Removal of the fairing "Cannot activate part while stowed" thing

[The Lone Wolfling]

I'm looking for a way to remove the fairing's whole "Cannot activate part while stowed" thing. I don't like it, especially as it makes no sense to me for (for example) an engine to not be able to burn out of an open end of a fairing, or an accelerometer not work. That sort of thing is already handled elsewhere and better.

I looked through the config files, but it turns out it's not done there, so plugin time, yay. But wait, there's more! Turns out, it's not even done in ModuleCargoBay, it's actually checked by the parts themselves. So... I cannot think of a better way of doing this than adding a module that replaces the right-click / action group actions with its own copies that unshields the part, calls the proxied method, then reshields it. If that's even possible itself.

So, sanity check. Is this the best hack to do this? Or is there a better one?

[monstah]

It's sad this thread was buried down there, it's a request I endorse a lot. Personally, I'm using FAR, so for all I care fairings can be strictly structural, with only decouple functionality.

Bump attempt?

[Azimech]

Agreed. There's no good reason for having this limitation.

[MrMeeb]

*bumps* :3 I think this will be very helpful

[Feradose]

Bumpidy, all of my reentry probeshells suffer from this. I either cant deorbit, or deorbit and burn up. I think engines should be able to burn inside the fairings too, for user experience their engines should blow up with their fairings.

No need for this limitation, no sane user would activate an engine inside a fairing.

[brusura]

Yes I too think it is an annoying function

[NathanKell]

Think about it like this: Even if the engine could activate, all it would do is burn fuel and heat things up. It wouldn't change velocity, because the very propellants you're expelling (to push you one way) will bounce off the fairing and push the vessel in the opposite way.

It's like blowing on a sail. It don't work.

[Azimech]

Except when you're building something that is transforming chemical energy into kinetic energy like an internal combustion engine or a gas turbine. Even if practical use is limited or none, the topic's subject is blocking creativity and/or educational purposes.

Example of what is possible in 0.90 but not in 1.0x:

https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/31alv9/model_of_a_turbofan_engine_stock_huge_heavy_and/

[sarbian]

uh, what ? This contraption does not use a cargo bay so it would work fine.

[Azimech]

Unless you use FAR. But it's besides the point, why impose such a limitation if it means you can't experiment with certain concepts, while it doesn't clash with the rules of physics?

Maybe all someone would want is heat something, for whatever reason.

Here's another example. Building a turboshaft engine inside a fairing. Should dramatically improve performance compared to 0.90.

https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/3497yg/cannot_activate_while_stowed_my_most_anticipated/

Edited June 20, 2015 by Azimech

[brusura]

Hey I want to deploy my antenna before I open the cargo bay...why should I not be able to do that? Because this way you can abuse a game mechanic, the antenna should not work while inside the cargo bay ( because radiowave are somehow shielded ) but I should be able to deploy it

The problem is that those functions ( deploy and antenna on ) are overlapped , this is just an example ( also solar panels come to my mind ) , this is one of those cases... feature/bug/game mechanic

Edited June 20, 2015 by brusura

[clivman]

The problem is if you pull something out of a fairing (think soyuz abort or Apollo) it's broken.

[Requia]

Hey I want to deploy my antenna before I open the cargo bay...why should I not be able to do that? Because this way you can abuse a game mechanic, the antenna should not work while inside the cargo bay ( because radiowave are somehow shielded ) but I should be able to deploy it

The problem is that those functions ( deploy and antenna on ) are overlapped , this is just an example ( also solar panels come to my mind ) , this is one of those cases... feature/bug/game mechanic

I'm in favor of this somehow being overhauled (if only because it both doesn't seem useful and is bugged as is) but in that particular case why not just deploy the antenna in the VAB? If it's inside the cargo bay it shouldn't break from aero.

[Rocketfeline]

My problem is that when im making a areoshelled probe. And I try to drop out of it.I I cannot activate the engine because it thinks im stowed. When in reality im outside the areoshell. Thats one issue I dont like.Im ok with not deploying things like antenna. But thats one thing I don't like.

