1.04 Aero Discussion - It's really good for me

[Tankman101]

The transonic hump was absurd before, if they did lower it I'm glad they did.

FFS Spaceplanes pretty much needed 6 engines minimum to go fast.

[Goddess Bhavani]

I find that interesting, since 1.0 has had pretty much the _lowest_ drag.

1.0 had drag rather lower than FAR for blunt things, and a bit lower for tapered things.

1.0.2 had drag like FAR for blunt things, and way way more than FAR for tapered things.

1.0.3 has a bit lower drag than FAR overall, but blunt things are properly draggy compared to tapered things--it's about on par with FAR back in the .22 era, before FAR started applying more drag high up, let alone nuFAR with transonic wave drag.

I just had a chance to sit down peacefully (lol the irony!) with 1.0.4 starting a career from scratch today.

I love the new aero model and agree it feels very similar to early FAR, which are my favorite of all the FAR versions in my opinion. '

Getting a bit too ambitious with Valentina's natural intuition, I sent her sub-orbital on her first flight on a big Procedural SRB with no decoupler between SRB and capsule, thinking there would be some soup-o-sphere to slow me down. There wasn't. SPLAT!

It's very, very interesting to design low tech craft now because I must keep in mind what goes up must come down and at several times the speed of sound! The pseudo-RealChutes parachute deployment delay and destroyable chutes are also a very fun thing to experience. The realistic chute deployment, the re-entry heating and the new improved stock aero really come together to make the whole experience more intense especially at the low end of the tech tree where there is a very limited amount of control over where the rocket is going.

[eddiew]

Lowering that mach barrier helped a lot. Suddenly all the twin-rapier designs I used to use under old-FAR will at least go transonic in stock, and some will make orbit.

I've even been trialling this dual-aero spaceplane that handles both 1.0.4 stock and nuFAR. Both tend to give remarkably close numbers, with FAR taking some pretty careful piloting to equal the efficiency of stock, but it's possible to pull about 10-15% ahead with care. Stock is however vastly more forgiving on descent and landing, since you can basically drop onto the runway and flare at 20m.

This flight log is from stock, but my best FAR run achieved 401 m/s in LKO vs the 360 shown below... Right now it's a real toss up in my mind as to which aero to launch into my career with. Anyone else been doing comparisons?

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I find that interesting, since 1.0 has had pretty much the _lowest_ drag.

1.0 had drag rather lower than FAR for blunt things, and a bit lower for tapered things.

1.0.2 had drag like FAR for blunt things, and way way more than FAR for tapered things.

1.0.3 has a bit lower drag than FAR overall, but blunt things are properly draggy compared to tapered things--it's about on par with FAR back in the .22 era, before FAR started applying more drag high up, let alone nuFAR with transonic wave drag.

Very interesting! Well, I didn't pay enough attention to the air, really.

I have trouble comparing, since I had FAR almost all the way into 1.0, so stock air just seemed a bit different, unlike when I installed FAR, which, from pre-1.0 air, had a steep learning curve.

Lowering that mach barrier helped a lot. Suddenly all the twin-rapier designs I used to use under old-FAR will at least go transonic in stock, and some will make orbit.

I've even been trialling this dual-aero spaceplane that handles both 1.0.4 stock and nuFAR. Both tend to give remarkably close numbers, with FAR taking some pretty careful piloting to equal the efficiency of stock, but it's possible to pull about 10-15% ahead with care. Stock is however vastly more forgiving on descent and landing, since you can basically drop onto the runway and flare at 20m.

This flight log is from stock, but my best FAR run achieved 401 m/s in LKO vs the 360 shown below... Right now it's a real toss up in my mind as to which aero to launch into my career with. Anyone else been doing comparisons?

http://i.imgur.com/SkGpFfp.jpg

That is extremely interesting! Thank you for the info!

