Tail fin will not let me dive

[splashboom]

The tail fin on my plane lets me take off, but if I want to move it the other way - when I want to dive from altitude - it does nothing. I push the stick all the way and it just stays horizontal. I saw some options to tweak, but nothing that seems to fix this.

I does seem like a safety measure - like to prevent you from lithobraking by accident at take-off. But safety is not the kerbal way!

[Hotel26]

Not a lot to go on.  You've made a mistake in the SPH, though; that much is almost certainly true.

                                                                        

All right, all right!  Let's be constructive.  (To get a more detailed answer, you'll need to supply some more detail about the problem.  )

1. what kind of tail fin is it?
2. where is it placed?
3. is it vertically-orientated, horizontally or other?  (screenshots are worth 1,000 posts.)
4. does it move at all (e.g. take-off)?
5. what are the tweak settings?  (screenshot = nice)  Authority Limit, Deployment Limit and all the checkbox settings for Pitch, Yaw, Roll...?
6. is it Deployed or not at the time?
7. are you actually using a physical joystick for control input?  (rather than e.g. keyboard)

Edited November 20, 2021 by Hotel26

[splashboom]

It does move when i want to pitch up. I am using a joystick.

With the w/s keys it moves both ways (down/up), it is just the joystick that cannot move it down.

 

Edited November 20, 2021 by splashboom
more details

[Hotel26]

2 hours ago, splashboom said:

It does move when i want to pitch up. I am using a joystick.

any evidence (i.e. on different craft) that the joystick ever functions in a stick-forward direction?

also, if you switch to keyboard, will this craft operate normally?

Edited November 20, 2021 by Hotel26

[splashboom]

I just tried a few other planes, it's the same situation - joystick does nothing in the forward position. I can use the w key while flying with the joystick, but it gets annoying.

[Hotel26]

Great information!  This will be a joystick controller binding issue and there is a setup page on it -- but I am very unfamiliar with this area.

Someone more expert than I will now chime in very shortly and assist you...

Bon chance!

Edited November 20, 2021 by Hotel26

[splashboom]

20 minutes ago, Hotel26 said:

Bon chance!

Indeed .. a quick search found this thread. The gist is that it should not work at all (I am on linux!). I have been flying for months until I was bothered enough to look into the dive issue.

 

[Hotel26]

1 hour ago, splashboom said:

I am on linux!

Wonderful.  Me too, which is probably why I don't know anything about KSP joystick support.

Only a palliative, but if you have to use a keyboard, I heartily recommend Atmospheric Autopilot as it makes routine keyboard flying much more enjoyable.  (I always take-off and land with it disengaged, though.)  It offers some remarkable opportunities in the area of cruise climb control.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Hotel26

[splashboom]

This is too funny .. The mapping let me assign 'Pitch Down' to forward stick move BUT: it is binary, that is either goes all the way or not at all. Also shows as button 3, which is one of those mysteries. Quite an improvement for flying, but obviously some way to go until normal.

 

 

Come to think of it, it is not the first mapping problem I had (and this one seems to have appeared for no reason. Come on Squad what is so hard about mappings? Some things go to some other things

 

 

[Hotel26]

I took the liberty of building a (stretched) copy ("SplashBoom"):

It does 571m/s @ 10.7km although I am still combating heat/dissipation.  It lifts off by itself in the 40s and it is able to land/depart water, which is a really nice feature.

Current radiator configuration drops performance to 556m/s @ 11km, so I think I'm going to have to shoot for a higher cruise altitude.

                                                                                     

OK, so 558.6 m/s @ 11.6km appears to be sustainable.  (If it makes it to Baikerbanur...  currently, all heat gauges constant.  )

Edited November 21, 2021 by Hotel26

[splashboom]

I am quite honored I see that I could probably do with a smaller vertical fin.

[Hotel26]

I have a "soft spot" for tail-draggers and you've made a very attractive airplane -- although Goliaths are always a massive challenge to deal with!  Thank you for your inspiration.

[Zacspace]

On 11/19/2021 at 11:54 PM, splashboom said:

I am on linux!

There are dozens of us.

I don't know if you're playing on steam but I recently switched to running the windows build under proton. It's had much better performance for me, as well as actually functional joystick support and the ability to use certain dx11 exclusive mods. It's not perfect, but the trade between windows version issues and linux version issues has been an easy one to make overall. If you're able I suggest trying it out.

[splashboom]

@Zacspace, I am playing on steam, and the linux drawbacks have not yet been so overwhelming to make me contemplate switching OS. I heard they are giving another push to proton, so for not I will wait but thanks for the tip!