[1.8+] Procedural Fairings

[ValiZockt]

2 hours ago, Cucco-Master said:

Restock also breaks the stock fairings in 1.10.0. Apparently there is also an issue that can't be fixed by mods and would require a stock fix in 1.10.1.

It can be fixed, it's just not worth it. In 1.10.0, KSP now expects the fairing base to be named "Mesh" in the Model file. The KSP Devs already announced that they will revert this change.

[AlamoVampire]

so my question is, given what looks to have been said on july 8 by valizockt above this post, my question is: do proc fairings work for 1.10 or are in need of either mod patch or a dev change revert in ksp itself?

222907232020

[DeadJohn]

I have some questions triggered by the biggest fairing I've ever needed. It's a huge egg-shaped fairing to carry the largest Stockalike Station Parts 'Mercury' centrifuge. My base ring is 7.5m with the widest portion of the egg set to 12m. This is with KSP 1.9.1.

1a) When I set the base ring to 7.5m, the 2 nodes for fairings scale up huge, and new fairings from the part menu refuse to snap to those nodes. Is this a known issue?

1b) My workaround for 1a is to make the ring smaller, attach a single fairing part to it, and scale back up. I then finish my internal construction, reshape the single fairing as needed, then alt-click to copy the fairing to the other node on the base ring. It's an easy workaround after I figured it out. Is there a better way?

2a) The "Density" parameter on the fairing changes the mass and cost. Does it have any other effects?

2b) Reducing density drops the mass as well as the cost. For game balance, maybe a lighter fairing should be more expensive. Thoughts?

 

 

Edited August 1, 2020 by DeadJohn

[skzbr]

In this mod is possbile to do an automatic anex fairing? for eg; put 2 or 3 satelites sequentialy and the structure is automaticly inserted by the mod? just like vanilla

[darthgently]

First, thanks for maintaining these parts.  Often with using the procedural hollow truss adapter below a stage with an engine I end up with a gap at the top of the fairings that I can't get rid of and it seems to affect the stability of the fairings (falling off on the launch pad prior to launch etc).  Other times the fairings do fine, unless I make them too long (trying to get rid of the gap) and they hang up on the next stage up.  Clearly I am missing something in my understanding on how to use these as others don't appear to have this issue.  A clue, a clue, my kingdom for a clue!

[edit] as usual, after asking publicly it somehow engages another part of my brain and I'm starting to maybe see through some of this.  Is the fact that I'm trying to use this part like an engine shroud (for situations where a normal shroud isn't working) the heart of this?  The fairing seems to be stopping roughly at the top of the engine leaving a gap to the tank above.  So what *is* the general solution for engines that don't have shrouds or the shrouds that are designed for them are junk?

Edited August 19, 2020 by darthgently

[matiasb]

Procedural Fairings also replaces my stock fairings.

Besides that, theres this weird purple triangle in the fairing base.

Anyone else has these problems?

[Michaelo90]

I'm having problems with excessive drag. The fairings themselves are fine, but the part below the fairing base gets a lot more drag than normal. It seems to have about 100x more drag than when I use a stock fairing. Does anyone else have the same problem? I'm running PF 1.8.3 with KSP 1.9.1.

Other than that, I love the mod. It makes fairings so much easier and they look much better too. But when they actually create drag, they're useless

[darthgently]

I'm clearly not using the procedural interstage fairing adapter correctly.  I get to orbit, drop the fairings with chutes prior to circularization so they deorbit for Stage Recovery, but I don't want to decouple the lowest payload yet so I have "decouple with fairings gone" set to no.  But when I get to orbit, I can't seem to get the lowest payload to decouple.  It just hangs there connected to the fairing by some invisible link.  I got the top node to decouple using the r-click fairing adapter menu, but there is no simple 'decouple' option in the r-click menu for me.  Am I doing something wrong or reporting a bug; idk.  If a bug, I'll try to get more info

[OrbitalManeuvers]

21 hours ago, darthgently said:

I'm clearly not using the procedural interstage fairing adapter correctly.  I get to orbit, drop the fairings with chutes prior to circularization so they deorbit for Stage Recovery, but I don't want to decouple the lowest payload yet so I have "decouple with fairings gone" set to no.  But when I get to orbit, I can't seem to get the lowest payload to decouple.  It just hangs there connected to the fairing by some invisible link.  I got the top node to decouple using the r-click fairing adapter menu, but there is no simple 'decouple' option in the r-click menu for me.  Am I doing something wrong or reporting a bug; idk.  If a bug, I'll try to get more info

