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ferram4

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Everything posted by ferram4

  1. ferram4
    In the control GUI in the editor, in the control surface tab, after you click the > to open up the option to edit the control surface options, look for the "max deflect" option. Change the number and click "update." It will now deflect up to that many degrees. Also, it's perfectly possible for the vehicle to hold together, you just have to be careful about how you pilot it.
  2. ferram4
    You can try increasing the angle that the control surface can rotate through. Also, your SpaceShipOne is wrong; it should have a normal rocket engine at the back, with no intakes, and it should be carried up by another vehicle. But I'm nitpicking.
  3. ferram4
    @m4ti410: For wing parts with built-in control surfaces I haven't added code to properly account for this yet; you'd probably want to use only FARControllableSurface though. The way FAR here's the way FAR handles unused attach nodes: First, get the orientation of the attach node with respect to the airflow If it's oriented into the flow, multiply the value of drag added by the maximum pressure coefficient at that Mach number (M = 0, Cp = 1; M = 1, Cp = 1.28; M = Infinity, Cp = 1.86) This models the drag from compression on the front of the object. If it's oriented backwards, if M > 1, divide by M2; this gives a limit on the minimum pressure coefficient and models the drag due to viscosity over the back of the object. If it's towards the front, move the CoD to account for the little bit of positive stability given by the unused attach node. It's possible that the main source of error is due to the way I accounted for my new part taper drag; you'll have to check it out in the next release when that is fixed. @mdanny: The main problem with mixing control axes is that the control surfaces can end up work at cross-purposes; if you try to roll right, the rudder (helping you to roll right) yaws the plane left, causing some serious dutch roll issues in every turn. What m4ti140 mentioned about ailerons being counterproductive if they act on pitch is also very true, especially with FAR at subsonic speeds: they reduce the lift of the entire wing drastically and prevent you from actually pitching up. Finally, there's the fact that having too much control authority can make planes difficult to control. Try the trial-and-error approach: if the control system doesn't do what it's intended to do fast enough, increase the value; if it makes the plane unstable, reduce the value. @Delta Force: Try out Taverius' TV Aerospace, DYJ's Procedural Wings, And Bac9's B9 Aerospace.
  4. ferram4
    @velusip: If you manage to replicate it, would you mind posting the entire output_log and the craft file that caused it with full instructions on how to cause it?
  5. ferram4
    @Wert: The reason is that unused attach nodes add drag, and in the latest update I also updated the location of the center of drag for each part based on where the unused attach nodes were. Since the "heat shield" is where an attach node is, the CoD gets shifted towards that. I did add a small correction to make the pods stable, but I apparently didn't test enough. It will be fixed in the next release.
  6. ferram4
    @MR4Y: The link I gave for PID controllers has some info on what all the numbers mean. In short, increasing Kp and Ki will make the system respond faster, but make it less stable (read: oscillate more) and increasing Kd will cause the system to try to limit motion and make it more stable; a proper combination allows the system to respond very quickly, but without oscillations. @Van Disaster: Make sure that the KW Rocketry parts have the proper size attach nodes; the engines might not be making the drag that they should, making the rocket less stable. @m4ti140: The command pods already make some lift when they're oriented off of retrograde, just like all the other parts do. @ialdabaoth: Noted, I'll test it out and release a new version of FAR with the modified ModuleManager.
  7. ferram4
    All of your CoM positions are based on having a full load of rocket fuel. Once you get into space the fuel tanks in the main fuselage will weigh less, while all of the RCS tanks you have mounted on the top of your fuselage will weigh the same; this will shift the CoM upwards, causing a pitch up tendency under thrust. I would suggest shifting the RCS tanks down to be lower on the fuselage and see if that helps.
  8. ferram4
    The problem is that control surfaces take time to move with FAR, as opposed to their magic instant deploy without FAR. ASAS doesn't account for the delay. Try going into the ASAS part.cfgs and reducing the kp, ki and kd values. ASAS is a PID Controller, and if it isn't tuned properly your vehicle will be difficult to control with it.
  9. ferram4
    Hunh... then it's still pilot error; you have everything you need to fly it, you just need more practice.
  10. ferram4
    @asmi: No reason you can't make something that maneuverable; the main problem is that it'll be statically unstable, and so you'll have to spend a lot of time keeping it on course. @MR4Y: Why don't you ever put engines that can gimbal on your rockets? I've only ever seen you use LV-30s, not LV-T45s. That might make controlling it easier. Otherwise, your "there's no middle ground" is pilot error, not design error.
