Stock "Fairings" vs Procedural Fairings

[foamyesque]

11 minutes ago, tater said:

I managed to figure out interstages in PF, but gave up on that in stock a while ago, though maybe they work...

I think that as part of the supposedly forthcoming improvements in rocket aesthetics they should fix the stock fairings. There is no need to replicate PF, just make stock fairings "not ugly." That seems a pretty low bar to me, to have them not be awful.

 

Stock fairings will snap to the body of anything placed above them. Makes creating interstages dead simple. S'far as looks go, a rounding at the seams would go a long ways IMO.

[tater]

2 minutes ago, foamyesque said:

 

Stock fairings will snap to the body of anything placed above them. Makes creating interstages dead simple. S'far as looks go, a rounding at the seams would go a long ways IMO.

When they first came out, this virtually never worked for me, so ever since I have never bothered even trying that. This is why QA matters. The part itself should be flush, though, that or it should form the bottom arc away from the tank (the SSTU fairing does this) so the fairing looks like it isn't surpassing from a rib.

[foamyesque]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

The part itself should be flush, though, that or it should form the bottom arc away from the tank (the SSTU fairing does this) so the fairing looks like it isn't surpassing from a rib.

Should it?

 

[tater]

2 minutes ago, foamyesque said:

Should it?

 

Yes, your image shows exactly what I mean. To look like stock, the white band above ULA would have to be a huge, textured rib. The lower part if the actual fairing (the bit that angles out) should BE the fairing part before you build the fairing.

This does show, though, that sharp transitions can look OK, however. The rounded nose help a lot, though.

Edited August 17, 2016 by tater

[foamyesque]

10 minutes ago, tater said:

Yes, your image shows exactly what I mean. To look like stock, the white band above ULA would have to be a huge, textured rib. The lower part if the actual fairing (the bt that angles out) should BE the fairing part before you build the fairing.

 

Why should it? There's times where I don't need a flared fairing -- for example, if what I'm putting inside it is smaller than the fairing's base, which isn't infrequent.

 

The stock fairings are basically flush, btw. There's a bit of flare, but on the 1.25m it's flush with a 1.25m decoupler, with the 2.5m it's less than the decoupler, and with the 3.75m it's unnoticeable relative to the diameter of the tank unless you're specifically looking for it.

Edited August 17, 2016 by foamyesque

[Alshain]

I think what @tater is saying is the fairing base should not be visible once the fairing is attached/built.  It's distracting in appearance.  Part of that is simply the texture though.  Most of the decouplers aren't much better.

 

Edited August 17, 2016 by Alshain

[Crown]

I like the stock fairings

[tater]

2 minutes ago, foamyesque said:

Why should it? There's times where I don't need a flared fairing -- for example, if what I'm putting inside it is smaller than the fairing's base, which isn't infrequent.

The stock fairings are basically flush, btw. There's a bit of flare; on the 1.25m it's flush with a 1.25m decoupler, with the 2.5m it's less than the decoupler, and with the 3.75m it's unnoticeable relative to the diameter of the tank unless you're specifically looking for it.

The fairing base part should be exactly the same size as a tank body at the same diameter. Nothing raised at all. So in your image, the white band above ULA would work as the base part. The current part is a raised, silver/gray ribbed looking, ugly part that is in no way flush with the tank. 

The ribs around the 2.5m, ugly tanks should not exist, either (or on any part, frankly).

[Alshain]

Here is an actual schematic of the SpaceX Fairing.  Note the adapter.

Edited August 17, 2016 by Alshain

[foamyesque]

What kind of goofball puts the decoupler outside the fairing?

 

 

You put the decoupler inside the fairing, so a. you eject the fairing base and b. it's hidden.

3 minutes ago, tater said:

The fairing base part should be exactly the same size as a tank body at the same diameter. Nothing raised at all. So in your image, the white band above ULA would work as the base part. The current part is a raised, silver/gray ribbed looking, ugly part that is in no way flush with the tank. 

The ribs around the 2.5m, ugly tanks should not exist, either (or on any part, frankly).

You realize the white band is not flush with the tank, right? To very closely the same amount that KSP's aren't? And that that bit of flare on the base plate is what allows you to build interstages without hitting collision problems? Have you actually even looked at the flare on the stock fairing bases here?

It's taller than it should be (in the case of the 1.25m, less so the 2.5m and 3.75m because it looks more in proportion to their width), but it's not too wide. You're complaining about a problem that doesn't exist.

[tater]

Make a fairing. Take a screenshot of it that matches an image (close) of a real fairing. Does the stock fairing or base look like the real picture? Do the same with mods that add fairings. Which look more like real photographs? Unless your answer is "stock" there's nothing more for you to say in defense of the awful stock part.

