Kerbals climbing things

[pincushionman]

We have all been talking mostly about the aerodynamics overhaul, and rightly so. However, a part of HarvesteR's post caught my eye, and seems to have been overlooked:

I’ve also added a feature I hoped to have ready for 0.90 but also didn’t make it in. Kerbals on EVA are now able to clamber onto ledges (within reach of them). This makes climbing onto vessels and, more importantly, climbing out of ladders much easier. You can also abuse it to scale previously inaccessible places, because a Kerbal’s job wasn’t dangerous enough already, was it?

Emphases mine. While being able to grab a ladder that was made too short will be great, the second part us what intrigues me. I'll admit I haven't explored nearly as far as many of you, but where I have on Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus, terrain features are simply far larger than the scale of a leaping Kerbal. Except on Minmus, where I can leap high enough the RCS pack comes into play. So the inability to climb them isn't that there's no place to hold onto, they're simply too tall and steep.

So…I ask you other explorers: are there locations in the system where the aforementioned ability would be a boon to foot travel…or are we getting ready for a tremendous increase in local terrain detail and ground scatter?

This is purely speculation on my part.

[klesh]

To me it sounds more oriented to getting in and out of crafts. "Ledges" may be terrain or ships, or both I suppose.

I recently had a plane where the ladder looked perfect, it went right over a wing strake, and connected to the built-in ladder on the side of a MkII cockpit... except the kerbal would climb up the ladder and get stuck and if you attempted to leg go, you simply fell to the ground. I think this is mentioning a sort of fix for situations like that, yeah?

Edited January 14, 2015 by klesh

[Vanamonde]

This is mostly about moving Kerbals around corners on ships or buildings.

[problemecium]

I'm very happy they decided to add that. I didn't see it coming and I can see it being very useful, after the many occasions on which I've had a Kerbal separated from his craft by a tiny bump he could jump over if only [choose one: he could jump without spinning in circles and falling over; he could jump without flying 2343872983 meters over the top of the ship].

In a similar light it'll be awesome if they add some kind of function for Kerbals to flip over small rovers Halo-style, i.e. if your rover weighs less than 2 tons would weigh on Kerbin and has capsized, a Kerbal can come over and push it right side up so you can go back to driving.

[Thanny]

I recently had a plane where the ladder looked perfect, it went right over a wing strake, and connected to the built-in ladder on the side of a MkII cockpit... except the kerbal would climb up the ladder and get stuck and if you attempted to leg go, you simply fell to the ground.

FYI, I've done a ladder like that and had it work. The trick is to rotate it away from the plane more, so that the ladder is closer to the same angle as the built-in steps, but still reaches the ground. The right angle is just enough to keep the body of the ladder assembly inside the fuselage (i.e. you can just barely not see it sticking out below).

[aleis]

I can see it now. Nasault's next video Kliffhanger

[klgraham1013]

Ladders are often used to climb up and over onto something in real life. Glad KSP in getting this feature.