  11. ferram4
    @MR4Y: First, are you aware that in Map view you can click on the little button at the bottom of the screen to bring up the navball and then you'll be able to control your vehicle while looking at the orbital Map? My second thought is that the vast majority of problems you have seem to stem from turning on SAS, particularly when you still have the liquid boosters activated (seriously, get rid of those fins, they're making control on the roll and pitch axes difficult). Perhaps without fins SAS won't cause control issues on that rocket. Your launch that started at ~7:00 was fairly well done, I'd only advise beginning the gravity turn sooner so that you have a slightly flatter trajectory. That launch was almost exactly what you want to do, though I think you were a little aggressive trying to turn the velocity vector at ~10km. If you had started your gravity turn a second after you lifted off you probably would have had a much smoother launch. Other suggestions: Don't worry about roll orientation, just roll rate; roll orientation doesn't matter much on rockets, but roll rate can interfere with control inputs. Don't worry too much about the velocity vector's direction after the first bit of the gravity turn; just aim prograde and burn along your velocity vector after you've started picking up speed. This will make controlling larger launch vehicles easier when you get to them and helps reduce dV steering loses. @Silenvio: Good to hear. I figured it was something out of my control, since you were the only person having that particular problem.
  12. ferram4
    I think the problem is that KSP doesn't have the proper permissions to load the plugin. If I'm correct, this isn't an issue with FAR; this will be an issue with all plugins. I'd try going over to the Support forum and see if they can help you there, since this is out of my control completely. I'd suspect that this is an issue with running KSP in Program Files; you could try running KSP as an admin and see if it works then, though I would make sure to check Support to see if anyone else has posted having a similar error, and if no one has, post there, but make sure to provide all the information they request in the help threads.
  13. ferram4
    @Van Disaster: All it does is check the fineness ratio (length / max diameter) and taper ratio (diameter at one end / diameter at other). A taper ratio of 1 corresponds to a straight cylinder; a lower value indicates tapering and increases drag. A lower fineness ratio then adds a multiplier to that drag increase; a fineness ratio of infinity sends the drag increase to zero. So the best thing to do is to not change the diameter all that suddenly. @betaking: I've looked into modelling aerodynamic heating but I've never liked the models I've been able to come up with. @Volt: I'll look into it; perhaps the method I'm using to account for the craft "orientation" isn't working properly. @MR4Y: Just because your rocket has a ton of dV doesn't mean that it's the best design possible; besides that, your new rocket has less fuel than the other one, so it's almost guaranteed to have less dV. FAR doesn't really seem to like asparagus staging too much anyway, since it encourages wide, short rockets rather than tall, skinny rockets. With the serial staging design you have now, try switching out an FL-T800 in the second stage for an FL-T400, and then add an FL-T400 to the first stage; that should increase your dV a bit. Another option is to but the bicoupler at the top of the first stage, have a pair of 2 FL-T800 stacks as the first stage; if the TWR is too low (say, TWR < 1.1) you can add an extra FL-T400 to each stack and then add SRBs to get it started. When I was asking about launch profiles I was asking what you do when you do a manual ascent, not what MechJeb does. MechJeb's ascent doesn't tell me anything about the problems you have during a launch (especially since most of your complaints seem to be in the realm of control, which MechJeb won't have any problem with). @Silenvo: Double-check to make sure that the FAR folders are where they should be (make sure ModuleManager.dll is in the GameData root), and then run the game, go in the SPH, launch a plane, quit and post the output_log (should be in KSP_Data in the KSP root). With that hopefully I'll be able to find the error you're having.
  14. ferram4
    @Huelander: Delta wings are among the best supersonic wing designs possible, though they may not be ideal for all fuselage designs. It really depends on the vehicle. @Weatherman159: That's related to the way that the window locations are saved; for some reason, if the window is opened for a short period, moved, and then closed the new position doesn't get saved. I don't know why it happens, but it does. I'll have to look into it more. @Chestburster: Try moving the intakes back a bit; the extra drag on the inlets at supersonic speeds might make it unstable.
  15. ferram4
    Go and grab the dll linked in this post. Go overwrite the ExsurgentEngineering.dll file in your GameData folder with that one and everything will work fine.
  16. ferram4
    @Silenvio: Are you making sure to copy the GameData folder in the FAR zip into your KSP root directory? You must merge it with the GameData folder already there in order for FAR to work properly; trying to place the plugins into the Plugins folder in the KSP root directory will not work. You are running KSP 0.20.2, correct? Are you running any other mods? @camlost: All wings make less lift near Mach 1. For an airfoil (measuring from the leading edge) the CoL stays at the quarter chord until Mach 0.8; it then shifts forward to 0.1 chord at Mach 0.95 and then shifts back to 0.4 chord at Mach 1, where it stays for all M > 1 flight. @MR4Y: I gather it has a large TWR; reducing the TWR will help you out. If you're gonna use fins, put them on the central stack and don't use 2-way symmetry; it's far more stable in pitch than in yaw here, which is kind of weird, I don't know if there's a specific reason you're doing that but I don't see how much it would help. You might also want to switch over to unmoving fins rather than control fins. You might be better off getting rid of the parallel staging, making the central stack longer and using a bicoupler with dual engines at the bottom; this rocket is a little too wide for its height. With your current launch profile, what is your altitude and how fast are you going when you first start your gravity turn? @Dirt_Merchant: No reason it shouldn't be incompatible.
