Bla Bla

I think ferram decided to change (something) to FAR water quite a while ago when he saw a video of a craft resisting an impact with the sea at 70 m/s. If I remember well he said: "a plane shouldn't be able to survive an impact with water at such speed" and changed his code a bit. After that FAR water became incredibly deadly (at the time, stock water was much more deadly as well). It seems to me that wings, and particularly control surfaces have such a high drag in water with FAR (maybe because they have more mesurement points per area) that you'll never be able to overcome it, whatever engine power you have. I think ferram didn't really thought that he would make submarines and hydrofoils impossible this way, and boats and seaplanes incredibly difficult (to give discharge to him, Squad modelisation at the time also had the same limitations, and when he made that change FAR water -with the reduced drag- was indeed much more forgiving than stock and unbalanced). Now the stock water has evolved, opening a whole new world of possibilities, FAR water has not, and it's purpose in game is still only (as ferram decided that day) to destroy your craft if it touches it (you can eventually make a seaplane SSTO if you are very very motivated and ready to spend 100+ painful hours fine tuning it, as I did, and always touch down with water at 0 m/s vertical speed, but forget about any submarine). Such a pity, I couldn't agree more...

I know, as I have been playing with FAR for years. I created countless planes, fighter jets, micro drones, missiles, a solar plane, a reusable heavy lifter plane for Eve that can launch another SSTO high enough so it can reach orbit, and a seaplane SSTO that can sea take-off and land 9 times out of 10 without unplanned disassembly (don't laugh, the water in FAR is way harder than anything I had ever tried, and makes Eve look like a really easy ride)... Something I was never able to create are FAR hydrofoils, I wonder if someone succeded in that ?... For as long as I remember, I've been frustrated that I couldn't share the great crafts I spent so much time fine tuning with FAR with most of the community... And only recently I learned that this wasn't due to the complicated calculations of FAR aerodynamic model, but, for the greatest part, only to this simple choice of using the (realistic) N/m² lift area value in FAR whereas that value is buffed by Squad in the stock model. To give you an example, my seaplane SSTO created with FAR has so much wing area that it would softly land at 30 m/s if flown with stock, but after more than 100 hours on it I find it nearly impossible to make it touch down with the water (full) at less than 75-80 m/s with full flaps, otherwise it'd fall from the skies. This has nothing to do with the aerodynamic model itself (good shape, no part clipping), but has all to do with the fact that both lift and drag are greatly reduced with FAR compared to stock by this lift/area number. For all the rest of FAR model, I'm more than happy that it makes unrealistic shapes impossible to fly, and the engineering of a nice plane more complicated (and rewarding) than in stock. I certainly don't want to change that. I'm just suggesting that this single lift/drg/area value could be made similar to that of stock. So yes, indead, the value is more realistic in FAR, and it is artificially buffed in stock so the smaller kerbals can fly in crafts that look good at their scale (keep in mind that the standard fuselage have only 1,25m diameter, and is supposed to fit two passengers). But the whole game and all parts size and characteristics are also adapted to the stock (buffed) value. For those who find it most important to use real life value in the game's engine there is a mod called realism overhaul that would tweak a lot of things to do precisely that, and if that mod is used with FAR at the same time, then yes it really makes sense to use te real life N/m² area lift value in FAR (maybe these mods could detect one each other ?). On the other hand, For those of us who whant to use the stock parts without tweaking them, and simply want to improve the stock aerodynamic model by using FAR, and all its more advanced options to make better crafts, I really see no point not to use the same N/m² value that Squad is using in FAR model, appart from segregating FAR users from the rest of the players. I find that the (current state of affairs') only advantage of saying : "FAR lift/drag force applied per m² of area is more realistic than that of the stock model" is pedantry (except if you also use realism overhaul) and it is absolutely NOT worth the considerable gameplay annoyance of not being able to fly in stock, and share with most of the community, a perfectly engineered FAR plane. The fact that it has been the case since the beginning doesn't mean it can't be improved !

