Un-Nerf the Wings

[Aanker]

Seriously now.

Wings were little less than drag inducing decoration in 1.0 and now with 1.0.1 they feel like drogue chutes attached to the plane without regard for their actual configuration. I feel frustrated as an airplane/spaceplane building enthusiast as I cannot produce craft that perform acceptably without plucking away all the feathers of my birds. I could manage in the previous patch, but now it has gone to riddiculous levels.

Many of us build wings in the 'lego' style: adding strakes, delta and structural wings together to shape into being something that looks realistic and aerodynamic. I personally like to build "shells" over engine and fuel tank components to 'protect' them from the airflow - but now I can't. Building wings in this way is being severely, harshly and bluntly punished by the drag changes and I feel like something must be done to fix this. In a game about creating spacecraft, there should be some creative crafting space. Currently however, the only functional configuration is a big tube using the brand new "one size fits all" wing parts glued to the sides.

Either add some sort of airflow protection for stacked wing parts (but limit lift) or revert the drag changes for wings altogether. Wing parts are some of the best creative parts in KSP as they are pretty much perfect 'building blocks' that can be rotated, offset and placed in such ways that their use extends way beyond just being practical. In previous versions I would build SSTOs and cargo aircraft with custom cargo bays made out of wing parts, but that kind of range of creativity just doesn't exist anymore.

And 'in before' the inevitable accusations that I am just lamenting the loss of some exploit, infinite wing placement has never been an advantage, even considering the lift gains. I just want to be able to create realistic looking planes.

Please fix.

[Jarin]

For shape-based lift and drag modeling, keep an eye on what ferram4 is doing with FAR.

[Aanker]

I'd much prefer that the vanilla game has a more lenient drag model for wings than having to use mods. I don't have anything against mods, heck I'm a former modder myself, but I truly believe the vanilla game would benefit from un-nerfing the wings.

- in the meantime, is there any way to revert back to 1.0?

[RocketPilot573]

For shape-based lift and drag modeling, keep an eye on what ferram4 is doing with FAR.

This is a discussion about the stock game, don't just respond with "use mods."

[Randazzo]

I'd much prefer that the vanilla game has a more lenient drag model for wings than having to use mods. I don't have anything against mods, heck I'm a former modder myself, but I truly believe the vanilla game would benefit from un-nerfing the wings.

This is probably not the kind of answer you're hoping for, but you might give the Alt+F12 menu a look. I have only glanced at the aerodynamics panel (I've mainly been interested in thermal) but I know there are some sliders in there. You may be able to adjust the drag forces and such in there to suit your needs.

I'm not saying it solves your particular issue, but it may allow you to continue on in the meantime.

[Cerbis]

I feel that the increased drag overall in 1.0.1 is a step down from 1.0. I did some back and forth testing between 1.0.1, 0.9 with stock aerodynamics and with the latest 0.9-compatible version of NEAR, and the worst performance was with 1.0.1.

Of course, I played nearly exclusively with NEAR so the decreased drag of stock 1.0 compared to previous versions suited me just fine, but with 1.0.1 the drag feels heavier than in even 0.9 stock! For me, 1.0 was just right.

[Aerindel]

In a game about creating spacecraft

Then why are you building airplanes? Sorry, I know this is not helpful but it seems the airplane people are constantly trying to make the game about them, which is fine I guess but I only spend about 1% of my kerbal time in the soup. I would rather have rockets work fine than airplanes that work and rockets that don't.

If they can pull off both, fine.

[Aanker]

Then why are you building airplanes? Sorry, I know this is not helpful but it seems the airplane people are constantly trying to make the game about them, which is fine I guess but I only spend about 1% of my kerbal time in the soup. I would rather have rockets work fine than airplanes that work and rockets that don't.

If they can pull off both, fine.

How would a wing fix negatively affect your rockets? A functional and fun aerodynamic model is fully compatible with functional and fun wing parts - we can have both.

[Aerindel]

How would a wing fix negatively affect your rockets? A functional and fun aerodynamic model is fully compatible with functional and fun wing parts - we can have both.

I would like us to have both but it seems Squad has trouble pulling that off. Don't ask me why, I'm not a programmer, but it seems that the aero model that works for rockets doesn't work for planes and vice versa.

[RocketPilot573]

Can someone test if the delta-v to orbit was changed from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1?

[Guest]

I'd much prefer that the vanilla game has a more lenient drag model for wings than having to use mods.

Check Physics.cfg in your KSP root directory, there might be a global setting.

[NathanKell]

Wing drag actually decreased going from 1.0 to 1.0.1. It's that fuselage drag went up a good bit, and now terminal velocity for, say, pods, is much closer to real life terminal velocity (given the same air density and speed of sound).

[mythbusters844]

I don't know if this will help at all, but here's the old Physics.cfg 1.0:

