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

[taniwha]

ferram4: Nice, thank you.

[Drew Kerman]

awesome, wasn't expecting anything prior to KSP 1.0. Thanks ferram!

[Sandworm]

awesome, wasn't expecting anything prior to KSP 1.0. Thanks ferram!

Me 2.

But I add that I remain disappointed that Squad has not purchased FAR for integration into stock.

[MatterBeam]

I started using this mod yesterday alongside RSS and Deadly Reentry.

I made several hypersonic planes, and made two which were capable of achieving orbit.

I didn't find FAR much more difficult than NEAR.

My only complain is this: FAR flight assisstance is completely bonkers. Off the hook. Detrimental in every way.

It does not allow you to raise the nose after liftoff. It chooses its own pitch, and follows a prograde heading whatever you do. At any velocity above 1000m/s, you lose all control. Holding the keys down only move control surfaces by a few degrees. During re-entry, especially in during the early high velocity/thin atmosphere phase, the plane has no stability assistance. It refuses to use RCS thrusters in this phase.

My only option was to turn it completely off and turn all values in 'options' tab to zero or one.

[blowfish]

My only complain is this: FAR flight assisstance is completely bonkers. Off the hook. Detrimental in every way.

It does not allow you to raise the nose after liftoff. It chooses its own pitch, and follows a prograde heading whatever you do. At any velocity above 1000m/s, you lose all control. Holding the keys down only move control surfaces by a few degrees. During re-entry, especially in during the early high velocity/thin atmosphere phase, the plane has no stability assistance. It refuses to use RCS thrusters in this phase.

My only option was to turn it completely off and turn all values in 'options' tab to zero or one.

I don't know the answers to all of these, but I do know a few: As far as loosing control at high speeds, you need to adjust the DCA constant - I find 200 or even 300 works better than the default 100, though of course this will make it easier to break your wings. In general, the default values for all of these things aren't guaranteed to work well.

Dynamic pressure is almost zero in the high velocity/thin atmosphere phase, which means that control surfaces will be almost useless but aerodynamic stability doesn't matter as much. The fact that RCS thrusters aren't working is odd though - have you confirmed that they start working again once you disable FAR's flight assistants (and in particular which ones).

Same question about nosing up after takeoff - does disabling the pitch assistant make easier?

[MatterBeam]

I'll test different DCA values.

In the high altitude phase, the control surfaces don't actually move. The RCS only works when I've fully deactivated the assistants.

Nosing up after take off in itself is easy... it's just that seconds later, the nose tips to horizontal then progresses along the prograde to fall below the horizon and crash.

[taniwha]

Krakenfour: one thing to note is that the pitch dampener does not hold your pitch, it just dampens pitch oscillations. If you want to maintain a constant pitch, you will need to play with trim (alt-wasdqr to set, alt-x to clear (I use only alt-ws and alt-x)). I find the wing leveler to be fairly good for a well built ship flying straight, but really twitchy (it likes to roll my plane upside down) when I try to turn so I tend to turn it off when turning.

[Van Disaster]

FAR shouldn't be any harder than NEAR, it's basically the same thing anyway.

If you want pitch hold, use Pilot Assistant - it has an aircraft optimised SAS as well as some aircraft-specific holds. If you want to do it in FAR use the AoA limiter & adjust the limits...

New version is interesting; I took the biggest spaceplane I had with the biggest load it's managed to get to orbit so I could try out what amounts to an edge case, and it's struggling to gain altitude over 20km. Nothing is stalled so it's not that, so did any other balancing creep in? I guess it might be AoA drag given it's at 10 degrees AoA at the moment, what counts as "very high"?

Edited April 3, 2015 by Van Disaster

[Svm420]

I was so hoping it was voxel. Is that waiting for 1.0? Either way thank you and all who help ferram for the update.

[DaMichel]

Thank you Ferram and Nathan for your great work! Special thanks for looking at the intake drag again

[uglyduckling81]

What's the future for the FAR team after 1.0. With a stock aerodynamics being implemented are you guys going to move on to something new or just going to stop modding for KSP? Given the quality of your work on FAR I would like to see you guys move onto a new KSP project.

[blowfish]

What's the future for the FAR team after 1.0. With a stock aerodynamics being implemented are you guys going to move on to something new or just going to stop modding for KSP? Given the quality of your work on FAR I would like to see you guys move onto a new KSP project.

The FAR team is mostly ferram4 with random contributions from others. What Squad has said thus far about the aero update leads us to believe that the new aerodynamics will be an improvement over current stock but nowhere near as detailed as FAR. Furthermore they have said that it will still be possible to mod the aerodynamics. So FAR will continue.

[Van Disaster]

IIRC it'll get easier to mod aero due to being able to completely disable the stock processing. Ferram was working on a totally new FAR the last I heared, so good things on the way.

[tetryds]

Yeah, even if 1.0 aero was FAR as it is now, the new one planned for 1.0 is going to be much nicer.

The thing is, FAR simply does not fit stock KSP, it's unforgiving, and even though it's actually simple to get something done on it, most of people simply cannot handle it.

For instance, people still think that NEAR is simpler and easier to use than FAR, saying it's more realistic is scary.

So, I hope 1.0 to be as accurate as possible, but not FAR.

