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

[acc]

@acc: In answer to your questions:

1. They're not air brakes, they're spoilers. Their main purpose is to reduce the lift of the vehicle (and produce some additional drag as well) on planes primarily. Dunno why you'd do that, even if you got symmetrical deflections those brakes would do effectively nothing to slow it down; you'd be better of with a chute.

the rocket has chutes. I would use the flaps to stabilice the rocket while falling backward, because the aerodynamic tendends to turn the rocket to the ground. and thats bad for chute deployment, because mostly the structural stress rips the rocket into two pieces So, yeah, just for stabilisation reasons, to keep the rocket falling nose up until the chutes deploy.

2. I don't write up configs for mod parts, simply because if I did then I'd quickly find more of my time going into adding compatibility for other people's stuff than fixing any issues / adding features in my stuff. There are tutorials on how to do that, and I accept pull requests on data for that stuff.

Ah, alright. Thanks for the info. Maybe I'll try something.

3. Radial decoupler behavior seems to be the result of whatever was changed to try and fix the 0.24 x64 windows decoupler bug. Nothing I can do about that. Continue to build as if the bug was still there, I guess.

After some tests seems like is kinda random bug from the stock game.

Edited July 29, 2014 by acc

[Mischief]

Did something change with attachment stability? For some reason builds that worked in 23.5 literally rip themselves to pieces shortly off the runway. Not even talking about super-massive ships; 1.6 to 2.1 thrust-to-weight.

Did anything else change? Any idea what's making my ships explosively disassemble? Same mods I had before (KAS, Kethane, some texture stuff, and FAR of course).

If it's more complex than 1 central engine core and some basic wing setup....

BOOM. Lucky to get off the runway.

[DaMichel]

You'd have to do it all manually. That said, I'd urge you not to, simply because user feedback seems to indicate that one of the nice features of NEAR is the lack of any GUIs to complicate things, like in FAR.

Okay, i see how i would do that. Wings still have GetStall(), fortunately.

The goal with KerbalFlightData is to display vital information for pilots in the most non-obtrusive manner. Therefore your argument cannot be applied here, i think. What is actually vital can be debated though. A stall warning which goes on when the stall already occurs is probably not the best thing in the world ;> Anyway, nothing is set in stone. I'm just exploring what can be done with reasonable effort.

Beside that, here is a feature request: The graph window produced two type of curves for an AoA sweep, one for increasing AoA, one for decreasing AoA (?). I suggest to make the curves for decreasing AoA darker for better readability.

[smunisto]

Hi Ferram.

After the whole issue with ModStatistics and the final say made by Squad in the face of KasperVld here, could you, as the author of one of the largest mods in the community, who also chose to start bundling them with ModStatistics, make a statement with your official position on the following:

The new add-on rules come into effect starting 21 August 2014 and are not applied retrospectively, but no one can say whether Majiir will take action to make his plugin comply with the new rules or not.

I want to humbly ask if it is possible for you to release a version of FAR, NEAR and KJR that is not bundled and does not use ModStatistics in any way? I want to continue to use your amazing mods without the addition of unwanted third party data collection services, doing so without my explicit consent.

Note: This post IS NOT intended to create yet another useless discussion about whether or not Majiir's mod complies with the regulatory framework of entities like the EU, countries and separate regulations and/or directives. Dear forum user, please do not answer. I am only asking for Ferram's answers, if possible.

[ferram4]

@TheKutKu: No, and you should post an output_log.txt.

@Mischief: First, clear out any mods that aren't 0.24.2 compatible and then try; I note that KAS isn't 0.24.2 compatible, so maybe that's the cause of the issues.

@DaMichel: My argument against the GUI / information for NEAR is more based on giving people what they asked for, exactly, rather than whether it's necessarily reasonable or not to have that data available. It's kind of a, "You said you didn't want this; why are you complaining that it's not there?" reaction, mostly.

The curves for lift and drag though I don't think are really necessary, since simple inspection makes it pretty clear: your lift is not going to suddenly be higher when you come down from stall then when you approach it; further, the legend is already pretty packed, so adding something else will just make it more confusing. I also don't know how to handle a line that's for both directions then.

@smunisto: Alright, since you brought it up, if a flamewar starts, it's your head on the pike, m'kay?

So, here's my position on this: if ModStats is not updated to something that is compatible with the new rules by the time they go into affect, I will remove it from the download; until then, it stays. If it is updated to be compatible with the rules, then it also stays. I know for a fact that Majiir intends to update ModStats to fit the rules, so I expect that it will remain there.