[FlowerChild]

If anyone dislikes the changes to aero in 1.03/4, or just hates how it's shifting so radically from release to release right now as much as I do and want something more consistent with the previous release, I rigged up the following ModuleManager cfg which *appears* (I still need to run additional tests, but initial ones are promising) to return it to how it was in 1.02:

// Reverts aero back to 1.02 values
//
// Powered by ialdabaoth and sarbian's ModuleManager

@PHYSICSGLOBALS
{
	@liftMultiplier = 0.055
	@liftDragMultiplier = 0.025
	@bodyLiftMultiplier = 10.7

	@aeroFXDensityExponent = 1
	@aeroFXScalar = 1

	!DRAG_TAIL
	{
	}

	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
	{
	}

	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
	}

	!DRAG_CD
	{
	}

	// this curve was added in 1.03.  Replacing it by a version that leaves the input value untouched, which was the 1.02 behavior.  Hopefully Unity generates a straight line out of this, and I'm leaving
	// all the intermediate values to try and ensure this.
	DRAG_CD
	{
		key = 0 0 1 1
		key = 0.05 0.05 1 1
		key = 0.15 0.15 1 1
		key = 0.25 0.25 1 1
		key = 0.35 0.35 1 1
		key = 0.45 0.45 1 1
		key = 0.55 0.55 1 1
		key = 0.65 0.65 1 1
		key = 0.75 0.75 1 1
		key = 0.8 0.8 1 1
		key = 0.85 0.85 1 1
		key = 0.9 0.9 1 1
		key = 1 1 1 1
	}

	@LIFTING_SURFACE_CURVES
	{
		@LIFTING_SURFACE[Default]
		{
			!drag
			{
			}

			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
			{
			}

			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[SpeedBrake]
		{
			!drag
			{
			}

			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
			{
			}

			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
			}
		}
	}
}

Just drop it in a .cfg file in your GameData directory. You'll also need ModuleManager installed for it to work, which can be found here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55219

Note that this doesn't touch the heat system, so no idea how it'll affect stock reentries in combination with the 1.03/4/5 changes.

Edited June 26, 2015 by FlowerChild

[NathanKell]

It will make reentry heating more easily survival in most cases, since higher drag means you slow faster which means you suffer less total heat load and lower peak rate (since you'll be going slower when you hit q"max). Probably won't affect capsules much, since they're already in the >.9 area of the Cd curve, but spaceplanes will get noticeably easier especially coming in nose first.

[FlowerChild]

It will make reentry heating more easily survival in most cases, since higher drag means you slow faster which means you suffer less total heat load and lower peak rate (since you'll be going slower when you hit q"max). Probably won't affect capsules much, since they're already in the >.9 area of the Cd curve, but spaceplanes will get noticeably easier especially coming in nose first.

Actually, it wound up making reentry more deadly, but unfairly so

Due to the 0.5 density exponent making the atmosphere effectively denser higher up in 1.04, reverting that to 1 without reverting the corresponding values in heating caused there to be an atmosphere band around 20Km or so where the aero thought the atmo was less dense than heating, meaning you'd heat up like crazy without slowing down sufficiently to compensate. Was like hitting a brick wall under most circumstances where things would heat up so much so quickly that they'd just instantly explode.

I've since made a number of further adjustments to get the two working well together for BTSM, but it's no longer really something I can post as a straight revert to 1.02 aero/heat, as the heating system has changed sufficiently between the two that I don't think that's really possible anymore (at least not without writing a custom flight integrator). There also seems to be a number of bugs in the new heating system (particularly where time warp is involved, but I've also noticed a lot of other fidgety behavior that doesn't seem at all right) that further complicate matters.

Edited July 2, 2015 by FlowerChild

[RocketBlam]

Even in 1.03 I thought the aero was better. I was able to build SSTO's that wouldn't work in 0.90. I have no complaints.

[Temeter]

I took a few patches, but I'm really liking the current version. Funnily enough, I found 1.0.2 to be more punishing for aerodynamic rockets than nuFAR. Ferrams modell left you a lot more freedom and control.

That said, the current versions seems to have hit a nice mark. Realistic enough to simulate a lot of aerodynamic principles, while being lenient enought to just give that slight additional bit of freedom and comfort that makes KSP so accessible despite it's complexity. Especially the High-Mach corridor from 18km to 26km is really usefull for long range travel. Went around Kerbin with very little fuel, since my TRJ could run at low levels.

They do use a ridiculous amount of fuel in low level flight, tho! It's almost like a constant afterburner-effect.