EDIT: @foamyesque, I was wrong about the actual shape of the part, mea culpa, I never use them. They could blend in if the texture was not absurd, that's really the problem.

Edited August 17, 2016 by tater

[Andem]

I definitely prefer PF. Opinion, not an argument.

[metl]

36 minutes ago, tater said:

Make a fairing. Take a screenshot of it that matches an image (close) of a real fairing. Does the stock fairing or base look like the real picture? Do the same with mods that add fairings. Which look more like real photographs? Unless your answer is "stock" there's nothing more for you to say in defense of the awful stock part.

Except stock parts don't really match real-life counterparts as it is, so what is the point of your argument? That in a video game featuring little green men flying rockets in a made-up galaxy, stock fairings should match real-life couterparts? That's not any argument at all.

I have never had any issues with the stock fairing system (aside from the brief time when interstages were tough to make work in the beginning, you know back when the game was still considered "in development.".) They work, they fit in aesthetically with all the other mismatched parts, and being hung up on how many pieces they break into is irrelevant to me. I have no need for Procedural fairings. If you are using several part mods and want a specific look to your rocket, then obviously you need to use it, just like you are using the other modded parts. With that being the case, why get all bent out of shape towards many of us that see nothing wrong with the stock option for our purposes?

Bottom line is, neither choice is superior to the other. They both serve the exact same purpose, they just achieve it in different ways.

[tater]

So I just got home and made a few fairings. I'll admit that I was wrong about the shape of the base part---I realized that they are so ugly that I haven't used them in many, many months at all, possibly approaching a year.

The principal problem is actually their texture. The angled, stripy pattern makes them look like they are like a length of hemp rope, when in fact they are flat. I honestly remembered them as having bumps along them for this reason. If the part was the same color as the fairing, 99% of the problems would go away. There is a beveled edge top and bottom that needs to go away, but it's pretty tiny.

[AlamoVampire]

@metl The bottom true bottom line is: 1. Stock fairings explode which is ugly. Period. 2. Stock is non intuitive. 3. Stock do not remember deploy preference between confetti or clam. 4. Stock is too limited in size.

5. Procedural is aesthetically pleasing. 6. Procedural is intuitive. 7. Procedural deploys only clam style, petal count tbd by user. 8. Procedural is NOT limited in size until you reach 50 METERS WIDE AT BASE and can go exceptionally tall. 

9. Stock is limited to conical only unless you have unlimited patience. 

10. Procedural isnt. Conical? Check. Egg shaped? Check.

this limited list makes Procedural superior. Fact is fact. Opinion cant change fact.

[stibbons]

Your list of "facts" is full of opinions. 

[metl]

4 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

@metl The bottom true bottom line is: 1. Stock fairings explode which is ugly. Subjective Period. 2. Stock is non intuitive. Subjective 3. Stock do not remember deploy preference between confetti or clam. (Not an issue for many, has no bearing on making one or the other functionally superior) 4. Stock is too limited in size. Subjective

5. Procedural is aesthetically pleasing. Subjective 6. Procedural is intuitive. Subjective 7. Procedural deploys only clam style, petal count tbd by user. (limited? While a fact, again has no bearing on functionality, only subjective aesthetics) 8. Procedural is NOT limited in size until you reach 50 METERS WIDE AT BASE (That would make it a rocket of what? Roughly half the width of a football field? And that's a valid argument for one being more real? I haven't seen NASA trying to launch any football fields into orbit...) and can go exceptionally tall. (So still limited)

9. Stock is limited to conical only unless you have unlimited patience. Subjective

10. Procedural isnt. Conical? Check. Egg shaped? Check. (Once again, no bearing on functionality, only subjective aesthetics.)

this limited list makes Procedural superior.Different, but functionally the same) Fact Opinion is not fact. Opinion cant change fact. (At least we agree on that.)

Your opinions are missing a few facts there, but that's okay. They're your opinions and I subjectively choose to disagree with them.

Edited August 18, 2016 by metl

[Starwaster]

4 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

@metl The bottom true bottom line is: 1. Stock fairings explode which is ugly. Period. 2. Stock is non intuitive. 3. Stock do not remember deploy preference between confetti or clam. 4. Stock is too limited in size.

5. Procedural is aesthetically pleasing. 6. Procedural is intuitive. 7. Procedural deploys only clam style, petal count tbd by user. 8. Procedural is NOT limited in size until you reach 50 METERS WIDE AT BASE and can go exceptionally tall. 

9. Stock is limited to conical only unless you have unlimited patience. 

10. Procedural isnt. Conical? Check. Egg shaped? Check.

this limited list makes Procedural superior. Fact is fact. Opinion cant change fact.

The only thing I see any point in addressing here is the clamshell issue. Easy enough to correct.

