[1.3.1] Ferram Aerospace Research: v0.15.9.1 "Liepmann" 4/2/18

[Wanderfound]

i want to build an SSTO VTOL with interplanetary engines. any advice? would it make sense to go with sabres/nukes/none air breathing vtol? or is there some better approach to this scenario?

i would like to reach duna.

Do you mean a vertical SSTO, or a spaceplane with VTOL ability? For vertical SSTO, you want a big Mk2 fuselage based rocket powered by a dozen RAPIERs and a couple of nukes or aerospikes for space propulsion.

If you're going interplanetary with spaceplanes, you also want nuclear. For VTOL, the key is to turn the thrust limiters on your non-VTOL engines down to zero while you use RCS Build Aid to properly position your VTOL engines.

See the last few entries in the Kerbodyne thread. Something like the Dropbear with the central engine replaced with a nuke should have the range needed.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Wanderfound

[blowfish]

You'd need a secondary lift system if you wanted to VTOL on Duna though.

[Wanderfound]

You'd need a secondary lift system if you wanted to VTOL on Duna though.

A dozen Vernors on the underside should cover that. Again, balance with RCS Build aid.

[Arch3rAc3]

Then I have to reinstall my Win 7 64 bit to a 32bit OS? Isn't there a way for me to launch KSP in 32 bit or something? I don't think it's worth to reinstall everything.

[Gfurst]

Then I have to reinstall my Win 7 64 bit to a 32bit OS? Isn't there a way for me to launch KSP in 32 bit or something? I don't think it's worth to reinstall everything.

Just a quick one for everyone's sake: No you don't need to reinstall your OS, windows always had compatibility with its 32bit executables. KSP is probably already installed with the 32b option, though I don't use windows so I'm not sure how its installed or how to switch between 32bit and 64bit modes.

I thought I quick search would show results but apparently not, you can check the support thread and forums. Or just run the specified executable - KSP.exe

[legolegs]

@Arch3rAc3 you don not have to do anything unless you explicitly set up your KSP to start in 64bit mode (either in steam settings or by clicking on KSP_x64.exe). Most of 64 bit OS can handle 32 bit software.

[Snillum101]

Does anyone have any tips to prevent planes see-sawing? I've been using this guide and this guide to help me with my designs.

Unfortunately most of the planes I make seem to see-saw like a rocking horse whenever I go near to the pitch controls. If I knew what caused it I would be able to design better planes in the future.

Also thanks for the fantastic mod Ferram!

[Van Disaster]

Snillum - first thing to try might be to reduce the control deflection. I have mixed luck with the DCA button despite fiddling with it over and over, but that also might be worth a shot. You can also try increasing the fixed part of your horizontal stabilizers if you have any.

A pic or two of one of your designs would help.

[Arch3rAc3]

Alright, I'll try running Ksp.exe instead of the KSP_x64.exe

[blowfish]

Does anyone have any tips to prevent planes see-sawing? I've been using this guide and this guide to help me with my designs.

Unfortunately most of the planes I make seem to see-saw like a rocking horse whenever I go near to the pitch controls. If I knew what caused it I would be able to design better planes in the future.

Also thanks for the fantastic mod Ferram!

Do you have SAS on? SAS tends to overcompensate for minor changes creating oscillations.

[jrandom]

Does anyone have any tips to prevent planes see-sawing? I've been using this guide and this guide to help me with my designs.

Unfortunately most of the planes I make seem to see-saw like a rocking horse whenever I go near to the pitch controls. If I knew what caused it I would be able to design better planes in the future.

Also thanks for the fantastic mod Ferram!

Two ways:

1. Move the CoL further back towards the rear of the plane

2. Reduce the maximum deflection on your pitch control surfaces

[Snillum101]

Thanks for the advice everyone, I'll design some fresh planes with those points in mind and post some screenshots if it still is troublesome

[tetryds]

Does anyone have any tips to prevent planes see-sawing? I've been using this guide and this guide to help me with my designs.

Unfortunately most of the planes I make seem to see-saw like a rocking horse whenever I go near to the pitch controls. If I knew what caused it I would be able to design better planes in the future.

Also thanks for the fantastic mod Ferram!

I will make several video tutorials explaining everything about FAR and aerodynamics.

From the newbie basics to as advanced as I can push it.

Hope people like it, expect the first one within a month.

[HoneyFox]

Does anyone have any tips to prevent planes see-sawing? I've been using this guide and this guide to help me with my designs.

