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

[tetryds]

Area ruleing is not that complicated, KSP lego bricks are actually a very nice (challengening but feasible) way to handle it, it's hard to accept the idea that the actual shape is what matters, but after you get used to it, it's very good.

We are working to area rule the stock FAR airplanes so you can figure out the tricks by yourself: http://i.imgur.com/63ZbN2A.png

The major change about this area rule implementation is that you can continue to work on your craft to improve them indefinitely.

[ferram4]

@Nerd1000: Perfectly understandable. Future refinements are probably going to have to properly recognize that yes, this shape does adjust the cross-section favorably, but no, it should not make drag lower. And probably rip of the gear. A problem for another time, I think.

@Darkway: 1 and 2 are actually somewhat related. I was working on a graph for specific excess power for this purpose but found the calculation incredibly slow. We'll have to see how things play out later, but in practice, figuring out the speed and/or climb rate is a little bit difficult otherwise, simply because of Cd variations, but for speed, it's just whatever speed is when excess power -> 0 and you can't accelerate anymore, and climb rate is all excess power -> gravitational potential energy.

3 is something on my wishlist for awhile, technically as an autotrim feature. It shouldn't be too difficult, but it's a lot of number crunching to do.

4 is something a lot of people have requested, but that I'm not adding. I think that the game deciding to make decisions for you is kind of irritating.

@Naten: Now, while getting the collider / mesh every single time and using that would work, it turns out to be horribly expensive. In order for voxelization to occur, all the meshes/colliders used need to be listed in the same reference frame. Doing this requires me to first get the mesh, then transform ALL its points into that reference frame. Since it takes (I believe) 12 multiplications to transform a single point, and then that has to be done to the THOUSANDS of points for each of the meshes, it makes more sense to cache a separate list of transformed points; this reduces the overhead for each voxelization to somewhere between 1/2 and 1/25 of what it would be, depending on how detailed the meshes are. So basically, it's necessary to make voxelization viable at runtime. However, that means that whenever the shape changes, something needs to inform FAR of that. I believe I did tell NathanKell what he needs to do to make that work, and Crzyrndm should be aware of what's needed as well, so pParts and pWings should be compatible as soon as nuFAR is out for reals.

Also, I'll deal with the saving of flight GUI data better. I've been a little frustrated with the stab augmentation settings not saving.

[etheoma]

@ferram did you change the height of Jools Atmos because well I used hyper edit so disclaimer there but the atoms seems to start at 200km~ rather than the old 138.155 or is that a stock change, or has something went horribly wrong on my end.

hyper edited in a 150km and my ship was ripped asunder when I thought that was a good 11.8km above atmos, needless to say I was very confused. I'm not angry or anything just curious its different but not bad. Although it kind of makes entering jool easier but again that just different not bad.

- - - Updated - - -

I am sorry if you guys are already annoyed by this question, but what exactly do i need to get the dev branch working?

I read through the last few pages and couldn't find any information.

Do i just merge the GameData folder from the voxelAeroPort into my ksp?

Thank you very much in advance!

You need ModuleManager and ModularFlightIntegrator just google them and you will find them, Although you only needed to go back 3 pages to find that information so... Also just to make sure you are only supposed to use voxelAeroPort on 1.0 and VoxelAero is for 0.90

Edited May 3, 2015 by etheoma

[Bedwyr]

I'm absolutely ignorant right now about how things are working out so please pardon me in advance, but do some of the control issues Darkway has in point 3 have to do with coffin corner and normal degradation of performance at higher and higher altitudes? (The point about fighting to keep level flight at higher altitudes and high speeds triggered that memory of the phenomenon.)

[Darkway]

@Darkway: 1 and 2 are actually somewhat related. I was working on a graph for specific excess power for this purpose but found the calculation incredibly slow. We'll have to see how things play out later, but in practice, figuring out the speed and/or climb rate is a little bit difficult otherwise, simply because of Cd variations, but for speed, it's just whatever speed is when excess power -> 0 and you can't accelerate anymore, and climb rate is all excess power -> gravitational potential energy.

