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

[pincushionman]

Just curious, this may have already been brought up but... Are the update names (e.g. Goldstein, Fanno, Euler) all named after scientists who worked on or figured out more about aerodynamics? The names I can recognise are.

Thank you

I've seen several times in this thread where Ferram4 has mentioned his "list of dead aerodynamicists", so I believe you are 100% on the money there.

[ferram4]

Logs people, give me logs, they are useful in figuring out the problems. Otherwise, I'm just guessing at what the problems are because I don't know what's happening on your machines. And if you're absolutely certain FAR is causing the issue, create the issue without 50 different mods installed. Confounders do not make diagnosing issues easier.

Good news for the voxel update stuttering is that I'm making progress on reducing the garbage created by that, so hopefully most of that can be removed entirely. Bad news is that has no effect on garbage production from other mods, so very mod heavy installs might still have issues.

[Gryphon]

Logs people, give me logs

It's better than bad, it's good!

[Dr. Evil]

Is there any plan for an updated version of NEAR?

[cantab]

I'm not sure what that could do that the new stock aerodynamics doesn't. Other than maybe using the whole-vessel shape rather than the old-fashioned part based method that FAR moved away from but stock still uses. I believe FAR already lets you turn down or off some settings to make it less realistic and more forgiving, things like disabling aerostructural failures and diminishing the importance of area ruling.

[sashan]

Is it possible to forcefully revert certain parts to stock aerodynamics? I am talking about BDarmory missiles and bombs, they are unstable with FAR and impact point calculation system is broken.

[AgentWhite]

I'm getting no Reynolds number on re-entry with this craft. On takeoff, everything was fine, flew to orbit, docked and refueled with an orbiting tanker, went to Minmus and had a 20 kerbal landing party. Saved game. Next day, loaded game, took off from Minmus and flew back to Kerbin. Upon re-entry, no reynolds number in FAR, and ship did not fly remotely correct, unflyable once at lower speeds. Reloaded save, and put a new ship (same craft) on the runway, everything is fine. Tried to re-enter my original ship, again, no Reynolds or speed readings in FAR data. Posting screenshot of re-entry with FAR data, craft file and gamedata directory listing.

http://www.gamefront.com/files/25161265/Minmus+Party+Cruiser.rar

[angrybold]

Hey guys.

Im havin trouble with my fps. Since i start encountering the problem when going around 300 m/s, i figure this might be about going supersonic, thus about FAR.

I drop from like 20 fps to 2 at best when getting in that range. Back to normal when leaving the atmosphere.

Same Goes with landing, no matter the craft size. Entering atmo will decrease my fps, going subsonic will fix that.

Why is that? What do i do?

[Bakase]

Is it possible to forcefully revert certain parts to stock aerodynamics? I am talking about BDarmory missiles and bombs, they are unstable with FAR and impact point calculation system is broken.

AFAIK, BDarmoury is meant to override both FAR and stock aero for its parts -- it should be calculating its own aerodynamics already.

[tetryds]

@angrybold: these may be the condensation/reentry effects, try to reduce or disable them and see if the lag persists.

It's normal to lag when they appear, these effects always make the fps drop a bit.

[sashan]

AFAIK, BDarmoury is meant to override both FAR and stock aero for its parts -- it should be calculating its own aerodynamics already.

Then it seems that FAR applies it's own aerodynamics on top of BDarmory's one. Cause bombs fall just like pieces of stone, unstabilised.

[Nansuchao]

I'm getting no Reynolds number on re-entry with this craft. On takeoff, everything was fine, flew to orbit, docked and refueled with an orbiting tanker, went to Minmus and had a 20 kerbal landing party. Saved game. Next day, loaded game, took off from Minmus and flew back to Kerbin. Upon re-entry, no reynolds number in FAR, and ship did not fly remotely correct, unflyable once at lower speeds. Reloaded save, and put a new ship (same craft) on the runway, everything is fine. Tried to re-enter my original ship, again, no Reynolds or speed readings in FAR data. Posting screenshot of re-entry with FAR data, craft file and gamedata directory listing.

http://s5.postimg.org/6qdrpne1v/screenshot7.jpg

http://s5.postimg.org/fk4o6r10j/kspgamedatafolder.jpg

http://www.gamefront.com/files/25161265/Minmus+Party+Cruiser.rar

Your ship has modded part, right? Please check if those parts are compatible with FAR. I had the same issue with parts from Chaka Monkey for this reason, they're unseen from FAR, cause they miss the right module in .cfg.

Oh, unrelated to your question, but please delete the older Module Manager in your GAmeData folder. You need to keep just the new one.

[ferram4]

@AgentWhite: Alright, so first, I need the logs. Everything else is at least a good start.

Now, I need you to reproduce the issue with no other mods so there aren't any confounders. I also need you to reproduce it with minimal flying to other bodies; probably loading it in just space will do. And I need you to do all of this exactly as you did the last time you caused the bug, doing exactly what you did before except for things that you're trying to simplify, and I need you to tell me exactly what you did, without leaving out any of the nitty-gritty that you did for this report. Because the actual reproduction steps are likely in that. They always are.