Unfortunately most of the planes I make seem to see-saw like a rocking horse whenever I go near to the pitch controls. If I knew what caused it I would be able to design better planes in the future.

Also thanks for the fantastic mod Ferram!

Use capslock to enable precise control mode which will slowdown your keyboard pitch input.

Another method to try is to activate the FAR's AoA Limiter, but you need to setup its coefficients carefully, with Up limit set to 0~5 and K set to around 0.1 it should help a lot to avoid see-saw issue.

[Rebelgamer]

Ferram, I'm not sure if it's FAR causing this, or something else, but every time I come out of a long warp session(last one was 2 game days at 50x, was in LKO), my framerate drops through the floor. Checked the logs and it all starts with a stack overflow immediately after coming off warp. If you have an idea of what's causing this, I would appreciate it.

From the output.log(the second line repeats for the next 70k lines(in 15 seconds):

StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

at (wrapper delegate-invoke) FlightInputCallback:invoke_void__this___FlightCtrlState (FlightCtrlState)

[LOG 14:44:57.635] 11/11/2014 2:44:57 PM,KerbalAlarmClock,Reducing Warp

[LOG 14:44:59.922] 11/11/2014 2:44:59 PM,KerbalAlarmClock,Reducing Warp

[LOG 14:45:01.801] 11/11/2014 2:45:01 PM,KerbalAlarmClock,Reducing Warp

[LOG 14:45:02.953] Unpacking Untitled Space Craft

[EXC 14:45:02.996] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:03.450] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:03.877] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:04.304] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:04.745] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[LOG 14:45:05.152] LargeCraftLaunchFix Deactivating

[EXC 14:45:05.178] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:05.606] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:06.047] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:06.475] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:06.903] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:07.352] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:07.780] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:08.209] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:08.650] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:09.077] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:09.514] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:09.959] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:10.386] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:10.811] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:11.255] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:11.680] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:12.105] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:12.543] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:13.145] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:13.573] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:14.013] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:14.439] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:14.864] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:15.307] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:15.734] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:16.161] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:16.600] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:17.028] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[EXC 14:45:17.458] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

[LOG 14:45:17.865] Game Paused!

[LOG 14:45:21.628] Flight State Captured

[LOG 14:45:21.634] Saving Achievements Tree...

[LOG 14:45:21.634] Saving Achievements Tree...

[LOG 14:45:21.636] [KS] OnSave: SCENARIO

{

name = KerbalStats

scene = 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

}

[LOG 14:45:21.662] Game State Saved as persistent

[WRN 14:45:21.662] [HighLogic]: =========================== Scene Change : From FLIGHT to SPACECENTER (Async) =====

[ferram4]

Well, without a full stack trace, I have no idea. You'd be best served by trying to narrow down the mod causing it first.

[Styx]

LINUX x64 STEAM USERS!

Crashing on the launchpad?

Add

LC_ALL=C %command%_64

To the steam launch options.

Had success after constant headaches

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

Ferram,

I've had an issue with fairing/bay recognition. I was designing a drop probe that had a set of fins on it for stability during the fall. However, when I was stacking it up on a rocket for a test on Kerbin, those fins dragged the CL extremely far forward, making the rocket unstable, even when the probe was enclosed in a procedural fairing. The CL was in the usual place with a stock Mk2 cargo bay or Firespitter FS1BB bomb bay. The payload shroud said it was shielding 18 parts (is there a way to tell which parts are shrouded?), the long Mk2 cargo bay and Firespitter bomb bay said they were shielding all 20 parts, and the short Mk2 bay was shielding 9 parts.

Here's an imgur album illustrating the test vehicles with the payload shroud and the long Mk2 cargo bay (which is open to show the probe itself). Also included is an image of the vehicle I ended up launching successfully, which had a pair of probes set way back on "tails" to keep the CL behind the CM. I also have the rocket with payload shroud uploaded to KerbalX: http://kerbalx.com/crafts/316

Javascript is disabled. View full album

In the end, this kind of probe proved to shake itself and partially disintegrate when the de-orbit motor fired, probably due to its backbone of massless cubic octagonal struts, so I made the next version a little wider all around to use parts with mass. This version turned out to be stable without fins and easily launchable without any shroud whatsoever.

[Dilir]

Hello,

Thanks for the good work!

