Hot take: procedural wings won't make building easier

[The Aziz]

I'm preparing myself for torches pitchforks, but here's some of my experience:

I very rarely built anything with the rectangular bits and pieces in KSP1. Swept wings, delta, strakes, winglets. Yes, those were the jazz, and tell you what, they usually worked. If placed in roughly correct position, the aircraft would fly.

Then I tried SimplePlanes. With every part procedural. I couldn't fly a single thing. How, without a knowledge about aerodynamics, was I supposed to figure out what a longer, wider, straighter wing would do? Now I'm facing the same thing in less than two days and my Kerbin excursions are endangered by inability to figure out how air works. And I doubt any tutorials could cover everything. It's no longer "fins at the bottom" or "CoM behind CoL" (or was it the other way round, I forgot). Suddenly, air is hard again.

[regex]

Consider it a challenge. Air is a PITA for me in KSP1 but I found it pretty intuitive with procedural wings using FAR.

[ArmchairGravy]

I've always struggled with making planes, and I am hoping with the integrated control surfaces I can do better. I can make stuff that looks like it should work, has the lift/weight balanced, and still won't get an inch off the runway before veering/flipping.  My current SSTO is a Rockomax 32 with a Skipper.

[Guest]

In a way yes, you're right.

But I'd say that your statement isn't complete.

As you said wings are going to be harder, but planes, especially big ones, are actually going to be easier.

More difficult to chose the right wing for the job (luckily in KSP even bricks fly) but way easier to obtain that specific shape once you have it in mind.

Don't think only about small 1.25m planes, the first time I saw those 5 meters cargo bays my first idea was about doing a huge SSTO plane with them, and tanks to procedural wings that's going to be a 100 parts plane and kit a 600 parts one (500 of which a mosaic of microscopic wing segments).

[jacksawild]

Procedural parts have been the default for a while in RSS/RO and they allow a much wider degree of freedom in building. I wish they'd have adopted fully procedural for KSP2, but the wings will be good.

[shdwlrd]

Yes and no. Instead of using a bunch of little fiddlely parts, you can use a few parts for the plane. But you have to adjust the shape you want for the plane. A much better trade off in my opinion.

[magnemoe]

14 minutes ago, Master39 said:

In a way yes, you're right.

But I'd say that your statement isn't complete.

As you said wings are going to be harder, but planes, especially big ones, are actually going to be easier.

More difficult to chose the right wing for the job (luckily in KSP even bricks fly) but way easier to obtain that specific shape once you have it in mind.

Don't think only about small 1.25m planes, the first time I saw those 5 meters cargo bays my first idea was about doing a huge SSTO plane with them, and tanks to procedural wings that's going to be a 100 parts plane and kit a 600 parts one (500 of which a mosaic of microscopic wing segments).

Yes, making seriously massive planes will be easier. using the 5 meter payload bays and procedural wings. I don't think the wing shape is that critical in KSP, an thicker wing will have more drag but can hold more fuel, but will it give more lift? 
Never used anything except 1.25 meter 5-6 man planes seriously but used them a lot. 
 

[TackleMcClean]

It would be very useful to be able to define your own presets based on procedural wings (and hopefully tanks as well).

[Bej Kerman]

24 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

I'm preparing myself for torches pitchforks, but here's some of my experience:

I very rarely built anything with the rectangular bits and pieces in KSP1. Swept wings, delta, strakes, winglets. Yes, those were the jazz, and tell you what, they usually worked. If placed in roughly correct position, the aircraft would fly.

Then I tried SimplePlanes. With every part procedural. I couldn't fly a single thing. How, without a knowledge about aerodynamics, was I supposed to figure out what a longer, wider, straighter wing would do? Now I'm facing the same thing in less than two days and my Kerbin excursions are endangered by inability to figure out how air works. And I doubt any tutorials could cover everything. It's no longer "fins at the bottom" or "CoM behind CoL" (or was it the other way round, I forgot). Suddenly, air is hard again.

The patchwork wings were only done by a small development team who didn't have much idea how to tackle the game they started building. They aren't an ideal solution, they're not intuitive, and I still have trouble with them. Cast yourself back to when you started out with aircrafts and I'm sure young you had trouble with them as well.

Humans are inherently biased against change and I won't blame you for that. I do want to point out a specific comment...