That's not exactly what I meant: I really love FAR in all of its complexity. But I am really annoyed by the fact that planes with no part clipping (where the voxelization shouldn't really change the drag compared to stock) will still have a huuuuge difference in behavior between FAR and stock, separating the crafts between two irreconciliable worlds : FAR and stock : crafts created with FAR will perform poorly (and always very differently) with stock and vice-versa. This is not due to the voxelization (mainly), but mostly to a single number apparently : the lift provided per square meter of (wing) area has been buffed up by Squad in the stock model in order to create earth like looking planes at the scale of kerbal pilots (who are much smaller than humans). Whereas the Newton/m² lift per area value of FAR is not buffed, so it is smaller. THIS is the main reason why a stock plane usually doesn't have enough wing area to lift off with FAR and will sink into the air, and why a craft in FAR will also experience much less drag than in stock (again, I am not talking about the voxelization). It seems to me that modifying that single value in FAR to be closer to the stock one should be quite easy, and would allow the crafts designed with FAR to perform much more similarly in stock when the mod is off, thus reuniting the FAR and non FAR users when it comes to sharing crafts ! And while retaining ALL the features of FAR when the mod is on, including the voxelization and the rest. As a side note, FAR rockets wouldn't be so cheated anymore due to a decreased drag for the same diameter (as they don't care about reduced lift anyway)... It would certainly be great to have the real life N/m² value with FAR when using realism overhaul... But with FAR alone, I don't see the point for not using the same buffed value than Squad, appart from segregating FAR users from the rest of the players...

I see! So this is why crafts that have only minimal part clipping still have so hugely different behaviours with or without FAR! It is much more simple that what I thought! For instance, a plane created with FAR will easily take-off at 40 m/s when the mod is off, but it's take-off speed will be around 90 m/s with the mod on. Manoeuverability is also vastly different with the two aerodynamic models for the same control surfaces area... Similarly the drag with FAR will be greatly reduced for the same craft. I once created a reusable lifter for Eve that punched quite greatly the thick atmosphere with FAR, but couldn't get nearly high enough to fulfill it's role with the stock model. So on one hand the smaller area lift (and drag) of FAR might greatly increase the engineering challenge and wing area needed of making a slow moving plane (like a seaplane), but on the other hand it feels almost cheaty compared to stock for making rockets or plane applications where drag is a bigger concern than lift... If you are correct, most of the disbalance between the two aerodynamic models then (must) simply come from this single area lift variable... The rest of it being of course precisely what we expect and love from a mod that enhance the aerodynamic model such as FAR. ^^ I doubt that Squad would change it's lift area value to be closer to the real life deal. Now that FAR is forked, couldn't it be possible then to have a version where the lift area value is more similar to that of the stock model? This way the planes (or other crafts) designed with FAR wouldn't have so radically different flight characteristics when the mod is off. This would mean installing FAR would still add to the stock game : dynamic voxelization, shape related lift and drag, shock cone modelisation, stability derivatives, critical mach number, area rule curves and all... Without implying that any craft designed with FAR will work as intended only with FAR on, effectively separating the FAR crafts from the rest of the game. I want to be clear : I'm used to FAR, I love it and mostly play with it. I'd prefer if it was Squad who choosed to change it's model to the real life values to unify the game's experience between FAR and non FAR users. But when I think it real through, I think I give much more importance to the practicality of being able to use a craft I carefully designed with FAR even when the mod is off, and even share it as "stock" and complete challenges with it, than to know that its scale is somewhat right for human use on earth according to some value in the game's code (which is quite a niche use, isn't it?). I'm not capable of coding that, but it'd be amazing if someone could consider making a more stock like version of FAR! Let me know what you think of that ! (maybe like this post if you agree so it'd be like a poll?)