I am having questions about wing / winglets mass calculation. I know their is a mass/area involved, which i think is this one

massPerWingAreaSupported = 0.065

My first question is : how can we see/compute a wing area?

Second question : can we modify this ratio in game? (i understand that it will modifiy wing strenght).

[blowfish]

Hey ferram, I have a couple of questions, a minor bug report, and a feature request. First the questions

1) How does FAR treat parts with the physicssignificance=1 flag? In stock they are massless and dragless, and I know FAR won't change the mass, but is drag applied to these parts?

2) Does the mass/strength of a wing change the rigidity of the joints connecting it or only its resistance to snapping off under aerodynamic stress?

Now, the bug report - this is pretty minor so don't spend time on it if it's difficult to fix. I have the flag set to put the FAR editor button in blizzy's toolbar rather than the default toolbar, but occasionally it will show up in the default toolbar anyway (usually just in the editor - I don't think I've seen this in flight).

And the feature request - would it be possible to have a setting to universally set the mass/strength of all wings and/or set the mass/strength of new wings placed? I realize that setting all of the wings in a craft to the same strength isn't necessarily the best strategy, but usually many of them are the same and it's somewhat tedious to have to change every one. That is all

[Rebelgamer]

Ferram, what program would you recommend for getting the stack trace? I tried using Windbg(both x86 and x64), but it's doesn't seem to be catching the exception when it occurs. It would be easier if it caused the game to crash, but it's not.

[Master Tao]

@Rebelgamer:

It's part of the output log:

• Windows: KSP_win\KSP_Data\output_log.txt (32bit) or KSP_win64\KSP_x64_Data\output_log.txt (64bit)
  

I also highly recommend reading the How to Get Support sticky in the Support (modded installs) forum.

[notsorightstuph]

When will a fix for compatibility with Dang it mod be realeased. I absolutely will not play with out FAR but I would like to Include Dang it. I have read in forums that the dev has sent the patch request and that it would be compatible with next FAR release.

Looking forward to seeing it soon. Ty!

[Rebelgamer]

@ Master Tao, I already followed those steps, that's why I'm asking about how to get the stack trace Ferram requested. It's not in the output.log, all it shows is that an exception occurred.

I deleted KSP, re-installed through steam. Tried to reproduce the issue with clean .25 install 4 times, doesn't occur. Downloaded and installed FAR 0.14.3.2, put a ship in 95k orbit, hit timewarp(50x for 10 minutes), and when coming off warp it throws an exception. I have no problems helping track down the problem, but the last time I did so Softice was still being updated.

Here is the output.log, the exception begins on line 8144: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2lrnqt9ipr65kfu/output_log.txt?dl=0

Here is the ksp.log, I know it's not really useful, but it shows the timestamps at least: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nr9b1h7wdbcluv6/KSP.log?dl=0

[Noio]

[LOG 14:45:01.801] 11/11/2014 2:45:01 PM,KerbalAlarmClock,Reducing Warp

[LOG 14:45:02.953] Unpacking Untitled Space Craft

[EXC 14:45:02.996] StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

I have been seeing this too, and it's crazy infrequent, and crazy hard to reproduce at will. I've been spending the last few nights trying to figure out a reliable way to reproduce it.

I _think_ that it has something to do with a state change (SOI for sure, but also seen in low orbit - atmospheric boundary?) right as KJR is showing the little 'stabilizing physics load' message, because that message gets stuck onscreen until I do something to break the overflow (like hopping to the space center). But I can't make it happen with *just* KJR installed. To my mind, that doesn't necessarily mean it's not there, perhaps the presence of FAR just changes the timing just right (or perhaps it's vice versa?). If I have KJR *and* FAR installed it seems to happen more, for small values of more. But again I think that may just be the timing changing more than something specific to FAR, but it's hard to tell.

So far, my most reliable method (read: it seems to happen slighly less never than the usual almost-never) of reproducing it seems to be to tell KAC to stop RIGHT before SOI changes (like, single-digit seconds), then set for max warp and hope KAC hits realtime a split-second before the SOI change.

Rebelgamer, when are you seeing this? The fact that you're seeing it in a 'static' 95k Kerbin orbit throws out most of my theories, but helps me know where to focus testing. Is it just multi-day warps followed by a stop? Does it happen to you reliably, or intermittently? How do you come out of warp? Manually? Kerbal Alarm Clock? Perhaps between the two of us we can figure out exactly how to trigger it.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Noio