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleProceduralFairing]]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleProceduralFairing]
	{
		%useClamshell = True
	}
}

As for the rest, sorry, but claiming opinions as fact is erroneous; the final sentence in your post was rather ironic in that regard. 

[AlamoVampire]

For those who are claiming I am calling opinions as facts. I dare you to duplicate the following using ONLY the STOCK fairing. If you can do this cleanly, I will go away from this thread. If you cannot, then, well, we have established a solid fact.

Can stock do this? Yes, this is an absurd example, but, this took me less than 30 seconds.

The sizes are 1.25 meter up to 15 meters. I stopped there because the VAB was running out of camera space.

Can you do this with STOCK ONLY fairings? I cannot.

@metl They are NOT functionally the same. To establish a fairing with the stock ones, I must click at EACH LEVEL of the fairing. With Procedural, I place a shell part on a node, establish desired symmetry mode, and click ONCE. The entire fairing is DONE. No fiddling, no fussing, no faffing about. DONE. I will grant you only ONE thing, and ONE THING ONLY: BOTH fairings, stock and Procedural protect payloads from the initial launch environment until it is safe to remove said protection. 

Functionality comes in many flavors kind sir. Build Functionality, Editable Functionality, Reproductive Functionality <in this case, ease of removing the entire thing, editing a payload and then replacing the fairing. Stock afaik you must remove the base, with PF, just the petal bit needs to come off, base remains, and the petal holds its shape until replaced, again, stock, does NOT do this. It "explodes" to show you the inside, but this can hamper work, and is yet another negative point on stock> Mission Functionality. Let us take a walk through each.

Build Functionality: Both: Place fairing base at desired location. So far, yes, same. Adjust payload. PF: Set Symmetry, place Conical or Egg Shaped Fairing part. DONE. Stock: click base, then click it, then drag, then click the level and repeat. Now we have achieved different functionalities. One takes 2 seconds max. The other? depending on how picky you are, could take 30 or more seconds. In the end, with STOCK, you are left with a fairly ugly, less than smooth conical fairing. In the end with PF you are left with either a conical or egg shaped SMOOTH fairing. Again, different functionalities here.

Editable Functionality: Stock has what 1 or 2 tweaks, clam shell vs confetti? Procedural has too many to list here, but suffice it to say, you are NOT nearly as limited as you are with stock. Different Editable Functionality.

Reproductive Functionality: Stock, afaik <have not used the stock ones since the day after they came out> you gotta restart if you change the payloads shape or size beyond the shape of fairing you already made. PF: take the shell off, replace and it auto reforms. Different Editable Functionality. Also, for clarity, it is nearly impossible to duplicate the fairing over and over with stock should you need to. With PF, set it, and auto form, or reforms automatically depending on the nature of payload edit.

Mission Functionality: 3 forms, Launch, Re-entry and Interstage. As for the first 2, both share same functionality to a point. Payload protection during those processes <not sure if you can use stock as a makeshift heat shield, never tried, so, benefit of doubt on this one to stock> However, when the time comes to stage them, unless you are hyper vigilant with your builds, the stocks refuse to remember your preference, and if clamshell is the preference and you slip and forget? hello confetti. PF? ALWAYS clamshell, only choice you need to make is how many petals. This next one is where PF is lightyears ahead in superiority. Interstage. Use the interstage base, adjust the tweak sliders to the shape and size required, place shell, and done. Stock? according to alshain, its incredibly difficult if not impossible.

Thank you for walking with me.

Edited August 18, 2016 by AlamoVampire

[Atlas2342]

Well, whatever the case, I still like stock fairings...

[Superfluous J]

I think the problem here, @AlamoVampire, is that you absolutely love the Procedural Fairings mod and think that we all love stock fairings to the same extent. At least for me, that's not the case. I just don't hate them as much as you do.

Stock fairings work well enough for me in every single case, except when they were not big enough which I consider a design constraint that I must work around. I don't feel the need to install a mod to get around that because:

a) It's not difficult to do.
b) I almost never go outside the limits imposed.
c) When I DO go outside those limits, it's generally because I didn't make my rocket well enough, and the required redesign results in a better rocket.

I will tell you this, though: I much, much prefer clicking out a fairing to placing a fairing part onto a floating node, even though the clicking part is more fidgety. I'm more in control of it. I would like a "smooth" option, though, and suspect the only reason that's not been modded into the game is that all the people who know how and want it, use the mod that already exists

[cfds]

29 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I much, much prefer clicking out a fairing to placing a fairing part onto a floating node

Isn't the only floating node in PF on the interstage adapter? The fairing element itself has to be placed on one of the nodes at the sides of the fairing base.

