What does a flight engineer do anyway?

[Laie]

HarvesteR gave a few morsels of data the other day.

If your crew has no pilots, SAS will not be available. You could carry an extra scientist or engineer this way, but then the piloting will be entirely up to you.

So. There will not only be piloting skills, but science and engineering as well. I wonder what the respective Kerbals will do?

I'd know what I'd like them to do: Engineers might provide delta-v and burn time calculations, maybe even assist in maneuver planning (circularization, hohmann transfer and plane changes would be high on my wish list). Scientists might be able to retrieve data from all instruments without ever leaving the capsule (any old probe can transmit it back to Kerbin, but it takes a scientist to transmit it to the pod...), or scientists may be necessary to run certain experiments (Goo Container needs a Jeb's Junkyard Certified Dumpster Diver to operate).

But from all I've learned about squad, this is probably not what they have in store for us. So I wonder, what will it be? The scientist could provide a boost to science points (if stackable, that would explain why you want to bring more than one at the expense of a pilot). I believe this to be the most squad solution. But what about the engineer? If boosting ISP and the likes is out of the question, what else can he do? I can't think of anything.

[Tw1]

That would be a really good way of doing flight engineers.

Though I beleive engineering skill may be needed to fix some parts, but I want to see them provide stats now.

Less trained ones would only be able to give figures to the nearest 100, or 10, etc.

[CaptRobau]

I think scientists can be better represented by a boost in manned science experiments (reports and samples). Every astronaut will get some basic instructions into how to read the environment that they're landing in or choosing the right samples. But a real scientist would be able to read the environment like a book and make his own conclusions about what he's seeing, etc.

I like your ideas about engineers though. In-game features that are somewhat engineering related (although there's some overlap with scientists/pilots):

-Maneuver planner (lowest level Kerbal/probe wouldn't be able to do this, but subsequent levels would)

-Burn time

-Being able to tweak things like thrust limit, what axis control surfaces work on, etc. in flight

-The ability to place multiple maneuver nodes

-The ability to see multiple future trajectories

[chaos_forge]

I think it would be pretty great if having an engineer would provide you with extra information a la KER or VOID. I also vaguely remember reading somewhere that the devs were thinking about including delta-v readouts, but didn't want to give them to players "for free", so including them in the kerbal experience features sounds like a great solution. I really hope they do it!

[mattinoz]

I think it would be good if engineers had their own auto generating action groups.

so things like

-extend/retract solar panels

So if your building a multi-part space station and have an engineer on board they'll automatically merge all the solar panel controls for all the parts of the station in to one control.

Would also be good if something like KAS became stock but tied to having an upper tier engineer on board to go and connect the parts together.

[Bill Phil]

I think it would be good if engineers had their own auto generating action groups.

so things like

-extend/retract solar panels

So if your building a multi-part space station and have an engineer on board they'll automatically merge all the solar panel controls for all the parts of the station in to one control.

Would also be good if something like KAS became stock but tied to having an upper tier engineer on board to go and connect the parts together.

The KAS engineer thing us inept the best ideas I've heard in a while.

[peadar1987]

This kind of ties in to a thought I had about differing levels of damage. Parts could "wear out" if you stressed them too much, and an engineer could repair them. This would work best with reentry heat, but even if you overheat an engine slightly, it could lose ISP instead of going sharply from fine -> exploded, and need an engineer to repair it. A bad engineer could get it back up to 70%, a great engineer could get it back to 100%.

Same thing with rover wheels, landing legs, heat shields for DRE, etc.

[Wallygator]

In response to the OP: You need an engineer on board a craft to do calculations regarding Dv???? So... mission control is just sitting on their thumbs then? And the physicists, and ground based mission planners?

In my opinion, requiring a "Engineer" on board to display information is a poor game mechanic and has no basis at all in reality.

Edited December 7, 2014 by Wallygator
Clarification.

[vexx32]

From one of the latest SquadCasts (there's a summary in General Discussion if you want to check that out), engineers are basically the repair crew Kerbals, with higher-level engineers able to repair more damaged things.

[Mutex]

From one of the latest SquadCasts (there's a summary in General Discussion if you want to check that out), engineers are basically the repair crew Kerbals, with higher-level engineers able to repair more damaged things.

That implies the amount of damage that can be done to a part will be more granular, right now it's basically fine or exploded as far as I can tell. I wonder how useful that will be in practice. Usually any accident that damages the ship will probably totally destroy at least half of it, seeing as how accidents tend to involve hitting the ground at high speed.

[MKI]

HarvesteR gave a few morsels of data the other day.

So. There will not only be piloting skills, but science and engineering as well. I wonder what the respective Kerbals will do?

I'd know what I'd like them to do: Engineers might provide delta-v and burn time calculations, maybe even assist in maneuver planning (circularization, hohmann transfer and plane changes would be high on my wish list). Scientists might be able to retrieve data from all instruments without ever leaving the capsule (any old probe can transmit it back to Kerbin, but it takes a scientist to transmit it to the pod...), or scientists may be necessary to run certain experiments (Goo Container needs a Jeb's Junkyard Certified Dumpster Diver to operate).

But from all I've learned about squad, this is probably not what they have in store for us. So I wonder, what will it be? The scientist could provide a boost to science points (if stackable, that would explain why you want to bring more than one at the expense of a pilot). I believe this to be the most squad solution. But what about the engineer? If boosting ISP and the likes is out of the question, what else can he do? I can't think of anything.

I do know that Flight engineers will now be the only ones to repair broken things, such as wheels. I feel they could EASILY add more "Functional problems" that only Kerbal Engineers can do, such as possibly open solar panels, lower ladders (lol being stranded cuse of this )

Since the game so far has been mainly all about everything working 100%, maybe Squad might add some extra breakability to some parts. Such as a Science Lab part breaking, such a large investment would need to be handled by Kerbals, and having an Engineer would be important. Just like how the ISS has issues, you need a guy to go out there and fix it.

I feel the Kerbal Engineer is probably the most interesting new addition that comes with the new system. Since Pilots handle the flying, and Scientists handle the reason for flying, and the new Upgradable buildings handle the Building of these ships, Engineers provide the link between the Kerbals and the Ships being flown.

I'm somewhat against the idea of having them become flight utility, since any kerbal should be able to read data, and isn't that what instrements are for?

3 should be fine, any more can be thrown to mods. There are 3 main guys, so it makes sense they be diversified that way too.