29 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

How, without a knowledge about aerodynamics, was I supposed to figure out what a longer, wider, straighter wing would do?

That's on SimplePlanes for not having better on-boarding, and I hate to say it, but you didn't exactly make the choice to use Google or other resources to understand how a wing's properties affect flight. You took your initial understanding and used it as ammo against the fundamental principles of proc wing design. I don't really approve of that - someone not googling stuff isn't a problem with the wings having an option for thickness.

[Baleine]

Well, I'm not sure we should be so worried. When you look at the planes / SSTO our content creators made in a rush on the preview, I don't feel like they struggled that much.

Granted, they are way more used to build that kind of vessels than me, but they didn't seem to have had trouble making functional planes on the few time alloted to gameplay they had.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Baleine

[J.Random]

17 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

The patchwork wings were only done by a small development team who didn't have much idea how to tackle the game they started building.

Erm. No? All those wing segments (A-B-C-whatever) came very late in development, when plane parts got reworked for new (but mostly the same soup-like) aerodynamics. Part selection was much smaller before then.

[The Aziz]

31 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

I hate to say it, but you didn't exactly make the choice to use Google or other resources to understand how a wing's properties affect flight. You took your initial understanding and used it as ammo against the fundamental principles of proc wing design. I don't really approve of that - someone not googling stuff isn't a problem with the wings having an option for thickness.

We've been through this before, haven't we? A game shouldn't require knowledge gained elsewhere to play it. I don't have to know how a wing should look like and how it affects the aircraft, if I can just use a wing that's already there, like I've been doing for years - again, I don't use the structural blocks. KSP taught me rocket science, but not air science.

"fundamental principles of proc wing design"

Which are? None of the games have ever taught me that and I don't think KSP2 will. I'm ready to be surprised though, but I wouldn't count on in-depth tutorials on wing design.

1 hour ago, Master39 said:

way easier to obtain that specific shape once you have it in mind.

Well, yeah, but how do I know the shape? for KSP1 it was either slap a delta wing on a shuttle, large wing on a Mk3 plane, or smaller swept wings for small aircraft. But here? I get one wing and I have to work my way around it, supposedly spending hours before it can fly properly.

1 hour ago, shdwlrd said:

Yes and no. Instead of using a bunch of little fiddlely parts, you can use a few parts for the plane. But you have to adjust the shape you want for the plane. A much better trade off in my opinion.

I always have. But now I have to figure out what to do with that one wing, as I'm not sure it will work correctly in its basic shape.

31 minutes ago, Baleine said:

When you look at the planes / SSTO our content creators made in a rush on the preview, I don't feel like they struggled that much.

If only I had their level of expertise. Grand Tour SSTAs, dogfights, these people have much more experience than me (what the hell, Scott Manley has/will have an actualy flying licence). No wonder they know what they're doing.

[Baleine]

1 minute ago, The Aziz said:

If only I had their level of expertise. Grand Tour SSTAs, dogfights, these people have much more experience than me (what the hell, Scott Manley has/will have an actualy flying licence). No wonder they know what they're doing.

Sorry, you missed my point. For me, this means that planes behaves more or less the same than in KSP1.
And, frankly, at worst it will mean watching some tutorials on youtube for an hour or so and it will be over.

[Bej Kerman]

5 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

I hate to say it, but you didn't exactly make the choice to use Google or other resources to understand how a wing's properties affect flight. You took your initial understanding and used it as ammo against the fundamental principles of proc wing design. I don't really approve of that - someone not googling stuff isn't a problem with the wings having an option for thickness.

We've been through this before, haven't we? A game shouldn't require knowledge gained elsewhere to play it. I don't have to know how a wing should look like and how it affects the aircraft, if I can just use a wing that's already there, like I've been doing for years - again, I don't use the structural blocks. KSP taught me rocket science, but not air science.

"fundamental principles of proc wing design"

Which are? None of the games have ever taught me that and I don't think KSP2 will. I'm ready to be surprised though, but I wouldn't count on in-depth tutorials on wing design.

A game shouldn't require knowledge et cetera, but that doesn't mean procedural wings is the problem! Little documentation is the problem and you're laying it squarely on the shoulders of the procedural wings because of a problem that doesn't pertain to them at all. You prefer the KSP 1 wings because you didn't get to decide on thickness at all and all that. Having no options isn't better than having options that you need to do research on to recognise their impact on flight. Yeah, you're not used to proc wings, but do acknowledge that it's not fair to blame procedural wings on problems that don't quite pertain to them. SimplePlanes doesn't have tutorials on everything, and if something lack tutorials, the fact the feature doesn't have a tut is the problem, not the feature itself.

