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Fixed

Inconsistent EVA suit state when entering (partially) unpowered habitat

Mr. Fusion 7 years ago updated by Tyler Owen (Lead Developer) 7 years ago 5

When you enter a habitat with one or more systems being offline, sometimes you will transition to the interior with the helmet on, while other times with the helmet off. There doesn't seem to be any factor that determines this, you can enter, exit then reenter the same habitat without changing system states and one time you will have the helmet on, and another time you will have it off (I even ended up once without a helmet in a habitat with none of its systems running, then when I exited and entered a second time, I had the helmet on).


However, even when you have your helmet off, you will still drain suit oxygen and/or power depending on the state of the oxygenator and heater systems.


I tested with this:

  1. Start in a Hab with all systems turned on.
  2. Exit the Hab, turn off the oxygenator and reenter the Hab.
  3. At this point, I almost always have appeared inside with the helmet on.
  4. Exit the Hab, wait a few seconds outside, then reenter.
  5. More often than not, this second time I've appeared inside with the helmet off but still using suit oxygen.

During testing, there was one time when I had the helmet on even on the second entry with the oxygenator turned off, but not on the third. In none of my current test runs did I ever have appeared inside with the helmet on again once I had a helmet off entry (but previously there was one time when I first loaded into an unpowered habitat without the helmet, then a second time with it so it does happen the other way around too sometimes).

Planned

I think I'm going to rework the suit/helmet logic for when entering/exiting based on oxygen availability. There are a few things I could do to make it more intuitive and realistic.

I like the idea of making the helmet depend on oxygen availability, because it's more intuitive.  One of the first things I tried was turning on only the heat because I had full oxygen tanks and battery.   Didn't let me take my helmet off.

Fixed

Alright, I prioritized this after your post and the changes will be in the update coming soon. You will be able to take on and off your helmet while inside whenever you want via the hab status screen and it is only automatically removed upon entering if you have reserve oxygen in the tank.

Of course, if you remove your helmet when you have no reserve oxygen then that's not gonna end well for you :)