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

[Cosmonauth]

Hey Ferram question for you. I am finding FSanimateThrottle module causes FAR to update voxels constantly while it is performing it's animation. I.e. Ven stock revamp of the TRJ has animated flaps on the exhaust. I understand why and know you have stated in the past about playing animations and subsequently triggering FAR voxel updates, and that you can't change much or anything on your end for risk of insufficient voxelization in other perfectly reasonable situations, so I am not here to ask for changes in your code unless you know what's what is needed. I am here to ask what solutions/ideas you see outside FAR that maybe FS could use to alleviate this issue. Thanks

I'm experiencing some troubles with FXModuleAnimateThrottle, same as you said, it causes FAR to update voxels constantly. I'm using Garbage Reduction branch, but it doesn't help. Perpetual updating voxels significantly lowers game performance. Problematic part in my case is KSPIE Thermal Turbojet Engine, which has an animated flaps. I tried stock "Dawn" engine, which uses same animation module. It causes voxel updates too, but only when changing throttle. Seems like those flaps confusing FAR for some way.

Edited August 9, 2015 by Cosmonauth

[Svm420]

I'm experiencing some troubles with FXModuleAnimateThrottle, same as you said, it causes FAR to update voxels constantly. I'm using Garbage Reduction branch, but it doesn't help. Perpetual updating voxels significantly lowers game performance. Problematic part in my case is KSPIE Thermal Turbojet Engine, which has an animated flaps. I tried stock "Dawn" engine, which uses same animation module. It causes voxel updates too, but only when changing throttle. Seems like those flaps confusing FAR for some way.

I just made a MM patch to remove it from all parts for now. IDGAF about looks if it means I can't play the game so it was an easy decision for me. Up to you what route you want to go

[Cosmonauth]

I just made a MM patch to remove it from all parts for now. IDGAF about looks if it means I can't play the game so it was an easy decision for me. Up to you what route you want to go

I removed that module from part.cfg, (MM patches is too complicated to me) but it looks ugly despite the fact it solves the problem. I prefer FAR to ignore throttle animations)

[DaMichel]

DaMichel, try the garbage_reduction branch dev build, and see if the issues still occur. Still, I can't get any issue with the forces breaking with the BDArmory parts.

Great, it works with the garbage_reduction branch. I also tested the new v0.9 of BDArmory. My issues are gone.

As for the main axis being messed up, for some reason, part.partTransform.up is not the forward direction for those parts, despite the fact that it is for everything else; I'll see if I can add something to the heuristic to maybe detect that, but the more parts differ from stock standards (and the more it is for arbitrary reasons) the more this will happen.

Ferram4, i made a stock craft for which the main axis is messed up. FAR dislikes the "shuttle shoulders" as it seems. (The craft is actually nothing too fancy)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/199qugno0pnf9rz/Suttle%203%20debug.craft?dl=0

Edited August 9, 2015 by DaMichel

[Kobur]

Norton Antivirus prevented me from installing 0.15.4.1 downloaded from Kerbal Stuff. It said WS.Reputation.1??? Any ideas??

[diomedea]

Norton Antivirus prevented me from installing 0.15.4.1 downloaded from Kerbal Stuff. It said WS.Reputation.1??? Any ideas??

Eh, this note from Symantec shows how that works. In short, somebody reported that file in the Symantec detection system. Of course (as confirmed by any other antivirus around), that file presents no security risk. More than possible that report to Symantec was done by one or more of the usual FAR haters, and has absolutely no validity.

You may try to force your antivirus to accept that file, maybe temporarily disabling that "feature".

[ferram4]

@Cosmonauth: A few posts above you was a conversation about adding that to the build in the future. Of course it still happens now.

@DaMichel: That is not a stock craft; what mod includes SmallGearBay3?

@Kobur: I can't fix people that dislike me or that make attribution errors, especially when Malwarebytes and Kapersky are both telling me the zip is perfectly fine.

[Cosmonauth]

@Cosmonauth: A few posts above you was a conversation about adding that to the build in the future. Of course it still happens now.

