The Crew

The Crew

Your kerbals aren't just passengers any more. The bridge reads who's actually aboard (name and job) from KSP, gives each one a personality, and lets them talk: panicking in emergencies, getting impatient on long trips, gossiping on quiet ones, and answering you when you talk to them.

The pilot speaks in the chat (Sidry: ...) and makes the radio calls. Everyone else is on the intercom:

[INTERCOM] Bob (Sci): WHAT IS GOING ON?!
[COMMS] Bill (Eng): Left main wheel is GONE!

Scientists and tourists use the intercom, engineers use COMMS, and now and then a line ends in "-- over".

[INTERCOM] Bob (Sci): We have a whole page? About us? [COMMS] Bill (Eng): Don't let it go to your head, Bob. There's not much room in there.

Personalities

The first time the bridge meets a kerbal, it gives them a personality and keeps it in kerbal_personalities.json in the bridge folder, so Bob stays Bob from flight to flight:

• a temperament, from KSP's own stats where they're available: low courage gives a nervous wreck, high stupidity a goofball, a badass is unflappable, a veteran is seasoned. Otherwise it's random: chatty, cheerful, curious, grumpy, dry-witted, fussy...
• two likes: snacks, explosions, moon rocks, going fast, the view, bad puns, Jeb, dad jokes...
• one dislike, often hilariously wrong for their job: a pilot who hates flying, a scientist afraid of heights, an astronaut terrified of space.

Want to re-roll someone? Delete their entry from kerbal_personalities.json and they'll get a new personality next time.

Emergencies

When something goes wrong, the pilot makes the MAYDAY call and flies the recovery. The rest of the crew react in character: scientists terrified but curious, engineers naming the actual broken part, tourists screaming. To keep it fun rather than unreadable, each crew member speaks at most once every 10 seconds, there are at most two crew lines per emergency, and nobody chimes in on the "resolved" message. When parts come off, the engineer speaks first.

Once you're landed and stopped with damage, the engineer offers a repair, once per set of damage.

Every now and then, if the crew won't stop talking, the pilot snaps back. This happens at most once per emergency and only when there actually was crew chatter:

[RADIO] Sidry: Everyone QUIET, I need to concentrate!

Crew lines never slow down the recovery. They're generated in the background with a short deadline, and if the AI is slow, the line is a canned one instead.

"Are we there yet?"

On calm trips (an autopilot leg, fly-to, helicopter flight, Flight Plan, or just more than two minutes in the air, and no emergency in the last minute) the crew start asking. On short trips (under five minutes to go) that's maybe one question. On long ones the first comes after a few minutes, then every 3 to 6 minutes, more impatient each time, until somebody is shouting "ARE. WE. THERE. YET?!"

About half the time the pilot answers with the real distance and ETA. If the AI tries to answer with a number that isn't in the real flight data, the bridge throws the line away and uses a canned reply instead. Your pilot won't make up distances.

Small talk

On long, calm cruises two crew members (or the pilot and the only other kerbal) occasionally have a short conversation: four to six lines, 5-10 seconds apart, about ship life. The cafeteria stew, who ate the last snack, the latest Jeb gossip, the view, science, the bunks. Each line comes from that kerbal's personality and what's been said so far. The first one comes after 4-10 minutes, then roughly one every 8-15 minutes; short trips rarely get one. Any emergency cuts the conversation off mid-sentence.

[INTERCOM] Bob (Sci): Have you tried the stew in the cafeteria? [COMMS] Bill (Eng): I've tried to identify the stew. Different thing.

Dad jokes

If a kerbal's likes include "loves dad jokes", you'll occasionally get one on a quiet trip (at most one every 15 minutes, so you won't be buried in them):

[INTERCOM] Bob (Sci): Why don't rockets ever get lonely? They always have a launch buddy.

In an emergency they sometimes crack a nervous one instead of screaming. That's usually when the pilot snaps.

Talking to a kerbal

Address any crew member aboard the current craft by first name and they'll answer you in character:

Hey Bob, are you having a good time?
Bob: how's the view back there?
@Bill what do you think of the landing gear?
How are you holding up, Bill?

Short names work if they're at least three letters ("Jeb" finds Jebediah). Replies use the kerbal's personality and job and only real flight facts: where you are, altitude, speed, destination and ETA, any active emergency. Each kerbal remembers your last four exchanges until the bridge restarts, so you can have a short running conversation.

A few rules keep it honest:

• Kerbals can talk but can't do anything. If a reply claims an action ("I fixed the engine!"), that part is dropped.
• Orders still go to the pilot. "Bob, gear down" puts the gear down; it's handled exactly like "gear down".
• Absent kerbals don't answer. "Hey Jeb, you there?" when Jeb isn't aboard gets: Jebediah isn't aboard this craft, Captain - it's just me and Bob, Bill up here.
• Talking to the pilot by name is just the normal chat.

Sidry: You can ask Bob anything. I can't promise the answer will help.

Turning it down (or off)

• /crew chatter off silences all crew lines: emergency reactions, trip chatter, small talk and dad jokes. /crew chatter on brings them back. On by default. The pilot's MAYDAY calls and replies are not affected, and you can still talk to a kerbal.
• /language filter on|off: with the filter on (the default) the crew and the AI are told to keep it clean and any cussing that slips through is masked (s***). With it off, crew may use the occasional mild word. Slurs and hate are always blocked, filter or not.

The crew's lines come from the same AI backend as your chat. With LM Studio they only use a model that's already loaded and never load one just for chatter. If no AI answers in time, they fall back to built-in lines, so they work with no AI at all.