[Superfluous J]

8 minutes ago, cfds said:

Isn't the only floating node in PF on the interstage adapter? The fairing element itself has to be placed on one of the nodes at the sides of the fairing base.

Maybe. It's been over a year (since 1.0 came out) since I've used PF. I just have vague memories of sticking a half-cylinder where it doesn't look like one should go, and having a fairing magically appear. It was nice that it got me a fairing, but other than that I was happy to not have to do it anymore.

Edited August 18, 2016 by 5thHorseman
I didn't realize 1.0 had only been out for a bit over a year.

[AlamoVampire]

@5thHorseman I make no such assumption. 

[Snark]

6 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

@5thHorseman I make no such assumption. 

Maybe not explicitly so... buyt Horseman does have a point.

You appear to be making an objective argument ("the game should do X instead of Y") that's based on your personal preference ("I like X instead of Y.")  And that's simply not possible to do in any valid fashion, because tastes differ.

Different people like different things.  It's virtually impossible to say that one thing is "unambiguously better" than another when matters of taste enter into it.  Something that you think is an advantage, would actually be less preferable to someone else.

To take just one example:  Is more automation in the game a good thing?  Or  bad thing?  Answer:  It can be one or the other, depending on the player.

Some people like more automation:  they view the small fiddly bits of KSP as annoying distractions that get in the way of what they consider to be the "real" fun of KSP.  "I just want to use my creativity to conceive of this mission to Duna, and then fly it there.  I don't want to have to spend all this tedious time mucking around with <manual task>."

On the other hand, some people like less automation.  I don't mean that they simply don't care about it or need it, I mean they actively dislike automation and would be unhappy if it were added.  They like those "little fiddly bits".  In fact, they consider those little fiddly bits to be a major part of the whole point of KSP.  Adding automation to take away the fiddly bits would be taking away the fun.  So for such a person, adding more automation would be exactly, precisely the wrong thing to do.

Finding those "fiddly bits" to be tedious is a big part of the reason why some people like mods such as MechJeb and Procedural Fairings:  those mods make certain repetitive manual tasks a lot more automated and take less time.  The computer does stuff for you, instead of having to do it yourself.  From the various things you've posted, I gather that you're strongly in the "more automation" camp.

On the other hand, someone who hates automation-- such as myself-- likes doing the manual tasks.  That's why such people choose not to run MechJeb or Procedural Fairings.  For example, I like building fairings manually.  I like having to think about my payload, and carefully construct a fairing around it.  Having something that just automagically did it for me would be a letdown and would reduce my enjoyment of the game.

And the critical thing to realize here is that neither one of those two viewpoints is "wrong", or better than the other.

I won't bother to address all your individual points about stock fairings versus procedural ones, because essentially anything that you (or anyone else) can possibly say about this topic just boils down to:

"I think KSP should do <thing> because I like it."

To which anyone who disagrees can simply say:

"But I think KSP should not do <thing> because I dislike it."

 

...And it's completely pointless for anyone on either side of that argument to try to argue with the other one, because it's impossible to "convince" somebody to like something that they don't.  You might as well argue about which ice cream flavor is "better".  (Well, chocolate ice cream is clearly better than vanilla, because it has chocolate in it and vanilla doesn't!  I don't understand why foolish people keep eating vanilla ice cream when it clearly has less chocolate and is therefore inferior!)

Neither you nor anyone else is in any position to say that procedural fairings are "better" than stock ones, or vice versa, since that implies that it's possible to make some sort of objective determination, which it isn't.  All you can really say is that you, personally, happen to like them better.

If you want to make an argument that they should go into the game, therefore, you're going about it all wrong.  Any approach that's based on to trying to "prove" a subjective opinion based on other subjective opinions is a lost cause from the start.

If you really want to try to make a point, I'd suggest doing a poll instead.  "Which do you like?  Procedural fairings or stock fairings?"  With options of "strongly prefer A", "somewhat prefer A", "don't care", "somewhat prefer B", and "strongly prefer B".  And, of course, a neutrally worded post to go with the poll, so as to have some credibility.

(And maybe a second question, "What would you like Squad to do with the stock fairings?", with options of "Get rid of them and make them procedural", "They're fine as they are", "Keep them, but tweak the visual style and/or UI".)

At least then you'd be in a position to say "most KSP players who responded to the poll prefer X", which is a valid statement, rather than "X is better" based on your personal opinion, which isn't going to convince anyone of anything (other than telling them what you happen to like).

And then you can start the ball rolling by voting "strongly prefer procedural fairings", and I can vote "strongly prefer stock fairings", and everyone else can vote according to their tastes. 

(And it will still prove nothing, of course, since it's highly unscientific and selection bias is an inherent and basically unsolvable problem of forum polls, exacerbated by small sample sizes.  But it would still be interesting, though not authoritative.)