Absolutely ! I have to temperate my opinions (and express them better), cause I actually agree with a lot of what you (all) said. I should definetly have elaborated more... In my experience, the abominations that I created and that flew well enough (to beyond the Mun) with stock aerodynamics always ended up very unstable and either flipping over at take-off or being dismantled in mid-air by the stronger aerodynamic stress on the most external parts (such as wings) with FAR. The carefully designed spaceplanes that I created later with FAR could always fly without modification and stay stable with stock earo, and never facing unplanned disassembly in mid-air, that what I meant by "I disagree" that FAR is "much more easy". FAR personally motivated me to learn a lot about real life planes, like the section surface area rule (how constant), the surface area curve rule (how smooth the variations), how the weight of the attached engines can prevent the wings to bend too much (same for the weight of the fuel inside, that is always emptied last IRL), you have the mach cone, transition phase, the difference between "surface drag" (linked to the area in contact with air, predominant at subsonic speed) and "shock wave drag" (linked to the "unpointiness" of nose and unsmoothiness of shapes, much more potent than the former at supersonic speeds), added stress in manoeuvers on parts further away from the CoM, and so on... All these things I didn't have to care about with stock. In stock aero the parts have a drag value (and a side drag value) in the .cfg file, and the model compute a value of drag in flight between the two (depending on the part orientation). Radialy attached parts add their drag to the part they are attached to, same with parts attached to a bicoupler (even the mk2 one). Nose cones reduce the drag of the part they are attached too. Parts inside of fairings have close to no drag. If you know these rules (and so avoid bicouplers) stock planes should be easy. FAR calculate drag from the occlusion (same as heat) and from an elaborate model based on the shape of the whole craft that I mostly wouldn't understand anyway ^^. The stall speed relies much more on the altitude and so thickness of the air (realisticly), and stability will vary across all the flight enveloppe (speed ans altitude). Not having to vary the control surfaces' settings in flight (cause it's more pracical) to stay stable is much more challenging. With regard to performance, it is true that drag is reduced in FAR compared to stock (with a streamlined craft), as both the lift and drag are reduced when parts are clipped (and a wing's lift will drastically reduce if it's not "clean" on one of its sides, like irl. Most of the stock spaceplaces on Steam would find it hard even to take off with FAR, or at least certainly the bigger ones that have so much stuff stuffed in sandwitch between their wings). Compared to the stock model where wings/control surfaces produce the same lift even from the inside of a fuselage, and all parts also produce drag from the same inside of a fuselage. But you can also cheat drag in stock by attaching clipped nose cones to engines, using fairings, etc... So stock is, definetly, "harder" in the sense that you have to know and adapt to the game's specific set of rules and their tricks to keep your drag low, that are further away from real life and sometimes counter-intuitive. FAR in "simpler" in the sense that the drag depends only on the shape and position of parts, and if you conceive something that is closer to a plane that'd be stable in real life it should perform well, and you have plenty of examples to work from. It is also much "harder" in the sense that you have to conceive a plane that'd be stable in real life, or fail (much more spectacularly than in stock). ^^ And now that you say it, it is true that my Eve Lifter seems to have lost quite some performance when flown without FAR... Still the added lift with stock allowed me to add a little fuel and make it fullfill it's mission (that is : lifting an SSTO high enough in Eve's atmosphere so it can escape in a fully reusable way). It also remained much harder to make it break the tips of it's wings in hard manoeuvers in low Eve atmosphere in stock, so I still think stock is more forgiving. By the way, I'd love to use FAR with the lattest ksp version, but the curves seem not to appear anymore in editor, am I the only one?

Allow me to disagree... With stock aerodynamics, the location of wing parts has no impact on the lift they provide, and they can be clipped as much as one wants. With FAR, if a wing is clipped, the lift reduces by as much. Furthermore, in my experience, every spaceplane that works with FAR works as well with stock aerodynamics, but the opposite is rarely true. That alone is quite self-demonstrating... Making good planes with FAR is an art, it is much more demanding than the stock aerodynamics model (and a great incentive to learn more on real life aerodynamics).

I have ruined my mainsave trying a workaround to get FAR working after 1.6... It became permanently "incompatible with this ksp version"... But no worries, I'm redoing the mission for you !

Mm you are right I should make a stock save of my Lifter (althrough this one is already usable in stock)... I hadn't because I didn't want to loose the flaps' settings for FAR... Beautiful SSTOs and superb pictures ! Which mod do you use ? visual enhancements ? The wing shape definetly reminds me that of the Rafale (except for the double tail), so I guess these planes fly extremely well ^^ How did you get a door on the side of the ogive shaped mk1 tank ? is that a mk1 cockpit clipped inside ? If you manage to fit a docking port at the back between the engines, space planes of this size (and even a little more) will definetly be able to escape from Eve using my Eve Lifter, given they have enough dv in high atmo without air-breathing ! That's the whole point of the Lifter to do exactly that I personally use a central RAPIER with a shielded docking port (slightly clipped) and two NERV (as a rule of thumb twr should be around 0.4/0.46 -kerbin value- with the NERVs after the oxidizer is consumed to accelerate efficiently from high Eve atmosphere to orbit).

