[1.3.1] Ferram Aerospace Research: v0.15.9.1 "Liepmann" 4/2/18

[ferram4]

@adesw: That means that something is breaking horribly during load. Make sure that you can reproduce it with the most recent version of FAR and then submit an output_log.txt

@Jobin: Yes. It's helpful, isn't it? At some point I have to make it 6-DOF instead of doing the longitudinal-lateral stuff, but that's for another time.

@Vaporized Steel: No, unfortunately. It might actually be more the engines thrust vectoring sideways though, since I've seen that cause some weird issues in yaw and roll. I'd say the thing to do is to make sure that the control surfaces are assigned to their axes properly and avoid using any SAS, since it's always been off with FAR, and then you're throwing one of the worst aerodynamic configurations at it that you can find.

[Wheffle]

First off, awesome mod. I'm in love.

Secondly, I found that FAR adds extra part information in the right-click pop-in menus during flight, looks like it's center of mass, center of lift, etc. measurements in real-time. This is what I'm talking about:

Is there any way to turn this off? It really clutters my screen and sometimes makes it hard to get a crew report or review science data.

Thanks

[ferram4]

It's off by default in the latest version. You should update, and then you can change things in the debug menu in the space center scene if you want them there.

[Drew Kerman]

Hey ferram!

Can you please include a direct link to the Wiki in the OP? Thanks!

[niel kerstrong]

is there a way to turn off joints breaking due to aerodynamic stress? It doesn't work well with clipped parts and has been messing up some of my designs. thanks.

[MAKC]

is there a way to turn off joints breaking due to aerodynamic stress? It doesn't work well with clipped parts and has been messing up some of my designs. thanks.

Click the FAR icon when you are overlooking the KSC.

ferram, can we get a lower-drag version for AJE? I am making real-sized planes and they just have too much drag to even push past M1 with a TWR of over 1.

Edited June 3, 2014 by MAKC

[R0cketC0der]

Click the FAR icon when you are overlooking the KSC.

ferram, can we get a lower-drag version for AJE? I am making real-sized planes and they just have too much drag to even push past M1 with a TWR of over 1.

To fly over Mach 1 you gotta get some altitude. Barely any reallife planes which can fly supersonic at higher altitudes can fly supersonic at sea level. Try flying your plane up to about 15,000m and try flying over Mach 1 again.

[MAKC]

To fly over Mach 1 you gotta get some altitude. Barely any reallife planes which can fly supersonic at higher altitudes can fly supersonic at sea level. Try flying your plane up to about 15,000m and try flying over Mach 1 again.

I dunno man, maybe you are right but I also see a lot of people who have been to airshows saying that a lot of modern fighter jets have sea-level supersonic capability, that they have witnessed it first hand. Plus there are the famous vids of F-18s going supersonic a few meters above the sea.

[Aedile]

I have a question about big wings and roll.

It seems like Lbeta will go from really big neggative (can't roll at all) to really big positive (will roll crazy and lose control), and this will change with speed, usually somewhere between 1.3-2 being a disaster. Any tips how to keep this reasonable?

[NathanKell]

Uh, I've hit 3.2 at sea level. Just gotta be careful.

Here's something at 2.4.

[Jack_Aubrey]

I'm a slow learner, it almost taking all my patience....

I just find something that to me the tri-coupler looks weird, the CoL move from the line of symmetry axis to one side.... this effect doesn't feel right; and now a few pictures:

I'm not an aeronautical engineer but something keeps telling me that shouldn't happens to the CoL...

[Taverius]

If you consider it as a wing, and consider that the CoL is not at 50% of the chord, but usually somewhere in the 25-33% range ...

[softweir]

... and that so far as FAR is concerned it's flying sideways, then yes, that's fine. To see better stats, rotate your rocket to point out the door.

I suppose it would be more intuitive if FAR flipped the assumed direction of flight 90deg in the VAB, 'cos rockets fly "up", you know? BUT - there's a very good chance that would lead to a lot of coding, and it's a small point.