3 is something on my wishlist for awhile, technically as an autotrim feature. It shouldn't be too difficult, but it's a lot of number crunching to do.

4 is something a lot of people have requested, but that I'm not adding. I think that the game deciding to make decisions for you is kind of irritating.

Thank you for the reply. Well I understand your point on 4... What about some kind of a warning then? Problem is, one can totally close the FAR window, and forget about FA. Maybe it's just me, but it took a good 2-3 minutes , until I realised what was happening. The FAR window popping up (if closed), with a little yellow warning sign could do the trick, for example.

[Darkway]

I'm absolutely ignorant right now about how things are working out so please pardon me in advance, but do some of the control issues Darkway has in point 3 have to do with coffin corner and normal degradation of performance at higher and higher altitudes? (The point about fighting to keep level flight at higher altitudes and high speeds triggered that memory of the phenomenon.)

The problem is really simple (with FAR, 0.9 game version). You should know that I'm playing with arrow keys. So... I have a nice little craft for Kerbin missions, capable of vertical takeoff/landing, and can go well above 1000m/s at about 17-20km height. When I get up to cruising speed and altitude, I have to turn input damping off, because pitch input is needed to keep the crafts nose above level AoA. However, when i used the keys, the plane pitches up too much. Then I let the control go, the nose falls too low, and I have to correct it again by pitching up, and the cycle starts again. If i hit the button quickly enough, and at the right rate (effectively PWM-ing the pich input), I can, ofc keep the plane in level flight, but this needs continous input, and it gets very very irritating on a 10-20min flight, not to mention longer ones. Sometimes magic happens, and SAS somehow catches my idea, and keeps the plane in level flight, but you need a full Mun, and Kerbin to be in perfect line with Duna and Eve for that.

[DebatedNothing]

Is there a version that can be used with 1.0.2 atm? I can't play with this stock aero, it's driving me mad after being used to FAR for so long.

[CDRW]

I've got a stupid question that I think I already know the answer to, but I want to make sure. The voxelation is going to work on fairings, right?

[blowfish]

I've got a stupid question that I think I already know the answer to, but I want to make sure. The voxelation is going to work on fairings, right?

Yes.

10char

[Van Disaster]

Darkway: I'd recommend Pilot Assistant, it was written to solve exactly the problems you're running in to.

[etheoma]

I've got a stupid question that I think I already know the answer to, but I want to make sure. The voxelation is going to work on fairings, right?

I was temped to answer sarcastically but I wont, yes it will. FAR has supported fairing since fairings were a thing in KSP.

[Darkway]

Darkway: I'd recommend Pilot Assistant, it was written to solve exactly the problems you're running in to.

Wow! Nice one. Ill give it a try when i have some time to play. (Fortunately Im familiar with PID control ) Thanks.

[soulsource]

Is there a version that can be used with 1.0.2 atm? I can't play with this stock aero, it's driving me mad after being used to FAR for so long.

This has been answered I don't know how often in the last few days, for instance here. You'll also need Module Manager.

I've got a stupid question that I think I already know the answer to, but I want to make sure. The voxelation is going to work on fairings, right?

As I'm running development builds: Yes. FAR works with fairings. There are as far as I can tell no issues with stock fairings, but, as with other procedural parts mods, procedural fairings would need to inform FAR about shape changes, what they don't do (yet). So, to be sure that your FAR data is correct, attach the fairings so they get the correct shape, remove (but don't delete) them, and re-add them again. Then, check the debug voxel display in the FAR window.

Edited May 3, 2015 by soulsource

[cantab]

@ferram did you change the height of Jools Atmos because well I used hyper edit so disclaimer there but the atoms seems to start at 200km~ rather than the old 138.155 or is that a stock change, or has something went horribly wrong on my end.

hyper edited in a 150km and my ship was ripped asunder when I thought that was a good 11.8km above atmos, needless to say I was very confused.

