Vycma

I guess when phrasing a relative question in an absolute way, one will inevitably end up with an arbitrary answer. In my opinion, this relativistic aspect of smartness does not make it a good category to conducively argue about in absolute terms. Would one call the heuristic of life that constitutes a human smarter, than the one of a bacteria? One commonly would. Yet perhaps one has just established elaborately that apples are apples and oranges oranges, by arguing about an aspect that defines apples as apples and oranges as oranges in the first place. One certainly could define smartness loosely as an abstract aspect of harmonization with one's environment and conclude (somewhat circularily), that if harmonization (smartness) facilitates existence, existence inherently proves some sort of 'smartness'. Still, asking about more general properties that promote or obstruct existence (perhaps our only absolute benchmark), might provide a more fruitful perspective, then just the category of 'smartness'.

Here is a seperate report on the control surface issue, if you want to vote on it: https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/21949

@Anth12 You are right, I think my examples show in general, that ones individual standpoint influences, whether you would attribute such problems to the design of a craft, or the functioning of SAS, or if you see both as subsystems that are intrinsically linked to form a super-system. Given that a player has the ability to design one part of this system (the craft), but has very limited influence over the other (controls and by extension SAS), I tend to attribute such issues more to the latter than the former component, especially when a craft by all indications should be perfectly stable and flyable (CoL behind CoM, CoT lined up with CoM and CoL, etc.). In case of the bug, even limiting authority or inverting deployment direction doesn't resolve the issue, since either pitch or roll will be correctly inverted, but not both. Hence, SAS runs on a faulty 'wiring' and therefore fails under certain conditions.

There is an issue on the bug tracker, for anyone who wants to give this a vote: Bug #20762

In most cases I feel it works fine, but in some cases SAS does not seem to go too well with certain (aircraft) designs. For instance, SAS can induce some wobble in an aircraft if the Center of Lift is way behind the Center of Mass, noticeable especially at very high speeds. SAS input is just too coarse and therefore always overcompensates, leading to a pitching up and down cycle. But in such cases the craft is usually perfectly stable on its own at high velocities, so SAS is not really needed for flying it anyhow. There are however some other long-standing behaviours that make certain wing configurations really not viable. They are related to the internal craft control scheme, i.e. the code that decides, which control surface has to move in which direction on which input (or flight vector). By extension those inconsistencies also affect SAS, which means using SAS to fly such crafts will inevitably lead to rapid, though somewhat scheduled disassembly. An example includes this issue on the bug tracker: Bug #20847 Over the years there definitely were some substantial improvements added to the system, so in general I think it works rather well, considering that it has to handle the vast amount of combinations that parts can be assembled into crafts.

@RoverDude I have a short question regarding some of your Making History parts, specifically both types of triangular structural panels: Is the current behaviour of mirror symmetry mode for these panels intentional? Right now the parts are not mirrored as I would expect, i.e. similar to how triangular lifting surfaces are mirrored. Instead it seems to be a cross between mirror and radial symmetry in that the position relative to the parent part is mirrored, yet the actual rotation of the parts is set as it would be in radial mode. If it's a bug, could it be fixed in the next update? I would like to use those parts, but with the current behaviour their range of application is rather limited.

Hi guys, nice thread, with some awesome and (in part) kerbalacious looking models. To keep the flow up, I'd also like to show you some of my constructions. This post might be a bit long, but for me KSP should be named KPP as I spent more than a hundred hours playing this game before I attempted to reach LKO. So here they come, I hope you enjoy it. The first model, the Kerbaviatorius, is an hommage to the famous Kright Flyer, envisaged by Kilbur and Korville Kright and the first plane which flew using its own motor propulsion. Notice, that the anonymous designer had to resort to rocket engines, transforming it for about ten seconds into a derailed rollercoaster cart (perhaps a close resemblance of the original model), but at least it spared the catapult. Potentially inspired by the outrageous performance of early flight pioneers like the Kright brothers, a secret construction unit named 'punk works' came up with a design dominating aviation and breaking all records, the marvelous Chophead KR-71 Crackbird. Besides its outrageous acceleration abilities it also features a built-in altitude limiter at 20 km, pitching the nose gently towards Kerbin to prevent good old Jebediah from getting a katatonic space adaptation syndrome. While the general public considered the Crackbird a revolutionary design, it was soon surpassed. One day a draftsman employed at North Kmurica had lunch, when suddenly an enlightening vision came to his mind while gnawing on an exhaust pipe. Blessed with the essence of pure craftsmanship he modified some fuel tanks by attaching the pipe at one end and created thereby the North Kmurica K-15151115111!!!1 (original typo by the aeronautical authority). Yet this untamed sparrow is adapted to a narrow range of atmospherical conditions and therefore requires in low altitudes a sophisticated combination of lifting surfaces, fuel tanks and engines, all attached underneath it. Official authorities have not confirmed, that the next models exist, but sightings of strange lights hovering up and down for hours above a lonely silo somewhere (as reported by J. Kerman), as well as a series of sparkling flashes followed by anomalous thunder during a test flight for "atmospheric research purposes only, really (B. Kerman)" indicate that a new generation of versatile jet planes is about to enter the stage, purpotedly called "Kestrel" and "Eyeblink". The following purely hypthetical concepts however are indeed ridiculously unrealistic and it is no surprise that they are about to be included in the next edition of 'Constructional Defects: A professional mess-up.' by Fiksit, Bob. Surely, I only have to remind a few gullible and naive minds among the readers, that flight without lifting surfaces and atmospheric friction is simply impossible. The noble art of aviation has reached its climax. The Mun is well beyond reach for our courageous pilots. So seriously, who needs a 'plane' and even has the nerve to call it 'Progress', which supposedly carries twenty tons of payload into 'LKO'. Ah, the garbage disposal, I figure. Or these clearly faked pictures of the crew shuttle 'Spheric Harmony' 'ascending' and 'descending' from an 'LKO' which is claimed to be higher than the unsurpassable altitude record by Jebediah Kerman with his K-15151115111!!!1 (original typo by the aeronautical authority). Of course those witnesses were unable to present any evidence of this craft in orbit. Still it is safe to assume, that those voices will not cease and pictures such as the last freighter named 'Evensong' will continue to amuse the professional connoisseur of manned flight. Of course the only evensong which ascended on this occasion into orbit was the one of James, when he entered his designed accident.