There is no need to release a version of any of my mods that do not include ModStats for the simple reason that ModStats is not linked in code to anything in those mods; removal of the ModStatistics dll and jsonfx dll from the plugin folder is sufficient to prevent ModStats from doing anything ever. I ultimately don't see the purpose in releasing versions that ultimately have nothing different other than going into a folder and deleting a pair of files and leaving the rest alone.

ModStats is just a file. It's not going to east your computer whole because you clicked on it and then pressed the delete key. There's nothing in FAR, NEAR, KJR or KIDS that will break if ModStats isn't there, because none of those mods care whether or not it's there.

[steve_v]

Fire extinguisher ready on the right, pike on the left... Just in case ;-)

On a slightly more serious note, the GUI flickering issue appears to hit any vessel, as soon as it passes out of physics range of its 'parent' post undocking / decoupling.

Fortunately, switching away to another vessel and back cures it for me :-)

I hear ya on the 'testing a fix', just thought I'd share my temporary workaround.

The latest release is FARking awesome by the way, stock jet thrust curves 'feel' spot on to me (just my 2c, I'm no aerospace engineer)

[Jovus]

Did you find a solution? I've had similar things happen with various mods in the past, so a quick fix would be brilliant!

I went into the Squad parts and added the Ferram Aerospace changes manually to the files. (Yes, that took me a while.) It works fine now. I'm certain I did something wrong before, but I couldn't really tell you what, since I did religiously follow the installation instructions. I'm guessing at having some difficulties with the changeover to x64, and I'm going to do a completely clean install some time today (including cleaning the registry and deleting saves and things).

[ferram4]

I've got a better workaround:

Go to the FAR repo, download the new dlls in the GameData folder, and see if they work.

[steve_v]

Rodger, wilco. Tomorrow - first need sleep.

[mecki]

I've got a lot of these in my logs lately:

Could not load file or assembly 'FerramAerospaceResearch, Version=0.14.1.2, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies.

Happens especially when I change Situation.

[ferram4]

Well, without the entire output_log.txt that's kind of useless, but I can speculate and give you lots of options for all the things that it could be:

Actually, that shouldn't happen when you change situation, only when you load the game up. If it's a dependency error, then the options are that you aren't playing in KSP 0.24+, or that you have deleted ferramGraph.dll from the folder, and that will prevent the editor GUI classes from being able to load, breaking the entire thing.

Another possibility is that you have another mod somehow preventing FAR from loading. I don't know how this could happen, but it is possible.

Another possibility that you've got a borked install. In that case, you're going to want to make sure that you bothered to follow the installation instructions to the letter.

[mecki]

Well, without the entire output_log.txt that's kind of useless, but I can speculate and give you lots of options for all the things that it could be:

Actually, that shouldn't happen when you change situation, only when you load the game up. If it's a dependency error, then the options are that you aren't playing in KSP 0.24+, or that you have deleted ferramGraph.dll from the folder, and that will prevent the editor GUI classes from being able to load, breaking the entire thing.

Another possibility is that you have another mod somehow preventing FAR from loading. I don't know how this could happen, but it is possible.

Another possibility that you've got a borked install. In that case, you're going to want to make sure that you bothered to follow the installation instructions to the letter.

I didn't change anything within the FAR files and already reinstalled the mod. It worked until recently. I'll send a log the next time it happens!

[Maxwell Fern]

Is there some tutorial/documentation on how one's supposed to correctly use the flight assistant ?

If not, here are some points that confuse me. Please note that I never activate SAS whenever I intend to use the assistant:

- Is there any way to "keep altitude" ? How is the pitch assistant supposed to be used ? It doesn't seem to do much, my plane is always nosing down no matter the value for K.

- How does the AoA work ? Even after entering 1 and -1° for the values, I have no trouble whatsoever reaching any angle of attack (displayed in the flight data).

- The DCA is great, I stopped tearing my planes apart once I discovered it. What does the scale correspond to ? Is it related to the number of Gs somehow ?

I looked everywhere for help, and read the "ingame" one several times, but I can't find any "best practice" to apply to this assistant. Which means I will probably write one, if I can wrap my head around those concepts. Thanks.

[smunisto]

@smunisto: Alright, since you brought it up, if a flamewar starts, it's your head on the pike, m'kay?