Previous post now edited with the kerbalX download link. (Vanamonde, Yakuzi and AeroGav, thank you for the likes !)

It is the first craft ever I post on the forums ! Full stock ! The vessel is a large and carefully optimised SSTA : the only SOI she can't leave is Eve's. She was built with FAR (I also just tested it with stock aerodynamics, just on Kerbin, and it -predictably- remained very easy to fly). But I'm missing the point : She was built with a purpose : to be able to clamp horizontally to, and then lift my other stock SSTO Aurora (or another vessel) high enough for the latest to leave Eve, in a fully reusable fashion. The plane-shape, horizontal docking and take-off features thus eliminating the need of infrastructure on an alien world. She is -very- heat resistant. After extensive searching at the Kerbal Patents Office, it seems that I even (may) have invented an use of wheels and rover that no one ever registered before ! I present you... The Eve Lifter ! I have spent quite some time on this vessel, so to present a real finished product ^^ She is very stable and agile both full and empty. Actually she flies like a fighter when she is empty... Her center of mass is inside of it's cargo bay. Vernier thrusters are also very well balanced using RCS Build Aid. It shouldn't be too diffucult to make a VTOL out of this SSTO if you are willing to. She flies and land like a plane in both Kerbin (or Laythe or Tylo) and Eve's atmosphere (it should be able to make a rocket landing on lower gravity planets like Duna or smaller celestial bodies, but I was so focused on Eve that I forgot to test). She doesn't have enough wing area for a sea landing on Kerbin, but on Eve she is capable of it. However, as needing to refuel the empty beast in the middle of a lake is a daunting task : I wouldn't recommend to do it ! With her Rover attached, she is capable of science and refueling (and taxi on electric wheels). More on that in the following user's guide ^^ The vessel have a DV of 6100 without cargo, and 5700 with 25 t in the cargo bay. As she is in the SPH (loaded with the Rover and fully loaded with liquid fuel in the wings), she is capable to reach Eve directly from KSC. Once she have landed, fuelled only with LfOx, without the Rover and the Atomic engine, it has a max DV of 5100 inside Eve's atmosphere (it will diminish the closer to sea level). When my Aurora SSTO used her as the first stage to leave Eve, it could reach stable orbit from an altitude of 1000 m (tested) and had a lot of spare dv, it must be able to do so from 0 m (yet to be tested). Between two duties, she remains a nice plane and moving base for refuelling, science and exploring on Eve. Cargo bay : Inside there is a Rover with a science lab and a big Convert'Otron with 4 mining drills. When the cargo bay doors are closed, the Rover and the wheels are perfetly protected from reentry heat, from any angle. With the rover still attached to the vessel (by clampOtron senior so it can be re-attached), the cargo bay can be opened and the landing gears retracted, allowing the whole vessel to roll on electric power and maneuver with great precision, which is handy to clamp to the Aurora SSTO (or another vessel if the height is right) on the ground. The non-patented trick I was talking about was to use sideway rotated mk3 parts and a mk3 cargo bay facing downward to have the electric wheels touching the ground (where the mk3 parts are flat), yet still be protected from heat when the cargo bay is closed. Having them detachable from the vessel as a mining rover is also a bonus ^^ My first attempts used a vessel flying on its back during reentry to protect the heat sensitive wheels located under it, which was quite elegant in most atmospheres but too delicate for Eve reentry, where the vessel needs to move too much to spread the heat on different parts... The craft is balanced on its cargo bay, and so it can sit balanced on the opened cargo bay doors. Then the opening limit of the cargo bay doors can be used to adjust precisely the height of the whole vessel (and the Clamp'O Trons) for ground docking. When attempting to leave Eve, the Rover should be detached and rolled away to gain a lot of precious weight and DV. Advice 1 : It is recommended to assign specific keys to the forward and turn movements while on electric wheels propulsion so the vessel won't also try to pitch/yaw at the same time. Advice 2 : Before attempting to land on Eve, the atomic engine should be detached to gain precious weight. It is staged on the last stage before the fairing (the fairing should never be staged), or maybe attached by a clampOtron depending on the version of the craft I'll be uploading, not sure for this one... It won't be needed anymore as the Lifter will only run on LfOx inside Eve's atmosphere from now on. Advice 3 : When aerobraking inside Eve's hot atmosphere, you should be able to resist the heat by pointing "radial" with rcs on until you have blown enough speed for flying her normally. Given you have well chosen your course and (almost) emptied the fuel tanks before attempting the last and final capture of your reentry. Advice 4 : If you're not flying her with FAR, you'd have to assign yourself the control surface's deployment to the "braking" action group for prograde slowing down in atmosphere (with a balance between normal direction and reverse, otherwise you'll pitch too much when braking. Althrough a -little- pitching up when braking is not too bad of a thing). The flaps settings for FAR should already be tuned. The only wings I had to reinforce with FAR were the small strakes attached at the very back of the main wings, where the stress could be -sometimes- too important when pitching up in the lowest layers of Eve's atmosphere, due to the way FAR is increasing the stress on the most external lifting surfaces. Advice 5 : Bring an Engineer !! Sometimes an electric wheel can pop off under the weight of the vessel, and you WANT to be able to repair it. You will refuel faster. While the vessel can be unmanned, you will also not depend on communication relays to control it, nor have reduced options during the burning Eve's aerobraking plasma blackout. Download : https://kerbalx.com/Bla-Bla/Eve-Lifter Controls : (the actions groups start at [6] so not to interfere with those of the propelled vessel : usually [1], [2], [3] etc.) [5] : activate/deactivate the Atomic engine (it will be jettisoned during Eve aerocapture) [6] : activate/deactivate the Aerospike [7] : activate/deactivate Vector engines Rover : [8] : Activate/deactivate Antenna and Solar pannels [9] : activate/deactivate Scanner and stability landing gears (as the Rover have enough electric wheels to move the whole vessel, full, on its own it will accelerate quite fast to 50 m/s, turning should only be attempted under 30 m/s and be gentle, otherwise it may start bouncing. Even then however it should be able to recover most of the time, the weak spot to avoid seeming to be landing on the clampOtron sr from ~ 45° angle) [0] : Activate/desactivate Mining drills, LfOx Converter and Ladders

