back in the days I couldn't control Kerbals at all.

[DennyC]

I consider this answered (thanks to everyone!), but can't figure how to change the status.

[Sirrobert]

Modules should have hooks on them. Too bad you only have the ladders to grab. Real life station modules have hooks and handles all over the place.

A friend of mine tried to go EVA in Kerbin's orbit and he told me the feeling of not drifting away was terrible. I remember that happening back in the days I couldn't control Kerbals at all.

We have ladder segments that you can place on the module/station yourself, wherever you want

[WafflesToo]

We have ladder segments that you can place on the module/station yourself, wherever you want

Yeah, at 50 bleeding kilograms each! Way too heavy to want to install more than a few.

My bad, 5kg each. Still more than I'd like to indiscriminately throw around one doesn't weigh much, but next thing you know you've tossed 20 of them around the ship and you've added 0.1 tons to your mission package.

Edited November 16, 2013 by WafflesToo