justmeman117

I lived in Germany for 4 years and never heard that expression, lol. That's pretty funny. That's about the same reason I didn't reenlist in the military. In theory, we had usual 40 hour weeks... But usually that would turn into 50 from staying late at least 2 hours for dumb reasons every day, and quickly turned into 60-70 hour weeks when you consider ancillary nonsense you were required to do "on your own time" (training, working out to pass the PT test, in-processing/out-processing TDYs, etc). These things were supposed to happen during the duty day, but when on midnight shift for 3 years straight, that basically never happened... But they still had to happen. And occasionally we just had bad days that turned into 12 hours or more to get a job done. I remember one time we had a jet hard land, and had to remove all 4 engines for inspections... That was a month of 12 hour shifts. During that month, they also pushed out my CTO days for weekend duty, and the result was I ended up basically working 12 days straight at one point. People literally lose themseves when they have nothing but their job. I genuinely think overtime should be practically banned to ensure paychecks do actually stay in line with inflation (instead compensating with overtime), and given how often employers abuse it. I hope the KSP 2 dev team are doing ok. Of all the dev teams out there, I hope they in particular aren't going through dev crunch. I genuinely think crunch harms the quality of programming in a game, since it forces devs to do bandaides to get stuff done by certain deadlines, rather than create permanent well functioning systems. I think the end of physical media for consoles and PCs means devs dont have to take time, slow down, and ensure their games are well optimized to run off limited storage space, and the result has been ballooning timeline expectations by publishers (as well as ballooning game sizes).

I'll have to try this, I've been centered on the cockpit and everything I tried to translate didnt seem to work. Thanks.

I think thats been a thing since docking ports were added. I havent had too much issues with that in a long time, but I think thats might because I stopped trying to do as many megaprojects in space. I think the docking magnets causes oscillation in one or both vehicles, especially if theyre misaligned or wibbly wobbly. Then the docking probably adds that little but extra stress into that oscillation necessary to rip apart one or both vehicles. I'd be willing to bet that, if you used the matt lowne lazy method of docking to get both ships perfectly aligned, then turned off docking magnets, and docked slowly, it might keep that from happening to your ships.

I'll at least download it then. done

I'll try it out. Might have to get back to you in a day or two though, I have some calculus homework due tonight.

Did you build it exactly the same? If not, post a screenshot of your design. I can hop on, and modify mine to test out your design techniques, see if I can find a problem child part.

Btw, the Whiplash, in my test flights, peaked around, I dunno, 300-350 KN for me? That was at round 12,000+ meters, and 1,000-1,100 m/s. So it definitely isn't the engine, it's very responsive to lots of ram air and gets up to VERY high thrust in the right speed regime, just like the KSP1 engine. I think your issue is most definitely drag related. Even with no engine, a slippery enough plane should break mach 1 in a dive like that I think. I tried pushing my super draggy jump jet in the same manner to test my ejection system. In a 60 degree dive with full afterburner, from 8,000 meters, it could only hit 250 m/s by 6,000 meters, and then just HARD stopped at that speed, then slowly slowed down as it went into thicker air. It's a good way to test for drag.

