What bothers me about the fairings...

[RocketBlam]

I don't know if this has been said, but every time I try to use these stock fairings, they are just a pain in the butt to use.

Right now I'm trying to build a very simple fairing, but KSP won't let me do it. I click to end one segment, and it won't register. I have to build an absurdly wide fairing to even get the thing to work.

And what REALLY bothers me about this is that the procedural fairings mod they used to have (and maybe still do) worked SO much better. You didn't even have to build the fairings, they were automatically generated, and you could modify them if you wanted to. These stock fairings... I'm sorry Squad, but they just don't work right.

I guess I'll just download the procedural fairings mod again, because this is really miserable.

[Higgs]

Simply put Squads fairing system is utter garbage. Its glitchy, its ugly, its too many parts in each fairing. Proc fairings need, no MUST become stock.

[cantab]

I don't much like either. The stock fairing system lacks reproducibility - if I delete my fairing I can never put it back the same way again. Procedural Fairings is too "automagic" for my liking. The one I liked was Zero Point fairings, they were simple to use and gave me the constraint of a fixed fairing diameter, but in 1.0.x I've found them glitch and they don't work with newstock aero.

[Columbia]

Oh, and let's not forget the "can't replicate with symmetry" bug.

God, even the simplest things are screwed up.

[Yukon0009]

Some of us are better off making fairings off wing parts like what we did pre 1.0. Seriously Sqaud, most of 1.0 is pretty good, but the fairings are plain horrible for the reasons stated above.

[Columbia]

Some of us are better off making fairings off wing parts like what we did pre 1.0. Seriously Sqaud, most of 1.0 is pretty good, but the fairings are plain horrible for the reasons stated above.

This isn't even a matter of aesthetics or proper separation anymore, it's about being plain adequate. Seriously.

[Wjolcz]

Show us what kind of payload you want to cover with fairings.

I have no problem with them. OK, Maybe sometimes, but nothing major.

[Bill Phil]

What's worse is that half the time you don't need them....

[Xeldrak]

Well, I do admit that they lack reproducibility, wich can be a little annoying when trying to built a consistent series of booster. Also no ability to simply edit an existing fairing, you allways have to completely rebuild it.

But other then that, after some familiarizing with how they workk, I'm fine with the current fairings.

[Darnok]

We just need gizmos to edit fairings shape?

[cfds]

Whenever I see stock fairings used in videos (I use procedural fairings), I cannot shake the feeling that SQUAD implemented them as a strawman to show how bad procedural parts are: "See what you get when you want procedural parts? How it is all glitchy and not reproducable? So stop asking for procedural parts." On the other hand, this would accuse SQUAD of doing actual planning and for that there is no evidence at all...

[Randazzo]

The fairings are not that bad.

But we need a "sky is falling!" thread for the day.

[p1t1o]

What's worse is that half the time you don't need them....

Hmm, yes, definitely this.

I have recently had a minor discussion about my frustrations about fairings, specifically how they are so draggy, and was reassured by an explanation that showed that even in real life, their purpose is to protect the payload more than reducing drag, and they can significantly alter stability.

So thats fair enough, you design your rocket appropriately, I've accepted it and found them fun to fly with - but since you can fly naked payloads without the fairing, for far less drag and greater stability for no drawback, it is a mental exercise to justify adding the fairing at all.

Giving more parts the "snaps under high dynamic pressure" property could be a way to make fairings relevant again.

Edited September 9, 2015 by p1t1o

[cantab]

I suspect a factor there is that KSP payloads often are pretty aerodynamic themselves. A Kerballed spacecraft is usually a round capsule atop a round fuel tank. There might be some bits on the side but overall it's pretty streamlined. Even the one-Kerbal lander can is at least symmetric. Probes are similarly as often as not basically cylindrical.

Compare that to many real life payloads. The LEM had some seriously irregular angles and wasn't axisymmetric. New Horizons has a boxy triangular shape with the RTGs sticking out of one side.

[Temeter]

Every kind of fairing has it's advantages and disadvantages, just use what's best for you. No point in creating artificial drama, stock is nowhere as bad as you make it.

