Open fairing "interstages" acting solid to separate craft

[Raptor9]

To premise this topic, I'm not sure if this is a bug, or a limitation of the stock fairing behavior when used as an "interstage".  I'm trying to use an open fairing as a lower fuselage of a cargo lander.  After launching the craft to orbit and jettisoning the bottom cargo bay "plug", I am unable to insert cargo or other craft into the open bay.  IMPORTANT NOTE: Anything jettisoned from the lander can be maneuvered inside the cargo bay just fine, but anything launched separately cannot.  To anyone wanting to reproduce this behavior, you will need to perform two launches.

Anyone that has any thoughts or suggestions, feel free to comment.

@Rune, you might find this of interest since this is the DC-X-style cargo lander I teased you with. 

Edited January 2, 2018 by Raptor9

[redmonddkgamer]

I assume it's a limitation of the stock fairing system, but I'm not sure. Anyway, hyped for a new lander!

[Rune]

Hey! Nice lander you have there. Regarding the fairing issue, I don't think it is ship-dependent, I think it is load-dependent. See, once you reload a ship with a fairing, something happens to it, don't ask me what. You can no longer click through it like you can on first load, and apparently from what you say here, the whole thing becomes a solid part with a single collision mesh. Probably in order to become less computationally intensive, not being hollow. Things I think you should try, to poke the thing into revealing more:

-Do the whole thing after a quicksave/quickload, see if you can still take out and put back in the payload without issues.

-Do the whole thing after a quicksave/quickload, but taking the payload out before the reload.

-Do the thing with another independent craft, but without unloading this one (the whole flight form launch to rendezvous and payload change without changing vessel).

-There is some kind of mod to check part mesh geometries in flight, that could shed more light into the issue... but for the life of me, I can't remember the name. @Azimech & co. used to use it a lot to build stock bearings.

 

Rune. Fairings are much more complicated than they look.

 

[Tyko]

Cool idea! it wouldn't look quite smooth, but structural panels could be used for the sides

[Geschosskopf]

20 hours ago, Raptor9 said:

Anyone that has any thoughts or suggestions, feel free to comment.

Yeah, this is a fairing limitation.  Squad only saw fairings as temporary streamlining attached to expendable boosters.  For permanent streamlining, they gave us service bays.  It never occurred to them to use fairings as service bays, so they didn't write them to work as such.  Rather a bummer for things like this.

On the plus side, a number of mods have service bays that are open on the bottom end.  And I think I've seen some tapered ones.  But I can't swear to that.  Also, the ones I've used often have the same problem with the supposedly open end anyway, unless you only put specific parts inside them that came in the same mod.