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Should Squad drop backwards compatibility with the new aerodynamics? (2nd update in OP)


hoojiwana

Should Squad drop backwards compatibility with the new aerodynamics?  

510 members have voted

  1. 1. Should Squad drop backwards compatibility with the new aerodynamics?

    • Yes
      409
    • No
      51
    • I don't care
      50


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If you guys didn't know already, Squad has been working on revamping the aerodynamics for the next update, with a nice new devblog on the subject by HarvesteR right here. If you have any suggestions or feedback, go put it in the comments on that thread.

For this thread I want to focus on one paragraph in particular:

Another big concern that must be kept in mind here is that many players are already used to the existing system, and have build their fleets of spaceplanes based on the existing conditions. As much as possible, we want to ensure existing functional designs will still perform acceptably. It would be no fun to find out your spaceplanes aren't controllable anymore because of the new system. That wouldn't be an improvement at all from a fun point of view.

Do you think Squad should drop backwards compatibility with the new aerodynamics?

EDIT: Harvester added an update on the blogpost, link is above in the first sentence.

Update:

From the comments it's evident that some clarification of what 'preserving functionality in old designs' should be taken to mean. First of, we don't expect any of the planned changes should require breaking the craft file format in any way, so this is a minor concern already.

But most importantly, the only way to really judge whether the new system is an improvement over the old one is to compare both under equal circumstances, and for that we need a control. The stock crafts are coming in very handy for this. We know how they handle in the old system, and for the most part, we like how they fly (with some exceptions which do need improvement).

The point is, the stock craft are our measuring stick for comparing, tweaking and tuning the many variables of the new system, and for that reason they must stay, as much as possible, compatible. This does not mean we aren't willing to compromise on a few designs if others are performing better (not in terms of service performance, in terms of feel when flying). But take for instance, the change over to the new lift model. There is one constant which is used to scale the lift coefficient of all wing sections, defined in the part cfg, so that it translates into a nice, controllable flight model. How do we tune something like that? We have to have some reference to compare it to. For now, this scale was set so the takeoff speed of most craft remains unaffected. This means the new lift model is producing values in the same order of magniture as the old one, in one particular situation, so we can start from there to have a solid basis to tune from. We will probably end up tweaking this value further based on feedback during testing, but the importance of having a basis for comparison can't be understated when working on something like this. On my first attempt, this value was set to 1.0, and ships simply exploded on physics start, because the forces were orders of magnitude off. Without a benchmark, it would have been very difficult to even find out what should be changed to fix it.

In any case, the short version is: don't worry too much about us worrying too much about backwards compatibility. It's not even likely to be such a big deal after all.

Cheers

This is only my opinion but it feels like he missed the point of people wanting to drop backwards compatibility.

EDIT 2: Maxmaps verifying things on twitter. (Why on his personal twitter and not here in this thread I don't know.)

Edited by hoojiwana
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well, i am of two minds.

aerodynamics are broken.

plain and simple.

if people have spent time building and designing planes in this broken system, cool, it's not a finished game, so you can't expect every update to allow every ship you design, to fly the same if those designs are based off a flawed system.

it would be a shame if the aerodynamic fixes were tweaked to allow some of the old flaws back into the system just so billy doesn't have to re-design his [silly] plane design.

it would also be a shame if they changed the aerodynamic system for something akin to FAR, making rockets "ez mode deluxe" without also tweaking planetary size and ISP's to maintain the Dv requirements for orbit.

we plain will not know until either more details are released or we have a chance to get hands-on and experiment ourselves.

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we plain will not know until either more details are released or we have a chance to get hands-on and experiment ourselves.

To me it sounded like a lot of details haven't quite been nailed down yet which is why they were so scarce in the devblog, so threads like this as well as feedback and peoples thoughts and feelings about it all in other places could help sort out a direction for the devs to head in.

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Well duh, how would they even maintain backwards compatibility?

I guess that they are not overhauling the aerodynamics but rather tweaking the already existent model. Probably including a (like they did with reentry or in fact just using the same) camera that sees the craft from the direction of the airflow to analyze the shape, overlaying some form of map on the craft to see airflow exposure and then model the aerodynamics from that data, this means "crazy stuff" flies too but rocket-like rockets and plane-like planes get a buff.

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Coming from someone who likes to provide assistance in the Gameplay and Questions forum, if we are expanding the realm of possibilities to 4 aerodynamic systems I may have to say "you're on your own". I hate to do that, I like being helpful when I can but it's bad enough trying to figure out stock vs FAR (since people seldom say which one they are using), then there is NEAR which is mostly the same except the whole wing strength thing. Let's just complicate matters more.

While we are at it, shut down the exchange forum, it will be even worse as well.

