Stock fairings' mass reduced by 100% in 1.04

[Col_Jessep]

I don't know if you guys already noticed. Squad has cut the mass of all fairing bases and shells in half. Example:

3.75m fairing AFF3 base 0.95t -> 0.475t

shell 0.06t/m² -> 0.03t/m²

That makes most stock fairings comparable to Procedural Fairings or even a tad lighter.

[pandaman]

Good spot sir!

Unless my maths is way off though it's a 50% reduction not 100%, but the news is 100% good.

[Col_Jessep]

That's an old marketing trick. You do the math from the other end to make it look more impressive.

[Mipe]

Wouldn't reducing something by 100% make it zero?

[wossname]

The fairings are half empty now

Edited June 27, 2015 by wossname
typin are difficul

[Red Iron Crown]

That's an old marketing trick. You do the math from the other end to make it look more impressive.

It's the old margin vs markup problem.

[Perry Apsis]

Mathematical trickery aside, at 50% they might be worth using. Must experiment...

[Evanitis]

50% they might be worth using

I found those really useful in 1.0.2's souposphere. Though I must agree, with the current reduced drag + reduced mass... 50% chance indeed. Must experiment...

[Kuu Lightwing]

Wow, nice. I used them anyways, but 50% mass reduction is very cool!

[KerikBalm]

Sorely needed, in the past, I hadn't looked closely at the fairing mass (its often a bit hard to read the numbers).... Last time I looked on my heavy SSTOs... the fairings were coming in around 30 tons!!!!

That obviously had a bad effect on payload fraction, and it was much easier to just streamline the payload a little, and carry it with no fairing

[Superfluous J]

Wow, they cut them by even more than I did. My "cut the mass of fairings" Modulemanager config now actually INCREASES their mass.

And yeah, if you worked for Squad you could get sued for false advertising There is no way to read "cut by 100%" to mean anything other than they now mass zero. What you wanted was "The old fairings were 100% more massive!" which sounds just as good and is mathematically correct.

[Col_Jessep]

And yeah, if you worked for Squad you could get sued for false advertising There is no way to read "cut by 100%" to mean anything other than they now mass zero.

It's only false advertising if you lose in court. Otherwise it's just a loose interpretation of a PHANTASTIC OFFER!

Anyway, I'm glad I can use fairings more freely now. I really like sleek looking rockets.

[Brotoro]

I looked for that change in the release notes, but was sad when it wasn't listed.

[Majorjim!]

I looked for that change in the release notes, but was sad when it wasn't listed.

Why do they hide some changes? I think this is quite important information.

[Superfluous J]

Why do they hide some changes? I think this is quite important information.

I think it's more of a "forget" than a "hide."

[Majorjim!]

I think it's more of a "forget" than a "hide."

My point is still valid. This is important information.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

AWESOME!!!!!! Time to see what kind of awesome range my V2 has now... Watch out, Klondon....

[problemecium]

Fairings, 50% off!

Was: 1000kg Now: 500kg

xD

[pincushionman]

But wait, there's more! Install them before the next update and we'll…

[Norpo]

...include a full set of 1.25m, 2.5m, and 3.75m fairing bases, a 1,000,000 fund value, for the special introductory price of 50,000 funds!

Seriously, great change.

[Superfluous J]

It's only false advertising if you lose in court.

Which is why they can sue you for it. I never said if they'd win or not

</pedant>

[Perry Apsis]

Mathematical trickery aside, at 50% they might be worth using. Must experiment...

And preliminary results are *very* positive. I tested two conditions. The first was a cylindrical craft with a section that was not very aerodynamic, but still within the cylinder of the top section. The fairing was not that much wider than the ship itself. In this case, the ship went to 120km without fairings, and 190km with.

The second condition was one I expected the fairings to have a harder time with. This was a similar ship to the first, but where the top was a Mk3-profile rover with four RoveMax model XL3's sticking out. I figured this would be a more challenging case for the fairings, because (a) the fairings would be larger, and therefore heavier, and ( I'd be shoving a huge cross-section through the atmosphere. It turned out to be not quite a fair test because in the no-fairing condition, at high speed the drag was unbalanced and I started to drift off the vertical and had to rotate the craft around to wrestle it back upright. That said, the ship with fairings made it above 70km, and without fairings it only made it to 12.

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That's a huge difference, but I haven't talked about the biggest change. I'm not sure when since 1.0 this got introduced, but originally the mass of the fairings was all in the fairing base. That meant that shedding the fairings would not lighten your ship. Now, however, when you jettison the fairings, you lose something like 90% of their mass.

Bravo, Squad, for fixing these problems with fairings. I've still got Procedural Fairings, though, because interstage.

[ajburges]

You have interstage fairings, just attach the node to the bottom of the other side.

[Streetwind]

Nice. I often used stock fairings before, which means half of my rockets just became lighter

[Franklin]

You have interstage fairings, just attach the node to the bottom of the other side.

Now we don't need to!

But yeah, really good update, I'm happy to see this.