  17. ferram4
    Post a picture of one of your rockets so we can figure out what's wrong with it. Without any pictures though, I'd guess that either you have too much control authority or you need to strut up your rocket.
  18. ferram4
    I'll be honest, I don't understand how people can stand to use ASAS in atmosphere at all. Even without FAR, it makes rockets wobble all over the place like a piece of spaghetti. Just make your rocket aerodynamically stable and fly a gentle gravity turn. You don't need ASAS until you're in space to hold orientation for a long burn. If you do want to try tuning the ASAS values, try reducing all the values, but lower Kp and Ki more than Kd; this should cause the response to be over-damped rather than under-damped or unstable.
  19. ferram4
    If you ignore it the stock wings will not have their physics updated, nor will the stock jet engines be rebalanced so they aren't super-overpowered. So yes, you need it; I wouldn't have included it if you didn't.
  20. ferram4
    Get rid of the side-mounted jet engines, since they probably aren't much use with those 3 SABREs at the back. The way FAR treats body flaring now the cockpit, the intake section behind it and the ultra-wide section at the back will add more drag than they did previously. A lot more. You'll need more fuel I'm afraid. Version 0.9.5.1 is up, fixing the Kerbal log spamming bug and getting killing a source of nullspace errors.
  21. ferram4
    @Fortunateson1969: It's quite possible that something in your design wasn't properly aerodynamic and you just found out; 0.9.5 accounts for some more sources of drag, so it's possible that you're running into those problems now. Post a picture of it, that should sort out some problems.
  22. ferram4
    @Everyone having GUI errors: I assume you're all using B9 Aerospace. Check out the first post of this thread, under FAQ for your solution. Download the latest version of Deadly Reentry from the thread linked in the FAQ and the ExsurgentEngineering folder in the zip will have the dll replacement. @Chestburster: Could you provide a craft that is having that problem? I believe that I've fixed most of the problems involved with that and I'd like another data point. @Autochton: A positive Xw means that (for whatever reason) your vehicle has less drag when its angle of attack is increased from the angle of attack used for your set point. I don't know how you did it, but you did. I'd suggest playing around with the parts used on the vehicle to see which one is causing this; I may be accounting for drag improperly somewhere. @m4ti140: Uh, so they did. Oops, I re-downloaded the whole thing when I didn't have to. The game should have been updated properly then. To clear out FAR 0.9.4's changes, you'll have to restore from a backed-up Parts folder to use the patcher to repair KSP. @Weatherman159: When flaps deploy on planes they do tend to make it pitch down a bit; most pitch control surfaces are actually designed with the intent to keep the plane at a proper angle of attack with the flaps deployed. You need to think about these things when designing planes. @Volt: Issue confirmed and believed fixed; hotfix should be up soon to remedy the problem. @g_audio: The Vonnegut is unstable with FAR installed. You'll have to change its design to make it fly properly with FAR. It's not designed with FAR's aerodynamics in mind, so it probably won't fly properly with those aerodynamics turned on.
  23. ferram4
    Download the FAR zip and look in the Source folder.
  24. ferram4
    SQUAD hasn't released a patcher, and so everyone running 0.20.2 should have a copy of the zip somewhere on their computer. Re-extract the proper folder and overwrite the modified files. I also mentioned in the first post (prior to this update) to keep a backup of the Parts folder for the purpose of clearing out FAR's part.cfg overwrites. If you haven't kept a backup of the Parts folder (as instructed) or you deleted the 0.20.2 zip file, you'll have to re-download KSP to get access to the files.
  25. ferram4
    @grom: Do you mean that it's losing control only in the north-south plane regardless of how the rocket is oriented, or that it is only unstable in the pitch-control plane despite the radial symmetry of the rocket? @MR4Y: I assume you're talking about the way that with FAR, your plane flies like it's in air? Keep in mind that jet engines in KSP are overpowered and the last release of FAR didn't update that. Yes, real jet fighters can fly supersonic at sea level, there's nothing weird with what you're seeing. You're just used to the stock drag model. Don't worry, that'll wear off. @Van Disaster: That might be a problem caused by pWings. Try out the new version of FAR and see if it still happens. I also believe that I've fixed the B9 cargo bay bug, so you should try it out now. Version 0.9.5 is out now, fixing incompatibilities with B9 Aerospace, handling drag due to the tapering of parts (command pods don't require part.cfg overrides anymore!), some optimizations and switching over to a ModuleManager based system. People updating from FAR 0.9.4 to 0.9.5 should overwrite GameData/Squad/Parts with the GameData/Squad/Parts folder from their KSP download. Otherwise, bad things may happen.
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