Editing the Persistent and "Missing" Kerbals

[meatballcannon]

So Callan Kerman was exploring the Mun, and he took a bit of a tumble. So there he was, sliding down a hill, I'm waiting for him to stop, and when he finally does... The game breaks. It wasn't really, a crash, but the screen went black, all flight related guis went blank, but I could still use the menu. However, I couldn't fix it, so I restarted ksp.

So now my lander's empty, Callan is gone, I have no way to get the science back, and I'm pretty annoyed since this mission was needlessly complex and I did a lot of things I don't want to redo.

In the ROSTER section of the persistent, Callan is labeled as "Missing". I figured to fix it, I'd set him to "Assigned" and change my lander's command pod's code to have "crew = Callan Kerman" I gleaned the idea from looking at other vessels in the file.

However, when I go to the tracking center, I can't fly or terminate the lander, I and once I've clocked on it, I can't do anything to the other vessels either.

It seems the game is unhappy with that added line. Does anybody know something else I have to do?

EDIT: changed the Part's command module's line to say "controlSrcStatusText = Operational". Didn't fix it.

Edited August 5, 2014 by meatballcannon

[meatballcannon]

I got it to work. Kerbals in ROSTER have two values, "Tod" and "idx". I don't know what they do but most live, happy kerbals seem to have both set to zero. I did that, and had my friend back from limbo.

[Tw1]

Tod is time of death. I believe that one's involved in determining how long it is until the Kerbal respawns on their own.

Idx tells the game which seat position a Kerbal is in, or if they are on Eva, dead or in the roster.

Which crew member is in the pod is determine by a line like this:

Crew = X,

Where X equals the position they have in the crew list. Note that this list starts at 0.

Crew = 0 would give Jebediah.

Edited August 5, 2014 by Tw1

[Superfluous J]

This sort of problem, incidentally, is why I still quicksave even in my Ironman games. No handwaving is going to explain how a "mechanical malfunction" could cause one of my Kerbals to suddenly be landed on Sun or something.

[LaytheAerospace]

In case anyone is wondering, idx is short for "index", and is a common variable name in most programming languages.

[meatballcannon]

In case anyone is wondering, idx is short for "index", and is a common variable name in most programming languages.

Yeah, I don't have to use it much though, (I do Java and FORTH, of all things). Any idea what it means in this context? I'm kind of curious.