Wait, rover wheels can be repaired without a Kerbal engineer on EVA?

[juanml82]

Until today I was under the impression unmanned rovers couldn't get their wheels repaired - you had to have a kerbal on EVA to do it, and with the latest update, the Kerbal had to be a qualified engineer.

So I landed some unmaned rovers and electric planes in Duna, some 10 km away from the place I've selected for the base and some of their wheels got broken during landing. I tried to drive them with the broken wheels and, at one point, I right clicked on the wheel, and the option to repair it was there and worked.

Was this always the case and I've just ignored it, was it added during the last update or may it be because of some mod?

[StrandedonEarth]

Maybe you were using a highly skilled probe core?

[Alshain]

Are you playing in Sandbox?

[juanml82]

Are you playing in Sandbox?

Yep - and I've just tried it in career and the repair option isn't there without a Kerbal engineer, so it's either a bug or a feature in sandbox mode

[klesh]

Yep - and I've just tried it in career and the repair option isn't there without a Kerbal engineer, so it's either a bug or a feature in sandbox mode

Rather, its a feature of career mode. In .90 career mode, repair to rover wheels is now an ability that only certain-level-engineers can perform. In sandbox, they're just letting you do whatever you want.

[cantab]

So even unmanned rovers can fix their wheels in sandbox? That's a new thing certainly. Will make driving them less annoying, but also give less reason to take a Kerbal.

As for crew reports, for as long as I can remember there has been no requirement for the command pod to be occupied to take them. It's not a bug per se, just an unexpected omission in that the experiment - which is a function of the pod, not of a kerbal - doesn't check for presence of a Kerbal.