Kerbals sneak back into empty ships?!?

[artwhaley]

A small frustrating bug - if you have to 'revert to launch' while putting together a ship with an empty seat, a kerbal usually sneaks into that seat! This makes for really frustrating rescue missions, when you get all the way to the target only to be told there's no seat for him. I typically just make the stowaway walk the plank.... but still...

A seat assigned as empty should remain so on subsequent launches, and remain so when the craft is saved for use later.

[Stratzenblitz75]

This. I HATE when this happens. No, Billy-bob, Jermal, whatever your name is, you do NOT get to fly this untested plane that is likely to crash and explode horribly. Go back to the astronaut complex where you belong!

Yeah, I wish there was some way to prevent Kerbals from sneaking aboard your experimental/rescue crafts. Crew manifest is great and all since you can empty the vessel of crew from the launchpad/runway, but I wish there was a stock solution.

[EdFred]

What's just as bad is when you revert, make a change, and have to put 5 or 6 Kerbals back in the ship (multiple command pods, or HH modules). When I save the bleep bleep bleeping ship, save it with the bleep bleep bleeping Kerbals in it (or out of it).

Edited October 6, 2014 by EdFred

[arkie87]

A small frustrating bug - if you have to 'revert to launch' while putting together a ship with an empty seat, a kerbal usually sneaks into that seat! This makes for really frustrating rescue missions, when you get all the way to the target only to be told there's no seat for him. I typically just make the stowaway walk the plank.... but still...

A seat assigned as empty should remain so on subsequent launches, and remain so when the craft is saved for use later.

The reason this will always be an issue is because each time before launch, it always boards whoever is next in the queue. It cannot just take the same people because they might have gone off on another mission and are not available. The only way to fix it might be to load the seat with an "empty" placeholder, so it doesnt load Jeb into that seat even though you wanted the seat open. Or, if you have a satallite capable of controlling the craft, it shouldnt board anyone unless told to.

[Alshain]

The reason this will always be an issue is because each time before launch, it always boards whoever is next in the queue. It cannot just take the same people because they might have gone off on another mission and are not available. The only way to fix it might be to load the seat with an "empty" placeholder, so it doesnt load Jeb into that seat even though you wanted the seat open. Or, if you have a satallite capable of controlling the craft, it shouldnt board anyone unless told to.

Ok, so how about a better suggestion. Save in the craft file the number of "boarded" kerbals, not their name, just a number. So if I empty the cockpit and hit save, the kerbal count is 0. So when it loads the craft, it knows not to add any kerbals, it could even do probe core detection if necessary, assuming you want at least 1 kerbal if there is no probe. Likewise if I add 3 but have room for 6, it will only load the next 3 kerbals when I launch.

In programming there are many creative ways to approach a problem. This is very doable, and should be done ASAP quite frankly, it's a major annoyance. Honestly I think I'd rather wait on 0.25 to be released if it meant they would fix this. With rescue contracts it's a real pain.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Alshain

[arkie87]

Ok, so how about a better suggestion. Save in the craft file the number of "boarded" kerbals, not their name, just a number. So if I empty the cockpit and hit save, the kerbal count is 0. So when it loads the craft, it knows not to add any kerbals, it could even do probe core detection if necessary, assuming you want at least 1 kerbal if there is no probe. Likewise if I add 3 but have room for 6, it will only load the next 3 kerbals when I launch.

In programming there are many creative ways to approach a problem. This is very doable, and should be done ASAP quite frankly, it's a major annoyance. Honestly I think I'd rather wait on 0.25 to be released if it meant they would fix this. With rescue contracts it's a real pain.

Yes, that could work. You should be able to set (maybe even via tweakables) how many people it attempts to board upon launching; this obviously does nothing once launches, just like you cannot adjust your control surface configurations after launch.

[OrbitusII]

Another case where the Kerbal Auto-fill is not wanted.

We definitely need some way to prevent/enforce/improve auto-filling, what happens when we have to pay to hire Kerbals in career mode? It might be good to hire the minimum Kerbals needed to operate a vessel should you have no available Kerbals at launch as well as remember the empty/filled state of seats when a vessel is saved. One of my bombers has two seats and I prefer to have both of them filled when going on bombing runs (even more critical to handle now that we have destructible buildings).

[Bilfr3d]

does this include external command seats? becuz this would be really useful for me if it was

[Bilfr3d]

(even more critical to handle now that we have destructible buildings).

DESTRUCABLE BUILDINGS!!!!!! WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN!! oh my gosh I cannot wait for 0.25 now

[Alshain]

DESTRUCABLE BUILDINGS!!!!!! WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN!! oh my gosh I cannot wait for 0.25 now

Not sure if you're joking or serious.

Anyhow, I feel like this is one of those issues that Squad has mentioned where the user perceived problem is bigger than the actual problem. As if Squad doesn't thinks it's not a big deal but they don't realize just how annoying it is. Since I don't have access to that new voting system in their testing, I just want to accent that this is quite possibly the most annoying issue in this game.

Also, it doesn't really need to be tweakable, just save a count of the kerbals you have in seats whenever you save the craft. That's already editable, so tweakable is unnecessary.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Alshain

[technicalfool]

Probably be better if the kerbal count was stored with each part capable of having a crew count rather than a "this ship has 5 kerbals on it" main count, otherwise where do the kerbals get stored when you revert/reload/etc?

But otherwise, yes.

[EdFred]

Probably be better if the kerbal count was stored with each part capable of having a crew count rather than a "this ship has 5 kerbals on it" main count, otherwise where do the kerbals get stored when you revert/reload/etc?

But otherwise, yes.

Well, with the transfer between CMs/landers/habs/science module without having to EVA coming in 0.25, that really becomes almost a non-issue.