CursoryRaptor15

Hey guys, I've built two aircraft that are performing fairly well with FAR, and now I'm trying to optimize them. Specifically, I'm trying to optimize a fighter for CONSISTENT manuverability at mach 1.5 and low altitude both before AND after it has dropped its payload (BDArmory two AIM-9s, four AIM-120s, and four AGM-65s). I'm also trying to optimize a recon aircraft for consistent manuverability at mach 2 and low altitude with a full fuel tank AND a nearly empty one. Anyway, I don't know what kind of information or math I need to optimize these aircraft. Does anybody have any advice? (If you're wondering why I'm putting so much emphasis on consistent manuverability, it's because I'm flying with a keyboard, not a joystick.)

Hey fellas, So I tried something a little crazy just for kicks and it worked out a lot better than I ever thought it would: So now I have what could technically be called a fighter aircraft that weighs in at just over 110 tons. Fun as this thing is to use, the quartet of airbursting autocannons is surprisingly ineffective against incoming missiles. I mean, I've definitely seen more than one PAC-3 blow right through clouds of airbursts. Why does this flak seem to be so ineffective against missiles?

The only reason the info one would need to fix the bomb files is three pages back instead of however many pages back the first time someone posted that info is because someone re-posted that info in response to someone asking why the bombs aren't loading.

I've seen several people saying "Read the thread!" over and over like they're frustrated, but it's not reasonable to expect anyone to comb through 236 pages (and counting) of this thread to find a fix for something. We're going to have to keep telling people how to fix the bombs until either that part of the mod is fixed on Bahamuto's end or someone writes a how-to-fix-the-BDArmory-bombs guide that anyone can understand and puts it in the first place anyone would look for such a guide. (The first place I looked was Google. I searched for "BD Armory bombs not loading". That brought me to first page of this thread, and there was no way I was going to go through several years' worth of forum posts to find the fix.) CursoryRaptor

After using FAR for a while, I'd decided to give the Advanced Jet Engines mod a try. First thing I tried was slapping two SR-71 engines a plane as small and sleek as an F-5. That was interesting. Things went surprisingly well once I figured out how to take off (with a little help from some rockets). Flying the thing turned out to be very easy once you figured out that any attempt to turn would rip your wings off. I highly recommended this design for anyone obsessed with flying in perfectly straight lines.

Tried that. Side-by-side bomb bay attempt 1 (six test flights with between 15 minutes to an hour of tinkering in between flights): Side-by-side bomb bay attempt 2: (eight test flights with between 15 minutes to an hour of tinkering in between flights): I had high hopes for this concept. The bombs and the fuel were more or less centered around the center of gravity, and while it was a bit of an ordeal to arrange the bomb bays such that their doors wouldn't impinge on each other when opening, the design was so fast I was able to fly 1000m directly over four SAM sites with AIM-120s while fully loaded and fueled without ever having to pop so much as a single flare. Unfortunately, the developers at Squad didn't seem to anticipate anyone attaching Mk. 2 bays side by side. The only Mk. 2 part that would attach to the side of the center bomb bay or fuel tank were Mk. 2 fuel tanks, and even then, it was difficult to attach correctly. This complicated things. I also had to add a bunch of carefully placed struts to keep the three Mk. 2 fuselages together. All complexity aside, two apparently irresolvable problems ensured my discarding of this concept: 1. Both configurations shown above were very sensitive when it came to pitch. It was very easy to slip from pulling a 1.5 G turn to pulling a 4.5 G turn (breaking the fuselage in half). But whenever I tried to adjust FAR's dynamic control assistance (DCA) values to prevent overstressing the airframe, I found that the range of DCA values that allowed one to turn reasonably well (i.e. 2.5 Gs) was very, very narrow, and changed constantly. So just flying these two aircraft was a chore. 2. This is the problem that killed the concept for me. Every time I pitched up, the aircraft would want to roll right pretty hard. When I pitched down, the aircraft would want to roll hard left. I rebuilt both of these aircraft from the ground up four times, checking the relative position of the center of mass and center of lift every time I attached a part. Still, the problem plagued me. (Wow... this reply was a lot longer than I'd intended it to be.) CursoryRaptor