Did you hyperedit from Kerbin's surface? If so it could be FAR regarding you as having a high-speed through Kerbin's atmosphere, even if very briefly. A similar problem has affected hyperedit and DRE, and the classic workaround is to first hyperedit into a very high Kerbin orbit that therefore has low orbital speed.

pitch input is needed to keep the crafts nose above level AoA.

Alt+WASDQE sets trim, effectively a small constant control input. That's a stock game feature, and in my opinion essential to enjoying aircraft flight in KSP. I can trim my aircraft for level flight, put FAR's wing leveller on, have SAS off, and walk away to make a cup of tea with the confidence I'll come back to find my plane still cruising just fine. Alt+X puts all trim back to zero.

[Shalashalska]

This has been answered I don't know how often in the last few days, for instance here. You'll also need Module Manager.

As I'm running development builds: Yes. FAR works with fairings. There are as far as I can tell no issues with stock fairings, but, as with other procedural parts mods, procedural fairings would need to inform FAR about shape changes, what they don't do (yet). So, to be sure that your FAR data is correct, attach the fairings so they get the correct shape, remove (but don't delete) them, and re-add them again. Then, check the debug voxel display in the FAR window.

Your link has 2 http://'s.

The correct one is here.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Shalashalska
Missing Tag

[Darkway]

Alt+WASDQE sets trim, effectively a small constant control input. That's a stock game feature, and in my opinion essential to enjoying aircraft flight in KSP. I can trim my aircraft for level flight, put FAR's wing leveller on, have SAS off, and walk away to make a cup of tea with the confidence I'll come back to find my plane still cruising just fine. Alt+X puts all trim back to zero.

Okay... Wow 2x... I didn't know about that feature. I'm still a noob it seems Thanks.

[ss8913]

With the voxelaeroport build, how does one display speeds in IAS/EAS instead of ground-m/s ?

[CDRW]

I was temped to answer sarcastically but I wont, yes it will. FAR has supported fairing since fairings were a thing in KSP.

You don't get good guy points for sarcastic declarations of how not sarcastic you're being.

As I'm running development builds: Yes. FAR works with fairings. There are as far as I can tell no issues with stock fairings, but, as with other procedural parts mods, procedural fairings would need to inform FAR about shape changes, what they don't do (yet). So, to be sure that your FAR data is correct, attach the fairings so they get the correct shape, remove (but don't delete) them, and re-add them again. Then, check the debug voxel display in the FAR window.

Awesome, thanks!

[AndreyATGB]

With the voxelaeroport build, how does one display speeds in IAS/EAS instead of ground-m/s ?

In-flight GUI, flt settings, click flt data, select air spd.

[Wanderfound]

Opened up the FAR thread, saw a bunch of posts celebrating the release of the new version, started my happy dance.

Then I realised that I'd accidentally opened up a bit of the thread from a year ago, which was coincidentally just after an old new FAR release.

Poot.

[Bakase]

Opened up the FAR thread, saw a bunch of posts celebrating the release of the new version, started my happy dance.

Then I realised that I'd accidentally opened up a bit of the thread from a year ago, which was coincidentally just after an old new FAR release.

Poot.

Go download the dev build. It's amazing.

[luckyhendrix]

I have modified my physics.cfg to reverts to 1.0 aero, but now I've installed the the nuFAR dev build. Should I revert my physics.cfg to the game's default ? Or does it not matter ?

[tetryds]

I have modified my physics.cfg to reverts to 1.0 aero, but now I've installed the the nuFAR dev build. Should I revert my physics.cfg to the game's default ? Or does it not matter ?

Don't worry about it.

[etheoma]

Did you hyperedit from Kerbin's surface? If so it could be FAR regarding you as having a high-speed through Kerbin's atmosphere, even if very briefly. A similar problem has affected hyperedit and DRE, and the classic workaround is to first hyperedit into a very high Kerbin orbit that therefore has low orbital speed.

Err... I did say Jool's atmos seems to start at 200km

[John FX]

Yes.

10char

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