A short failure log for !!SCIENCE!!

[yaur]

So we all know that a Kerbal can walk on a body with gravity and I assume most KSPers know that the reason for that is because the Kerbal is accelerating towards the body. The purpose of this mission is to determine if a kerbal can walk on a platform that is accelerating due to thrust (i.e. artificial gravity) with a view toward moviesq interplanetary cinematic shots.

so here is the test rig:

The SRB will put it into a suborbital trajectory with an AP of around 122k. There are a pair of small engines and enough fuel for ~90 seconds of artificial gravity.

A few moments later and we are ready to test

and... nope

Jeb has to outrun the ship with his EAV pack to even get out of the seat. If enabled his pack will thrust continuously and can't produce anything resembling walking. Unfortunate, but not really unexpected.

[corvustech]

I think part of the issue here is that if Jeb got there with the ship then he is already moving at the speed of the ship. You just discovered why centrifugal force is a more likely real world gravity replacement. Unfortunately that won't work in ksp.

To test your idea you need to enclose Jeb using structural panels in a hallway he can stand in and bring the ship to full stop to let him stand....than apply tiny n amounts of thrust. The big problem here is....well how often have you seen anything stop in ksp without the assistance of the ground?

[JayKay]

To test your idea you need to enclose Jeb using structural panels in a hallway he can stand in and bring the ship to full stop to let him stand....

Stop compared to what? There is no stopped in reality, nor in the Kerbal universe; everything is relative. The test would be to build a large platform on the end of a rocket, launch it into orbit, and have the Kerbal get out of a pod that exits onto the platform while the rocket is gently accelerating and see if he can walk on the platform while it's still thrusting.

JK

[corvustech]

Full stop referring to a parking motion in relation to the sun such that x Y and Z are all 0 in relation. So heliosynchronous. This is actually due to constraints of the game engine. Additionally the kerbal.must not "spawn" onto the platform or drop onto it because that alters the kerbals relative speed: they already need to be standing.

[JayKay]

I think the real problem is that any Kerbal that isn't on the surface of a body will be considered to be flying by the engine and the whole walking mechanism won't be available. Nevertheless, experiment on; nothing ventured, nothing gained.

JK

[yaur]

I think part of the issue here is that if Jeb got there with the ship then he is already moving at the speed of the ship. You just discovered why centrifugal force is a more likely real world gravity replacement. Unfortunately that won't work in ksp.

To test your idea you need to enclose Jeb using structural panels in a hallway he can stand in and bring the ship to full stop to let him stand....than apply tiny n amounts of thrust. The big problem here is....well how often have you seen anything stop in ksp without the assistance of the ground?

In the last screenshot he his, but the ship is accelerating. The small thrusters @ 5% have hardly any visible thrust. In order to get into that position though he had to outrun the ship slightly with his EVA pack, could capture that because it was a sub-second maneuver in order to minimize the impact speed and maximize the odds he would be able to stand up. This should work with real world physics, but flying being handled as a separate state messes it up.

Centrifugal force was going to be the next test if this worked, since it would take little/no fuel and not mess up the "studio's" orbit.

I'm not sure how 0 absolute motion would really help. 0 relative velocity is fairly close to a normal EVA in a high orbit.

One last trick i tried today was to have Jeb ride up on the platform (no seat + added a lip). The game recognizes him as flying about a second after takeoff even with minimal acceleration.

The best effect I've been able to get is sliding (but standing and sticking to the ship) with RCS on and low thrust.