Conflation between Aero and larger physics or VAB/SPH issue

[AddABallOracle]

It seems that some of the hoopla about the new aerodynamics model might actually be related to some VAB/SPH alignment issue or some other physics processing issue besides the actual drag/lift .cfg settings most of this Aero-debate is centering on.

So this evening I was building a ship I've built many, many times before, just your standard, no-frills micro-satellite launcher, but just tearing my hair out because the damn thing just would not stay upright. Building this particular rocket is routine and about as basic as an early-game 1.25m 2-stager can be, so I was really stumped at how unflyable it was. I'd hit around 180-280 m/s somewhere in the mid-to-low atmosphere and just flip. And if I ever took the SAS-off, the ship would immediately drift hard, often away from the horizon, despite having everything placed with symmetry and snapped to grid. And I'm not new to this whole more-realistic physics thing. I've been rocking the hands-free gravity turn forever.

So I started dismantling, piece by piece, to try to solve the problem. With payload, without. With all manner of fin/control surface patterns. Using an SRB for the base, etc. I replaced basically the whole ship over maybe 20-30 trial launches. Still no love, and it's maybe only a 15 part launcher, at most.

So I go back and load up a stock craft, the Z-MAP launch vehicle, which was damn near the same thing I'd built. Suddenly, no problem. I think we've all had this happen with this game, but this scenario was simple enough, timely enough, and tested exhaustively enough to be revealing. All of this has me thinking that there was something intrinsic about the craft file itself or some part-related glitch. Something weird from the VAB that was just going nuts as soon as the physics really got ahold of it.

There have always been weird physics quirks like this (planes burrowing on the runway, rocket magically tipping over on the launch-pad, parts with two attachment nodes that suddenly only have one, kerbals exploding from a one foot drop, missing your SOI change by half a solar-system, etc.), isn't it more reasonable to assume that this is just one of those kinds of issue, rather than that Squad suddenly lost their minds?

Surely someone else out there can corroborate. So to summarize, what I'm saying is that the issue is less about the specific aero .cfg settings and more about how glitches in physics interact with parts/crafts now that the model is fully fleshed out. Prove/Disprove?

[TothAval]

interessting idea