ztoundas

Yeah, I figured it just takes the added face areas for that axis of everything connected there and subtracts it from the area of that end of the coupler, but the ones in the mod are acting like it's got nothing there. To sidestep the issue so I can play, I've just dropped the coefficient of the coupling face until I figure out how to make it proper. Oh and as for the crew portraits... I am embarrassed because I should have updated before reporting the problem... Because, @SuicidalInsanity, they are no longer missing after 1.8.1. Sorry for my lack of attention there.

(Edit: The following regards 1.8.0, but some problems remain after the patch, i.e hollow parts) Now that I figured out last night what's causing all these drag issues, including was causing the really irritating drag issues with the stock cargo bays even when closed, I will work on submitting a proper bug report detailing what I found. Turns out the explicitly specified drag cube for those bays (when closed), and a majority of the other stock parts that have abnormally high drag are because their drag cube has an extremely high drag coefficient on what we consider the bottom of the part when put into a horizontal stack like an airplane. This is when compared to other parts that act normally, like the MK2 LFO tank section of equal length. Last night I went through and smoothed out every part in my ship, and now the drag is nice and consistent concentrating on the areas that you would expect like a nose cone and the intakes and Tri couplers in the back. Really there are two issues that affect the drag inappropriately on stock and modded parts. Some, like discovered earlier on in this troubleshooting path, get a miscalculated area for the front of the drag cube because the game gets confused when they have hollow internals. This is what was happening to the stock drone core and the modded RCS stability section. The other issue is that some simply have and abnormally high drag coefficient on the Z axis of the drag cube (around 0.92 instead of say 0.35-ish), which would be the belly of the plane. This was what was causing abnormal drag in the closed stock MK2 clamp-o-tron and cargo bays. I'll take a look at the Spaceplanes Plus Pack and see what stands out there. All that being said, does anyone know who does stock patches, or a way that this fix could be integrated into a stock fix mod? That's the kind of modding that I'm incredibly unfamiliar with, but it seems like it wouldn't be too hard to push a fix while the devs figure out a way to make the calculation of drag cubes more consistent. EDIT: The latest patch update, 1.8.1, solved the inconsistent X axis drag (i.e the belly of the plane)! Values are far more consistent. The drone core is still broken on the Y -/+ axis, so I am doing a bug report for that. Mods will still certainly be problematic for the hollow-part reason.

@JadeOfMaar so I'm thinking that if the y-axis area from one part matches the y+axis area of another part, then the drag coefficient for those mating polarity axis is basically ignored because the difference between the two areas is 0, right? So a stack of four identical parts traveling perfectly along the y axis should see that the middle two parts are experiencing virtually no drag? But more important to the majority of my designs, how do bi and tri-couplers work? This particular mod has a tricoupler (with 1 auto-generated drag cube) that mates perfectly fine on the y + front side, but basically experiences full drag on the Y- back end as if three rapiers weren't connected to it. Yet the 3 rapiers say that Y+ end of their drag cube is fully connected and experiencing no drag, but of course the uncovered Y- back ends with the nozzles are experiencing drag (as one would expect.)

BAM So I went through my plane in flight's drag values and found the stock crew cabin, MK2 LFO segment and a few others had no YP and YN values (I'm guessing that's Y Positive and Y Negative) over 0.00. I am here assuming that meant they had no exposed areas where the Y faces of their drag boxes exposed. They looked like this (using the short LFO values, but highlighted values where the same across them): cube = Default, 2.802,0.3552,1.292, 2.802,0.3552,1.292, 2.494,0.972,0.1627, 2.494,0.972,0.1627, 4.688,0.2036,0.7, 4.688,0.2036,0.7, 0,0,0, 2.5,1.875,1.5 Now notice the original MK2 drone core's drag cube: cube = Default, 0.3691,0.3524,1.324, 0.3691,0.3524,1.324, 2.004,0.9604,0.2241, 2.004,0.9604,0.2241, 0.6348,0.2035,0.7, 0.6348,0.2035,0.7, 0,-6.258E-07,7.461E-14, 2.5,0.25,1.5 and the original value for the MK2 RCS Stability Module: cube = Defaults, 0.1824,0.3659,1.313, 0.1824,0.3659,1.313, 2.122,0.9694,0.1825, 2.122,0.9694,0.1838, 0.293,0.2174,0.8097, 0.293,0.2165,0.8097, 2.682E-05,-0.0001838,4.172E-06, 2.5,0.1255,1.73 So I swapped the Y Area values of the irritating parts (in red) with the value (in green) from the appropriate part. I also did the next value, the Y coefficient, and while I am hazy on how it relates, I figured it wouldn't hurt. In the end I added a default corrected drag cube to the stock drone core and the mod's MK2 battery and RCS Module. Then I started the game and flew, matching speed and pitch. The action menus are going counter clockwise, starting with the top of the stack (other than the mk2 cockpit) being the drone core and ending with the MK2 LF fuselage:

@JadeOfMaar Thanks for the insight! I noticed one of his .mu models (the MK2 battery) has multiple hollow components that together ultimately make a solid face from the Y ortho perspective, but also seems to have a bulkhead profile inconsistency in the drag cube (I think). Does the multiple elements in the 3d model confuse the automatic drag cube calculation perhaps, since some individually are hollow?