@sashan: Not possible unless it also has no affect on any of FAR's aerodynamics whatsoever. Which would mean that adding missiles to your plane wouldn't increase wave drag at all. There aren't any good solutions here besides setting up the BDArmory parts to fit with all the other parts in KSP rather than trying to hack everything together.

[Cosmonauth]

I have some: [Log]: updating vessel voxel for.. spam. It happens with one engine from KSPIE mod - Thermal Turbojet. This engine has an animation module, and i think it forces FAR to update vessel voxel. It happens almost every second and drops FPS to 1 per second. It makes me really sad (

[Gryphon]

I have some: [Log]: updating vessel voxel for.. spam. It happens with one engine from KSPIE mod - Thermal Turbojet. This engine has an animation module, and i think it forces FAR to update vessel voxel. It happens almost every second and drops FPS to 1 per second. It makes me really sad (

Yes, that would do it:

Voxel updates only occur if something triggers them. Either you have a mod that is constantly sending "HEY, THE SHIP UPDATED GUYZ!" events or you have something that is constantly driving animations; either of those will trigger the update. I do know that Toadicus's TweakableEverything has been causing some issues with that, and he's looking into that, but AFAWCT, it looks like it's something strange on his side. Nothing I can do to fix it.

Perhaps you might ask the KSPIE mod author to take a look his parts and see if they are FAR-compatible?

[Nansuchao]

I use KSPIE with Far from a long times, never had the same issue... Maybe you can try to reinstall Interstellar Extended?

[Cosmonauth]

I use KSPIE with Far from a long times, never had the same issue...

Same here. I think i should look into mods installed recently.

[DaMichel]

Ferram4, i have encountered a bug, too. BDArmory missiles & bombs break FAR. Both the analysis GUI stops working and aero forces stop being calculated. Remove the missiles and everything works again.

Craft file and output log are here

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1odp1co80es7mvq/output_log.txt?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/s1xqq1v85c5q7dk/Smallish.craft?dl=0

Moreover, something odd is going on with the craft center line just after attaching the missiles.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fmmvgdf1b2txpin/screenshot2.png?dl=0

Btw. what about the chute thingy?

[ferram4]

DaMichel, try the garbage_reduction branch dev build, and see if the issues still occur. Still, I can't get any issue with the forces breaking with the BDArmory parts.

As for the main axis being messed up, for some reason, part.partTransform.up is not the forward direction for those parts, despite the fact that it is for everything else; I'll see if I can add something to the heuristic to maybe detect that, but the more parts differ from stock standards (and the more it is for arbitrary reasons) the more this will happen.

I'll merge the parachute PR when I'm closer to a release.

[DaMichel]

Thanks. Odd. Perhaps, i f'd something up while playing with code of both mods. Ofc., i'm pretty sure that i removed that stuff again I'll try the garbage_reduction branch, though.

[Svm420]

Hey Ferram question for you. I am finding FSanimateThrottle module causes FAR to update voxels constantly while it is performing it's animation. I.e. Ven stock revamp of the TRJ has animated flaps on the exhaust. I understand why and know you have stated in the past about playing animations and subsequently triggering FAR voxel updates, and that you can't change much or anything on your end for risk of insufficient voxelization in other perfectly reasonable situations, so I am not here to ask for changes in your code unless you know what's what is needed. I am here to ask what solutions/ideas you see outside FAR that maybe FS could use to alleviate this issue. Thanks

[blowfish]

Hey Ferram question for you. I am finding FSanimateThrottle module causes FAR to update voxels constantly while it is performing it's animation. I.e. Ven stock revamp of the TRJ has animated flaps on the exhaust. I understand why and know you have stated in the past about playing animations and subsequently triggering FAR voxel updates, and that you can't change much or anything on your end for risk of insufficient voxelization in other perfectly reasonable situations, so I am not here to ask for changes in your code unless you know what's what is needed. I am here to ask what solutions/ideas you see outside FAR that maybe FS could use to alleviate this issue. Thanks

I have an idea of how to fix this ... basically giving FAR an override for a particular animation which gives it a minimum normalized time for re-voxelization. I'll try to implement this in the next week and submit a pull request.

[ferram4]

I was gonna do something similar as a hard-coded thing, but if you're up for it, can you set it up with some way to specify modules using exempt animations in a config? It'll help with future-proofing it a little.

Also, make sure to fork the garbage_reduction branch instead of master, or you will encounter the wrath of Ferram When He Is Dealing with Merge Conflicts.

[Svm420]

Hey thanks guys exactly what I was hoping for

[includao]

What mod can provide me with the most accurate information regarding re-entry simulation (atmospheric drag)? "Mechjeb"? "Trajectories"? I've heard Trajectories is much more helpful than MJ with FAR extensions. Thanks