Clam Shell or Shatter Fairings?

[Corona688]

Do the LV-N fairings still break in half symmetrically?  I haven't used them for a few versions, but making room for that big fairing was a pain and led to some interesting upside-down top stages.

[Red Iron Crown]

10 minutes ago, Corona688 said:

Do the LV-N fairings still break in half symmetrically?  I haven't used them for a few versions, but making room for that big fairing was a pain and led to some interesting upside-down top stages.

They do, but you can turn them off altogether in the tweakables.

[AlamoVampire]

i still do not know why they insist on such clunky and unfriendly fairings and not just go the way of procedural. I just dont get it. we all know procedural to be superior thanks to its ease of use, replication ability. Show me a single way <aside from it being stock> where the stock "fairings" out perform in any single way against Proc Fairings.

[Superfluous J]

36 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

i still do not know why they insist on such clunky and unfriendly fairings and not just go the way of procedural. I just dont get it. we all know procedural to be superior thanks to its ease of use, replication ability. Show me a single way <aside from it being stock> where the stock "fairings" out perform in any single way against Proc Fairings.

I've not used Procedural Fairings (capitalized to show I'm naming the mod. Note that the stock fairings are also procedural fairings, lowercase letters) since the stock version because to me, they're good enough and I'd rather use stock than a mod if stock is good enough. So, I can't say. One thought, though, do the procedural fairings in the Procedural Fairings mod automatically strut to the payload so it won't wobble outside of them? That's one of my favorite of the newer features in the game.

[foamyesque]

The clamshell-style separation (regardless of the actual number of pieces) is my favourite by miles. The number of pieces depends on exactly how my payload is configured.

For example:

 

:v

[Frybert]

Generally I'll use the modded fairings as stock fairings were clunky and/or buggy for quite some time. That being said the confetti fairings make me feel like I'm sending a party to space. 

[AlamoVampire]

5 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I've not used Procedural Fairings (capitalized to show I'm naming the mod. Note that the stock fairings are also procedural fairings, lowercase letters) since the stock version because to me, they're good enough and I'd rather use stock than a mod if stock is good enough. So, I can't say. One thought, though, do the procedural fairings in the Procedural Fairings mod automatically strut to the payload so it won't wobble outside of them? That's one of my favorite of the newer features in the game.

The Procedural Fairings mod does have struts to the payload, and has a toggle to turn that off if you so choose. I find the stock ATTEMPT at a procedural fairing to have fallen a mile short of the goal. In stead of being 26.2 miles, they got to 25.2 miles and said: good enough. Sorry. No. Not good enough. For a fairing to be considered good <to me at least> it needs to be user friendly, needs to be easy to use, needs to be intuitive. The stock attempt is NONE of this. 

If I make a rocket and use the stock failings and have to take them off after having fiddled and faffed about for 30 minutes trying to make a decent and not fatally sick looking fairing, I am going to be forced into spending yet another 30 minutes to try to replicate and ultimately FAIL to replicate the original fairing. With Procedural Fairings Mod, I can just pull the shell part off, adjust the payload and replace the shell with appropriate symmetry level toggled <for me, that amounts to just 2, cuz, clam shell lol> and in under half a second, the fairing has reformed perfectly. See, the fact you MUST drag the stock failings around and build them manually makes them not easy to use, not intuitive and well, not user friendly, because lets face it, the stock failings tend to allow only so much size before it FORCES you to point it off. And thats the other problem with the stock failings, you can egg it. 

See, THIS is the only style you can achieve with stock failings: 

 

Where as with Procedural Fairings, you can do this style: 

See, this is why the stock failings fall short. too short in my opinion. Just my opinion. Nothing more. nothing less.

[foamyesque]

You can totally do egg-style fairings with the stock fairings. Hell, there's an example in the picture I posted, right above your post. What the devil are you talking about?

[AlamoVampire]

@foamyesque You are thinking CLAM SHELL, as in, single sections from tip to base, divided into 2, 3, 4 or more sections as they separate. What I am talking about is, with the stock failings, you cannot do a rounded smooth top as in my bottom picture, you can achieve a completely blunt and non aerodynamic shell or a pointed shell, that in your picture <near as I can see> break into 3 panels than come off at what looks like 10, 2 and 6 oclock positions, but, I draw your eye to the very front of those fairings in your picture. They make a POINT, a hard POINT at the tip as is shown in the my first picture.

The stock failings have no margin for making a soft rounded nose to them. Point or Blunt flat. Procedural Fairings, has a conic fairing bit for a traditional Delta pointed well, conic nose cone, or a more gentle curving egg like point called, Egg Shell or something to that effect <I do not have KSP loaded at the moment of this post>

[foamyesque]

I thought you were talking about the bottom flaring out; my apologies. You're correct that rounding the nose of the fairing is tricky (it's not completely impossible, but it's a hassle).

[AlamoVampire]

No worries. They need to dump the stock failings and just go with the proc fairings mod. Imo ofc

[Alshain]

You can do egg-style fairings, but it's not as smooth and annoyingly difficult to accomplish and Proc Fairings is way easier.

The stock fairings would be drastically better with some edge smoothing, but in the end I still think I'd like the ProcFairings mod better.

One thing you definitely can not do with stock fairings however is TD&E.  No matter what you will always be missing the 'E'.  You can do this with Proc Fairings (see below), however it does not have a petal fairing, which would be even more accurate to the Apollo craft.  There are several other mods with petal fairings out there though, KW Rocketry has the best Apollo replica I've seen, since it leaves a half static fairing to extract from.  SSTU has one, but from what I've seen of it, it casts off the whole fairing, so it's not much better than stock.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Alshain

[Brownhair2]

I think I'm one of the only people who actually likes the confetti fairings

[SorryDave]

16 hours ago, Brownhair2 said:

I think I'm one of the only people who actually likes the confetti fairings

Nah,

I'm on that page. Just a matter of taste I guess. I'm not as passionate about it as those who requested clamshell fairings be added however. It was not like I thought that switching to clamshell would ruin the immersion for me. At the end of the day I'm glad there is a choice. 

[GoSlash27]

I'm not all that picky myself. A fairing is just something to ditch once the air gets thin enough.

As an aside... does reading the word "shatter" make anyone else instantly think "shadooby", or is it just me?

Best,
-Slashy
 

[AlamoVampire]

Just you @GoSlash27 I think. Lol

[Frozen_Heart]

On ‎11‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 0:46 PM, Mjarf said:

I have a semi-related question: Have they fixed the aerodynamics of fairings yet? Last time I used fairings was in 1.1.2, and it was like having a giant sail on top of the rocket. It flew more stable through the atmosphere without a fairing... I may be using fairings wrong though, there's probably an ideal shape for them or something.

Yep they fixed that. As I use long thing rockets without fins it essentially stopped me playing for that version.

[cubinator]

Didn't our ancestors shatter clams with rocks for food in the distant past?

[Brownhair2]

18 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Didn't our ancestors shatter clams with rocks for food in the distant past?

Yes, and there were little rockets inside