Thank you !

Hi, First, thank you so much for your hard work keeping this mod alive, and even improving it ! Also, I'd like to report a bug with v1.6 : when FAR is installed, the engines in editor will have a flame coming out of them, even when creating a new craft (which is not too annoying), and the inflatable heat shield will always start open in editor, and can't be retracted (no button, which is much much more annoying). Not sure though if it is due to FAR itself or one of it's dependencies (Module Manager and Modular Flight Integrator), but it is definetly one of these mods causing the issue with the inflatable heat shield, so I thought I should try to report it here. I really look forward to being able to use FAR again with certain ships with this part...

Hi, I just created an account to report a bug for this mod : I've got the grey box bug too. The mods I was using were : Kerbal Engineer Redux, RCS Build Aid (extremely useful mod !), ClickThroughBlocker, Toolbar Controller. At some point I also had FAR, Module Manager and Modular Flight Integrator. Originally I thought it was due to conflict with some other mod, so I uninstalled them all (using CKAN) and started a new save. Still got the grey box bug, so I did some testing : Everything works fine with most engines, but whenever the craft includes one or more engines with two modes (Panther or RAPIER), the flight enveloppe is not displayed : It's either the GUI is displayed properly and the loading goes all the way to 100% and stays at 100% without displaying the graphs (but in the other tabs like AOA the graphs are displayed), or if it has not been loaded before the (expanded) GUI is not displayed at all and remain as a grey box (and then there is no button to even access the AOA tab). Something seems to be happening on computer side however as the game slows down while the grey box is opened. For these reasons I believe it is more an issue happening with the display than the actual calculations. Hope that it somehow helped to solve the bug !