Well Jeb's my uncle, looks like the stock drone core also has holes! I should have checked, because my solution didn't work perfectly, and the drone core's auto-calculated figure may be erroneous as well (like the stock structural tubes, which are known to have this issue). My example ship there does have the drone core in it, immediately before the parts I had the menus up for in my original shot. So I inverted the stack, and here is the result after adding the calculated stock drone core to the .cfg of your rcs part. I tried to match speed and AoA so the drag figures should be under similar conditions. You'll notice that the battery is still very high, so that's not right. Though it has no holes in it, it does seem flawed, and now I recall it was problematic last time I used it, but that is unique to itself and it doesn't seem to effect the following part. Meanwhile, the drone core does also appear to be increasing the drag of the part following it (the crew cabin, which was at 0.26 in my original shot, vs 9.2 now). However it's own drag is no longer being effected by the RCS part? I'll try some more configurations. Something is screwy but I feel like I am close. Something about those YP and YN values looks inconsistent. Later I'll do some examples of my missing portrait GUI.

Okay so evidently ModManager does us a solid and outputs the drag cubes auto-generated per part by the game in the PartDatabase.cfg (found in the root game folder). M2X_SCRCS (the RCS Stability Module) end up as such (colored by me to visually break up the triplets): 0.1824,0.3659,1.313, 0.1824,0.3659,1.313, 2.122,0.9694,0.1825, 2.122,0.9694,0.1838, 0.293,0.2174,0.8097, 0.293,0.2165,0.8097, 2.682E-05,-0.0001838,4.172E-06, 2.5,0.1255,1.73 Where, for example, the stock pre-defined drag cube for the MK2 bay (which I know is longer, but still has the same cross section) is: 2.811507,0.4203178,1.323529, 2.811507,0.4207772,1.323529, 2.494907,0.962501,0.154902, 2.494907,0.9625011,0.154902, 4.694843,0.9348387,1.386667, 4.694939,0.9358073,1.54, 0,0.0001237392,0, 2.5,1.875248,1.5 From this thread, it breaks down like this: Now I just have to wrap my brain around this and find where the automatically calculated drag cube is wrong, and correct it.. EDIT:...or I could get smart and find the calculated drag cube in that PartDatabase.cfg file for the stock MK2 drone core (thicker than your RCS Stability module, but not by much) and just use that: 0.3691,0.3524,1.324, 0.3691,0.3524,1.324, 2.004,0.9604,0.2241, 2.004,0.9604,0.2241, 0.6348,0.2035,0.7, 0.6348,0.2035,0.7, 0,-6.258E-07,7.461E-14, 2.5,0.25,1.5

Yes, however the GUI was also missing for stock-only ships also after installing the mod. Clicking the special place on some doors and whatnot still revealed somebody was inside (for those with my problem). Meanwhile in regards to the drag-inducing holes in the RCS module, I discovered the stock MK2 cargo bay has a drag cube (two actually, but I am ignoring the second used for the opened bay). I will modify it to be as short as the RCS Stability Module and see if that works. EDIT: SORRY THIS IS A DUPLICATE POST

That's the weird thing, it was happening even on ships I had built prior to adding the mod. Those ships had no mod parts within them, yet still no portrait gui, but clicking the special place on some doors and whatnot still revealed somebody was inside at least. Exiting the game, deleting the 'mk2expansion/parts/command' folder, then restarting, and viola, the gui itself was back. Meanwhile in regards to the drag-inducing holes in the RCS module, I discovered the stock MK2 cargo bay has a drag cube (two actually, but I am ignoring the second used for the opened bay). I will modify it to be as short as the RCS Stability Module and see if that works.

In my case, the entire gui for the portraits is missing, not just misaligned pics within them. I have the MK3 parts mod by you as well, but it requires no folder deletion to work, command modules included. Lovely parts, all. Also it looks as though various parts, i.e the MK2 RCS stability module, are causing massive drag to the part behind them. Took me a bit to figure out why, but I think it is due to this: The SC-01 RCS Stability Control Module .mu looks great, and I know nothing about modding, but from my desperate research, the hole inside the model may be causing the issue since the .cfg doesn't have a drag cube. In The below image has the action menus open with drag details for the 3rd-5th part from the nose, with the problematic part receiving normal drag, but the next in the stack getting 20x the drag it should, then followed finally by another part back to normal. This happens no matter what part I stack behind the mod part, and goes away if I remove the mod part. Same goes for MK3 parts as well, particularly I've noticed the MK3 drone core, also with holes in it's model and no custom drag cube in the .cfg. I have 3 of these awesome parts in my ship, but at 1400 m/s I'm getting more than half the drag from this bug. I am going to try to find a guide on adding a drag cube to the part myself and see if that fixes it, I'll let you know.

I'm also missing the crew portraits, the only solution is for me to delete the folder of command modules. I can still use everything else just fine.

I have spent the last hour googling "ksp roll stability design," then finally had the presence of mind to check here. Sure enough, this version has asymmetrical lift when using control surfaces in my case as well. I also tried placing a copy of each control surface independently (no mirroring), and still they are asymmetrical. though the imbalance switched sides. Out of curiosity I did a series of test to see if it was placement order or creation order (in a situation where I place each side independently, no mirroring) that decided which had a higher lift, and it appear that the first one created has lower lift. The copy had more lift. I even made two copies of But when actually mirroring, the one I actually place had higher lift, vs the mirrored one. Something about the way one side will automatically flip to orient itself as I go to place it (when placed on the opposite side of the already-placed first control surface) seems to be related. The placement ghost is shaped right, and the lift is correctly balanced, but the texture is upside down. then when you click to place it, the part flips and the lift goes asymmetrical. EDIT: and yes this is with tapered control surface, because it seem to be mirroring the shape but not the lift balance of the individual control surface. non-tapered control surface likely have the same issue, but the lift is balanced in them any way so it doesn't end up being a problem