[NathanKell]

If you have decoupled/jettisoned the aeroshell and the engine still thinks it's shielded, that's a bug, and you should report it.

[clivman]

If you have decoupled/jettisoned the aeroshell and the engine still thinks it's shielded, that's a bug, and you should report it.

He said he dropped out of it like Curiosity's aeroshell. So he wouldn't have jettisoned the areoshell.

[Azimech]

It's still in in 1.0.3, and thus: Request repeated.

[Majorjim!]

It's still in in 1.0.3, and thus: Request repeated.

I think Squad did a kind of bodge job to stop it happening. When you stage a separator in a faring it automatically separates the fairing.

On a brighter note, the SRBs are awesome now!

[Jon144]

Once when making my B-52 replica I put SRBs mounted on decouplers on the wings to replicate missiles. I never put any sort of fairings on the aircraft yet when I launched the "Missiles" I was given the notice "Cannot activate part while stowed" so the SRB did not fire as intended. I found this very odd. I never even stowed it.

Think about it like this: Even if the engine could activate, all it would do is burn fuel and heat things up. It wouldn't change velocity, because the very propellants you're expelling (to push you one way) will bounce off the fairing and push the vessel in the opposite way.

It's like blowing on a sail. It don't work.

Also as I proved in a different post engine exhaust is not going to heat anything.

Edited June 23, 2015 by Jon144

[monstah]

Engines are not the only thing that can't activate, science parts can't either.

I understand some experiments seem like they need exposure, but that's more roleplay than anything, in my opinion.

[John FX]

The first thing I do in KSP is to try and recreate the Apollo 11 launch and mission, 1 core feature which is very important to me which I was assured would be possible is when stage 1 is dropped the engines fire on stage 2 with the fairing still attached and then the fairing is dropped approximately 30 seconds later.

+ 1 from me to give an option for the user to not have this ridiculous 'feature'.

Surely it is the most kerbal way to be able to risk making your ship explode I e by hot staging like the Russians used to do...

[Captain Sierra]

I think Squad did a kind of bodge job to stop it happening. When you stage a separator in a faring it automatically separates the fairing.

This is an even hackier fix that continues to deny us the solution we really want.

If anyone can figure out the code to remove both of these nuisances . . . well I don't really need to speak for the appreciation of the community for that.

[Azimech]

I don't know how but I would like to help. Can anyone point me in a direction?

[Goddess Bhavani]

Once when making my B-52 replica I put SRBs mounted on decouplers on the wings to replicate missiles. I never put any sort of fairings on the aircraft yet when I launched the "Missiles" I was given the notice "Cannot activate part while stowed" so the SRB did not fire as intended. I found this very odd. I never even stowed it.

Also as I proved in a different post engine exhaust is not going to heat anything.

It appears the game now checks for part occlusion before it's allowed to be activated. I had a few helicopter designs that needed some engine repositioning as the jet exhaust was too close to the collision meshes of other parts.

A good workaround would be to see if Squad can give us some sort of right click status display showing of the part is currently shielded or occluded. This was implemented previously in Procedural Fairings and indeed I have built air and spacecraft with parts mounted inside fairings but not shielded (VTOL engines with components hidden by fairing) or using fairings as airplane fuselages or conformal payload bays.

For the latter example, yes, indeed it would be silly to simply lock out the part because it's covered by the fairing, but what Squad did was probably assume all fairings are full enclosures that disable everything inside.

[Sharpy]

Even if the engine could activate, all it would do is burn fuel and heat things up

Maybe I want the engine to heat things up.

Specifically, I do. I want the engine to overheat the structural part next to the cargo bay/fairing/whatever so that it breaks freeing the cockpit during the Abort Sequence. Putting airplane cockpit on a decoupler is silly, plus there are no MK2-sized decouplers. OTOH destroying the middle part of the plane to free the cockpit and drop it on a parachute (after, say, losing wings) seems like a logical thing to do.