So, here's my position on this: if ModStats is not updated to something that is compatible with the new rules by the time they go into affect, I will remove it from the download; until then, it stays. If it is updated to be compatible with the rules, then it also stays. I know for a fact that Majiir intends to update ModStats to fit the rules, so I expect that it will remain there.

There is no need to release a version of any of my mods that do not include ModStats for the simple reason that ModStats is not linked in code to anything in those mods; removal of the ModStatistics dll and jsonfx dll from the plugin folder is sufficient to prevent ModStats from doing anything ever. I ultimately don't see the purpose in releasing versions that ultimately have nothing different other than going into a folder and deleting a pair of files and leaving the rest alone.

ModStats is just a file. It's not going to east your computer whole because you clicked on it and then pressed the delete key. There's nothing in FAR, NEAR, KJR or KIDS that will break if ModStats isn't there, because none of those mods care whether or not it's there.

Thank you for this.

I was under the (apparently wrong) impression that each mod that comes bundled with ModStatistics has some changes to its own code to make the reporting possible.

For example users reported ScanSat being broken without the ModStatistics folder, but this is not credible information.

Anyways, I will test it personally tonight. Hope all is well.

[Hodo]

Is there some tutorial/documentation on how one's supposed to correctly use the flight assistant ?

If not, here are some points that confuse me. Please note that I never activate SAS whenever I intend to use the assistant:

- Is there any way to "keep altitude" ? How is the pitch assistant supposed to be used ? It doesn't seem to do much, my plane is always nosing down no matter the value for K.

- How does the AoA work ? Even after entering 1 and -1° for the values, I have no trouble whatsoever reaching any angle of attack (displayed in the flight data).

- The DCA is great, I stopped tearing my planes apart once I discovered it. What does the scale correspond to ? Is it related to the number of Gs somehow ?

I looked everywhere for help, and read the "ingame" one several times, but I can't find any "best practice" to apply to this assistant. Which means I will probably write one, if I can wrap my head around those concepts. Thanks.

Kind of funny, I found the same problems with that system so I just use MJ SMARTASS now.

[thorfinn]

I looked everywhere for help, and read the "ingame" one several times, but I can't find any "best practice" to apply to this assistant. Which means I will probably write one, if I can wrap my head around those concepts. Thanks.

Please post it on the Github wiki, if you do.

Even though I think that we should transfer that stuff to the main KSP wiki to get more people working on it.

[Alewx]

Hi Ferram4,

i hope you find some time to take a look at something i noticed in the current FAR version, I know you are a busy man so sorry for interrupting

I really like FAR and for providing a far better drag model. But I encountered a few problems with parts of other mods, which support/not support FAR, by name they are KSOS and Space Plane Plus. KSOS does not Support FAR, but PS+ does.

KSOS parts are in my opinon massivly overpowered in liftingcoef or controlsurfaces, but that can be adapted by an MM file. but as FAR is active with it, when you use the KSOS parts and some other parts as wings, it is like only the KSOS parts are generating lift.

Do you have any idea on that, or is it just waiting till KSO supports FAR?

With SP+ the case is different. the bicoupler creates a messed CoL if wings or winglets are attached.

As soon as FAR is removed , KSOS parts behave normal and SP+ CoL with the bi-coupler is fine.

I would be really thankful if you could take a look at it, because flying without FAR is, well boring.

[DaMichel]

My argument against the GUI / information for NEAR is more based on giving people what they asked for, exactly, rather than whether it's necessarily reasonable or not to have that data available. It's kind of a, "You said you didn't want this; why are you complaining that it's not there?" reaction, mostly.

This makes perfectly sense for NEAR. I actually like that NEAR has no GUI. It is slim and clean i'd say for the lack of better words. NEAR is totally what i would expect to find in the stock game in the first place. But i hope nobody would complain if the information display plugin they just downloaded actually displays information

The curves for lift and drag though I don't think are really necessary, since simple inspection makes it pretty clear: your lift is not going to suddenly be higher when you come down from stall then when you approach it; further, the legend is already pretty packed, so adding something else will just make it more confusing. I also don't know how to handle a line that's for both directions then.

Hm ... maybe i will make a pull request for this eventually. Then you'll see that i'd be nice. At least for the cm curves. I agree regarding lift and drag curves.