It's probably super easy to understand how it works if you can read part CFG files, which I'm not so great at. But, I've never attached something directly to the fairing base without using a decoupler there. The PAW on items like this, and the way they behave in the VAB's staging area, is less than intuitive to me. But from what I can see, the only real decouple action is for the top node to decouple from whatever is above the fairings. The payload that sits on the fairing base itself needs a decoupler. The "decouple with fairings gone" only controls the top node.

[darthgently]

2 minutes ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

It's probably super easy to understand how it works if you can read part CFG files, which I'm not so great at. But, I've never attached something directly to the fairing base without using a decoupler there. The PAW on items like this, and the way they behave in the VAB's staging area, is less than intuitive to me. But from what I can see, the only real decouple action is for the top node to decouple from whatever is above the fairings. The payload that sits on the fairing base itself needs a decoupler. The "decouple with fairings gone" only controls the top node.

Thanks for the sanity check.  I've since found success putting a docking port on the top of the fairing base facing up and another pointing down on bottom of my lower payload, clicking them together in the VAB, and just manually undocking them at the right time.  It's a reusable 2nd stage and often has quite a bit of fuel left in it so I want the option to redock and go somewhere with it not sent back down right away.  All in all, I love the heck out of these procedural parts, but still see some interesting log messages surrounding them, often with regards to being unable to load a simulation related resource and then in the editor it can be hard to get them to connect in an intuitive way to other things or to connect things to them at times.  My wish list:  A procedural service bay; I don't care if it is just a modified interstage fairing adapter with a fairing section (or sections) that disappear and reappear when you "open" and "close" it; no animation required, but the height of the adapter itself needs to short else the point of having a short and wide service bay  is lost to me, lol.  

[darthgently]

On 8/1/2020 at 2:24 PM, DeadJohn said:

I have some questions triggered by the biggest fairing I've ever needed. It's a huge egg-shaped fairing to carry the largest Stockalike Station Parts 'Mercury' centrifuge. My base ring is 7.5m with the widest portion of the egg set to 12m. This is with KSP 1.9.1.

1a) When I set the base ring to 7.5m, the 2 nodes for fairings scale up huge, and new fairings from the part menu refuse to snap to those nodes. Is this a known issue?

1b) My workaround for 1a is to make the ring smaller, attach a single fairing part to it, and scale back up. I then finish my internal construction, reshape the single fairing as needed, then alt-click to copy the fairing to the other node on the base ring. It's an easy workaround after I figured it out. Is there a better way?

2a) The "Density" parameter on the fairing changes the mass and cost. Does it have any other effects?

2b) Reducing density drops the mass as well as the cost. For game balance, maybe a lighter fairing should be more expensive. Thoughts?

 

 

The "cost" of a less dense fairing is that it should be more fragile and so riskier to use in my view.  I don't see why it should cost more if there are less materials put into it, or less labor (possibly) if fewer "layers" have to be sprayed or laminated on (imagineering here).  I might try a super thin fairing on a very fast rising rocket to see if it breaks up easier than a denser one

Edited August 27, 2020 by darthgently

[DStaal]

5 minutes ago, darthgently said:

The "cost" of a less dense fairing is that it should be more fragile and so riskier to use in my view.  I don't see why it should cost more if there are less materials put into it, or less labor (possibly) if fewer "layers" have to be sprayed or laminated on (imagineering here).  I might try a super thin fairing on a very fast rising rocket to see if it breaks up easier than a denser one

I think the idea of increasing the cost would be that it was being made out of more expensive materials - You could make fairing out of aluminum steel, or you could make it out of carbon fiber, and get the same strength - but the former likely would have higher mass.

[darthgently]

6 minutes ago, DStaal said:

I think the idea of increasing the cost would be that it was being made out of more expensive materials - You could make fairing out of aluminum steel, or you could make it out of carbon fiber, and get the same strength - but the former likely would have higher mass.