I AM GOING TO RUIN SOMEBODY'S DAY Okay, so what you see above is my best attempt at making a bomber that can carry at least 20 Mk. 20 cluster bombs, cruise at Mach 1.5+ at 2000 m fully loaded, be able to pull 3Gs or more while flying that fast without ripping the wings off, and still be able to carry at least four AIM-120s. All with Ferrum Aerospace Research enabled. It's taken almost a month, and five complete redesigns from the ground up, but this design manages to do all of these things. ...and yet, I'm a little disappointed. Does anybody know of a way to build an aircraft with a wide, flat cargo bay? Every attempt I've made at making a high speed bomber that can fulfil my requirements AND carry most of the bombs internally has failed. Mostly because the only Mk. 2 cargo bay is too narrow, so I'd have to link a lot of Mk. 2 cargo bays together for the bomber to be able to carry a lot of bombs internally. This always winds up being a problem because releasing bombs mounted along the length of the aircraft one by one really messes with the center of gravity. And long, thin aircraft tend to break in half if you try to turn hard at high speed. Any tips? Edit: For the record, there is no way I'm going to use that fat, ugly space shuttle cargo bay. CursoryRaptor

It's easy. This missile... ...used to be armed with a total of 12 Mk. 20s, mounted in a similar fashion to what you see here. The trick to getting the bombs to all deploy at the same time and in a roughly even distribution is: 1. Setting all of your bombs to drop at the push of a single button. Easy to do with action groups (but it looks like you're already doing that, so let's move onto...) 2. Setting all of your bombs to decouple (symmetrically) at different speeds. Don't worry about setting the first group's decouple speed to 0 if you're using cluster bombs. Instead, try to focus on evenly saturating as much area as possible. 3. Dropping the bombs from a relatively steep angle. This ensures that all of the cluster bombs hit the deploy altitude at pretty much the same time. It also ensures they'll hit the target at about the same time, too. Oh, and depending on how your missile or whatever drops your bombs and in what kind of spread, it can also make pretty patterns of explosions on the target area, too! I hope this helps! CursoryRaptor

Yeah, I tried something similar. It was absolutely effective... when it made a direct hit on the target. Maybe MechJeb and FAR don't get along. I'd consistently land within the KSC complex, but I usually wouldn't hit the specific building I was aiming for. The bombs would fan out (because I set several different decouple speeds), but it was never quite enough to blow more than two or three buildings at a time.

Hey there. First time posting on these forums. Just wanted to say that this mod has essentially turned KSP into a whole new game for me. I'd already "beaten" the game by making a ship that could hop from planet to planet (except Eve and Jool) indefinitely using Kethane and FAR. With your mod, I've been kept busy pitting ground and air vehicles against each other for about a month, and I'm only just getting started. Anyway, I just wanted to share something of a tribute video for BD Armory (and Ferrum Aerospace Research). I'm planning on making my next BD Armory-heavy music video feature bombers (and maybe a ballistic missile or two loaded down with clusters of cluster bombs), but before I begin, I need to solve a little problem I've been having: For reasons I don't understand, the bombs in the BD Armory are usually not loading. They just won't show up... most of the time. I checked to see if their part files were there, and sure enough, they were. Then I uninstalled every mod and reinstalled them, but that doesn't seem to work either. At one point, I tried uninstalling KSP (i.e. deleting the ksp_win folder in C: ), but that hasn't solved the problem. The bombs in your awesome mod just won't load... 90% of the time. (You'd think that computers would be more consistent seeing as how they're machines.) Also, you probably noticed that the really fast jet with the small wings in that video just breezed right past any missiles being shot at it. Am I doing something to make the first missiles my little SAM site launches super slow?? Do BD Armory and FAS not get along? Anyway, thanks again for making such an awesome mod! I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future! CursoryRaptor