Squad is slowly reintroducing soup o' sphere with 1.01

[Brotoro]

You people drink some pretty thin soup.

[regex]

AFIK IRL once you pass ~Mach 1.2, transonic drag disappears.

It's a bit longer than that, it seems:

You basically have to pass Mach 2.0 before drag returns to previous levels.

[Superfluous J]

Jeez. Everyone moaned about 1.0's model being unrealistic, so they fixed it. Now you want it back?

I don't want it back. I'm afraid it IS back. At least in part.

EDIT: Sorry I misread you. I thought you said people complained about 0.90's model being unrealistic.

I have no opinion on the realism of 1.0. It seemed good to me but my flying experience is limited to knowing where the good bars are in various airports and how to get a full can of pop when they're passing out glasses. I can say that 1.0's air seemed to encourage a realistic gravity turn more than 1.0.2's does.

Now quit whinin' and start flyin'!

I have flown several test rockets. At the very best, a "real" gravity turn EQUALS the dV of a "crank it over 45 degrees at 10km" turn. Sometimes the old way does BETTER. I've not yet - in my testing - had the more gradual turn come out ahead.

Edited May 2, 2015 by 5thHorseman

[Enceos]

How fast are you going and how low in the atmosphere are you? If you're going 100m/s 45km up there's a problem. If you're 1km up going 2000m/s then I'd expect anything to slow down. Somewhere in the middle you'd not be able to accelerate, but wouldn't decelerate.

The simple fact that it happens means nothing.

150 m/s 3km alt 30° dive losing speed.

[Aanker]

Jeez. Everyone moaned about 1.0's model being unrealistic, so they fixed it. Now you want it back?

Be glad that Squad is so attentive to their community that they are willing to change the flipping laws of physics every week to make us happy!

Just sit sit down and try it. People already have Mk 3 SSTOs. Even a lot of old SSTO's from 1.0 work, they just need to be flown differently.

This guy

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/117535?p=1891321&viewfull=1#post1891321

This guy

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/118470-1-0-2-Any-hope-left-for-SSTOs?p=1891988#post1891988

And even THIS guy

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/117164-Arkingthaad-in-1-0?p=1872848#post1872848

Have all done it.

In 1.0. Only the Mk2 craft at the top is 1.0.2.

Now quit whinin' and start flyin'!

No. Let's not brush this issue aside. Let's compel SQUAD to fix it.

[regex]

No. Let's not brush this issue aside. Let's compel SQUAD to fix it.

It doesn't need fixing because it's not an issue.

[Aanker]

It doesn't need fixing because it's not an issue.

Haha, ok. The sheer amount of threads and complaints would suggest otherwise. The arguments against the dragmatic hotfix changes are expansive, qualitative and at the very least reasonable. And one guy is able to off handedly dismiss it like that? By what right, I ask.

[regex]

Haha, ok. The sheer amount of threads and complaints would suggest otherwise. The arguments against the dragmatic hotfix changes are expansive, qualitative and at the very least reasonable. And one guy is able to off handedly dismiss it like that? By what right, I ask.

It's tunny because as soon as these threads "full" of complaints show up other people chime in and helpfully show that it isn't an issue. It's not "one guy off-handedly" dismissing your argument and the arguments against the drag fix are not reasonable.

E: Do we understand how opinion works yet?

Edited May 2, 2015 by regex

[sal_vager]

By what right, I ask.

As a gamer who enjoys the game that is KSP, he has every right.

KSP treads a line between simulator and game, with gameplay being more important, more drag is more forgiving and the transonic barrier is passable quite easily if you modify your expectations.

Though of course, KSP is extensively modifiable by design as well, and drag values can be set to the players preferences in the Physics.cfg

[mcdjfp]

I feel that it is an issue for two reasons. One, even with a fairly steep reentry and a heavy capsule, exposed parts such as batteries are not at risk (in fact now that I think about it their drag is probably contributing to the slowing of the craft so they never experience heating). As for heat shields, I find it almost impossible (without being careless or deliberately reckless) to cause any damage at all to them. Two, I am not at all convinced that nose cones and fairings are useful? Sometimes the extra weight seems to outweigh the drag savings over a simple flat top.