Ok, so in that case a thinner fairing will hold up just as well as a thicker on at max Q on a fast rocket; I think I'll see what happens.  If so, then I agree, it should cost more.  But I got the impression from some in-game description that it was a spray-foam product, in which case denser/thicker would cost more and thinner would just be less material.  I could see it going either  way depending on the interpretation.  I could see multiple options in a matrix: high cost material vs low cost material and then density and/or thickness.  I mean if someone knows they are launching a very slow mover (ie: Apollo) why would they go for expensive and heavy if cheap and light is available?

Edited August 27, 2020 by darthgently

[DeadJohn]

45 minutes ago, darthgently said:

Ok, so in that case a thinner fairing will hold up just as well as a thicker on at max Q on a fast rocket; I think I'll see what happens.  If so, then I agree, it should cost more.  But I got the impression from some in-game description that it was a spray-foam product, in which case denser/thicker would cost more and thinner would just be less material.  I could see it going either  way depending on the interpretation.  I could see multiple options in a matrix: high cost material vs low cost material and then density and/or thickness.  I mean if someone knows they are launching a very slow mover (ie: Apollo) why would they go for expensive and heavy if cheap and light is available?

With KSP physics, it seems like there's no reason to not always set the lowest density, making fairings less expensive and lighter at the same time. It's near impossible to explode during a normal, efficient ascent because fairings are aerodynamic and heat resistant.

Fairings aren't ablative like heat shields are. With heat shields, a heavier and more expensive shield resists more heat.

I'm still curious why density is even a setting. I haven't seen any significant discussion on that parameter. It's almost like a cheat slider for reducing mass, but maybe it has more effects that I just haven't noticed.

Going back to my initial thoughts, making more advanced, lighter fairings cost more would probably be a relatively easy mod change if the mod owner agrees with the concept, since density already affects part mass. Doing other stuff, such as having density adjust the heat rating, would probably need bigger code changes.

It's not a big deal even if nothing is changed. I can just leave the slider at the default.

 

 

Edited August 27, 2020 by DeadJohn

[darthgently]

2 minutes ago, DeadJohn said:

With KSP physics, it seems like there's no reason to not always set the lowest density, making fairings less expensive and lighter at the same time. It's near impossible to explode during a normal, efficient ascent because fairings are aerodynamic and heat resistant.

Fairings aren't ablative like heat shields are. With heat shields, a heavier and more expensive shield resists more heat.

I'm still curious why density is even a setting. I haven't seen any significant discussion on that parameter. It's almost like a cheat slider for reducing mass, but maybe it has more effects that I just haven't noticed.

 

 

I've had long payloads tilt out of the stock AEFF1 and had to use tricks to get struts from the payload to the inside of the fairing.  I'm wondering if a denser fairing can support the payload better on a noodle rocket; assuming the fairing struts are turned on

[darthgently]

On 8/27/2020 at 12:04 PM, DeadJohn said:

With KSP physics, it seems like there's no reason to not always set the lowest density, making fairings less expensive and lighter at the same time. It's near impossible to explode during a normal, efficient ascent because fairings are aerodynamic and heat resistant.

Fairings aren't ablative like heat shields are. With heat shields, a heavier and more expensive shield resists more heat.

I'm still curious why density is even a setting. I haven't seen any significant discussion on that parameter. It's almost like a cheat slider for reducing mass, but maybe it has more effects that I just haven't noticed.

Going back to my initial thoughts, making more advanced, lighter fairings cost more would probably be a relatively easy mod change if the mod owner agrees with the concept, since density already affects part mass. Doing other stuff, such as having density adjust the heat rating, would probably need bigger code changes.

It's not a big deal even if nothing is changed. I can just leave the slider at the default.

 

 

From my informal testing over my last few launches, less dense/thinner fairings are more susceptible to failure on rapid ascents or getting to far off prograde when passing mach 1 etc.  It isn't heat, but aero that seems to buffet them into breaking free.  But there are other issues with my install, so that is all correlational evidence and not exhaustive

Edited September 6, 2020 by darthgently

[AlamoVampire]

@siimav or anyone really, does procedural fairings currently function with the current version of KSP? All I can find is the version for 1.9.X and if I am reading everything right, it seems like it does, yet does not work with 1.10 with no real info on if 1.10.1 is compatible? Any help would be greatly appreciated

005909172020

it would seem that in the current version of KSP <as of this edit at the least> the version of procedural fairings for KSP 1.9.X seems to be functional. Admittedly, I have used 2 sets of fairings from PF since my post at 0059, and both seemed to function w/out errors. This said, I am going to keep an eye on it.  

edited at 033709172020

Edited September 17, 2020 by AlamoVampire

[Murdabenne]

@pap1723 may want to update the title of the thread?  I thiink these are marked to run under at least 1.10.9 but include previous releases from 1.8.0 all the way to 1.10.99 per CKAN. Title only says 1.7.3

[Astrofox]

Not sure if this question has been asked here before, or if I've managed to skip over a technical detail, but what exactly is meant by fairing nose-height ratio? What is this ratio with respect to; the base diameter of the fairing?