Ok, sorry for my inadvertence, thank you for response, and for the great mod as well)

I don't want to play KSP without FAR, so I'm gonna keep struggling =)

[DaMichel]

Ferram4, sorry, forgot to remove my rescaled landing gear. Here is a new link

https://www.dropbox.com/s/199qugno0pnf9rz/Suttle%203%20debug.craft?dl=0

[Grimm Spector]

I'm having a ton of trouble making any plane of any sort, work, I'm trying to do RP-0, but no matter what I do, it just flies apart under the strain of a rocket, or tumbles wildly shortly after take off and explodes, or in some cases the engines won't start, just repeatedly get vapor in the lines before take off, seems to be random I'll get a chain of these in a row in simulation...

[ferram4]

Yeah, rocketplanes are difficult. Actually figuring out what you're doing wrong will require pictures, but you're probably better off asking in the RO thread if you're trying to do a rocketplane with all those planes. It's a fair bit past standard FAR at that point.

[Feni]

Ferram4, i have encountered a bug, too. BDArmory missiles & bombs break FAR. Both the analysis GUI stops working and aero forces stop being calculated. Remove the missiles and everything works again.

This happens to me as well. Aero forces aren't calculated, so planes don't have lift and plunge in the sea after clearing the runway. I've got a ton of other mods installed, so too many confounders to reliably point to one specific mod. Reverting to v0.15.4 did however fix the aero forces problem.

[ferram4]

@DaMichel: Oh my. Okay, this is a real nasty screwup that I managed to hide from myself; actually, everything was wrong for radially attached parts except for BDArmory parts. New garbage_reduction dev build has that fixed.

@Feni: Apparently it's fixed in the current dev build on the garbage_reduction branch, if you wanna give it a go. I haven't seen any issues myself, tbh.

[DaMichel]

He he, i gladly helped debug FAR, which is awesome

And yeah, the garbage_reduction branch fixed BDArmory issues for me (@Feni).

[Kobur]

Thanks. I'll see what happens. I couldn't figure out why it would be doing that.

[TUKE]

I had this too, but on a float i made for myself, surface attached (Used mostly the structural intake .cfg with mods), and would locally break FAR for only that plane, if i switched to another plane without them (While still in the same flight) FAR would work again.

[ferram4]

If you manage to get something to break, you need to provide a test case. Just telling me that it can happen doesn't let me do anything, because there are an infinite number of ways that you can put a craft together. I have no hope of finding your issue without a test case.

[Autochton]

Are there any known issues wrt. interactions with Procedural Parts, specifically the nosecones? I'm trying to sort out some voxelization errors that I'm seeing on my install (but it's not only RealismOverhaul/RP-0, but based on CKAN, so I'm not expecting anything - could be cosmic rays, for all I know).

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Ferram, I have a couple of very bizarre things to report, and I *think* they can be reproduced if you use the same parts I am. Latest GitHub version of FAR.

If using QuizTech in-line 1.25m VTOL engines on a craft, certain lifting surfaces won't have any lift.

Secondly, when they're not producing lift (maybe when they are, too), BahaSP VectorJets, at least, will read as producing thrust but won't actually produce any if there is one of these dead lifting surfaces in its path. Check this out - picture illustrates both phenomena, bizarre craft for testing purposes. The two similar white cylinders on either side are the QuizTech engines, and the jets are the Baha VectorJets.

Note the wings producing lift, but the horizontal stabilizers aren't - same AoA and everything. There isn't even a nub of a lift/drag indicator like there is on stationary parts normally.

Although it's not possible to capture in a screenshot, the jets weren't producing any thrust - right clicking said they were. If I pressed S or A, the engines vectored, and thereby pointed away from the horizontal stabilizers (which are directly behind them). When they weren't pointed exactly at the stabs, they did produce thrust:

Here's another plane with an identical tail piece to show that it does really produce lift with a different configuration - same session, didn't quit and restart or anything.