11 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

2 hours ago, Master39 said:

way easier to obtain that specific shape once you have it in mind.

Well, yeah, but how do I know the shape? for KSP1 it was either slap a delta wing on a shuttle, large wing on a Mk3 plane, or smaller swept wings for small aircraft. But here? I get one wing and I have to work my way around it, supposedly spending hours before it can fly properly.

What if you don't want a delta wing? This answer only accounts for one kind of wing out of many types. In KSP 1 you have to patch a bunch of tiny segments together for long aircrafts. For something as big as a Concorde, wings are going to account for at least 70% of your parts count. Rather than fiddle with some sliders, you're building a big ugly delta wing out of tiny squares when you could have just scaled one up. In KSP 2 you still try to put something from your mind into the game, but you're given way better tools for making a wing that looks how you want.

(yes, you are replying to someone else, but forums are forums and I'll deliver input )

12 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

50 minutes ago, Baleine said:

When you look at the planes / SSTO our content creators made in a rush on the preview, I don't feel like they struggled that much.

If only I had their level of expertise.

I'm sure you'll adjust swiftly.

[The Aziz]

7 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

What if you don't want a delta wing?

 If it does the job, there's no reason for me to not use it. I'm not a recreationist, I make things with specific purpose and so far I had no need to use 80 parts just to build a wing. Partly because it never worked for me. And I'm pretty sure some people who wanted to remake Concorde or jet fighters or whatever already went to use procedural mods because they knew what to do with them.

11 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

A game shouldn't require knowledge et cetera, but that doesn't mean procedural wings is the problem!

I kind of never said that. I just said that they aren't a shortcut or an easier way to build working planes. They may solve the shape and part count problems, but nothing else. In KSP1 if my pre-designed wing didn't work, I'd simply switch to a different one (really same thing applied to engines). In KSP2 I have 8 sliders each modifying different parameter. That's not making things easier, is it?

[Bej Kerman]

1 minute ago, The Aziz said:

25 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

What if you don't want a delta wing?

 If it does the job, there's no reason for me to not use it. I'm not a recreationist, I make things with specific purpose and so far I had no need to use 80 parts just to build a wing. Partly because it never worked for me. And I'm pretty sure some people who wanted to remake Concorde or jet fighters or whatever already went to use procedural mods because they knew what to do with them.

Okay, you keep saying whatever gets brought up is the only possible reason a wing needs to exist. Wings having a variety of possible shapes is a good thing. If a delta wing is all you need to add, good, but there exists purposes for wings that aren't just delta-shaped or any of the other basic shapes provided by Squad. It's good that now, if you want to make a large aircraft (the Concorde is solely for comparison purposes), 90% of your parts won't be spent solely on the wings.

5 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

I kind of never said that.

You didn't?

2 hours ago, The Aziz said:

How, without a knowledge about aerodynamics, was I supposed to figure out what a longer, wider, straighter wing would do?

You did say that - the words I see here and the fact it's under a post complaining about wings rather than documentation would pin your frustrations on procedural wings rather than the documentation.

3 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

28 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

A game shouldn't require knowledge et cetera, but that doesn't mean procedural wings is the problem!

I just said that they aren't a shortcut or an easier way to build working planes. They may solve the shape and part count problems, but nothing else. In KSP1 if my pre-designed wing didn't work, I'd simply switch to a different one (really same thing applied to engines). In KSP2 I have 8 sliders each modifying different parameter. That's not making things easier, is it?

In KSP 2 you've got 8 sliders that each change important properties that affect distinct properties of the wings. That is making things easier, especially for applications that call for very thin wings, which KSP 1 did not provide at all. In KSP 1 you had to fidget with tiny squares that weren't always the same thickness, sometimes caused Z-fighting, had to be maneuvered in specific ways to hide the uglyness, yada yada, that's not any easier than 8 simple sliders with distinct functions. Not to mention that control surfaces are part of wings now in the case of fixed wings and thus appear as distinct components rather than a flap dangling off a string of squares and delta panel masquerading as a wing. When a control surface is at rest, it properly blends in and is flush with the bits around it and doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.

