Selecting kerbals and stations

[ceauke]

Hi guys

I'm having some difficulty selecting kerbals, transferring them and selecting vehicles. In the end I buttonspam to get things selected.

1. When physically attached (station A with ship , I cannot transfer from A to B. At some stage the camera changes (I think as a result of furious clicking) and then I can transfer from A to B and vice versa. What is that change that happened? It seems that the system decides there's just ONE entity (the new large station) but I dont know what's the trigger for that. It does't seem to be the station alone.

2. Once you have one station, will it use ALL RCS to do stuff, or can you still control only from A or B?

3. Can I transfer fuel from B -> A somehow? without mods?

4. If I have a kerbal from B climbing manually over to A, how do I select him in the fury of having A and B and the joined C?

Oh, praise the Korde for the [ ] keys to switch close vehicles. At least that is a sure way of selecting the A or B.

Edited February 2, 2015 by ceauke
Answered, thanks!

[MoonMan22]

Hello,

1. When you dock 2 vessels together the game then views it as a single spacecraft. Only once the vessels have been merged cab you transfer fuel. To do this, simply select a tank that contains fuel you want to transfer by holding alt then clicking it. Then select the second tank you would like to transfer with by again holding alt and clicking the second tank. This will make the transfer "in" and "out" buttons appear.

2. Once the station is one vessle then it will utilize all attached resources as one vessle, you no longer have control of the individual sections that have been docked together.

3. Yes you can. You would need to dock A to B and follow the same instructions. Once docked together click on A's fuel tank by holding Alt then clicking on it. The. Select B's fuel tank the same way and the transfer options will appear.

4. To switch control to a nearby vessle or kerbal use the "[" and "]" keys.

Hope this helps! Happy Flying!

[ceauke]

Thanks moonman.

But should it become one vehicle istantly after docking?

Docking for me is pushing the two docking ports together. I can see they attach, but for some reason the one-vessle camera angle only kicks in after clikcing everywhere. If I dont do that, it just remains two vessles it seems.

[Merandix]

You don't need to click anything to dock once the magnetics kick in... Can it be that you are oscillating a bit? Because if so, the docking ports will take a few seconds (and sometimes more) to align themselves correctly before actually connecting. To solve that, turn off both RCS and SAS just before (or immediately when) the docking ports are magnetically drawing towards each other. RCS and SAS on on both vessels will actually have both systems 'fighting' each other, this can sometimes lead to oscillations that may last up to a minute or more.

Two vessels become one instantly upon docking. I think the main problem is that you aren't yet docked when you assume you are. But that's just an assumption on my part

That's a whole lot of assumptions in one post.

TL;DR:

Once you are connected you can transfer fuel and Kerbals immediately, and the entirety of everything docked together behaves as one ship.

[ceauke]

Thanks Merandix. I think you nailed it.

I found that setting both station and shuttle to SAS makes aiming better. In fact, I point both vessels in eachother's direction to dock. It's impossible for me to dock by just controlling the shuttle.

I will go and try and disable SAS after magnetic contact. I'm pretty sure that must be my problem.

Last open question: How do you select which kerbal you control?

E.g. my shuttle is on linear mode and my kerbal is hanging on the shuttle. How am I SURE that when I press W that the kerbal will climb up rather than the shuttle will fly forward?

[match]

Thanks Merandix. I think you nailed it.

I found that setting both station and shuttle to SAS makes aiming better. In fact, I point both vessels in eachother's direction to dock. It's impossible for me to dock by just controlling the shuttle.

I will go and try and disable SAS after magnetic contact. I'm pretty sure that must be my problem.

Last open question: How do you select which kerbal you control?

E.g. my shuttle is on linear mode and my kerbal is hanging on the shuttle. How am I SURE that when I press W that the kerbal will climb up rather than the shuttle will fly forward?

When you have a ship selected, the navball and other controls are visible. With the Kerbal, no HUD is presented.

[MoonMan22]

Thanks Merandix. I think you nailed it.

Last open question: How do you select which kerbal you control?

E.g. my shuttle is on linear mode and my kerbal is hanging on the shuttle. How am I SURE that when I press W that the kerbal will climb up rather than the shuttle will fly forward?

If mean a Kerbal on EVA then the same "[" and "]", will toggle between which Kerbal you on controlling. You can also select any object in the map and select "switch to". Goodluck!

[Merandix]

Note that you can also transfer Kerbals directly after docking. Left click on the crew hatch of the part the Kerbal currently is in, click transfer in the popup window, then click the module you want to move the Kerbal to.

You probably already knew this, but just to be sure

[ceauke]

Thanks a lot guys. I didn't realise that [ ] will switch to EVA kerbals as well. I'll watch out for the navball disappearing to know that I'm controlling a kerbal.

(They can really do with cleaning up the HUD in terms of ships / kerbals. e.g. show what skill they have and which ship is selected. I dont like switching to map view to find out where my engineer is stored)

[Pecan]

Why EVA at all?

To transfer Kerbals between accommodation (command-pods, hitch-hikers, etc.) on the same ship, bearing in mind that docked ships are treated as a single large one, just click the crew hatch where they are at the moment, select one to 'transfer' then click the part to which they should go.

[ceauke]

somebody has to go out in the cold because the vessels are packed :-)

If I bring 3 in my capsule and have 5 in total on the station (cap+science), then one guy has to get out before the others can get in.

As a side note, I learned that having solar panels, antennae and spotlights right outside the hatch of the capsule make the poor crawler kerbal launch into space quite precariously :-D

So yes, I would like an option to SWAP kerbals as well. (I haven't researched the seats yet, else I would just swop to open seats on the outside and let the naughty ones sit there)