Idea for a new feature

[sciencepanda]

I had an idea for a new feature that i think should be added, not any time soon, but at some point. My idea: improved crashing animation. basically, when parts collide, the can break into pieces, so like half a landing leg, or pieces of the fuel tank shell. also, i noticed that the landing legs explode, that shouldn\'t happen. And more, if a fuel tank is empty, it doesn\'t explode on impact with the ground, but gets crushed, or deformed by the impact, to make it more realistic. last but not least, i think you should be able to start an investigation following a crash, to see what went wrong, like what NASA did after Apollo 1, Apollo 13, Challenger, and STS-107. those are my ideas, i\'d appreciate feedback

[Kreuzung]

I think that you can alreadya see what goes wrong, if you need more/less struts, winglets, SAS, engines, fuel tanks, parachutes, RCS thrusters... that\'s all visible at a normal failure.

I also don\'t think that purely graphical improvements will be added soon, especially if they make it just more complicated.

Oh, and welcome to the forums!

[sciencepanda]

that\'s not exactly what i meant, perhaps i should explain. Not only what goes wrong as far as parts hitting other parts, but like what happened to my rocket last week. i was launching, had an ASAS on board, and it was turned on, but out of nowhere, about 15 seconds MET, the rocket started yawing out of control, and adding RCS, or gambling engines didn\'t help. i would like to be able to find out why things like that happen. you can\'t improve your rocket if you don\'t know the problem.

[Kreuzung]

I think it is generally bad design if you can\'t fix it. I just start over if I run into something like this.

[softweir]

Actually you seem to have more than one new feature idea: better crash animations (such as snapping and crumpling), and better failure diagnostics.

Yes, it would help a lot if there were more diagnostics as well as better damage animations. With a bit of luck the animations will improve; unfortunately the diagnostics are harder to code - how does the game tell you your rocket was tail-heavy, for instance?

Which brings me to your specific issue: that sounds like a tail-heavy rocket. As the top tanks of a rocket drain, the centre-of-mass of the rocket shifts towards the back but the centre-of-drag doesn\'t. So if the rocket points even slightly away from the direction it is heading, atmospheric drag acts to push it further off course . Imagine an arrow fired backwards: the weight at the back want to go at the front, and the drag at the front wants to go at the back. No amount of SAS or ASAS will help with this sort of problem!

I suspect you were launching a very tall, thin rocket with lots of boosters at the bottom? If you make the design shorter and fatter then that helps - put fewer boosters at the bottom, and use radial LF stacks feeding fuel to the core stack so weight is lost more from the sides and less from the top.

Remove any stabilisers that aren\'t right at the bottom, as fins and stabilisers at the top or half-way-up only add drag in the wrong place!

Just in case, next time you see this failure, hit F3. This will pause the game and bring up the Flight Events screen, so you can see if any components have failed or broken off.

[RC1062]

Unfortunately the diagnostics are harder to code - how does the game tell you your rocket was tail-heavy, for instance?

Which brings me to your specific issue: that sounds like a tail-heavy rocket. As the top tanks of a rocket drain, the centre-of-mass of the rocket shifts towards the back but the centre-of-drag doesn\'t. So if the rocket points even slightly away from the direction it is heading, atmospheric drag acts to push it further off course . Imagine an arrow fired backwards: the weight at the back want to go at the front, and the drag at the front wants to go at the back. No amount of SAS or ASAS will help with this sort of problem!

So how did you define a tail-heavy rocket?

By the positions of the centre of mass and the centre of drag. That wouldn\'t be too hard to calculate would it? (Unless I\'ve missed something... :-[)

[sciencepanda]

one of the reasons i thought a better crash animation would be cool is, well, i thought it would be cool. i\'m obsessed with disasters and crash scenes, the reason i like watching Air Crash Investigation on National Geographic Channel. also, i think it should be more realistic. An empty fuel tank is basically just a big metal can, and when it hits something, the metal will bent, tare, and dent; there\'s no combustion, because there\'s no fuel. same thing with the lander legs, they\'re just long metal struts that move, there\'s not fuel or explosives in them. Thus, those parts of the crash animation need to be fixed.