[boolybooly]

All you need, to learn how to use wings effectively in KSP, is to toggle on the center of mass and center of drag widgits in the VAB.

Make sure drag is behind mass but not so far that the authority of control surfaces cannot counter the leverage created between the two. Gravity pulls mass down and lift surfaces hold the craft up at the drag center, ideally they should be close to each other but never allow the drag center to precede the mass center or the craft will flip and fly backwards. Its  really very logical.

It is simply a Goldilocks problem, drag behind mass but not too much not too little and then factor in shifting center of mass due to tank draining and you are there.

Procedural wings wont make any difference in KSP2 if you understand these rules, is my guess.

[t_v]

I think that there won't be an aerodynamic difference between low and high sweep wings, long and thin versus short and fat wings. I think that upon EA release, the only factor that will matter is wing area, like in KSP 1. Hopefully it is a placeholder before a more interesting system, but I don't think that this new design consideration will definitely exist upon launch. 

[Yakuzi]

I reckon if you try to shape your wings after the ksp1 ones, you should expect fairly similar flight behaviour.

I for one am very much looking forward to building SSTO spaceplanes with the new proc wings. Hands down my fav KSP2 feature so far.

Any info on whether they can carry fuel?

[shdwlrd]

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

I always have. But now I have to figure out what to do with that one wing, as I'm not sure it will work correctly in its basic shape.

I really should have specified wings. My basic wing designs usually had at least 3 parts per wing. Any design that required a complex or oversized wing; the part count could easily exceed 20 parts per wing. With procedural wings; a basic wing would be just one part and a complex or oversized wing could be maybe 2-4 parts.

[VlonaldKerman]

This is an interesting topic. Here's my personal opinion: Plane hard. Rocket go boom. I stick to rocket. 

[The Aziz]

16 minutes ago, boolybooly said:

All you need, to learn how to use wings effectively in KSP, is to toggle on the center of mass and center of drag widgits in the VAB.

Make sure drag is behind mass but not so far that the authority of control surfaces cannot counter the leverage created between the two. Gravity pulls mass down and lift surfaces hold the craft up at the drag center, ideally they should be close to each other but never allow the drag center to precede the mass center or the craft will flip and fly backwards. Its  really very logical.

It is simply a Goldilocks problem, drag behind mass but not too much not too little and then factor in shifting center of mass due to tank draining and you are there.

Procedural wings wont make any difference in KSP2 if you understand these rules, is my guess.

Which shape of the same wing should I choose if the indicators won't move much? How do I know which one will do better? I can build and launch rockets without testing, enough DV, enough TWR and stability and off I go. But this is witchcraft.

[Bej Kerman]

Just now, The Aziz said:

Which shape of the same wing should I choose if the indicators won't move much?

Is putting thought into your designs really worse than not getting a choice for small wings?

The indicators not moving is a bug so that's not an issue in the first place.

[regex]

3 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Which shape of the same wing should I choose if the indicators won't move much? How do I know which one will do better? I can build and launch rockets without testing, enough DV, enough TWR and stability and off I go. But this is witchcraft.

That's the same way I felt about trying to stack up all the little bits and pieces of wings into a shape that looked mostly like a wing and did what I needed it to do in KSP1. Absolute witchcraft. The best part is it looks like these new wings have colliders so you can just slap another on instead of adjusting sliders if that's what's prefered.

[TheOtherDave]

3 hours ago, The Aziz said:

I'm preparing myself for torches pitchforks, but here's some of my experience:

I very rarely built anything with the rectangular bits and pieces in KSP1. Swept wings, delta, strakes, winglets. Yes, those were the jazz, and tell you what, they usually worked. If placed in roughly correct position, the aircraft would fly.

Then I tried SimplePlanes. With every part procedural. I couldn't fly a single thing. How, without a knowledge about aerodynamics, was I supposed to figure out what a longer, wider, straighter wing would do? Now I'm facing the same thing in less than two days and my Kerbin excursions are endangered by inability to figure out how air works. And I doubt any tutorials could cover everything. It's no longer "fins at the bottom" or "CoM behind CoL" (or was it the other way round, I forgot). Suddenly, air is hard again.

Putting the "CoM behind CoL" is how air works. There's nothing to re-learn in that regard.