Hmmm... I love the look, it's quite close to the real deal, but this is a tough one to troubleshoot. I don't know enough about KSP 2's drag model yet, but it does seem to consider certain parts very draggy considering the sluggish top speed of my panther powered jump jet. In my build I made a deliberate choice to get most of my intake air from inline precoolers, since those should be fairly low drag, being so incorporated into the fuselage. I only added the two small ones to the 0.625 meter tanks at the wing roots for realism purposes (running a jet engine WITHOUT a visible intake bothers me on a physical level as a jet engine mechanic). I chose these small ones, because they get the job done, without causing much drag. Your design appears to have two large scoops, and two hypersonic scoops on it. I generally try to avoid the large scoops, because they just look draggy to me (and probably are). So to troubleshoot, I would try removing the radially attached intakes. Then see how it flies. The whiplash may also need a ton of intake air. I mentioned in my post, I used 4 precoolers, which should be WAY more than it needs, and keep it gasping as high as possible. When flight testing, monitor your whiplash in the parts manager, see if its KN value jumps around up and down. This is a sign it's being air starved. If it is being air starved, I recommend replacing one of your fuel tanks with another precooler intake. If those dont work, then I have 4 other things I'd check. I generally put my landing gear just inside fuselage parts, because I hate how those bulges stick out if you just slap them on. I see yours are embedded in the wings. It's possible those are causing a ton of drag that occlusion prevented on my build. I've also never used an empenage as a nose cone before. I see why you did it, since the F-104 has a long nose. But, since it's usually used in game with the fat end facing forward, it could have some weird drag calculation where the fat end forward actually reduces drag, and the pointy end forward increases it. You could try replacing that part with the 1.25-0.625 Methane tank, and a 0.625 nose cone. It would still look decent, and might fix any drag coming off the original empenage part. The other two big things... So Vaos (a youtuber) figured out that any open and unused attachment points (the green balls on parts in VAB) actually trigger drag, in the drag calculation. For example, a fuel tank with no nosecone. So in his builds, he tries to streamline his builds by putting nosecones on any open attachment points (even if he has to hide the nose cone for asthetic reasons). This, btw, is why he puts nose cones on the exhaust end of his Rapier engines (a weird design choice, but it massively reduces drag). I see two possible parts that might have open attachment points. First, that antenna you're using as a pitot tube on the front. If I recall correcly, in KSP 1, that had an attachment point (no idea if KSP 2 has one or not).... Also, it's quite possible an extended antenna is triggering drag too, maybe try a test flight without it. Second, the tail end of the 0.625 rocket propellant tank. If there isn't a 0.625 nose cone there, embedded inside that thud motor, then put one on right there. Those are my recommendations. Hopefully you figure out what's causing the drag. If you do, lemme know, I'd like to know what parts to avoid as far as drag is concerned. When you do your test flights, leave it in a 15 degree climb, and level off between 12,000 and 18,000 meters. If the whiplash never gets up to above mach 1 by that altitude to begin with, then the thrust it produces is pretty bad. It really needs ram air to produce more power. For that, it needs more speed (even in denser air, it seems to run better with more speed). For more speed, it needs to fly high, so the drag can drop off. So I've found a gradual climb to that altitude to be best. (PS, it's also quite possible that the inline cockpit somehow causes a buggy amount of drag. I haven't used that cockpit yet, it's another difference between your plane and mine).

Thanks for your input, I don't work in IT myself... But I've had other similar experiences. I used to work as a jet engine mechanic in the military, so there was always a balance between getting fixes done right, vs in time enough for planned missions to please bosses... At some point, I realized it would never be "fast enough" for them, especially with out resources, and just tried to do it right regardless of time crunch. It also gave me a lot of troubleshooting experience (a lot like bug hunting), which is a lengthy and methodical process. I've also tried to teach myself programming, and will probably have to actually learn it as a physics major at some point... It's insane how one missed thing can completely implode a program, and KSP 2 probably has a couple hundred such lines of code hiding in its bowls somewhere. It's easy to judge from the outside looking in, but programing and game development isn't easy, and it gets even harder when you got a soulless corp like Take Two calling the biggest shots like release dates. I'm also sure the devs and Take Two are as unhappy with the launch as the player base, this will probably hurt their profits and reputation in the long run. I've also wondered if Steam fines publishers for refunds, in which case, KSP 2 has incurred a massive cost that wouldn't have happened it they just left it in the oven as it were. I still ultimately blame Take Two. It was most likely their call to release it by this arbitrary release date. And it's such a TRASH way of managing developer time. They've wasted how many developer hours now having to gut the entire game of anything unfinished, and whats left never had a chance to be optimized? And now they have to optimize what's left, and THEN return to the unfinished content, THEN finish it, THEN implement it piecemeal, THEN optimize each piece, THEN still get bug reports from annoyed players that then become your play testers now that it's "released". It reminds me of doing 4 times the work to cannibalize parts off of grounded planes, just to get other planes up and running slightly sooner than waiting for parts to ship through the supply system. This is the kind of trash workflow that leads to developer crunch and burnout culture. I get that games need to come out SOMEDAY, but Take Two are literally blind if they think this was done enough. You can't just WILL a game into being complete enough by an arbitrary date, to release. I get the impression publishers put release dates on devs to pressure them into working harder to get it done by that date, but when it's SO out of line with reality, it becomes physically impossible.

Yep, KSP 2 has some kind of halfway house I think. Better aerodynamics than pre 1.0 KSP 1, but still no thermals yet. OG KSP 1 had absolute SOUP for atmosphere, so I think KSP 2 is already better than old KSP 1 in that regard. Thanks for making this post btw, people forget just how LONG it took to get many of these features in KSP 1. KSP 2 already has many features that weren't even added to KSP 1 till over halfway into its 12 year development. It might be worth making a flipside post too, all the stuff in KSP 2 currently, and when it was added to KSP 1 (if at all). For example, KSP 2 already has 5 meter cargo bays, plus a 5 meter cargo bay nose... 5 meter parts werent added stock until Making History (one of the last additions to the game), and even then, the 5 meter structural fuselages are almost useless as cargo bays (trust me... I've tried... and tried... and tried... Lol. Only so much you can do with a toob and no doors, without invoking the kraken).