dragMultiplier = 6.0
dragCubeMultiplier = 0.06
angularDragMultiplier = 2
liftMultiplier = 0.038
liftDragMultiplier = 0.03
bodyLiftMultiplier = 8
aeroFXStartThermalFX = 2
aeroFXFullThermalFX = 3.5
aeroFXExponent = 3
thermalMaxIntegrationWarp = 100
spaceTemperature = 4
solarLuminosityAtHome = 1360
solarInsolationAtHome = 0.15
convectionDensityExponent = 1
convectionVelocityExponent = 3
fullConvectionAreaMin = 0.2
fullToCrossSectionLerpStart = 0.8
fullToCrossSectionLerpEnd = 1.5
machConvectionStart = 2
machConvectionEnd = 3.5
partEmissivityExponent = 4
radiationFactor = 1
convectionFactor = 40
newtonianConvectionFactorBase = 1
newtonianConvectionFactorTotal = 1
conductionFactor = 10
internalHeatProductionFactor = 0.03
aerodynamicHeatProductionFactor = 1
standardSpecificHeatCapacity = 800
DRAG_TIP
{
	key = 0 1 0 0
	key = 25 1 0 0
}
DRAG_SURFACE
{
	key = 0 0.02 0 0
	key = 0.85 0.02 0 0
	key = 0.9 0.0152439 -0.07942077 -0.07942077
	key = 1.1 0.0025 -0.005279571 -0.001936768
	key = 2 0.002083333 -2.314833E-05 -2.314833E-05
	key = 5 0.003333333 -0.000180556 -0.000180556
	key = 25 0.001428571 -7.14286E-05 0
}
DRAG_TAIL
{
	key = 0 1 0 0
	key = 0.85 1 0 0
	key = 1.1 0.25 -0.02215106 -0.02487721
	key = 1.4 0.2287166 -0.01326022 -0.001389867
	key = 2 0.275 0.03981932 0.03981932
	key = 5 0.3333333 -0.003474526 -0.02333333
	key = 25 0.1428571 -0.004285714 0
}
DRAG_MULTIPLIER
{
	key = 0 0.5 0 0
	key = 0.85 0.5 0 0
	key = 1.1 2 0 -0.6
	key = 2 1.2 -0.5444444 -0.5444444
	key = 5 0.6 0 0
	key = 10 0.8 0.06700063 0.06700063
	key = 14 0.93 0.006815632 0.006815632
	key = 25 1 0 0
}
LIFTING_SURFACE_CURVES
{
	LIFTING_SURFACE
	{
		name = Default
		lift
		{
			key = 0 0 0 1.965926
			key = 0.258819 0.5114774 1.990092 1.905806
			key = 0.5 0.9026583 0.7074468 -0.7074468
			key = 0.7071068 0.5926583 -2.087948 -1.990095
			key = 1 0 -2.014386 -2.014386
		}
		liftMach
		{
			key = 0 1 0 0
			key = 0.3 0.5 -1.671345 -0.8273422
			key = 1 0.125 -0.0005291355 -0.02625772
			key = 5 0.0625 0 0
			key = 25 0.05 0 0
		}
		drag
		{
			key = 0 0.01 0 0
			key = 0.3420201 0.1 0.1750731 0.1750731
			key = 0.5 0.4 4.557837 4.557837
			key = 0.7071068 2.828427 4 4
			key = 1 4 4 0
		}
		dragMach
		{
			key = 0 0.25 0 -0.8463008
			key = 0.15 0.125 0 0
			key = 0.9 0.375 0.7227947 0.7227947
			key = 1.1 1 0 0
			key = 1.4 0.65 -1.29191 -1.29191
			key = 1.6 0.5 -0.4376471 -0.4376471
			key = 2 0.42 -0.1475873 -0.1475873
			key = 5 0.275 0 0
			key = 25 0.4 0.0006807274 0
		}
	}
	LIFTING_SURFACE
	{
		name = BodyLift
		lift
		{
			key = 0 0 0 1.975376
			key = 0.309017 0.5877852 1.565065 1.565065
			key = 0.5877852 0.9510565 0.735902 0.735902
			key = 0.7071068 1 0 0
			key = 0.8910065 0.809017 -2.70827 -2.70827
			key = 1 0 -11.06124 0
		}
		liftMach
		{
			key = 0.3 0.167 0 0
			key = 0.8 0.167 0 -0.3904104
			key = 1 0.125 -0.0005291355 -0.02625772
			key = 5 0.0625 0 0
			key = 25 0.05 0 0
		}
		drag
		{
			key = 0 0 0 0
		}
		dragMach
		{
			key = 0 0 0 0
		}
	}
	LIFTING_SURFACE
	{
		name = SpeedBrake
		lift
		{
			key = 0 0 0 0
		}
		liftMach
		{
			key = 0 0 0 0
		}
		drag
		{
			key = 0 0.01 0 0
			key = 0.3420201 0.1 0.1750731 0.1750731
			key = 0.5 0.4 4.557837 4.557837
			key = 0.7071068 2.828427 4 4
			key = 1 4 4 0
		}
		dragMach
		{
			key = 0 0.25 0 -0.8463008
			key = 0.15 0.125 0 0
			key = 0.9 0.375 0.7227947 0.7227947
			key = 1.1 1 0 0
			key = 1.4 0.65 -1.29191 -1.29191
			key = 1.6 0.5 -0.4376471 -0.4376471
			key = 2 0.42 -0.1475873 -0.1475873
			key = 5 0.275 0 0
			key = 25 0.4 0.0006807274 0
		}
	}
}

If you want to use it and see how it works for you, copy the old Physics.cfg somewhere safe in case you want to revert back to 1.0.2's config, select the code above, copy it, paste it in notepad, and save it as "Physics.cfg" in your KSP_win directory. I haven't tried this yet, so take caution.

[Aanker]

Thank you, I'll try that! At least it will be a good temporary solution.

Wing drag actually decreased going from 1.0 to 1.0.1. It's that fuselage drag went up a good bit, and now terminal velocity for, say, pods, is much closer to real life terminal velocity (given the same air density and speed of sound).

Thank you for clarifying, but the increased drag overall means we have to be even more rigorous in limiting the use of parts that cause drag - and so, wings suffer. Admittedly a craft cannot fly into the air - or, indeed, space - without fuselage sections.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Aanker

[Radam]

33% more drag, 44% more lift.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Radam