[Mischief]

@ferram4;

Removed every mod but FAR. Still rips the wings off if they are more than 1 segment wide - here's an example of a craft I flew a lot in 23.5

Notice how it's got a central engine, then wing connector component, then engine segment, then delta wing radiating from the central engine core? If I have central engine + delta wing, I'm fine. If I go for wing connector component, engine segment, delta wing or anything like that...

boom. I lift off at around 150-200m/s and nose up a bit and it rips itself apart. Has anything changed for component connectivity, drag, anything? I admit I'm at a loss as to what I've changed.

Is there any sort of log, data or info I can provide? Am I just... doing something wrong? Trying to build up a heavy capacity long range SSTO again but am struggling to recreate any prior designs that don't dramatically disassemble after liftoff.

Thank you again,

Mischief

[ferram4]

@Maxwell Fern: There is currently no altitude-hold autopilot, simply because I haven't coded one up yet. That's actually a pretty complex system. The pitch system is simply a pitch damper, not a pitch holder. It tries to prevent lots of pitching motion, not prevent pitching as a whole.

The AoA limiter works, so long as you stay off the controls. All the control systems are set up as "if the player decides to do something, we don't stop them" with the exception of the DCA.

The DCA works by simply scaling down control inputs with dynamic pressure. You could easily leave it set up so you can do 9 g turns if the plane can take it, and it'll never let you do much more than that, though it doesn't account for changes due to mach number.

@Alewx: I don't work out configs for other mods, as I mentioned on the two pages ago. That said, I remember that KSO had a FAR config out for its parts, so perhaps finding that will make it work for you. For SP+, that error is caused by the colliders on the part being messed up in some way, preventing FAR from properly determining how the wings should behave. There's nothing I can do to fix that, since it's not might code causing the problem, it's the part collider.

@Mischief: Oh. I see what's happening. You lack enough wing to actually get that off the ground; it's really an overloaded plane. Frankly, your wings should rip off if you need to take off at 2/3 the speed of sound.

Intended behavior, you should redesign vehicle or look in the debug menu and turn off aerodynamic failures so that you can continue doing crazy things.

[steve_v]

Are you using KJR? I do find it helps.

I've just been 'stress testing' a couple of designs - they certainly do suffer explosive dissasembly, but only during 10+G supersonic turns ;-)

[Mischief]

@Mischief: Oh. I see what's happening. You lack enough wing to actually get that off the ground; it's really an overloaded plane. Frankly, your wings should rip off if you need to take off at 2/3 the speed of sound.

Intended behavior, you should redesign vehicle or look in the debug menu and turn off aerodynamic failures so that you can continue doing crazy things.

Here's the wacky thing - that used to work. Most the tanks you see on that plane are empty on takeoff and landing; the thing would refuel in orbit to have the UMPH to hump it from world to world on RAPIERs. It was pretty light getting off the ground. I'd start with the forward tanks half full, the others empty and it'd move my CoM way forward while keeping CoL way back. It worked alright. I wouldn't have called it 'nimble' bit it worked and could land on the Mun.

I've figured out what changed though. My newer ships are indeed smaller and twr way higher. I was starting to take off at 100 m/s but I was passing 300 m/s by the end of the runway and, yes indeed, it was ripping me to pieces cuz.... mach 1 + AoA change of 45 degrees + 300 meters above sea level = violent disagreement between ships components on who is going what direction. I suspect it's related to improvements to how you handle transonic/supersonic speeds, since in more careful review the problem was my hitting mach 1 before I was over the water off the runway.

What can I say. I like a lot of zoom. In hindsight if I want to go faster than 300 m/s in less than a runways length, I should probably quit trying to fool myself about being a 'plane' and just go ahead and launch it vertical like a rocket.

So, again. you mod like a boss, problem was user error.

[Mischief]

Are you using KJR? I do find it helps.

I've just been 'stress testing' a couple of designs - they certainly do suffer explosive dissasembly, but only during 10+G supersonic turns ;-)

I do - but it was user error. I got it figured, problem was trying to put little wings on full on rockets and wondering why it wouldn't whip an Immelman.

[Drew Kerman]

Here's the wacky thing - that used to work.

Aerodynamic failure was a relatively recent addition if the last time you flew was a while ago

[Mischief]

Aerodynamic failure was a relatively recent addition if the last time you flew was a while ago

Oh no. It was in. You'll notice in that picture the addition of the stack separator and chutes on the cockpit section? I prefer to play with no quicksave/restore and non-immortal Kerbals. I was well on my way to building an island of disassembled SSTO vehicle ideas off the cost of KSC before I got that figured out.