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

[Matrix Aran]

I'd like to echo what Wanderfound and Voculus have been reporting. I spent a good four hours scratching my head with a fresh design using mostly MK1 parts that simply wanted to keep nosing down, despite getting all of the analysis to report back green at the correct pressures, temperatures and speed ranges. Increasing control authority only produced designs that would oscillate when at any positive angle of attack, with or without SAS or FAR assistance. Switching to the dev build (with a very clean install) as of 12 hours ago and reducing the wing weights has all but eliminated this issue. Looking forward to testing the latest build and seeing how easily these new weights will break.

[Raven.]

May I request a feature?

I understand why the mod author would want to exclude support for Win64 KSP, especially since x64 KSP is not stable. However, 64 bit KSP with opengl enjoys, at least with my experience, the same stability as the x64 Linux version.

My feature request is simple: a way to re-enable the mod on win64 KSP through a config file, or other means that would not normally be accessible to those who don't know its there along with the disclaimer that problems on Win64 won't be addressed.

Thank you.

[AetherGoddess]

May I request a feature?

I understand why the mod author would want to exclude support for Win64 KSP, especially since x64 KSP is not stable. However, 64 bit KSP with opengl enjoys, at least with my experience, the same stability as the x64 Linux version.

My feature request is simple: a way to re-enable the mod on win64 KSP through a config file, or other means that would not normally be accessible to those who don't know its there along with the disclaimer that problems on Win64 won't be addressed.

Thank you.

It's probably not going to happen. a config option would probably defeat the whole purpose of the disable code as it is right now. consider this related NEAR conversation:

How do I force enable this on Win_x64? I know you don't support it. My game crashes about once a day due to 64 bit instability anyway. I don't care. Due to memory issues, I refuse to go back 32 bit, and I really do hate the base aero model. What do I need to decompile, edit, etc.

And yes, I promise not to harass you about sh*t breaking. I know I'm straining the game's stability and I accept whatever hardware wrecking bugs I bring upon myself.

you have already exceeded the quota of support for Win x64 with this post. yes, you can get the source and turn off the disabling code, and then recompile it and use it. that task works as a sorting filter. if you can make that minor code change and compile it for yourself, then you are certainly knowledgeable enough to tell the difference between a crash caused by FAR and a crash caused by KSP_x64. if you can't, then it doesn't mean you are dumb, and it doesn't mean that you are somehow unworthy, it just means that we can't be sure that you have the necessary skills to run and troubleshoot an unstable version. you can think of it as a driving test: if you can download the zip and install it, then you can drive an automatic passenger car. if you want to drive a F-18, then you need to pass a higher bar.

[...]

i'm speculating on the purpose. don't blame Ferram for my reasons.

[DaMichel]

Thanks for fixing the hypersonic stalling. Now i can fly at some AoA again. And i even managed to get a space plane into orbit with the new wing masses.

P.S. How about a wing loading readout? I think the stability analysis window would be a good place since it already has the wing area. I could give it a try. It seem pretty easy to do. I'd just have to sum up part masses and surface areas from FAR part modules, right?

Edited October 13, 2014 by DaMichel

[Wanderfound]

@Wanderfound: If you're setting the wings to be 10% their default mass, but somehow they're still stronger than the previous build, then your wing strength is not varying with mass. Setting the wing mass to 10% of the default will result in the wing only being able to sustain 20% the forces of the default. Since the default wing strength doubled between the old FAR build and the current one, this means that your wings should fail at forces that are 40% the forces felt in the previous build.

Does this imply that ye olde FAR wings equals a mass setting of 0.25?

[NathanKell]

DaMichel: you would need to exclude all vertical wings, and *try* to exclude tail surfaces, as otherwise the wing loading won't be calculated the same as in real life (and thus will not be so useful if you have to mentally multiply it by 1.25 to get a comparison to known real-life loadings)

Wanderfound: not really, because until now FAR did not change the masses of wings.

[ferram4]

Good news everyone! The next FAR is almost completed. At the very least, I've squashed all the really nasty obvious bugs. If you want to mess with it now, it's been uploaded to the github repo as the latest dev build. Wing interactions should be quite a bit smoother for this version.

[BudgetHedgehog]

The next FAR is almost completed. At the very least, I've squashed all the really nasty obvious bugs.

I've been AFK fro a few days so apologies if this has already been addressed/fixed, but did you see my post about the Aero Vis bug on chutes? It wasn't on any dev build though, just the official version.

Little bug - the Aero Vis tint doesn't get removed from parachutes, they keep whatever tint they had last. (FAR 0.14.2, KSP 0.25)

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I like the tint feature otherwise, it's a pretty cool little thing.

EDIT: More testings show that reboarding after an EVA removes the tint.

[ferram4]

Haven't worked towards fixing that, since it's such a small issue. I can look though.

[Temeter]

Neat, it's coming together.

Tested the recent version with an older spaceplane and, although it had still issues in the last version, seems to work perfectly fine now. Suddenly it's again less 'loose' and very stable, has a slightly hard time keeping the nose up, but very stall-reluctant due to it's generous wingsize. Thx for the great work/fixing!

Also, the first start ripped of my wingtips. As they should have been, considering they are basically fiberglass wingtips on a spaceplane. xD

Really interesting to experiment what lengths you can go with different combinations of wing strengths.