I mean, the game is the most important part. I'm not trying to dissuade from that, and if it REALLY is necessary to provide all both stock systems or have a complete player revolt, then fine, do it. But I hope they at least consider it long and hard before they do.

As far as the game itself? I don't care, I'll use FAR.

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Coming from someone who likes to provide assistance in the Gameplay and Questions forum, if we are expanding the realm of possibilities to 4 aerodynamic systems I may have to say "you're on your own". I hate to do that, I like being helpful when I can but it's bad enough trying to figure out stock vs FAR (since people seldom say which one they are using), then there is NEAR which is mostly the same except the whole wing strength thing. Let's just complicate matters more.

NEAR doesn't simulate the supersonic/hypersonic shockwave which has some certain consequences on how stuff flies at very high speeds (it also makes things hotter on reentry because of that)

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NEAR doesn't simulate the supersonic/hypersonic shockwave which has some certain consequences on how stuff flies at very high speeds (it also makes things hotter on reentry because of that)

I'm well aware of the differences between FAR and NEAR, but for the most part the plane design is the same between them, except in FAR the default wing strength is very roughly double what a NEAR-designed plane would use when imported in FAR due to the added mass the value adds to them.

Anyway, lets not go to far off the topic.

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May I ask what you mean by "backwards compatibility?"

The quote in the OP partly explains it. Currently the devs like the idea of aircraft built with current stock aerodynamics (and all it's many flaws) in mind should be just as flyable in the new aerodynamics. It's noted later on that things like flying boxes and such shouldn't be possible at all, so take it as you will.

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The quote in the OP partly explains it. Currently the devs like the idea of aircraft built with current stock aerodynamics (and all it's many flaws) in mind should be just as flyable in the new aerodynamics. It's noted later on that things like flying boxes and such shouldn't be possible at all, so take it as you will.

Ah, I see, I thought this was about save files for a second.:P

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The quote in the OP partly explains it. Currently the devs like the idea of aircraft built with current stock aerodynamics (and all it's many flaws) in mind should be just as flyable in the new aerodynamics. It's noted later on that things like flying boxes and such shouldn't be possible at all, so take it as you will.

Yeah but it's weird the way he puts it. At one point he says flying boxes shouldn't be possible and the next he says he wants outrageous designs to be possible. I would consider a flying box an outrageous designs. Maybe that's just me?

Edited by Alshain
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Yeah but it's weird the way he puts it. At one point he says flying boxes shouldn't be possible and the next he says he wants outrageous designs to be possible. I would consider a flying box an outrageous designs. Maybe that's just me?

Well the "crazy" contraption he used as an example was just an asymmetric aircraft that looked fairly reasonable to me, and someone even showed that it worked fine in FAR.

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I've been hoping this would come. At some point, in order to progress the game, Squad has to invalidate previous saves/craft/mods ect.....

Better to bite the bullet now than later, the longer it is put off the more folks here will whine that their "line of 30 unique interplanetary super-transporters wont work anymore".

Playing a beta game changes have to come. Always good to yank off the band-aid quickly.

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I'm always building new vehicles anyway, so it doesn't matter much to me personally. :) It can be a tough call. Of course, this is still pre-release, so they're allowed to break things.

The dev update pretty much confirmed what I suspected, that they're doing an overhaul, but not going all the way toward NEAR/FAR. I figured they'd set the bar somewhere in between, to have something better than the "soupmosphere" without going for a highly realistic simulation.

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While I have not personally used FAR nor NEAR, I would definitely like to see improved aerodynamics (and no infinigliding!). Though I have not yet voted, I think it is worth sacrificing backwards compatibility in the regards of aerodynamics provided they are a major improvement over the previous builds. Besides, nothing is final until the true release comes about. I always refresh my saves upon each new version (at least until we hit the true release).

That reminds me, I have some name ideas for version 1.0 which I will mention in a thread.

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Personally I'm of the mind they shouldn't be trying to maintain compatibility with anything. I mean, should they avoid changing part performance or weights because rockets won't go as far as they used to? It's silly and only limits what Squad can get done. It sounds like Squad is using a straw man to justify some of their changes or non-changes, 'some players might not like these changes'. Woah, news flash! It's a boogeyman. It might scare some children tucked into their beds at night but most players will get over any discomfort pretty quickly, especially if it genuinely improves the game. If they want the aerodynamics to be more game than simulation, that's totally fine and understandable, but trying to make sure they don't affect things people built previously is short-sighted and continues a dangerous precedence of believing that the original systems were somehow better.

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Absolutely yes. Current model is so bad that I think that it is impossible to make significantly better without making some, probably most, of current designs useless. If there are much people who want to fly stupid... er... "fun" things it would be better to keep an option to select an old aerodynamics model. But I know that Squad's commercial fun is so much different than my nerdy fun that only thing I hope from new aerodynamics is that they keep possibility to use FAR or some other as realistic as possible mod.

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