[McPoisoned]

Does it still support KW Rocketry Fairings? Just wondering since KW has not been updated for 0.90

[tetryds]

Does it still support KW Rocketry Fairings? Just wondering since KW has not been updated for 0.90

Yes, there should be no problem on that.

Btw, KW is only parts, and mods made out of parts do not need to be updated from 0.25 in order to work flawlessly on 0.90.

Just some plugins require being recompiled.

[Naten]

I have a question about using flaps on my aircraft. I'm using Procedural Wings by the way. Flaps seem to stall very easily, and I have to set their deflection very low to get lift without a stall. However, in aircraft IRL like the example below, the flaps (this one shown at near-maximum deflection) are useful in upwards of 45 degrees. I can't really get flaps to work reliably over 21-22 degrees or so.

Is there something I'm doing wrong? Thanks.

Also, one more question, are leading-edge flaps, or slats, viable in FAR?

[tetryds]

@Naten: that is a procedural wings issue.

Have you tried B9 procedural wings?

You may also noticed that when stalling, usually the right wing will get a full stall while the other one does not get any, regardless of how it happens.

I am not sure if using stock control surfaces placed on the pwings can solve this specific issue, but you can try.

Anyway, B9 pwings use a different code and may not suffer from this problem.

If you try it, please tell us if it also has this issue or not.

[Van Disaster]

Stalling flaps and other control surfaces does seem quite easy in recent versions ( even the B9 pcontrols ); a little stalling is ok, check how much it's stalled in the rclick menu for the surface. I was trying to make a land vehicle with somewhat active downforce earlier & the leading edge flaps were stalling at a really low angle.

Drooped edges ( and lifted edges too ) are viable things, not actual slats though, I think FAR would see them as biplanes and it'd make matters worse if anything. I linked this up the thread but it's a pretty silly example of what you can do...

This is probably a better demo of Ferram's mods, look at the G-meter. Uses active leading edges on the delta attached to AoA to keep the wing leading edge AoA down, and mixes a bit of AoA into the canards to stop them pitching themselves into stalling. No struts thanks to KJR, although I did bump the wing strengths up, and FAR's explode-stuff thing is still enabled. Fun little test toy, still finding out what works atm.

[Motokid600]

Not sure what triggered it. I was just strutting some FASA srb's and all of a sudden FAR starts throwing NRE's. I am using RO, but i wasn’t sure if I should post here or there. And i have updated to 14.7.

Player.log

KSP.log

Edited April 7, 2015 by Motokid600

[gilflo]

Hello

I am a new FAR user and I'd like to get some information about the magnitude of some figures.

1/ My pitch derivatives (Rate end control) are always blank, except angular acceleration being green, and absolute magnitude is between 0.00xxx to 2.xxxx , control being always larger than rates.

Any comment about that ? and relative to wing area and mass ?

2/ About my sideslip Derivatives, numbers are always green, absolute magnitude can be as large as 37 in Y, those numbers decreasing with altitude for a given mach.

3/ When i got a red number it's always in Xw for high mach (around 3.3) at high altitude (25km) and is very week. (0.00xxx) but the static simulation don't show converge

nce of oscillation

So I loose control at this point, the aircraft begin to roll and I can't stop it. Any comment? I use Pilot assistant and I modified the values of SAS.

4/ What are the thin lines (blue, green and yellow) in static sim when sweeping AOA under mach 1?

Thank's

[Wanderfound]

Bad Xw means that your plane is starting to accelerate down more than forwards; not enough lift. The reason it's showing up is because Mach 3.3 is too slow for that altitude unless you've got wings like a U-2 (or a light, aerodynamically tidy small ship). On a streamlined spaceplane ascent, you should be getting to about Mach 4 by that height.

The thin split lines in AoA sweeps represent the effect of a stall; after the stall, lift decreases, drag increases, and stability (the yellow line) does all sortsa weird stuff.

[gilflo]

Bad Xw means that your plane is starting to accelerate down more than forwards; not enough lift. The reason it's showing up is because Mach 3.3 is too slow for that altitude unless you've got wings like a U-2 (or a light, aerodynamically tidy small ship). On a streamlined spaceplane ascent, you should be getting to about Mach 4 by that height.

The thin split lines in AoA sweeps represent the effect of a stall; after the stall, lift decreases, drag increases, and stability (the yellow line) does all sortsa weird stuff.

OK thank's Wanderfound.

So I can accelerate at lower altitude to a sufficient mach to get sufficient lift.That's working.

What happen next step, when accelerating over M.4.4 is that I got a sideslip derivative Ybeta that's red and divergent on sim.

I tried a lot of things to deal with it, but whatever is the mach and altitude above 20 km, I can't suppress that?

Any advices?

[Wanderfound]

What happen next step, when accelerating over M.4.4 is that I got a sideslip derivative Ybeta that's red and divergent on sim.

I tried a lot of things to deal with it, but whatever is the mach and altitude above 20 km, I can't suppress that?

Any advices?

Moar tailfin, and/or pull CoM forwards. If all else fails, a Vernor either side of the nose (activated only when necessary, to save fuel).

[Van Disaster]

Usually more tailfin - I never used to put enough fin on mine, had it beaten into me repeatedly until i did.

The other thing you can try is winglets ( little wingtip segments ) with significant dihedral, 45 degrees or so perhaps.

Edited April 7, 2015 by Van Disaster