[DaMichel]

DaMichel: you would need to exclude all vertical wings, and *try* to exclude tail surfaces, as otherwise the wing loading won't be calculated the same as in real life (and thus will not be so useful if you have to mentally multiply it by 1.25 to get a comparison to known real-life loadings)

Hm .. this is bad. Using the projected area onto the horizontal plane would get rid of the vertical surfaces. But excluding the tail? I'd better leave this alone then

[blowfish]

I seem to be having a couple of issues:

1) I'm having trouble getting parts to be shielded by cargo bays. If I do an isolated test, it seems to work fine, but on my actual ships, if I do the same thing, the parts are not listed as shielded. This includes parts which are surface attached to the inside of the cargo bay. I'm not sure if this is enough to diagnose the problem...

2) There's something I'm not quite understanding about how drag is calculated. Here are a couple of example scenarios that don't quite make sense to me: (a) I add wings to an aerodynamic body and Cd decreases ( I add a docking port inside a cargo bay. As per (1) it is listed as not shielded, but Cd decreases again. Many vessels I build which should have similar aerodynamics seem to have wildly varying Cd, from about 0.05 to 0.2 (not varying too much with AoA or mach number).

[ferram4]

@DaMichel: And now you understand why I don't try. It's even more difficult because some user designs don't have distinct wing / tail / canard surfaces, which makes it worse.

@blowfish:

1) Known issue with the stable; try the dev build, it works much better there.

2) Remember to also keep track of your reference area. It is possible for total drag force to increase, but drag coefficient to decrease, if the decrease is countered by a sufficient increase in reference area. For winged vehicles, reference area is the summed flat area of each wing part, while for wingless vehicles it is the total surface area of the vehicle.

[blowfish]

Thanks for the quick response. I guess I did forget that area factor in the drag equation. There are still some things I've seen that don't quite make sense but maybe they're related to the cargo bay issue.

[NathanKell]

DaMichel: what I do is just disconnect the parts my tail surfaces are attached to, then calculate again. That will give me wing area. Then I reattach and get dry and gross weight from RCS Build Aid. Then run the numbers myself.

As ferram says, it doesn't work for blended wing/tail or BWB designs.

[Forty21112]

Do you think there is any way to restore the lost vector of the CoL, Ferram? I'm kind of confused now that you removed the vector...

[tetryds]

Do you think there is any way to restore the lost vector of the CoL, Ferram? I'm kind of confused now that you removed the vector...

The only issue I have with it is that it's hard to spot.

Maybe put the axes back, but not the vector itself?

[NecroBones]

One of the users of my fairings mod is reporting that the fairings aren't being detected in FAR, for shielding parts contained within:

Having some issues with the fairings not providing aerodynamic shielding with FAR. Parts are displaying isShielded:false even when inside a fairing and failing during to aerodynamic stresses during flight. Tried using a procedural fairings and they worked fine.

I'm not using any custom mod/plugin code. Rather, the fairings are using the stock "ModuleJettison" that the LV-N uses, and simply acts as a large decoupler with the panels encasing a payload. My suspicion is that since "ModuleJettison" was created for the LV-N, FAR is probably only shielding my fairing base (as if it were an engine), and not the payload.

Is there a naming convention, or setting/flag or something that I can add to help?

Links to the mod(s):

Full version: https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/196/Zero%20Point%20Inline%20Fairings

"Lite" version: https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/228/Zero-Point%20Inline%20Fairings%20Lite

[blowfish]

See six posts up

[ferram4]

@Forty21112: There is, but there shouldn't be a vector associated with it at all. It's a point in space, not a vector floating at a point. The vector is meaningless, has always been meaningless and has caused unnecessary confusion. It should have never been there in the first place.

@tetryds: No can do. Outside of my control, it seems.

@Necrobones: Noted. I think the dev version fixes it.

[NecroBones]

@Necrobones: Noted. I think the dev version fixes it.

Awesome, I'll report this back to the user in my thread as well. Thanks!

[Xenro66]

Great mod but I'm having some troubles here. Before the patch, my planes could easily angle at LEAST 20° away from the prograde marker in any direction without even coming up with "Minor Stalling". IT would say "High AoA" just before I stall which seems about right. But after this update, NONE of my planes have been flying well.

1) I have a large plane with loads of wings surface in a delta fashion. This should create tonnes of lift but it isn't. I require ludicrous speeds to generate any sort of feasible lift. Yes, the plane is heavy but the takeoff speed is 150m/s. Doesn't seem right.

2) As I was saying before, with the 20° off prograde? Yeah I can't do that anymore either. 5° MAXIMUM is what I can do. That same large plane I had can't stray more than maybe 2° away from the prograde marker before I get a "Minor Stall" warning and start to lose lift.

Can anyone explain this to me please? Is it an error in my design, a bug in KSP or bug in FAR itself? I really would appreciate the help because at the moment, I can only really make VTOLs and Rockets. Also, cargo bays aren't shielding any parts. I think lots of people know this now, just letting you know.

Thanks in advance

[ferram4]

Try the dev version on the github repo.

[Wermut]

Silly question, but how does one go about downloading the dev version from github? I'm happy to wait for an official release too, but can you give an estimate on when that might be available?

Thank you!

[Xenro66]

Will do.

To be honest, I was reaching breaking point, nothing was working, not even the simplest of planes could get out of that "minor stalling" thing. At mach 2, it would instantly bleed off at least 300m/s (at 15km), cause me to pitch way up (even though my CoL is behind the DCoM) and disintegrate. If I can't get that to work either, then it's back to the awful stock aerodynamics for me! ._.