The only really annoying thing about stock is the inconsistent behaviour around inline fairings. Otoh, proc-fairings are incredibly heavy and (in unusual constructions) sometimes break the game logic.

[Red Iron Crown]

I like the stock fairings. They're easy to make (if a bit fiddly at times), let you view and work inside them after construction, and make nice interstages as well as procedural heatshields in addition to regular fairings.

[Xeldrak]

Well, there is room for improvement, but I would not chime in to this stock-fairing bashing.

[mikegarrison]

What's worse is that half the time you don't need them....

"Half"? I never use fairings. It's not a problem.

[EladDv]

we need a "sky is falling!" thread for the day.

this is actually a good point. and sticky it on the general discussion forum. Red Iron Crown what do you think about it?

[Red Iron Crown]

I wouldn't presume to interfere with the natural occurance or prominence of the complaint thread du jour.

[panzer1b]

The one killer for me is the amount of extreme lag they add especially in the SPH/VAB when mousing over em. Im not sure if this is true, but i believe KSP counts each segment of the fairing as its own unique part. Ive modded the fairings to allow infinite length sections and to have less petals in general (the 3.7m ones have 3 petals instead of overkill 6 as before). Its a bandaid fix but it at least makes them useable in the lag department (which is already bad enough when your ship is 300 parts not counting the 300 part launcher to get that heavy capital ship to eeloo or wherever you want).

Ohh, and whoever said they are unpractical is correct for all but the most unaerodynamic payloads. The fairings seem to add ALOT of drag, and the only thing that makes them worthwhile is if your playload has alot of flat things facing the air direction (such as structural plates that are facing forward, exposed fuel tanks without nose cones, or is extremely weak and prone to being destroyed by aero forces (which are honestly a minimal concern with teh stock game). The only other use is to shield something with alot of wings on it (say a carrier or something with hull made of wings) if its pushed atop a rocket (my personal solution is to have side boosters that pull it kinda (as in payload is well below CoM). Looks awkward but it works great in practice. Then another thing about fairings, is that they seem to be EXCESSIVELY wobbly, needing ALOT of struts between the bottom and top to keep the payload from going all over the place (luckily you can actually have struts go inside a fairing).

They really need to optimize the bloody fairings to make them less laggy. Actually 1.0 as a whole needs massive optimization (hopefully U5 will be at least a bandaid fix), KSP has too much lag in general, and too much unoptimized stuff (resource flow, atmo and aerodynamics, ships above 1000 parts, ect).

The only good thing i can say about fairings is that they add to immersion (more realistic to have a rocket with fairing around payload). That said, being a primarily sci-fi designer, i really do not care about what is deemed 100% realistic. Ohh, and the fairings let you make replicas easier since well, you can shape hulls of your replica capital ships.

[Kerbart]

While far from perfect i don't think they're that bad. You can control their shape better than with procedural fairings, and the clamshell mod* takes care of the popcorn detachment. If Squad decides “to fix one thing†based on what goes on in the forum I'd be very disappointed if that one thing would be fairings. There are far more important things to fix first (which I won't name lest I'd derail the thread)

* “So if you're using a mod why not use the procedural fairings mod?†“Because I've been stuck with too many disappearing ships in the past when a part mod stopped working in a new release. If clamshell stops working I'll have popcorn back but my ships will still be there.â€Â

[Columbia]

They can be useful, a good concept, but it seems to have a lot of setbacks. It needs a cleanup, IMHO. Maybe fairings are inevitably buggy, but there are seriously some areas that can easily be optimized. On my side of the spectrum, the biggest is symmetry.

[godefroi]

I've never had much of a problem with them, but the proc fairings is OH SO MUCH BETTER, and to whoever complained about the weight of proc fairings, last time I used the stock fairings (which could've been right after they were released), the stock fairings were so heavy that they were completely unusable.

[UniQueKakarot]

Never really had any issue with the stock fairings, but then again I rarely use them. I only use them for small probes I make that looks akward, and to make it look like the lifter stage is actually lifting something