[Jack_Aubrey]

.... and Softweir missed the point there ....

The thing i'm pointing out it's that the tricoupler move the CoL out of the axis of symmetry when its a symmetrical structure. And not the most know issue about the pointing of the CoL.

[Taverius]

.... and Softweir missed the point there ....

The thing i'm pointing out it's that the tricoupler move the CoL out of the axis of symmetry when its a symmetrical structure. And not the most know issue about the pointing of the CoL.

The CoL is assuming sideways airflow, in which case that CoL position is correct.

[the_bT]

I have some issues of parts not getting shielded inside of a procedural fairing. I don't know whether to post this here or in the procedural fairings thread. But since some parts are shielded and others are not I'm going with here.

How does FAR figure out what parts to shield anyways? I tried to make a large cargo plane and because I had no cargo bays of sufficient size I used some structural panels and procedural fairings to hack this:

If it turns out this is just to far over the top I won't complain...

As you can see the panels are shielded but the tanks are not. Both the panels and the tanks are however inside the fairing and surface attached to something that is inside the fairing and shielded. Is it a bug in the generated fairing model maybe induced by the large size or is there some rule about how FAR figures out what to shield that bites me here? (I realize that question is hard to answer, what is more likely though?)

I assume there is no way that FAR would shield a craft that was simply parked inside this so I thought about docking ports on the floor or KAS winches on the ceiling... I tested how much weight I can lift with this setup and discovered the shielding problem before it got that far.

[Jack_Aubrey]

The CoL isn't asuming anything, that's the VAB and i already tested for your assumption and it's wrong.

[Starwaster]

The CoL isn't asuming anything, that's the VAB and i already tested for your assumption and it's wrong.

Why are you being so argumentative and pedantic? Yes, it's the VAB and FAR is assuming sideways airflow when it modifies CoL.

[NathanKell]

FAR is not assuming sideways airflow in the VAB. It's assuming top-down airflow. It's the SPH where airflow is sideways.

[ferram4]

@MAKC: FAR's drag is correct, you just need to fly better / design your planes better. I actually suspect drag might be a tiny bit too low.

@Aedile: Lbeta is the strength of the dihedral effect; none of that controls how much your plane wants to roll, just how much it wants to level out. What you'd want to do is to make sure that Nbeta is high enough to keep the plane pointed forward at high Mach numbers, since what you're running into is the plane being able to sideslip too much and causing the swept wings to cause a rolling tendency. Larger vertical tail further behind the CoM. Or a wedge tail built of two wing parts.

@JackAubrey: That might be wrong, I'll have to look into it. It might just be the effect of having a 3-way symmetric part at that orientation, and rotating it 60 degrees will shift the CoL to the other side.

@Everyone arguing about how FAR handles airflow in the VAB: Airflow is top-down in the VAB, since sideways is utterly useless in there. Airflow is set up to make sense assuming the default orientation of the vehicle when you start building it.

@the_bT: That's very strange. FAR figures out what's inside a fairing / cargo bay by looking at the bounds of the shape and then seeing if the center of the object is in those bounds. See if shifting the parts around a bit fixes it, perhaps I need to give it more margin.

[Jack_Aubrey]

Thanks Ferram, and sorry being so annoying.

[Albert VDS]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but does FAR make KSP harder?

[softweir]

@Everyone arguing about how FAR handles airflow in the VAB: Airflow is top-down in the VAB, since sideways is utterly useless in there. Airflow is set up to make sense assuming the default orientation of the vehicle when you start building it.

Sorry ferram.

[Camacha]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but does FAR make KSP harder?

Depends on who you ask. To some, FAR makes KSP easier because it is closer to real life, making things more predictable and intuitive. For others, the FAR physics feel weird and unusual, since those people are used to the stock KSP behaviour, causing craft that used to work to fail in spectacular ways. With FAR you will need to design your craft in new ways.

I think the most truthful answer would be that it is different.

[Albert VDS]

Alright, thanks for clearing that up.