[Fun1k]

It may not be an issue for you, but it clearly is for others. I am glad they fixed the heatshields, but that aero just feels wrong to me. In 1.0 I was able to make a nice ascent and get it shallow easily under 30 km and save fuel with this gravity turn assist, but it is not so nice anymore, and it makes some ... stuff (like when I had a probe core on top of a Mk1 pod and was getting shallower the pod magically blew up around 20 km height and I had to redo the rocket).

Soupy aero sucks, and I get the feeling the change was made to pander to spaceplanes. Much better would be to edit spaceplane parts to fit the model, not vice versa. I am not comfortable with hotfix atmo.

[Superfluous J]

It doesn't need fixing because it's not an issue.

As a stalwart opponent of the old aero model's pushing us to climb 10km before turning and then cranking a turn over 45 degrees, I'm a bit surprised that (from my testing at least) you don't find this an issue. Or is it okay because doing a more realistic gravity turn is only SLIGHTLY more inefficient instead of being TERRIBLY so?

[regex]

As a stalwart opponent of the old aero model's pushing us to climb 10km before turning and then cranking a turn over 45 degrees, I'm a bit surprised that (from my testing at least) you don't find this an issue. Or is it okay because doing a more realistic gravity turn is only SLIGHTLY more inefficient instead of being TERRIBLY so?

Well, considering we're still launching from what is essentially an unobtaniumly-dense Ceres-sized object with an atmosphere approximated to be mostly like Earth's I'd expect certain things to be more or less efficient than here on Earth.

Also, I can do a proper gravity turn with a proper rocket and I don't care about efficiency (even when I'm playing RO/RSS, I overbuild), so I'm happy.

[NathanKell]

Crossposted, it's Interesting Factoid Time!

1. There was absolutely no change in the atmosphere from 1.0 to 1.0.2. There was a considerable increase in dragcube (i.e. not wing) drag, but a slight decrease in wing drag.

2. 1.0's (and thus 1.0.2's) atmosphere is thicker than .90's, and so to compare drag at a given place between .90 (presumably with FAR) and 1.0.2, you need to compare density altitudes. 0.5kg/m^3 occurs around 14km in 1.0 (and thus 1.0.2). Note: In FAR, set density to ABS mode, it starts in REL mode.

3. 1.0 had much, much less drag than FAR (on .90) did. Terminal velocity for the Mk1 pod was ~100m/s in FAR in .90 near sea level, and 170+m/s in 1.0. Up high, say at density-altitude 0.1kg/m^3, you could get an extra 500m/s off the same thrust on the same craft. Delta V to orbit in FAR was about 3400, minimum, 3600 average; in 1.0 it was 2800 and 3300 respectively.

4. Even in 1.0.2, there's less drag up high. Top speed at 0.1kg/m^3 for the same craft with the same thrust is ~100m/s higher in 1.0.2 than in FAR-0.90. Down low, however, drag is much higher in 1.0.2 than in FAR.

I encourage people to stop speculating and stop going off perception and to actually test stuff.

[SelectHalfling0]

After doing some research and listening to other people, the problem is that the parts were not rebalanced for new drag. They all are balanced for 1.0's drag stats, so the new stats left the old parts obsolete.

[DoToH]

I encourage people to stop speculating and stop going off perception and to actually test stuff.

+1 to this

My test:

Mk1 pod + parachute at the edge of Kerbin's SOI. PE lowered to 6Km. No heat shield. Landed ok. Heat warning didn't even show up.

Conclusion: They fixed physicsless heatshields. Shame they are not necessary any more.