I tried different wings - B9 and not B9, stock jets instead of Baha jets, same with stabilizers etc. In this next picture, I made one craft identical to what's shown, but with QT engines in front and behind the side tanks (like the first picture, pretty much). The tail parts were all dead. When I changed nothing except removing the QT engines, it worked again, like so:

So there's something bizarre going on with the QT engines and bits not producing the lift they should. Very strange.

Here is a zip with the QT engine config and model for reference as well as a log that includes only the session where I tried out the plane in the last picture (I think) - first with QT VTOL stuff, then without: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59567837/QuizTechVTOL_FARshenanigans.zip

Anyhoo, not that FAR is necessarily responsible for any of this, but I am reasonably confident there's some bizarre interaction going on.

Edit - Ah, crap. Realized there's a FAR-specific bit in the QTech config. Maybe that's the cause of the problem? Sorry, maybe this whole thing belongs in QT thread - though I guess there's a chance that there's something going on with FAR too, I have no clue anyway.

Edited August 12, 2015 by AccidentalDisassembly

[taniwha]

AccidentalDisassembly: Your first image looks very much like your tail plane is blocking the engine thrust (ksp uses a simple ray cast). If something blocks the thrust, then you get 0 thrust because KSP is attempting to do the right thing: the trust of the engine is counteracted by a part of the same vessel stopping the exhaust.

I am unable to comment on your lift issues, though.

[BudgetHedgehog]

AccidentalDisassembly: Your first image looks very much like your tail plane is blocking the engine thrust

I dunno.. those engines are mounted midway, the tailplane is mounted on top, it should be fine...

[AccidentalDisassembly]

AccidentalDisassembly: Your first image looks very much like your tail plane is blocking the engine thrust (ksp uses a simple ray cast). If something blocks the thrust, then you get 0 thrust because KSP is attempting to do the right thing: the trust of the engine is counteracted by a part of the same vessel stopping the exhaust.

I am unable to comment on your lift issues, though.

Aha, OK. That clears up the engine thrust, I didn't think KSP actually did that - never seemed like it. Guess this was the one time I got some parts perfectly aligned behind the engines! Although it is odd that the propellers in the first pic produce thrust, then, but maybe they're not PERFECTLY in line with the wings, or maybe propeller parts work differently? Beats me.

Still bizarre re: the QuizTech engines creating the lift problems under FAR. Only difference in the last pic and the attempt before it was the presence of QT engines, nothing else moved/changed, so there's something weird going on there...

Edited August 12, 2015 by AccidentalDisassembly

[cantab]

For what it's worth I still get crazy overheats routinely with FAR. I may try and sort out a simple example ship later.

[ferram4]

@AccidentalDisassembly: I can't help you unless you provide the problem craft with as few mod parts as possible. Not much I can do to fix an issue I can't recreate.

You could try the garbage_reduction branch on github, but keep in mind that you'll need to download not just the dll, but also the configs to ensure that things work properly.

@cantab: At this point, the only option left available to me is to disable explosions due to overheating. It's a stock bug, all the skin temperature settings have been set to use the stock code as a fallback if it reaches the point where FAR could exacerbate things, there is absolutely jack that I can do.

Take your bug report to SQUAD and ask them why they didn't bother to hotfix it. I'm not chasing after their bugs.

[AccidentalDisassembly]

@AccidentalDisassembly: I can't help you unless you provide the problem craft with as few mod parts as possible. Not much I can do to fix an issue I can't recreate.

You could try the garbage_reduction branch on github, but keep in mind that you'll need to download not just the dll, but also the configs to ensure that things work properly.

I'm using the latest github FAR garbage_reduction branch (the GameData/FAR directory from the ZIP) with everything that comes with it - not just DLL.

I guess I can give you a craft, if you really need it, but the (one) mod part config in question is included in the ZIP I linked, and the problem specifically stems from its FAR values (apparently, because removing that from the CFG seems to fix the problem). It doesn't have to do with the whole craft per se, only that part. Like I said - maybe this is something for the QT thread, maybe that part of the CFG is written wrong, or something, I don't know though.