Wasn't when I played it back then (2013 I think?). Back then I had a crappy laptop, no GPU, and 3 gb of ram. I distinctly remember frame rates starting at like 30fps, then going down from there depending on what I was doing. Systems have come a long way since then. I'm sure if I went back and played 0.18.3 on my current system, I wouldnt have frame rate issues too.

Bro, I was so mad at myself about the DLC. I started playing KSP in 2013, inside the window to get the DLC for free... But as a teen with parents who hated video games, and no credit card, I must admit, I pirated it. I probably have another thousand or more hours in the game that Steam hasnt logged, because of this. In 2015, I finally bought. Ended up getting the DLC anyway, but I was kicking myself for not just finding a way to buy it back in 2013. I watched every ESA video I could, and I dunno man, it seemed pretty buggy even then to me. One of the youtubers showed their plane just... disintigrating into a pile... IN THE VAB (lol. It wouldve been actually funny if it didnt destroy that persons work). So far, it's actually been less buggy than the ESA videos to me. I have yet to have a VAB vehicle do something that insane to me. To be fair though, the most time I've spent in space is one suborbital flight in a plane. And it seems like most of the truly game breaking bugs people are complaining about are quicksave/quickload on longer missions, kraken attacks on big rockets, and phantom forces interferring with orbital dynamics. I've mostly avoided all that so far, just playing with planes. Btw, Im running the game on an i7-6700k, GTX 1070, and 64gb of ram, 1080p min settings. It definitely chugs, but I can get like 15-20 fps with small planes around the KSC. I wouldnt call it unplayable, I've been enjoying it actually. The multiple running engines and fuel flow calculations do make the game chug though (one of their current optamization priorities). Im probably going to go see if I can improve framerate with my jumpjet by making one that flies well with only 1 engine on, instead of needing 5. I'd kill for a 4090. But, I recently spent my life savings on a plane to pursue a private pilots license, so I cant really afford to upgrade for a hot minute. If its gonna come between playing KSP, and finally chasing my dream of flying, flying is gonna win. I dont get 15 FPS sitting in a real plane, lol.

I have similar worries about Take Two, because youre right, it wouldnt be out of character for them. Take Two is the one variable that makes me doubt my decision in buying the game. But, I wouldnt claim the devs only worked on shiny stuff. The more I play, the more hidden features I find (like what seems like a more complex damage model for vehicles and parts, something I've always wanted, or struts that WILL bind to the part you tell it to, regardless of part occlusions... Which imo, is a big improvement over KSP 1 struts). Also, BECAUSE they've been rushed, I wouldnt be surprised if the last few months of dev work has actually been about stripping out stuff that simply wasnt going to be ready in time. We already have a load of in-game footage for content like the late game propulsion systems, and the other solar systems... Do they not get credit for developing stuff that is in progress, and that had to be stripped out to try and make, what is ostensibly a dev version of the game, somewhat playable? Considering what they were working on in the dev videos, I get the impression the dev team was under the assumption they wouldnt release the game until that content had been reasonably finished, and probably got a rude awakening from Take Two. Its a reasonable criticism to argue they should have made a solid core game before EA... I just get the impression they intended on doing exactly that with, well, a larger and more feature rich, core of game than their publisher allowed time for. Had they gotten all the parts and planets done first, then they could have more completely and easily squashed bugs after that (rather than introducing both parts, planets, AND bugs, piecemeal, the same way KSP 1 did that made that game a slog to develop). Now that it's out, Im more concerned about them rushing bug fixes and feature development in a bandaide solution manner, the same way KSP 1 feels like its held together by hopes and dreams sometimes. PS, planes wobble themselves apart on the runway in KSP 1 too. Its a known problem with a known solution, Matt Lowne even made it a point to Nate Simpson himself. The nosewheel is the problem. Disable automatic friction control, and braking, on the nose wheel, on all your aircraft. Ive done nothing but make planes in KSP 2, and theyve all gone down the runway just fine with these settings (except one really botched landing).

Yeah, if they do ever add wind, they should absolutely change the runway layout to a wind rose. It'd make KSC huge (like DIA. I live right next to that airport). But it'd be worth it. I got a weather mod for KSP 1. It rendered some of my larger planes unable to take off in anything but mild cross winds, as they'd get pushed off the runway.

THIS. And honestly, I'd rather fixed prices go up to stay in pace with inflation, than continue allowing what publishers started doing 10 years ago INSTEAD of raising prices (hidden monetization out the rear with microtransactions, lootboxes, day 1 DLC, you name it). Prices have been going up in games, just not in the raw price. I'd happily pay 100 dollars for KSP 2 if it came with a written GARUNTEE from Take Two that they will always allow mods and never introduce nonsense like microtransactions.