[xebx]

This is a very usefull mod, that allows procedural boattails, interstage payload and top payload. I guess i don't have a rocket that doesn't use this mod.

One of them (a stupid one) was using a 10.2 meters diameter x 80 meters height fairing and no failure all good. (note that my MJ is always set to limit dynamic pressure under 20000Pa and acceleration under 4G)

But like others said there are a few weird things :

- internal decoupler doesn't work and tend to mess with MJ deltaV, i've removed every decoupler module from all PF parts (using // in original files and RO patch files) -> problem solved

- setting the ejection power and torque is messy, i had one rocket where the fairing would systematically hit the nearest bottom fuel tank even if i gave it more than enough room to move away and tried to tweak ejection values.

- you can't put back a fairing on a flipped upside down boattail, you need to detach the fairing base, flip it up, reattach it to your rocket, reattach the fairing, detach the fairing base, flip it down and reattach it to your rocket. (not a big problem but annoying)

- at large diameters the fairing base (simple ring or hollow ring) becomes too high, i adjusted it : height is 50% original for simple ring, and 90% for hollow ring. (the 2nd parameter is modified for : scale, node stack top and node stack connectors) -> it looks like it's working.

Edited January 29, 2021 by xebx

[CardZLol]

On 8/21/2020 at 2:56 PM, matiasb said:

Procedural Fairings also replaces my stock fairings.

Besides that, theres this weird purple triangle in the fairing base.

Anyone else has these problems?

Same problem here, did you find any fix?

[Frostiken]

On 3/20/2021 at 11:10 AM, CardZLol said:

Same problem here, did you find any fix?

This is 100% caused by the 'Procedural Fairings for Everything' mod. 

[canisin]

Hi! I am using procedural fairing for the first time and I loved using the procedural fairings instead of building manual fairings with the stock fairings. Now, I want to build a rocket with a small diameter engine for its upper stage, which feels like a good idea with the cryogenic engine mod's less dense fuels. Previously I would use the stock engine plates introduced by the Making History expansion. With my shiny new PF mod, now I want to use an interstage adapter for the same purpose. I have made a few experiments in the VAB but honestly I came over to the forums before actually launching anything.

I found that I might be able to use an interstage adapter as an engine plate in one of two ways: (both descriptions are from the perspective of building a rocket from the top towards the bottom)

- Place an inverted interstage adapter before the engine, stick the engine to the interstage's node, and build the rest of the rocket from the interstage's decoupling node. You need to enable fuel crossfeed on the interstege for this to work.
- Stick the engine to the bottom of your tank as usual, then place an interstage underneath it by connecting the interstage's decoupling node to the engine's bottom node. You need to lower the height parameter and increase the extra height parameter of the interstage to make this work. You need to fiddle with the extra height parameter to make the fairings connect nicely with the tank above.

The first alternative feels wrong because I have to invert the interstage, enable crossfeed and most importantly you have to carry the interstage node around after decoupling it.

The second alternative feels a bit more natural, but I don't look forward to fiddling with the extra height paramater to get a nice seal on the fairing.

What does everyone else do? Is this a common use case of an interstage adapter? Does anyone have any advice or tips to share?
Or am I completely off the mark and need to be using the procedural engine plate for this purpose? Or both even? I don't think that the procedural engine plate has a connection node like the stock one does.

Thanks in advance for any responses!!

Edited June 3, 2021 by canisin

[Spaceman.Spiff]

1 hour ago, canisin said:

What does everyone else do? Is this a common use case of an interstage adapter? Does anyone have any advice or tips to share?

Use the second option.
That way you drop the extra mass with the stage. 

[protonv]

Does this mod still work with 1.11?