Wandering Kerbals

[CalculusWarrior]

A suggestion to make my kerbals feel a little more lifelike; perhaps when you switch away from a kerbonaut, it could start wandering around a little bit (confined to an area, you don't want to timewarp to find your kerbal is halfway to circumnavigating the Mun). If you wanted them to stay in one spot, you could maybe have a right-click menu option to 'stand still' (for pictures, or for standing next to potentially hazardous falls). We already have kerbals who pick themselves up after falling over, so perhaps that could be extended further?

I feel like it would make groups of kerbals feel more realistic, as if you brought a bunch you could see the little guys wandering around, doing science, etc; rather than just standing around.

[Kasuha]

I would probably not like if they jumped down cliffs but maybe they could do things without moving from the place. Such as pull out a notepad and make notes, search their imaginary pockets, test jetpack handles, watch stars or sun, watch nearby ships or pieces of debris (and make notes), wave to nearby Kerbals and so on.

[problemecium]

I was thinking this exact same thing last night. I support the motion!

...pun kind of intended.

[Helix935]

hmm maybe you can incorporate code from this to make this possible...

[BLUAV8R]

I support this idea as this would be amazing

[CornHuskerKenny]

I support this. Maybe also have them take pictures, and build sand castles.

[Frank_G]

Nice idea, that would add a lot of life to the game.

[John FX]

I`ve been saying for a while about pathing kerbals.

Move here, get reading, move there, get reading, move back to craft deposit readings and transmit, rinse repeat.

Would hardly take any code at all.

[Whirligig Girl]

Following Kerbals would be cool.

[OTehNoes]

I support this. Maybe also have them take pictures, and build sand castles.

The ability to build a sand castle blow the plant flag option would be pretty cool! It would be fun to make them out of different surface materials!

[regex]

It certainly would be nice to have some small animations to breathe some life into the Kerbals.

[S4qFBxkFFg]

Yes!

As a suggestion for limits, there could be an upper limit of 1km (for example), unless they have a line-of-sight to their spacecraft - the value of their courage stat could modify this though.

Also, they shouldn't try to wander on terrain with an excessively positive or negative gradient.

[CalculusWarrior]

If anyone has the modding skills/knows someone with those skills, I humbly ask that you take a look at the EVA Followers mod to see what can be done with it, like Helix935 suggested.

[Miro Beero]

you don't want to timewarp to find your kerbal is halfway to circumnavigating the Mun).

This would all depend on the stupidity of the kerbal :-p

[coolitic]

Would be nice. Wouldn't wander off very far and would stay away from cliffs. Maybe custom pathing.

[Thomas988]

I support this idea!

[Kruleworld]

maybe they could do things without moving from the place.

that would probably be easier to accomplish (sooner).

I'd suggest if they DO move, it should be a small circle placed around them that they are confined in (tethered).

edit: Actually, they already have them doing it in the VAB, so it just needs to be expanded.

[Legendary Emu]

I'm picturing it as something like the Kerbal engineers and scientists in the VAB. It would be an awesome special thing where Kerbals on Laythe swim around in the water and relax on the beach with sunglasses that they pull out of their pockets.

[Ironwatsas]

Well, there should perhaps be a command system of some sort. That is to say, the player can command any inactive Kerbonauts (e.g., ones they're not controlling) to be 'at ease', wherein they will wander around and perform little random duty animations, like scratching their bottoms or checking their note pads. Alternately, the player can give a 'follow' command (which does exactly what it sounds like) or a 'stay tight' command, wherein the Kerbal stands still, in situations like, for instance, being on a cliff or in a very low orbit EVA. They should also have a 'board nearest' command, where all the Kerbs on active EVA will move to the closest available pod and get inside. Useful in case you're on a suborbital trajectory and need to close up shop FAST.

The Kerbals should mimic the Player's movements, for instance, using their jetpacks intelligently when in EVA or when the player is in a high speed rover in a low gravity environment. In essence, attempting to maintain a fixed position relative to the player, but with adequate collision avoidance that they won't bump into anything important. Perhaps also make them salute if a Flag is planted nearby.

Actually, it would be pretty sweet if a similar system could be used for craft...

[BLUESTREAK]

I like this idea a great deal. It breathes life into the little chaps, adding huge amounts of character for little additional effort. I think that a radius from the point where they were last controlled by the player based on Stupidity/Courage is a good idea. They're then free to roam. Give them a few animations - note taking, photos, sample taking, rearranging kit, etc and suddenly you have something pretty good. You could link the animations to stupidity levels; the brighter Kerbals taking samples and notes, whilst the thicker ones... jumping up and down on the spot in low gravity, waving at each other, trying to pick their noses through their helmet visors etc. It gives the individuals character beyond how much they scream on takeoff! All in all, this would prevent the overriding impression that I always have of getting to the mun, everyone getting out, and then just hanging around, gawping at each other...

The malicious side of me says don't add in anything about cliff faces; if a player is daft enough to leave them on a percipience, over they go! However, that would probably be a little harsh; a bit of code based on terrain contours would probably suffice.

Edited for fat fingers.

[Lord Orion]

Waiting animations could be quite fun. I hope they add it but only as an endstate.

[Anton P. Nym]

The industry term is "idle animations"; little things character models do when they're not actually following player directions. Scratching itches, looking around, checking the time, fiddling with gear... I'd definitely like to see some in KSP as they do "breathe life" into the game, though I'm willing to wait if there are other demands on the animators and AI code team.

-- Steve

[Javster]

That would be adorable, little Kerbals waving at each other!

[Fel]

I`ve been saying for a while about pathing kerbals.

Move here, get reading, move there, get reading, move back to craft deposit readings and transmit, rinse repeat.

Would hardly take any code at all.

Well, yeah... it's all just pathfinding XD

Really, you can either just have a random roam or "something more" (a.la "The Sims"), I'd prefer setting up "multi-pod bases" and seeing them walk between the pods, or even just go outside while inside for a while.

Still, a little bit of path finding; loop some animations for a few min, really simple... if you know how to do pathfinding

(Really, "The Sims" model is rather neat in how it handles these types of things. Objects inform the core what they satisfy and the core processes needs + personality then directs the "Sim" to something. Hence "Needs" could start with "TheNeedForMovement" and modders could do anything with it from there, "TheNeedToMineKethane" ;p)

*Just thinking to myself, but I love how elegant "Needs Systems" are at mimicking AI. Let's say some need was "satisfied" by a base several km away. This can create a new need "TheNeedForTransportation" which in turn the near by rover says "Hey, I can satisfy that need". Now, you need a little more "glue" than I'm indicating (something has to issue the transportation need, and the rover should indicate that until the need is satisfied that the kerbal cannot get off, and to get the kerbal to use, etc, etc)... but it is a fairly simple model that has decent enough results.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Fel

[Daishi]

This suggestion would be fantastic. Wouldn't require any significant processing power, RAM or storage space (keyframe animations are tiny), and all the assets are already there (rigs, characters, the framework for idle animations). Pretty much minimal investment too, just use the time spent on promotional animations for a month or so to get the job done.

They'd actually complement each other brilliantly - that moon rover video was hilarious but quite a letdown when I found out you couldn't actually replicate anything shown, in game. Especially when they're the exact same models.

IVA animation is another kettle of fish I'd like to open, floating around inside docked vessels and manually getting into seats and eating snacks would be amazing. But that's probably a long way down the track yet