[Shadowlord]

As a stalwart opponent of the old aero model's pushing us to climb 10km before turning and then cranking a turn over 45 degrees, I'm a bit surprised that (from my testing at least) you don't find this an issue. Or is it okay because doing a more realistic gravity turn is only SLIGHTLY more inefficient instead of being TERRIBLY so?

Which old aero? In 1.0 I took a ~$35k rocket, shot straight up to 100 km and then turned 90 degrees before achieving orbit, and it was no huhu... In 1.0.2, that rocket mysteriously has a TWR of 0.62 in the second stage, and can't get past 16 or 17 km. But since no masses increased or thrusts decreased, as far as I can tell, and drag alone isn't capable of giving it <1 TWR, I can only conclude there was a mass-hiding exploit with the service bay (Eliminated all other possibilities), and that the utter lack of any informative statistics in the VAB enabled me to create a super-efficient rocket that abused it without even realizing that I had found and was using an exploit to enable it to be so efficient.

Edit: Maybe heat shields are for returning from other planets. Who knows. My super-rocket upper stages that are still in space have had no trouble re-entering and landing (aside from having to hold the parachutes until 10km).

[SelectHalfling0]

I came to a slow realization that fairings are very useful now.

[mcdjfp]

1. Please don't do this. The discussion is about how the atmosphere interacts with our craft. It does not matter at all if the change is to how the craft appears to the atmosphere (dragcube) or if the change is to how strong the drag effect is (which is what I assume dragMultiplier is). Nitpicking definitions is only going to lead to anger.

2. I have never used FAR, though I have considered it. I was amazed with 1.0, disappointed with the later physics config changes. Loved the bug fixes other than that.

It seems to me Kerbin is so different from Earth that I can't see any way to directly transfer performance characteristics. I have been testing things. I am glad to here that other people are having good luck with fairings, gives me hope when I get to larger craft where a extra .1t won't matter so much. On the other had, heat shields were valuable in 1.0, but in 1.01 even craft which are heavy for their size slow dramatically in the upper atmosphere in my experience. It really does not matter to me how much the slowing is exactly. It is the fact that much like nose cones were wasted tonnage before, now heat shields seem to be in the same category that bothers me. I do wonder if the drag from radially attached parts slows the craft quickly enough to save them from temperature problems.

I am going to give things a week and see how they develop.

[Brotoro]

I was under the impression that heat shields were only expected to be needed in extreme situations...not for typical reentries from low orbits on Kerbin, Laythe, or Duna.

[DoToH]

I was under the impression that heat shields were only expected to be needed in extreme situations...not for typical reentries from low orbits on Kerbin, Laythe, or Duna.

A 6Km PE from near out of Kerbin's SOI (79Mm AP) is not what I would call "low orbit".

Edited May 2, 2015 by DoToH

[NathanKell]

And just how high was your surface speed at 70km?

[cantab]

Heatshielding is always going to be a bit weird as long as the planets stay small. There are two main directions the game design can go. One is to just follow realistic heating, which is likely to mean heatshields are rarely needed unless perhaps you also make regular parts burn up extra-easily. The other is to try and make analogous heating in analogous situations, ie a re-entry from Low Kerbin Orbit heats like a re-entry from Low Earth Orbit would despite the much lower speeds in the game.

I'm not sure what Squad have done. Personally I think the *best* approach would be to enlarge Kerbin somewhat and then go for realistic heating perhaps combined with flimsy parts.

[Wjolcz]

Yeah, the atmo feels kinda soupy in 1.0.2. Built something that resembled of Su 27, took off, did some ultra tight turns without stalling and couldn't go past 375m/s. Not really a fan of that.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Veeltch

[DoToH]

And just how high was your surface speed at 70km?

Didn't note it first time, but experimenting is about repeating

Same ship

AP 80Mn

PE 4,5Km

Surface speed is a little over 3000m/s @ 64000m, over 3250m/s @45000m.

No heat warning. Parachute opened @1000m.

Edited May 2, 2015 by DoToH